Blurb:
Yu Run, heir to the Ba'en Marquis household, is noble, aloof, and unattainable. Yet he is unexpectedly sent to serve as an assistant prefect in Yizhou, a poor and remote place.
By chance, Wang Zan, a young seamstress at the Wang Zan Embroidery Shop, makes new clothes for the servants in Yu Run's residence. The nobleman from the capital is impressed with her work. He tells her that from then on she can make all his clothes and the new clothes for the servants in his household, and gives her a generous reward. Wang Zan is overjoyed, and at last has something to look forward to.
She hopes her cousin will pass the provincial examination that year, so she can marry him and settle down to a steady life. Gradually, she makes more and more trips to Yu Run's Rain Garden. But her good fortune doesn't last. Her cruel father and stepmother want money for her younger brother's medicine, so they decide to sell her as a concubine to a fifty-year-old gentleman.
With nowhere else to turn, Wang Zan begs Yu Run for a loan, promising to work like an ox or a horse to repay his kindness.
From the moment Yu Run first saw her, he wanted to make her his. But he was afraid the thought would frighten her, so he planned to take his time. Now he wonders if asking her to become his mistress, then granting her the status of a secondary wife after he marries, would be too much like taking advantage of her desperation.
That very night, while Yu Run is still hesitating, he goes to see Wang Zan, hoping to keep playing the noble benefactor who comes to her aid. Instead, he accidentally sees her embracing her cousin, who is urging her to run away with him.
Later, the cousin disappears. Wang Zan worries something has happened to him and goes to Yu Run for help again.
Yu Run looks at her with the same gentle, refined air and says, "Miss Wang, I can help you, but shouldn't you offer me something in return?"
Only then does Wang Zan realize that Yu Run was never a good man. He wants her.
Wang Zan is forced to stay at Rain Garden as Yu Run's secret mistress. Only after he sees that she has settled down does he reluctantly agree to let her cousin go.
He assumes that, given enough time, Wang Zan will be willing to stay by his side. Then, after they have a child or two, they can return to the capital together, and he will give her the title of secondary wife.
But Wang Zan secretly keeps taking contraceptive medicine. When he discovers this, the two of them give each other the cold shoulder for days. One night, drunk, Yu Run goes to her room and says a great many things.
After that night, Wang Zan seems to have come around. She spends every night with him, tender and affectionate. He thinks she has been won over, but he never realizes that she has run away carrying his child.
Yu Run sends people everywhere to search for her. Several months later, he spots Wang Zan in a small town, her belly already rounded, and corners her in a little courtyard.
"How long are you going to hide with my child?"
"You don't want to be my secondary wife? Then will you be my principal wife?"
Theme: Loving someone is like tending a flower. Give them only the very best.
