After Exile, I Married the Amnesiac General [Rebirth]

When Li Chanxiu was exiled to the frontier, he married the amnesiac Pei Shen.

As the Crown Prince’s only child, he was confined together with his father from the moment he was born. In order to survive, he was raised in women’s clothing, concealing his true gender. Later, under his father’s careful planning, he used exile as a means to leave the capital.

At first, marrying Pei Shen was merely a temporary expedient. The man was taciturn, injured, and suffering from memory loss, surely someone honest and easy to handle. Li Chanxiu planned to use him as cover for his identity. Once his father’s old subordinates found him, he could slip away and pursue greater ambitions.

But after the marriage, he discovered that this man was neither honest nor well-behaved. Every day, Pei Shen guarded him like meat in a bowl, keeping him firmly within his grasp. Later, he became increasingly impossible to coax, and the look in his eyes grew darker with each passing day.

***

Pei Shen, heir to Yan Wang, once rode north to repel invading enemies, spirited and full of youthful vigor. Yet in a single careless moment, he was gravely wounded, lost his memory, and ended up stranded in a remote northwestern border town.

When he regained his memory, he discovered that not only was he already married, he had also disgracefully grown attached to the comforts of beauty, spinning in circles at the coaxing of his delicate and lovely young wife.

Pei Shen: …

***

Not long after, foreign enemies invaded, and war beacons blazed across the land. Li Chanxiu’s father raised an army in the southwest.

An urgent imperial decree ordered Yan Wang Shizi to suppress the rebellion.

Pei Shen hesitated, then lied to his little wife: “There’s no rice left at home. While I’m on leave, I’ll be away for a while to trade furs and earn some money.”

Li Chanxiu, who was also nearly unable to keep up his act: “…Very well. I’ll return to my maiden home and borrow some grain and silver to get us through.”

Both secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

One month later—

Pei Shen led his troops into confrontation with the rebel army. After several rounds of battle, neither side gained the upper hand. Until both commanding generals personally appeared on the battlefield—

Li Chanxiu fell into silence. Across from him, mounted on a fine steed, face cold as frost, stood Yan Wang Shizi… who looked suspiciously like his poor husband who had supposedly gone off to trade furs.

Seeing the rebel commander dressed in crimson robes and silver armor, sitting tall on horseback with jade-like bearing and refined elegance, Pei Shen likewise fell into silence.

If he wasn’t mistaken, that appeared to be his gentle and beautiful wife, who had gone back to her maiden home to borrow money and grain.

Notes:

1. The protagonist (shou) cross-dresses as a woman in the early part of the story.
2. Ancient-setting, male–male version of the “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” trope.