The daughter of a disgraced official had been raised in a marquis’s household, where she gave her heart to the heir—only to be publicly shamed for the performing arts she had been taught, as though they made her unworthy. She walked away with a broken heart and entered a marriage of convenience with an impoverished scholar. They leaned on each other through hard years; he passed the imperial examinations with honors and climbed the ranks of office, while the heir, heavy with regret, followed her from afar. When a diplomatic mission to a hostile frontier kingdom was ambushed, the heir threw himself into the fight to save her and died in her place, paying his debt with his life. At last, she and the scholar were left to live out their days in peace together.