Spring’s Biting Dimple

Miss Ruan Ningyu, a distant relative of the Xie Family, was as beautiful as a hawthorn flower, delicate as jade and soft as a flower, yet she committed the scandalous affair of eloping with Young Marquis Shen. On the road of their elopement, she was personally captured and brought back to the capital by her cousin, Xie Ling. Xie Ling, the eldest legitimate grandson of a noble family, strictly adhered to etiquette and teachings, and was also rigid and pedantic. In his eyes, she was flirtatious, frivolous, and wanton, the type of woman that he, aloof as snow on a high peak, most despised. After she was captured and brought back to the capital, he subjected her to the family law. Thus, the first thing Ruan Ningyu did after becoming the Empress was to haphazardly play matchmaker, using her imperial power to forcibly grant him a wife. Xie Ling’s wife was well-educated and polite, a noble lady from a prominent family, and they shared a deep marital affection. Later, she sent a maidservant to plead with Chief Minister Xie, who by then held immense power over the court, proposing an exchange of benefits to spare her life. The man was silent for a long while, then instructed his subordinates. “My wife prefers quiet and must not be startled. If any irrelevant people disturb my wife’s peace again in the future, you will be held accountable.” Compared to his wife, who was respected by the common people, she was merely the Empress who brought disaster to the country and calamity to the people, deserving ten thousand deaths. She thought, she had probably never once truly caught his attention. Reborn back to the time when she was young, Ruan Ningyu only wanted to stay far, far away from this powerful minister cousin of hers and not repeat her past mistakes. On her way to escape the Xie Mansion, Young Marquis Shen, whom she had toyed with and then abandoned in her previous life, relentlessly pursued her. The seemingly pitiful Seventh Prince, whom she had nurtured, was actually dark-hearted and scheming to possess her… Little did she imagine that one day she would actually pluck Xie Ling, this “flower from a high peak,” watching him grovel and plead before her, gradually going mad.