[Classic Substitute-Bride Trope + One Woman, Multiple Men Competing for Her + Political Intrigue and Harem Scheming + The Pursuit Begins After the Breakup]
Shen Jingyu transmigrates into an old-school, melodramatic substitute-bride story. A single imperial decree marries her off to the most terrifying man in the capital, a lame prince.
In the original story, her cousin, the real heroine, would take her place at the wedding and cure the prince’s leg, then go on to live happily ever after. When Shen Jingyu returned, she would become insanely jealous and keep courting disaster until she met a tragic end on the streets.
As if! Anyone who wants that kind of good fortune can have it. Shen Jingyu makes her escape that very night, hauling off with the carriage.
But she never expected that once she ran away,
the heir apparent, who had bickered with her for over a decade, would suddenly go mad and, eyes red, insist on eloping with her.
The aloof, celibate Imperial Preceptor, untouched by worldly concerns, would make an unprecedented fall from grace for her.
Even the mute bodyguard she hired for ten taels of silver would turn out to be a neighboring kingdom’s crown prince, asking whether she wanted to return with him and inherit the throne.
More absurdly, her ambitious cousin, the Third Prince, seized the opportunity to raise an army, shouting, “Cleanse the court of corrupt officials and seize my cousin!”
And when Shen Jingyu is forced back to the capital and stands at the center of the storm, the lame prince corners her at a palace banquet, tugging at her sleeve with red-rimmed eyes and barely restrained emotion. “You were supposed to be my wife. What gives them the right?”
This can’t be right! How did the whole plot go so far off the rails?!
