The Favorite Consort’s Dilemma: So Many Charming Cousins

How do you become a worthy favorite consort?

Should you be gentle and virtuous, a flower who knows how to soothe his heart? Or breathtakingly beautiful and talented in every art?

Sorry, Shen Linglong is none of those things.

All she has is a keen and clever heart, enough to keep the emperor firmly in her grasp.

Li Xuanjing was precocious and shrewd. From childhood, he held himself to the standards of a wise ruler.

His childhood friend and cousin was foolish and domineering, but she was devoted to him, so he was willing to indulge her a little.

He had assumed Shen Linglong was nothing more than a little bird in his palm, unable to escape or fly away.

Who could have guessed that he was the beast in a cage, trapped by her in the name of love?

Content warnings:

1. The male lead is not a virgin. He will sleep with other consorts and have children, though this won’t be described in detail. He is a traditional, entitled imperial ruler. At first, he dotes on the female lead more than he loves her; only later does he truly fall in love with her.

2. At first, the female lead is in a subordinate position in her relationship with him. She plays dumb and gently goes along with him. Only later does she successfully train him and take the upper hand.

3. The female lead has a tendency to attract everyone. There is no second male lead; everyone apart from the male lead is just passing through her life. She is a polished self-interest-driven person, but when it comes to the family and friends she has claimed as her own, she is blindly devoted and willing to give them everything.

4. The male lead is domineering, controlling, and pathologically suspicious. At first he is arrogant; later he becomes a brooding, crawling-around-in-the-dark kind of ghostly man.

5. Both leads have flaws, and they gradually learn to accommodate each other. They are made for each other and will be entangled for the rest of their lives.

6. 80% sweet romance, with just a little angst for flavor.