The Nameless Stranger

[A brilliant, all-seeing teenage spy vs. a smiling, double-dealing regent who plays both sides]

(The supporting cast shines too. Every chapter has passed review.)

The romance between the leads takes a while to get going, and there are loads of foreshadowing clues early on. If you've clicked in, please be patient and give it a couple more chapters. If you're really impatient, skip straight to Chapter 9~

Blurb:

Three years ago, the regent, who had been standing toe to toe with the empress dowager for years, supposedly died of the plague while inspecting an estate. While people across the realm lamented that anyone who opposed the empress dowager deserved a bad end, the intelligence network she maintained received a suspicious report: the regent had faked his death to escape notice and infiltrated the Green Dragon Cult, a commoner group the empress dowager had cultivated for years, to investigate where her faction's money and provisions were going!

So the empress dowager sent over a hundred spies across the country, determined to catch the deadly undercover madman of a prince!

Wuming was one of them. She fabricated a false background, posed as a student seeking an education, and entered an academy to look for him.

As it turned out, she was incredibly lucky. Within just a few months, she found someone suspicious: Xiao Chenglin, the academy's head instructor.

He seemed like a gentle, genial scholar, but there was a secret room in his bedroom, experts kept appearing around him, and even his every movement exuded an extraordinary nobility.

Just as Wuming was fretting over how to get close to him and confirm his identity, an accident left her and Xiao Chenglin injured and "sharing a bed"!

According to the doctor, her wonderful instructor would need to stay in bed for three whole months. What a heaven-sent opportunity! Wuming grabbed some medicine, scissors, and white cloth and set off. She was going to nurse the instructor back to health!

Male lead's perspective:

Xiao Chenglin considered himself a man who prized his reputation. As regent, he had wanted the people to praise him. As an instructor, he had to protect the academy's reputation too.

But then some girl showed up at the academy. At first she seemed obedient and diligent, but she was actually a troublemaker who barged into places everywhere she went, and her handwriting was so ugly it was painful to look at. She was practically ruining his reputation. This wouldn't do! He'd have to keep a close eye on her himself and teach her to write properly!

But this girl was far too unlucky. Not only was she kidnapped by bandits, she also got him badly injured and nearly made him miss something important!

Seeing how diligently she nursed him, Xiao Chenglin was a little touched at first. But as time went on, he realized that this girl seemed to... keep showing up in places she had no business being.

Hah! Who would have thought the little girl was a spy too! What goes around comes around. He'd infiltrated her organization, and now she was infiltrating his!

Theme: Pretending turns to genuine love, and beauty captivates the soul