After the Crown Prince Was Granted a Marriage

When the Duke of Dingguo hears that his beloved, pampered youngest daughter has been betrothed to the notoriously cruel and cold-blooded Crown Prince, he is overcome with grief. Yet the capital's nobles flock to curry favor, and for a time the Duke of Dingguo's household is the talk of the town. Only the more astute among them quietly suspect that the Emperor's decree of marriage is really a punishment. The man on the throne is wary of the Duke of Dingguo's household. What a pity for the capital's most beautiful woman.

Huan Xing knows nothing of this. She considers herself nothing more than a pretty ornament. When she enters the palace for an audience, she doesn't dare so much as glance at her future husband, the imperial heir. She looks at the tables and chairs, anything but the Crown Prince.

Chu Xing: "Am I so ugly that you won't even look at me?"

Huan Xing: ???

Chu Xing: "Hmph."

After the marriage decree, the nobles who believe they have figured out the Emperor's intentions wait for the Duke of Dingguo's household to fall, and for the once-celebrated beauty to be reduced to dust. But they wait and wait, until Huan Xing is crowned in phoenix robes and rides in a wedding procession stretching ten miles; until the Crown Prince's reputation for devotedly doting on his wife spreads throughout the capital; until Huan Xing stands high above them at his side, the very model of an empress. By then, they don't even have the right to raise their voices in her presence.

A stern, aloof, volatile Crown Prince who dotes on his wife x a radiant, capricious beauty of noble birth. Sweet, sweet, sweet.