Jade Dew and Fragrant Blossoms

[Beautiful, Resilient Maid x Dignified, Stern Powerbroker]

Suyu is a maid, but not an ordinary one. Her family ran afoul of the law, and she was confiscated and made a government slave.

Government bondservants can rarely buy their freedom. Unless a general amnesty is declared, they remain slaves for life.

Fortunately, Pei Xun, the eldest son of the Duke of Xian's household, took pity on her one day, brought her to the estate, and allowed her to serve there as a maid.

Suyu is cautious. She saves money while using the duke's household as a pretext to search for her long-lost elder sister.

She also curries favor with Old Madam Pei, hoping that when a general amnesty is declared, the kindhearted old madam will submit her name to the throne.

Who could have known that one day, after returning home drunk, Young Master Pei would ask specifically for her to attend to him?

Suyu drops to her knees, stiff as a board, her face full of anguish. "Please spare this servant, Young Master. I don't want to!"

Pei Xun's face darkens, and his heart burns all the more.

He'd thought she was just a maid, but she had her head in the clouds and didn't even care for him, the eldest son of a noble family.

She looks down on him, but he is determined to break her spirit, so that even if she doesn't want to, she'll have to face him every day.

But later, after Suyu tries to run away time and again, Pei Xun laughs in fury. "You're mine now, and you'll be mine for the rest of your life!"

At first, to Pei Xun, the eldest son of the Pei family, love is selfish and obsessive. It means stopping at nothing to possess the one he wants.

But in time, love becomes lowering himself before her, climbing countless dark-green mountains with her, and sitting quietly together through the long, endless snow-filled nights of their lives.