Synopsis
[A wildly melodramatic tale combining a brothel girl, a beloved concubine, household infighting, faked death, fleeing with the children, and a husband chasing his wife to the crematorium]
Yun Zheng was a dancer at the Yuxi Pavilion. After an accident, she spent one night with the Heir of Prince Ning.
Though she took an herbal concoction to prevent pregnancy afterward, a month later Yun Zheng was still found to be with child.
To keep the scandal from spreading, the heir secretly bought Yun Zheng out of the pavilion and brought her into his household. But the news still leaked.
The emperor harshly reprimanded the heir for his misconduct and sent him to guard the frontier.
Half a year later, Yun Zheng was visibly pregnant. The heir returned to the capital after distinguishing himself in battle, was ennobled, and married.
On his wedding night, Yun Zheng went into premature labor. As she hovered between life and death, barely conscious, she heard the heir berating the midwife.
"What do you mean, save the mother or the child? That's absurd! How can one life be traded for another? Until the child is born, she is the one who is alive! She gave that child life! Save the mother!"
Those words made Yun Zheng refuse to close her eyes. She struggled back from the gates of death and gave birth to twins.
She thought that with a husband like him, things would gradually get better.
But later, her babies were forced to be given away, and the heir's wife made her suffer terribly out of jealousy.
Yun Zheng realized that the heir could not protect her at every turn, but she had no way out.
Then, that year, the heir's wife died of illness, and Yun Zheng thought her hard days were finally over.
But then came news that the heir was going to marry another noblewoman.
She refused to believe it. After a night of passion, she deliberately clung to the heir and begged him to give her a formal title.
He seemed to take it as a joke. With a snort, he patted her flushed, sweat-damp cheek.
"With your status, how could you become my legal wife? Don't entertain such unrealistic ideas. The new consort is good-natured. You'll need to show her respect from now on."
Yun Zheng smiled too, at her own foolishness.
Why spend the rest of her life as a kite in someone else's hand, bobbing up and down with no freedom? She would let the wind carry her away...
According to people in the Prince's household, on the day the heir married again, he worried that his beloved concubine, Madam Meng, would be upset, so he allowed her to take the children out of the city to fly kites.
Madam Meng happily went, but when night fell and she still had not returned, the servants who had accompanied her came running back in tears, clutching a broken swallow-shaped kite.
"Madam suddenly went mad. She took the young master and young lady and jumped off a cliff. They're gone..."
Li Xun had a gentle, considerate concubine. She agreed to everything he said, was delighted with anything he gave her, and willingly did whatever he wanted at night.
He had thought she was soft-natured and would depend on him for the rest of her life. But one day, she simply vanished.
Everyone said she had gone mad and jumped off a cliff with the children. They could not even find their remains.
Li Xun laughed, tears in the corners of his eyes. "Do you think I'd believe that? She loved those children so much. How could she take them to their deaths...? She loved me so much. How could she bear to leave...?"
Reader's guide:
1. One-on-one romance, both leads' first relationship.
2. The male lead isn't as heartless as the female lead thinks, and the female lead doesn't love him as much as he thinks.
Theme: Respect one another and treat people sincerely
