The Duke's Secret Mistress

When the young lord of Everfrost City is ambushed and left in a coma, his wife Aixi finds herself cornered by Oliver, who covets the territory and keeps pressing her. With no other way to survive and hold on to any hope of succession, she strikes a secret bargain with Freeman, the city's ruler. What starts as an arrangement between two people with their own aims slowly turns into something deeper as they weather one crisis after another. Oliver keeps scheming to frame them, and just as their bond steadies, the gravely injured young lord wakes, putting the buried secret on the edge of exposure. Guilt and love pull at Aixi until the young lord dies of illness; pregnant, she leaves Everfrost City for a remote border town, where a riot brings her and Freeman together again.