Peeking At Spring’s Affection
窥春情
Synopsis
After her mother’s death, Shen Weici is left utterly alone, drifting like a rootless weed. She travels a great distance to the capital to seek out her relatives.
Upon first entering the Marquis’s estate, she treads carefully, facing difficulties at every turn — yet throughout it all she remains quiet and gentle, with no desire to take a single thing from the household. She only wishes to find herself a suitable marriage and a small corner of peace to call her own.
Song Zhang, the capital’s notorious “Lord of Hell,” is a man of noble lineage who holds great power and regards everyone beneath him with contempt.
When he first lays eyes on Shen Weici, he is full of disdain and makes things difficult for her.
Later, he notices her smiling shyly at another man, her beautiful eyes alluring as a fox spirit’s — and he scoffs coldly as he walks away, only to secretly destroy the promising match behind her back.
He watches her face him with reddened eyes, demanding to know why. He answers with a lazy, wicked smile: “Zhang the Second placed first in the imperial exams young and comes from a distinguished family — who do you think you are to cling to him? If you want a peaceful life, why not beg me? I might just grant you the position of honored concubine.”
But the tables turn swiftly. In the end, it is he who kneels at her door, eyes red and pleading:
“Ah Ci… I’m begging you…”
“Don’t carve out my heart…”
He had used every dark means at his disposal for her sake — and only in the end did he realize he had already fallen beyond saving.