Clear-Headed, Noble Lady of a Great Clan ✘ Devoted Legitimate Son of a Prestigious Family
Important note: The male lead is the female lead’s first love.
Chasing His Wife to the Crematorium (But He Won’t Win) ✘ The Crown Prince Is the Second Male Lead
Nalan Qingyu: Ji Tingdu, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month in the forty-sixth year of De’an, you took a concubine. That day, you held your beloved concubine in your arms while I lost our child.
Ji Tingdu: It wasn’t like that, Huaiyue. I didn’t know you were pregnant then. If I had, I would never have taken a concubine at that moment. I wouldn’t have thought you were only suffering from a stomachache.
Nalan Qingyu: You’d already decided to take a concubine, hadn’t you? Besides, that day was my birthday.
Ji Tingdu: ... (That’s right. How could I have forgotten that it was Huaiyue’s birthday, and taken a concubine into the residence that very day?)
At the beginning:
Nalan Qingyu: Cousin, what are you doing? I’m your younger sister!
Baili Xuance: Qingqing, I’ve never thought of you as my sister. I think of you as... (my wife.)
Later:
Nalan Qingyu: Husband, didn’t you say you weren’t going to the hot springs this time?
Baili Xuance: Qingqing, be good. What should you call me?
Childhood sweethearts ✘ Grew up together
The female lead is the Crown Princess at first, but later fakes her death, leaves the palace, and goes into seclusion with her family.
When she hears that her cousin has returned after years away from the capital, she can no longer suppress the feelings she once had for him.
After she fakes her death and leaves the palace, her ex-husband searches frantically for her (he refuses to believe she’s dead, and lies to himself about it). But her whole family has already moved away from the capital, and he can’t find them no matter how thoroughly he searches.
What finally shatters the ex-husband is seeing, during an inspection tour, the Crown Princess who once rested in his arms held close by another man, her belly just beginning to swell.
The second male lead has only himself to blame. It wasn’t that fate failed them; he simply didn’t know how to cherish her.
