We get to know about the FL who is first introduced as Ning'er and tells that her identity is the maidservant to the Young Miss of the Yuan Family. Later, she says she is the Young Miss of the Yuan Family, Yuan Fei. But actually, she isn't. Her real identity is the Crown Prince of the Nanqiu State, Shu Ningyu. She was plotted against her older brother born of a different mother during an incident which allowed him to learn of her true gender. She's been living as a man ever since she was little with everyone who knew her gender dead, except for her queen consort mother and cousin brother (Su Zhou). She eventually had to go through a series of tragedies as she was too lenient on her enemies causing her to lose the lives of all her relatives and loved ones, even Su Zhou.

He's a little bit too cold-hearted but it's understandable since he sits in a position so far up as the Acting Regent of the neighbouring state to Nanqiu. As stated in the novel, the ML saves FL as he somehow finds himself drawn to her presence and smell of her body. He eventually but unknowingly falls in long with Su Ningyu who guises herself as Ning'er.

Actually, the two leads don't even have a proper closure to their love story. Like what Su Ningyu thought about their relationship, their fate was bound to be cut short, with all the politics of their respective nations plaguing them and their responsibilities being tied to their homes. From my understanding and interpretation, Su Nanzhu (the older brother born to a different mother but same father as Su Ningyu) was threatened by Pei Jiu to give his sister after Su Zhou and all of Su Ningyu's loved ones died for her. Otherwise, Pei Jiu will lead his troops to the Nanqiu State and wage war. Another bunch of anguishing politics which I think they work more as being termed fillers happened. There were a few stand-in's that helped Su Ningyu during her absence as the crown prince. The real Yuan Fei, the fake Crown Prince and a few fake Yuan Fei/Su Ningyu posers. They all died for Su Ningyu to be safely handed over to Pei Jiu but once again, at a cost. She lost her past memories, suffers from amnesia and is plagued by most probably PTSD and other stress/anxiety disorders due to all the angsty events that happened to her.

Basically FL and ML meet when he saves her from drowning. They have this cute bond where FL acts spoiled and cute while ML is cold and unmoving. It’s cute. Then a complete 180° change with politics and backstory dump and whatnot. The romance is gone. There is only benefits, past, dog blood plot, and scheming. The end isn’t even romantic. It’s depressing and dark. ML got FL through forcing memory loss, brainwashing, and kidnapping.

The only glimpse of hope is ML being a bit skeptical and asking why didn’t FL’s brother tell him first. But he still lied to her and kidnapped her so..

The only way this could be saved is if they spent more time to flesh out the end and help FL heal from her trauma. Instead the author took a shortcut and just gave us a clean slate. I know it’s a short story but this is just a whole different turn from what I thought was a cutesy novel.