Shocking! Am I the Brooding Prince’s One True Love?

In the winter of the twelfth year of Jingping, during the Great Yan dynasty, Zhen Guo Marquis Qi Cheng and Crown Prince Xiao Huai were accused of colluding with the enemy and betraying their country. The court was in an uproar.

The emperor flew into a rage, deposed the crown prince, and ordered the entire Zhen Guo Marquis household executed.

In the spring of the thirteenth year of Jingping, the case against the Zhen Guo Marquis household was resolved. The deposed crown prince, Xiao Huai, had been framed by the marquis.

Filled with remorse, the emperor went in person to the imperial prison to bring him out.

Xiao Huai was covered in wounds. His white robes were torn, his frame gaunt, his face pale.

Emperor Yan: “My son, your father has come to take you home.”

Xiao Huai, once the most gentle and decorous of men, did not respond. Only his stiff eyes moved as he stared at the emperor’s false face. “Where is Yuanbai?”

“Dead without a body left intact.”

In the drizzle of spring rain, the deposed crown prince Xiao Huai drew his sword and took his own life, leaving only a soft murmur drifting through the rain.

He said, “Yuanbai, I’m coming to join you in death.”

*

Qi Yuanbai was kidnapped at three, found at eight, and assassinated at seventeen while traveling south to seek justice.

The treasured young master of the marquis’s household had only nine happy years with his loving parents, protective elder brother, and dear friend.

Ten years later, a carriage rumbled into the Yan capital.

The curtain was lifted, revealing a handsome, refined face.

Wang Zhuo: “It’s time for this capital to see a change.”

*

A year later, the people of Great Yan said:

“What? That cruel prince Xiao Huai became emperor??”

“What? He appointed a man as his empress???”

“Great Yan’s world has been turned upside down…”