The story features a cool and stunning beauty in a qipao, frail yet alluring, pitted against the cunning and unpredictable heir of a powerful Beijing family. She, Song Qingyou, is famed throughout the capital for her ethereal allure and delicate grace, but has been plagued by illness since childhood, as fragile as a precious porcelain doll. After her divorce, everyone assumes that without Fu Tingshen’s protection, this sickly beauty will never find a foothold again in Beijing’s elite circles. Contrary to their expectations, another member of the Fu family—Fu Wenzhou, a brooding, heartless renegade with a reputation for madness—fixates on her like a wild dog drawn by scent, refusing to let go. Rumors begin to swirl one day: the notoriously cold and unfeeling young Master Fu is said to be hiding away a beauty in a qipao, a woman he supposedly stole from his own uncle by underhanded means. The beauty is frail and weak, yet the young master spares no expense, lavishing her with rare medicinal herbs and doting on her with blind indulgence, obeying her every word. People jest that he is not keeping a beauty, but worshiping an ancestor. Fu Wenzhou is infamous for his wild, unpredictable temperament—a mad dog, some say. Yet Song Qingyou is not afraid; her only fear is that life might not be wild and thrilling enough. In the end, the mad dog is tamed into a loyal companion.
Night had fallen over the Fu family estate.
As Song Qingyou stepped through the door, laughter echoed from the front hall. But the moment the group gathered around the dining table caught sight of her, their smiles vanished, as though her presence at this moment of family reunion were some kind of ill omen.
She was long accustomed to this coldness, but the sight of Lin Miaomiao, Fu Tingshen’s delicate and helpless old flame, seated at the table gave her pause. The elder Fus had always cared about family background; they might dislike Song Qingyou, but at least she was from the Song family. Lin Miaomiao, on the other hand, came from a modest background with no connections. Not only did her in-laws disapprove of her, but even Fu Tingshen kept her outside the house—bringing her in only occasionally, as a provocation, never openly inviting her to dine at the main table.
Song Qingyou sensed that something unusual was afoot, but she maintained a calm facade. “Dad, Mom, Tingshen, I’m home.”
Fu Tingshen, dressed sharply in his suit, looked even more imposing. His expression was icy. “If you’re so eager to play aunt to Fu Wenzhou, why not just be his mother instead?”
The house was warm from the central heating. Song Qingyou slipped off her shawl, revealing delicate, pale arms. As she bent to change her shoes, her graceful figure was accentuated.
She showed no reaction to her husband’s familiar sarcasm of three years. “Xiaozhou is allergic to alcohol. The waiter called you all first, but no one answered, so they called me. After all, I am her au