Chapter 1
[I’m dying. A losing bargain? Mr. Too Cool, how much have you already given her for nothing? Washing your underwear every day with that icy face.]
[The second male lead drove back armies, defeated the northern tribes, and secured Guanbei, only to willingly burn to death saving our girl. I’m crying. That’s love!!]
[Respect. He was so afraid of frightening her that he kept his hands off her despite his addiction. Died a virgin, too.]
[Sweetheart, I’ve paid for an upgrade for you. Look up and you’ll see your Fortune score. Don’t let that scumbag fiancé and his cousin steal any more of it!]
[Once your Fortune falls to 0, you won’t be able to resist the plot at all. You’ll sink into endless darkness!]
I stared wide-eyed at the scrolling words and the marker that had suddenly appeared above my head: [Fortune: 60].
It was the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Heavy snow lay over the capital, cloaking its red walls and tiled roofs in silver.
Alone, wrapped in a black cloak, I knocked on the gates of Lu Hemian’s residence.
A young man sat in a grand wooden armchair.
He wore only a thin, ink-dark robe. His shoulders were broad and square, his waist lean.
A faint scent of sandalwood clung to him. He raised an eyebrow.
“An unexpected guest indeed.”
“After that slap, Miss Jiang, I thought you would never wish to see me again.”
There were countless rumors about Lu Hemian. To say his power overshadowed the court would scarcely be an exaggeration.
And then there was his face, beautiful beyond reason.
Handsome, aloof, and as cold as snow.
My strongest memory of him, though, came from a palace banquet three years earlier.
Half drunk, Lu Hemian had taken hold of my chin and studied me for a long time.
“Autumn waters for her spirit, jade for her bones. If she were mine, I would keep her cherished in a house of gold.”
Humiliation turned to fury. I slapped him on the spot.
The silence around us was that of an abandoned graveyard. Everyone stared at me in horror.
They were waiting for the notorious commander to have me torn limb from limb.
In the end, Lu Hemian did nothing.
He merely narrowed his eyes, touched the mark on his cheek, and smiled.
Ever since, I had avoided him like a mouse avoiding a cat, taking a different path whenever I saw him.
Until today.
Now I knelt before him, utterly alone.
My cloak pooled on the floor. I bowed my head like a crane with a broken neck.
“Please, my lord. Save the marquis’s heir.”
The heir to the Marquis of Anping was my childhood companion, and my betrothal to him had been decreed by the emperor.
Last month, seven million taels of silver had gone missing from the Ministry of War under his charge. The emperor, enraged, had sent him to the imperial prison.
Rumor said he would be beheaded at the Meridian Gate in ten days.
My voice was low with shame.
“If you can save him, you may do with me as you please.”