Forcing a Duck onto a Perch

The entire hall fell deathly silent. Not a soul made a sound.

Only Princess Quan wept as if her heart had been torn apart. Her petite, fragile body—like a bean sprout—shook violently. Judging by how she was gasping for breath, one wrong moment and she might faint on the spot.

Having lost her father in childhood, Princess Quan was the only flesh and blood of King Ding, the younger full brother born of the same mother as Ying Zheng's father. In other words, Princess Quan was Ying Zheng's closest female cousin. Naturally, she had been pampered from infancy, a little flower raised in a greenhouse who had never weathered the slightest wind or rain. A sixteen-year-old girl naturally had fantasies about what her future husband would be like: surely a dashing, elegant, handsome, talented, courteous gentleman.

But Ying Zheng's imperial decree had actually betrothed her to Blackbeard!

Over nine feet tall and well above three hundred pounds, crude and violent, capable of beating Duke Xiang Yue Tu in the street until every bone in his body cracked and he vomited blood before passing out—on top of that, his mouth was full of lewd talk. He was practically a wild boar that had charged out of some godforsaken mountain wilderness, utterly unrelated to the words dashing and elegant!

Lin Qi might have been tall, broad, and fierce-looking, but at least his face was clean and his features handsome. One could still say he possessed masculine vigor. But Blackbeard? That face full of black hair, and the thick body hair exposed when he had stripped off his upper clothes during the street duel just now—he was simply a humanoid beast.

The thought of spending her future days with such a rough brute made Princess Quan feel as though her entire life had