Her Scent, His Lost Love

The Prince of Chu spent his wedding night with his bride's half-sister. Mu Yan had lost her virginity well before the marriage and expected Han Rui to work it out and set her aside, so she put Mu Ting into the room in her place, the two of them being close enough in build for it to hold. Mu Ting went because Mu Yan had her mother's life to hold over her. By morning the woman was gone from the room and Han Rui had no name for her, only that she had been quiet with him. Mu Ting was the daughter of a concubine of the Mu house. Mu Yan and Mu Yan's mother had been on at her since she was small, and after they made her drink something that took her voice she went on acting mute because it was safer. In the prince's household Mu Yan kept at her. Mu Ting turned out to be pregnant, and from then on she planned every move around her mother and the child, with Mu Yan on one side of her and Han Jing, who wanted the throne, on the other. Han Rui had said he would find the woman from that night, and in the meantime his feeling for Mu Ting grew.