Devourer - Chapter 143: Prelude to the Crusade

Skyseal Emperor Gu Taxian is perhaps the greatest Emperor in all of history. He crushed the Hundred Empires and brought them to heel, built the vast Great Stone Wall to keep out the deadly wilders, relocated mountains and rivers to promote commerce, set up roads and highways, and even promoted free academies of learning for the common man in an attempt to uplift them. But the Skyseal Emperor’s ambitions involve more than just this – he is preparing to launch a great campaign to stamp out all pagan religions, wishing to allow all men to become like gods instead of merely worshiping them. Deities, demons, and immortals alike tremble and rage at the Skyseal Emperor’s ambitions.

On their wedding night, she gnashed her teeth, yelling, “Your Highness, that’s shameless!”

Set off by the flickering light of red candles, he curved the corner of his mouth into a wicked grin, “Actually, I can be more shameless…”

…

When they met for the first time, he was the young prince who lived in his day of brilliance, while she was the pampered princess of the adjacent state.

When they met again, he became the crippled underdog suffering from frustration, while she became the lackluster hostage stranded in an alien land.

In his mid-life, he was defeated in the fight and had his legs broken; his wife passed away and he didn’t have anything left except his father’s detestation… After constant blows took the edge off his spirit, all he wanted was nothing but serenity.

In her teen-age, her state perished and her home lost; she lapsed into an awkward situation after being abandoned and having her marriage annulled… As endless hardships isolated her from happiness, everything she wished for was no more than peace.

…

“Lu Zhishan, when I first met you, I didn’t think I’d marry you…too old,” after years passed by, one day, she lay on his laps mumbling, with a kind of hazy beauty on her boozy face, “and lame.”

“Mu Nanzhi, you have the wrong memory. At our first meeting, I’m neither old nor limp.”

“…When was that?”

“When people were celebrating your first birthday,” that man assumed all gentleness and joy crept on his eyes and brows, “On that day, you were ‘drawing lots’ in the rear hall. I also sneaked there to have a look. But, out of my expectation, you directly grabbed my true-love knot.”

…

How vivid the red love pea is embedded in the exquisitely carved dice,

Just as my feelings for you deep in my bones.

- Description from Novelupdates

She was used by her boyfriend to trap someone. Unexpectedly, things did not go as planned.