"I refuse! I'd rather jump off a cliff than marry that crippled eyesore!" Liu Wuxin's shrill cry echoed through the courtyard, trembling with rage and humiliation.
Zhao Qiuli comforted her and said, "Don't worry, I will never let my granddaughter's life be spoiled. Your grandfather had requested the Wang family for a child's engagement with that dead woman's daughter, so now it's time to get her back from the mountains."
Zhao Qiuli's thoughts drifted back to the past, to the moment everything had taken a turn she never expected. Her late husband had been nothing more than a minor employee in the Wang company, yet he had thrown himself into danger to save old Wang Mingxuan's life. And on his deathbed with hands trembling, he had signed an agreement behind her back with the old man that the daughter of that deceased woman would be betrothed to the Wang family's youngest son.
Back then, Zhao Qiuli had been furious. How could he consider that woman's child instead of Li Yexin's precious daughter the only one she ever acknowledged as worthy. But now, looking at how things had unfolded, she found herself strangely grateful. At least the engagement hadn't fallen onto her beloved granddaughter. If it had, she would have been forced into the impossible of defying the powerful Wang family just to save the girl from marrying that hideous cripple, Wang Lingxuan.
Wang Lingxuan had once been the treasured youngest son of Wang Shenghao, the man hailed across the country as a domineering powerhouse, devastatingly handsome, and one of the richest CEOs of his generation. As the heir of such a lineage, Lingxuan had been born under a sky of limitless expectations.
But fate had other plans, a single and brutal accident shattered everything. The car crash not only left his legs crippled for life, but it also ruined his once perfect face so badly that strangers couldn't bear to look at him without flinching. The boy who had once shone like a young master descended into a darkness he never climbed out of.
Since that day, Wang Lingxuan withdrew himself from the world. He became dangerously cold and his temper flared like wildfire, unpredictable and ruthless. He shut himself behind tall walls, behind silence, behind fury and finally behind a mask. A mask that concealed not only the scars marring his face, but the storm of emotions he no longer trusted himself to show to the world.
Liu Wuxin had fallen for Wang Lingxuan from the very first moment she laid eyes on him. Back then, he was radiant, talented, noble, the dazzling young master of the most powerful family in the city. Liu Wuxin with the title of his fiancée, used that identity to take whatever she wanted – Power, status, envy. But when the accident stole his beauty, crippled his body, and stripped him of his right to manage the family business, in her eyes, Wang Lingxuan became nothing more than a discarded shadow and a burden that was unworthy of a second glance.
Now, she is desperate enough to break the engagement that once brought her glory. Yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't sever it. Her father, trembling under pressure, knew he dared not offend the Wang family as the Liu family owed everything - their rise, their connections, even the wealth they flaunted to the Wang family's support, granted long ago to repay the death of the Liu family's old patriarch. So, despite Liu Wuxin's relentless, the marriage contract remained an iron shackle she wants escape.
At that moment, the old matriarch of the Liu family finally revealed the truth that once had been buried for years beneath lies and forged papers. The marriage agreement destined for the Wang family had never been meant for Liu Wuxin. The true bride chosen as the future daughter-in-law of the Wangs was Wu Qingyi, the child born to Wu Yating, a woman whose origins were unknown. It was her that Liu Moran had fallen for at first sight, and it was her daughter who was named in the original agreement.
But the old lady had never accepted Wu Yating. How could she allow a woman of unknown background to become part of the Liu bloodline? So, she took matters into her own hands and with cold precision, she forged a marriage certificate falsely binding her son to Wu Yating to keep her pride.
Wu Yating had been naïve and gentle from the very beginning, with her memories shattered when she first met Liu Moran, she had no way of recognizing that the "marriage" she lived in was nothing more than a carefully crafted illusion. The Liu Moran, who never knew how to keep his desires in check was easily swayed by Li Yexin's charms. She had beauty, status, and the old lady Zhao Qiuli's approval as to the matriarch, Li Yexin was the perfect match.
So, Zhao Qiuli quietly arranged a real marriage between Liu Moran and Li Yexin, locking down the alliance she valued so dearly. But truth has a way of clawing its way to the surface. When Wu Yating eventually discovered her husband's affair and confronted him, her world crumbled. She learned that her "marriage" had been a forgery and that Li Yexin was the legal wife, and Li Yexin's five-year-old Liu Wuxin was the legitimate heir of the Liu family.
Heartbroken and humiliated, Wu Yating gathered her six-year-old daughter and left the Liu household. Yet fate dealt her the cruellest blow, on their way out, an accident claimed Wu Yating's life and left her young daughter, Wu Qingyi, alive but injured and her mind was heavily affected by the trauma.
When police informed the Liu family, they also mentioned the girl's impending mental disability and that was when Zhao Qiuli's cunning mind began to make the move. She announced to the world that both mother and child had died together. Then, under the guise of charity, she sent the surviving Wu Qingyi to a remote mountain temple to live out her days in isolation. Meanwhile, Li Yexin and Liu Wuxin were openly welcomed into the Liu family as if they had always belonged there.
Afterward, the Liu family approached the Wangs, insisting that Liu Wuxin should be accepted as the bride in place of the deceased girl. The Wang family, bound by loyalty to the old promise and believing the original child dead had reluctantly agreed. However, no one in the Liu household ever imagined that a tragedy would later strike the groom himself, turning the once-brilliant Wang Lingxuan into a crippled, masked recluse.
Now the Lius were desperate, searching for any way to dissolve the engagement without provoking the powerful Wang clan. That was when the old lady made her final, ruthless decision. If their chosen bride could not escape the alliance, then she would simply replace her with the original one. She would retrieve her eldest granddaughter, the one she had hidden away and marry her into the Wang family.