So What If She's My Minister's Wife? I Want Her, So I Take Her

[Delicate, seemingly innocent yet secretly cunning official’s wife VS a scheming, flirtatious emperor who becomes a third party for love (the ruler steals his minister’s wife + rivals competing for her + exclusive devotion throughout + palace intrigue)]

In her previous life, Su Shiyao entered the palace as a servant and died beneath a rain of cudgel blows.

She is reborn at the moment her elder sister fakes an illness to refuse marriage to Prince Jing, pushing her into the role of substitute bride.

Su Shiyao weeps as she marries, but laughs coldly inside: A scapegoat? We’ll see who dies in whose place.

She picks her moment, saves the poisoned emperor at a temple... and borrows his seed.

Jun Yin is a wise ruler presiding over a golden age, destined to have no heirs and indifferent to women.

After losing his chastity, he searches high and low, but cannot find even a trace of the woman.

That is, until he visits Prince Jing’s residence to see the unconscious prince.

The princess bows, her eyes red and a delicate hand covering her mouth as she retches.

Jun Yin stares at her and her pregnant belly, silent for a long time.

Su Shiyao gazes at him with shimmering, tearful eyes, looking utterly vulnerable. You recognize me? And then what?

From then on, the emperor struggles to restrain himself, yet falls deeper with every step.

He sneaks into the prince’s residence night after night, ostensibly to visit Prince Jing, but really to care for his pregnant minister’s wife.

Jun Yin has met countless beauties, yet he has fallen for a minister’s wife alone.

He wants her to smile only at him, be considerate only of him, flirt only with him, and scheme to get what she wants from him.

When Prince Jing wakes, the couple embrace in tears.

Consumed by jealousy, the emperor reveals his scheming nature in full. Dark and ruthless, he takes the minister’s wife by force and brings her into the palace.

And when he finally learns that their meeting and her affection were all part of her plan,

the emperor is shocked, but only for a moment. Then he smiles: “Yaoyao schemed against me because she loves me.”

“As long as she’s willing to put thought into me, that’s all that matters.”

“Power, wealth, the phoenix crown and the empress’s throne: it’s not as if I can’t give them to her.”

Everyone knows that the one person in the realm you must never cross is Su Shiyao, both the empress and the woman Prince Jing holds dear.