Wrongful Yearning

Everyone knows that the Seventh Prince, Xiao Cheng, is a good-for-nothing. The nobles of the capital despise him, and the powerful officials at court bully him.

Even the marriage bestowed by the Emperor was a calculated move: he was forced to marry Shen Li, a fierce daughter of a military family with achievements so great they threatened the throne and a temper as explosive as fire. It was called a favor, but it was actually surveillance.

On their wedding night, Shen Li looked at her timid husband with cold eyes, feeling nothing but disdain: “Coward.”

She did not know that the sheep she was looking at had long since sharpened its fangs and had even prepared a private army capable of devouring the world.

Xiao Cheng had been biding his time for ten years, waiting only to be sent to his fiefdom so he could return to the sea like a dragon.

He used the Shen family’s influence to stabilize his fief; he used heavy gold to buy Su Wan, the daughter of a disgraced official, and took her as his strategist.

Su Wan understood his strategies and his ambitions; she was the resonance of his soul.

As for Shen Li, she only knew how to stand before him with a blade in hand, calling him a “good-for-nothing” while blocking fatal stray arrows for him.

Watching Shen Li covered in blood, a flicker of imperceptible pain flashed in Xiao Cheng’s eyes, yet he turned and took Su Wan’s hand instead.

He had clearly seen the burning heat beneath Shen Li’s icy exterior, yet he chose to play deaf and dumb.

Because the path of an emperor cannot have a soft spot; and Shen Li, as it happened, was his most fatal weakness.

“I plotted for the world for your sake, yet you promised her a lifetime of splendor.”

“Shen Li, I never said I loved you. It was you who chose to believe it.”