The Mountain Does Not Shine on Me

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Li Shanzhao always knew she had been taken in by her adoptive parents. But she was content: she had grown up safe and sound, her younger brother respected her, and her fiance treated her well.

Then one day, an envoy from the palace arrived in the countryside. She learned that she was the child the founding emperor had lost during the war, and the rightful eldest princess.

Li Shanzhao didn't like the palace. She knew that, apart from her royal father, everyone secretly looked down on her origins. But she didn't know that she had no freedom even in marriage.

When she heard that the emperor was going to arrange a marriage for her, she barged into the Hall of Diligent Governance, heedless of her status. "Father, I won't marry."

In the end, the emperor still forced her to marry Meng Yu'en, the Prime Minister's only son, a young official who had made a name for himself and was at the height of his success.

Shanzhao refused to accept her fate. She thought, surely the emperor wouldn't execute his daughter over a little dalliance.

So she treated her husband coldly and spent her nights in the Princess's residence with her childhood sweetheart, her cousin, making love and having the time of her life. Her rightful husband, meanwhile, was left alone in an empty room, a resentful husband through and through.

She thought she could keep carrying on like this forever. After all, her father turned a blind eye and her husband kept silent.

Until one day, her cousin confessed that he had become involved with someone else...

She didn't believe it. Her husband must have set him up!

She raced to the Prime Minister's residence. Her husband was still as elegant and moon-bright as the day they first met. He smiled. "It's been a while, Princess. You look as radiant as ever."

Li Shanzhao demanded sharply, "I know it was you!"

Meng Yu'en simply took a secret medicine from the sachet at his waist, poured it into his tea, and drank half. "This medicine... doesn't make people lose their senses. Everything was consensual."

But Shanzhao didn't believe him. She suspected the medicine was fake, drank the remaining half, and said, "I'll try it myself!"

That test became a chaotic night, and after that, there was no denying what had passed between them.

A friendly reminder: If you're bothered by the second male lead's storyline, don't force yourself to open this story!

Coming Soon

Xu Xinyou is the only daughter of a humble schoolteacher.

But she has a dream: she wants her name to be remembered in the history books.

She knows how absurd that sounds.

She just can't understand why, despite studying the Four Books and Five Classics, astronomy, and geography alongside her senior and junior brothers from childhood, and believing her writing is every bit as good as theirs, she has no chance to show what she can do.

When she comes of age, her parents arrange a marriage for her with their teacher's favorite pupil, Bai Jingming.

Senior Brother Bai is a good man, but she doesn't want marriage to mean that she'll only be known as someone's wife.

Beneath the Mid-Autumn moon, she tells him how she feels and proposes three rules for them to live as a married couple in name only.

She expects Senior Brother Bai to reject her in anger, but he doesn't. He simply nods firmly. "I owe my life to Master and Madam. Jingming is willing to repay them!"

The first rule: "I want to see the wider world."

Bai Jingming applies for a post in Chongnan, letting Xu Xinyou see the vast world with her own eyes. How high the sky is, how deep the sea, how dense the forests: she no longer has to imagine them from the travelogues of the ancients.

The second rule: "I want to live with my parents."

As the neighbors mock him for marrying into her family, Bai Jingming resolutely takes his teacher and teacher's wife with him to his post. When people ask, he says, "A son-in-law should support his wife's parents. All the more so when they're my benefactors."

The third rule: "I want to watch you govern."

So Bai Jingming brings case files home every day and teaches his wife about the affairs of the world.

Later, Chongnan is hit by days of heavy rain. The Rishui River swells, and the old embankment is on the verge of breaking. If the river bursts its banks, a third of Chongnan will be flooded, and thousands of households will be displaced.

With disaster imminent, Xu Xinyou gathers her courage. "I understand water management. I have a solution!"

Bai Jingming says only, "The time has come for my wife to make her name in history."

In the sixth year of the Jingtai era, thirteen days of rain fall over Chongnan, and the Rishui River is about to burst its banks.

Xu Xinyou, wife of the county magistrate, presents her River Management Plan.

Not one of Chongnan's six thousand households suffers damage from the flood.

Theme: True love can withstand any test.