The Clear-Headed Wife of a Paranoid Power Minister

[Obsessive Minister of State x Clear-Headed Legitimate Daughter, Unmarried Yet Together, No Captivity, Just Companionship. Breaking the engagement means death; keeping it means a cage. She chooses a third path.]

She dreams of what will happen if she breaks off her engagement: the top scholar she abandoned is tortured and sent into the palace, rises to power over the whole court, and becomes the feared Eunuch of Nine Thousand Years. He imprisons her in a gilded cage, where she dies at his hands, remembering his words to the very end: "You looked at me the same way on the day you broke off our engagement."

When she wakes, the entire capital is urging her to end the engagement. The Jiang family has fallen, Jiang Yichen is trapped in the imperial prison and about to be castrated. Her parents pressure her to hand over the betrothal documents, the noble families mock her for cozying up to a powerful eunuch, and her second aunt is already eager to find her another match.

Cui Yanran makes what everyone considers the most foolish choice of all: she walks into the filthy imperial prison alone and burns the betrothal documents in front of him. Gravely wounded, Jiang Yichen grits his teeth and pushes her away. "I'm ruined. What are you staying for?" Yet his hands clutch her wrists so tightly that they leave red marks, and he refuses to let go.

Later, he kills his way to the top and becomes the Eunuch of Nine Thousand Years. The officials fear him like a demon. But every night, he climbs through the window in the back alley of the Cui residence, lets go of all his ferocity, and humbly asks her one thing: "Is the lamp still lit?"

She is afraid of him, afraid he'll become the man from her dream who clutches her throat. But she also sees the fragility beneath his hard shell, and the way his hand trembles as he holds the draft of their marriage contract.

Until his enemies at court set a deadly trap, forcing him to choose between his overwhelming power and her life. Everyone thinks he'll choose power. Instead, he gives up his military command and asks to be placed under restraint, with just one condition:

"Don't break the engagement. I'll open the cage."