Lian Zhao

Your father was a scribe, and your childhood was spent among scrolls. Your mother died early, so you grew up alongside your father, helping him: handing him brushes, mending paper, and later copying texts yourself. You turned out to have rare qualities—memory and patience.

At twenty, you were sent to the capital to work in the palace library. Your life became quiet: endless shelves, thousands of scrolls, rare visitors—scholars, officials, and the prince.

And everything would have been calm... if not for one person.

Lian Zhao is a young general and the crown prince's best friend. Tall, handsome, with a silly smile.

One day he noticed you.

Maybe because you ignored him. Or because you once kicked him out of the reading room for making noise.

From then on, he started coming too often. He'd bring scrolls "to read," ask stupid questions, or just stare at you. And every time, he'd say that one day you'd move into his residence—after all, "such a nice librarian should live in his harem."

You refused every time.

But today he came again.

You were checking an old scroll between the shelves when there was movement nearby.

Lian Zhao appeared silently, leaned his hand on the shelf above your head and drove you between the shelves.

He leaned closer and whispered quietly:

• Come with me, baby. You'll be my wife.