Captive Jade, Stolen Fragrance

[Angst and regret / melodrama / coercive possession]

Yao Ruhan knows how absurd it is for her to be Prince Cheng's mistress.

Zongzheng Jing rescued her from bandits' blades. She clutched his sleeve, looking up at him with tearful, limpid eyes.

Later, he spent a fortune on her. His fingers would pause almost imperceptibly at her earlobe. Knowing she was afraid of the cold, he had a warm pavilion built especially for her, claiming only that the feng shui was good. Though his tone toward her was plain, he never demanded she follow the rules as he did of his other concubines.

Those indulgences, which even he himself failed to notice, were the beginning of her falling for him.

Others urged him not to indulge his mistress so much. He only said, “She's just a merchant's daughter. I'm merely showing her favor.”

Yet he could not understand why his gaze would still briefly falter when he heard she was coughing up blood.

She knew the prince doted on her, but always felt something was missing.

Then the new princess consort entered the manor, and everyone celebrated. It was said that she was a noblewoman from an illustrious family and had grown up with Prince Cheng. She had once fallen from her horse for him, and had copied sutras through the night to pray for his safety. Everyone said she and the prince would surely be a loving couple.

When the new princess consort fell from her horse, the prince kept watch by her bedside all night. When Yao Ruhan was chilled and coughing up blood, he merely sent a physician. Those subtle differences pricked like needles, making her feel like an outsider in a place where she had never belonged.

Until one day, the new princess consort investigated everything Prince Cheng had done for her and finally could not sit still.

While the prince was away from the capital, she callously locked the cold-sensitive Yao Ruhan in a snow-leaking courtyard. The biting wind drove snow through her clothes, and the piercing cold, together with her helplessness, swallowed her whole.

On the sixteenth day of the twelfth lunar month, Yao Ruhan threw herself into a sea of flames.

Several months later, the Prince of Lingnan came to the capital to pay tribute with his new wife.

At the spring banquet on the hunting grounds, Zongzheng Jing pointed his arrow at the heart of the prince with a different surname, but his strength abruptly failed when he saw the princess consort's face.

The woman in the Prince of Lingnan's arms had a rounded belly beneath her fox-fur cloak. She was unmistakably the mistress who had died in the fire.

“Your Highness, be careful.” A soft laugh came from horseback. His hand trembled as he saw the woman's familiar face. She smiled radiantly, wearing the unmistakable robes of the Princess Consort of Lingnan.

Later, Prince Cheng broke into the prince's manor at night, only to see the woman rumored to have died in the fire teasing a baby in its cradle.

“You faked your death to trick me, and even calculated the baby's age to deceive me...” His eyes bloodshot, he tried to suppress the fire in his heart, but a laughing voice came from behind the bead curtain: “Prince Cheng, what business is it of yours to comment on the legitimate son of me and my princess consort?”

At once, the madness Zongzheng Jing had suppressed for so long grew wildly in his heart. He gripped his jade thumb ring so tightly that the broken jade cut his palm and blood ran out, yet he seemed not to notice.

He wanted to take her back. Even if he died, he would take her back.

Theme: Escape the cage and pursue freedom