The Orchid May Wither, but Jade Will Not Break

[A sickly beauty who coughs blood into the wind x a fake playboy who’s a true conqueror] [Counting down to the finale] When Xiao Jue first met Xie Lanshi, he thought this noblewoman of Danyang was indeed a peerless beauty, one worthy of being claimed by the man who could win her. After their marriage alliance, Xiao Jue discovered that all the heroes under heaven thought the same way. - Born into the Danyang Xie clan, a family of generations of high-ranking officials, Xie Lanshi was renowned throughout the land for her beauty and talent. In both her lives, she was the unattainable moon in the sky to countless men. Until she dreamed that in the future her entire family would be wiped out, and her husband would personally offer her to a local tyrant. When she opened her eyes again, there was only an hour left before the heir of the Langya Prince forced her into marriage. And her father was at a banquet, rejecting a frontier general from Liangzhou. Xie Lanshi knew that this frontier general would rise to become the great conqueror of his age amid the turmoil of the coming years. She also knew that before he could fulfill his ambitions, he would die in revenge. Xie Lanshi: I’ll take him. Since he’s going to die sooner or later, he may as well fend off the rotten romantic prospects of this troubled age for her before he does. [Little scene] The first time Xiao Jue was chased by men coveting Xie Lanshi, he barely escaped with his life. His gaze turned sinister. This woman is physically weak but vicious at heart, and full of schemes. When the time is right, I’ll cut all ties with her. The second time, Xiao Jue crawled out of a pile of corpses and wiped the blood from his face, laughing in fury. They want to take his wife? Who do they think they are? And then came the third time, the fourth… Xie Lanshi kept waiting for the day Xiao Jue couldn’t take it anymore and divorced her. Yet from a spring night in Yangzhou, with corpses covering the ground, to a winter month in Chang’an battered by wind and snow, the young general who had always been cold toward her braved wind and rain, his steps steady as he gritted his teeth and carried her through one deadly crisis after another. Resting against his shoulder, Xie Lanshi thought, Perhaps she could keep up this marriage of convenience for a few more days. [Young married couple x partners plotting together amid the chaos of war] Read before you begin: · Set in an imagined era inspired by the late Han and Wei-Jin periods. · The heroine is not an ambitious powerhouse, and this is not a story about her conquering the world. The plot and romance are split evenly. · Includes forced-marriage elements, cross-dressing, and a heroine adored by everyone. · A writing exercise, one-on-one romance, both leads are each other’s only ones in the main timeline. In the prophetic-dream timeline, the male lead has had no other partners, while the heroine has; she is not reborn. · Intended ending: The Xie clan governs, while I alone perform the sacrifices. Theme: If only all people could eat their fill, I would gladly lie sick beneath the setting sun