Inviting My Wife to the Palace at Midnight

For the three years since Yan Wan married her husband, Shen Ce, they had shared a close and loving life together.

The frontier was cold and harsh. All she wanted was for her husband to finish training his troops and come home early each day, so she could snuggle against his warm body and share his heat.

Until the day Yan Wan painted a portrait that eventually made its way to the capital.

The new emperor, Rong Zhuo, whose power stood above all others, stared at the portrait and spent night after night sleepless.

He had searched for her for three whole years, nearly going mad with the effort. He had never imagined that his first wife was hidden away in the general's residence at the frontier, sent there by his own command!

Shen Ce was urgently summoned back to the capital to report on his duties. In front of the three armies, the emperor came out to greet him in person.

The wind blew her veil aside. Yan Wan heard a voice both familiar and strange, filled with three years of aching longing and madness, ringing out word by word across the sky:

"Wanwan, whose wife are you, really?"

Shen Ce immediately dismounted and shielded her behind him, his every word ringing with conviction:

"Everyone knows Your Majesty's first wife is dead. This is my wife!"

*

Fine, his wife.

Recently, after the palace gates were locked for the night, a covered sedan chair would quietly make its way into the general's residence.

The eunuch delivering the imperial decree smiled deferentially. "His Majesty says he would like to invite Madam Shen to the palace for a private discussion about the frontier. It's late, but there's no harm in that."

The first time Yan Wan entered the palace at the hour of the Pig and returned at the hour of the Ox, they said it was to admire paintings. Shen Ce waited at the residence for three hours, letting his tea go cold, reheating it, then letting it go cold again.

The second time, the third time... each night came with a different excuse.

Rumors began to spread across the capital.

"Have you heard? His Majesty summons General Shen's wife every night."

"And the general actually puts up with it?"

"What else can he do? He's the emperor."

Every time Yan Wan returned, her clothes were neat and her expression normal. When Shen Ce asked what she had done in the palace, she said, "Admired paintings, had tea, played chess. His Majesty behaved himself."

Until the night she didn't return until the hour of the Tiger.

Her veil was crooked, her hair was loose, and the rouge on her lips had faded.

She lowered her head and didn't look at him.

The bowl in Shen Ce's hand shattered on the floor.

------Ground Rules-----

1. They steal each other's wives, back and forth.

2. After the female lead loses her memory, she is forcibly declared dead. Under Jin law, her previous relationship is void unless she chooses to restore it.

3. The female lead won't be abused; the men will suffer. The female lead and male leads are all virgins!

4. The emperor and the female lead are childhood friends, with a pseudo-incest setup and a rekindled romance. The general is a sharp-tongued, loyal puppy.

5. To avoid spoilers, I won't say who the male lead is yet. They all love her very, very much. The one who loves her most is the male lead.

[I've decided the next novel will be this one. I'm preparing the manuscript, and it'll launch as soon as it reaches 300 saves.]

[Character profiles have been updated.]

Theme: That year, you were there. That one year was better than every year after