Plucking Apricots

"Wait for me. I'll come back and marry you."

Before setting out for war, the young general Xie Lin pressed half a jade pendant into Yun Zhi's palm.

Three months later, terrible news came from the border:

He had died in battle.

Yun Zhi clutched his bloodstained clothes and wept until she fainted in the ancestral hall. But in the blink of an eye, a marriage contract sent her into the Ning residence, where she became the bride of the frail second son, chosen to bring him good fortune.

What she didn't know was that Ning Huan, the Ning family's eldest son, had fallen for her at first sight during the spring banquet. His mother had secretly replaced the proposal letter he sent with one proposing the match to his younger brother.

What she knew even less was that Xie Lin hadn't died.

When her childhood sweetheart, the young general, returned covered in blood, he found her fingers intertwined with Ning Huan's.

"Zhi'er," Xie Lin said, his eyes red as he pinned her against the wall. "You promised you'd wait for me."

Behind them, Ning Huan had drawn his sword three inches from its sheath. "General Xie, barging into someone's home is hardly appropriate, is it?"

"Will you choose the general who would pluck the stars for you,"

"or the home that will shelter you from wind and rain?"

1. The heroine sleeps with both men, one after the other. Both men are first-timers.

2. She chooses between them in the end.

Theme: To be added.