Sunlight in the Brocade Tent

[Complete] My next historical romance features a scheming man and a martial woman: Lord Linghu Always Wants to Draw His Blade. The blurb is at the bottom. Add it to your collection if you like!

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Marriage first, love later / intense push and pull / six-year age gap / mutual surrender

[Gentle on the outside, steel within, clear-headed and calculating beauty x dark-hearted, bewitching prince who talks himself into love]

Qi Yunxi was born with breathtaking beauty, yet she was only a lowly concubine-born daughter. Wary of her, her father's principal wife kept her confined in a secluded courtyard from childhood, where she had to tread carefully every day. Her only way out was to marry.

At last, an opportunity came.

The emperor arranged a marriage, promising her pampered third sister to the Prince of Jin, rumored to be half-paralyzed and violent-tempered.

On the eve of the wedding, she caught her third sister eloping with someone. Without making a fuss, she left behind ironclad evidence, then stepped in to take the marriage everyone else was desperate to avoid.

On their wedding night, red candles blazed.

The man in the wheelchair straightened slightly and saw right through her. "The substitute the Qi family sent is more interesting than the real bride."

Qi Yunxi: ...?

He saw through her that easily?!

She forced herself to act out the tragic tale of a bride forced into a substitute marriage, choking back tears as she played her part. When the bed curtains were drawn aside, a face of strikingly sculpted beauty met her eyes: black robes and a jade crown, features carved to perfection, skin pale as frost, and a vermilion mark between his brows, shockingly red and eerily cold.

"Your acting was passable."

Qi Yunxi: ...

He knew everything, yet let it happen? Why?

It was only during a palace banquet that she drank the suspicious wine to protect him. As her senses dissolved, she fell into a hot, solid embrace.

He pulled off his jade belt and covered her eyes, his burning breath pressing down on her.

"Don't be afraid..."

He lowered his head, long fingers trembling slightly as they brushed the intricate knotted fastenings at her collar. "Leave it to me."

How was this anything like a chronically ill man, weak and unable to walk?

Later, the truth of the substitute marriage was on the verge of coming to light.

Since the prince's residence was no place for her to stay for long, perhaps she should find another way to survive...

*

Murong Zhan had once been heaven's favored son, a peerless young God of War. A single plot had turned him into a fiend trapped in a wheelchair.

The emperor arranged a marriage for him to the second legitimate daughter of Chancellor Qi.

He had no interest in it and was prepared to watch coldly as the Qi family dealt with the consequences.

Until his trusted aide hurried in with a report: "Your Highness, the Qi family's second legitimate daughter has run away! But the concubine-born daughter in the residence... is willing to take her place."

He idly rubbed his jade thumb ring and considered it for a moment. "Very well."

At first, he watched it all as a play.

But as he watched, he somehow let down his guard.

Was it the cup of wine she took for him at the palace banquet? The game of Go she played at the Xishan hot springs, taking his place? Or when she said she missed him, loved him, and wanted to bear him an heir?

Now she had turned his heart upside down, yet wanted to walk away and run off?

There was no such thing in this world.

Since she had provoked him--

She could forget about escaping.

[Reader's Guide]

1. One man and one woman, both devoted only to each other, and each other's first love.

2. The male lead talks himself into love and is a jealous grouch. At first he is proud, stubborn, and a little sharp-tongued; later, he dotes on her openly.

3. The female lead is clear-headed and calculating. At first she is in a vulnerable position, enduring hardship to survive, but she grows and takes the initiative later.

4. The male lead seems weak (his paralyzed legs are an act), but he is actually powerful and devious. At crucial moments, he will stand up for the female lead, and it is immensely satisfying!

5. Romance-focused, with political intrigue in a supporting role. Happy ending. Set in a fictional world, so no need to fact-check historical details.

Please add my next book, Lord Linghu Always Wants to Draw His Blade, to your collection

[Overpowered female commander x handsome fox who calculates himself right into her heart]

As Left Commander of the Palace Guard, Linghu Shuang's favorite pastime is scaling walls in the middle of the night to chase thieves.

That night, the alley was as dark as ink. She failed to catch the thief, but found a man lying at the foot of a wall, covered in blood. A sliver of moonlight slipped through the clouds and revealed his pale, refined face. He looked no older than twenty, with features like a painting.

The man stared at the hilt of the knife at her waist for a while before managing to speak. "My lady... give me a hand."

Linghu Shuang turned and walked away, then made it two steps before turning back with a string of curses.

If this man died on the Palace Guard's turf, how many reports would she have to write?

Though she was wholly unwilling, she took him to the Imperial Medical Bureau. To her surprise, he was Wen Ji, personally appointed by the emperor and newly installed as the bureau's chief physician.

The empress specifically told her to keep a close eye on him and make sure he wasn't hurt again.

So she really did keep an eye on him.

Who knew that before long, an imperial decree of marriage would come crashing down on her?

Linghu Shuang held the yellow decree and stared at it for a long time, unable to make sense of it.

Wasn't he one of the empress's people? How had he ended up in her hands?

As they spent more time together, she increasingly felt there was something off about the man sharing her bed.

How could a physician who supposedly took no interest in court affairs see the fatal flaw in a battle formation at a glance?

Why did he vanish for no reason in the middle of the night?

And why could a single secret letter from the border leave him sitting alone beside a lamp until dawn?

But the strangest thing was herself.

Whenever he came near, her fingers instinctively reached for her knife. Yet the moment her hand touched it, she worried the sound of drawing it would be too loud and startle him.

Then one day, a neighboring kingdom massed its forces at the border and demanded that the empress hand over a fugitive.

In the imperial study, the empress pushed a secret letter across the desk to her, her gaze grave. "Find this person for me."

Linghu Shuang unfolded the letter, her fingers trembling.

The three characters on the page met her eyes, and the spot on her neck where he had kissed her that morning suddenly burned again.

[Bonus Scene]

In the dead of night, Linghu Shuang was fast asleep when an arm suddenly slipped around her waist. The man rolled over and nestled against her, his steady breathing brushing her ear as though he were fast asleep.

She stiffly moved his arm away and had just breathed a sigh of relief when he wrapped himself around her again and snuggled into her arms.

Linghu Shuang's hand instinctively reached for her knife as she rapidly weighed her options: draw her blade, kick him out of bed, and move back to the Palace Guard's quarters tonight.

In the darkness, the man gave a low chuckle. His warm, calloused fingertips settled precisely over the hand she had placed on the hilt. His voice was lazy and husky. "Wife, you can put the knife farther away. I'm not going anywhere."

Theme: We stand beside each other in the abyss, our faint lights reflecting one another.