A Spring of Mercy

(My next novel will be Pure White Omen. Highlighting this by hand! Please add it to your collection!)

Blurb:

Yun Qiong was the daughter of the chancellor. Beautiful and beloved by her family since childhood, she grew up somewhat spoiled and proud.

She had a natural talent for riding and archery, especially archery. Once she drew her bow and nocked an arrow, she never missed. But when it came to poetry, books, and etiquette, she was undeniably slow-witted. Her parents' love for her never diminished in the least.

Thanks to her father's friendship with the Marquis of Chongyi, she also had the protection of the marquis's eldest son, Jing An, and second son, Jing Min. Both brothers were exceptionally handsome and talented, and treated her like their own sister. Other young ladies often looked at her with envy.

Yun Qiong was content with her lot, but such happy times never lasted long.

Disaster struck in the autumn of the year she came of age. She followed her father into the autumn hunting grounds, raised her bow, and shot Brother Jing An through the chest. Less than half a month later, her aunt died of grief.

From then on, the Jing and Yun families grew estranged.

As for Jing Min, the voice that had so often annoyed her suddenly disappeared from her life.

He left the capital in a fit of anger and never returned.

Yun Qiong shut herself away and mourned Brother Jing An and her aunt for three years. Kneeling before the ancestral hall, she found another face appearing in her thoughts: a man who was entirely carefree and unruly, with a bold, dashing air.

Longing clung to her like a maggot in her bones, eating away at her night after night.

Only then did she understand why Jing Min had always bothered and teased her, and why he had never stopped even when she repeatedly turned him away.

Time was a blunt knife, chipping away at Yun Qiong until she became someone else entirely.

Three years later, her father angered the emperor and was arrested along with the rest of the family.

That was when Jing Min returned to the capital.

He had become a close aide to the heir apparent, and his influence had grown even greater since his return. With her father's life in his hands, he demanded coldly that Yun Qiong become his concubine.

Yun Qiong hesitated only for a moment before agreeing. If necessary, she would even give him her life.

She owed him so much.

.

Jing Min earned merit suppressing a rebellion in the northwest. After returning to the capital, he was promoted again and again, and took charge of the Yun family case.

He had exiled himself for years, believing he would never set foot in the capital again, yet in the end he returned. Perhaps it was because he heard the Yun family had been imprisoned, or perhaps because he heard Yun Qiong had been promised to someone, and that all that remained was to set a wedding date...

Whatever the reason, the usually composed and calculating commissioner lost his composure, with only one thought left in his mind: ruin the engagement and take her for himself.

If she wanted to atone, she could do so right under his nose.

But some time later, Yun Qiong fell seriously ill, and someone abducted her while she was sick.

Jing Min realized he had been wrong. He did not want Yun Qiong's apology, and he did not even want her to lower her head to him.

He searched for her like a madman. But the woman he sought walked back to him, one weak step at a time, and stopped a few steps away, looking at him from beneath the threshold. In a feeble voice, she said, "I didn't run away..."

Jing Min looked at the person who promptly fainted in his arms and thought himself a little ridiculous.

It seemed that, compared with losing her forever, perhaps he could endure the fact that she had someone else in her heart...

.

Tips:

1. The heroine didn't kill anyone, or rather, she didn't kill anyone on purpose.

2. The hero is jealous to the core. He thinks the heroine once loved his late elder brother and sees the second male lead as a stand-in, but that's not true. The heroine is simply slow to realize her feelings.

3. A second-chance romance, a pure reconciliation.

4. There are political intrigues, but the protagonists are only pieces on the board. Someone else is moving them.

Theme: Everything will come back to you.