After the Amnesiac Movie Emperor Became Public Enemy Number One

Qi Yanchu was an obscure, washed-up actor from the bottom rung of the entertainment industry, a notorious talentless pretty face.

He had a husband who was a top movie star, named Shang Yu. His husband didn't love him, and had someone else in his heart.

They had been married for five years, and Qi Yanchu had spent eight years throwing himself at Shang Yu. In the end, they were still getting divorced, because Shang Yu needed to make room for the one he loved.

Maybe it was karma. The day before the divorce, his husband actually fell off a wire rig and lost his memory.

When Qi Yanchu rushed over, Shang Yu shamelessly clung to him, tearfully begging him to stay.

So...

Was he giving up on his beloved now?

Shang Yu 2.0: "What beloved? I don't know what you're talking about. I have nothing to do with that!"

Qi Yanchu had no choice but to temporarily bring the amnesiac giant home with him.

The next day, his brand-new, never-before-used kitchen exploded. The culprit, utterly unrepentant, invited him to move in together.

Before losing his memory and after, Shang Yu had always firmly believed that his wife was a sweet, soft, obedient, delicate beauty.

Qi Yanchu had always believed that his scummy husband was an award-winning hypocrite and an old-fashioned bastard.

Until...

They started living together.

Every day, the two of them acted mysterious, switching into thief mode as soon as they entered a room. The cat and dog ended up being the most honest ones in the whole house.

Shang Yu keenly realized that his darling wife was like two completely different people by day and by night. By day, he was as cold as the sacred snows of Lhasa; by night, he was a bewitching seducer.

And this seducer would even secretly hold a razor blade to Shang Yu's throat and trace it along his skin.

Qi Yanchu had kept a secret since childhood: he was ill, mentally ill.

Through the lonely days when he had yet to meet Shang Yu, someone had always kept him company, even though that person was wicked and dangerous.

He had never dared let anyone find out.

Later, Shang Yu's entire worldview collapsed when he belatedly realized that he was the "sacrifice."

In the end, who was whose substitute, and who was standing in for whom?

No matter what, he'd just have to walk this long road to win his wife back on his knees.

[Content Warnings]

1. Both leads are 24-karat lunatics, each crazy in their own way. They're equally matched, and neither owes the other anything.

2. The bottom has severe depression in the early chapters (actually a clear-eyed descent into ruin), as well as multiple personalities, and secretly has a yandere side.

3. This isn't a story where the top abuses the bottom. The details would involve spoilers, so I won't say more. In short, one is willing to hit and the other is willing to take it. There's no groveling redemption arc.

4. The story includes scenes from a drama within the novel, set in the Republican era: a beautiful young bandit chief who's sweet on the outside and ruthless underneath x his humble piano teacher brother-in-law. Skip those parts if you don't like them.

5. The setting is entirely fictional, with no real-life models (most details are made up by the author, so don't take them too seriously). It includes mild coercion and psychological control, and an excessive amount of melodrama.

The main plot follows two threads: romance and drama. (Later on, revenge takes center stage.)

If you can't handle any of the above, please don't put yourself through it. Being happy matters most!

[Please Add It to Your Reading List]

If you like it, please add it to your collection, everyone! [Bows]

Preview:

Also titled The Heart of a Rebel

To wage a northern campaign, Pei Shen, the hated powerful minister at court, dared to offend the great clans, spending eight years improving the people's livelihoods and filling the imperial treasury.

But in the Battle of Huiyan Slope, a sure victory ended in the deaths of a hundred thousand soldiers. Their heroic souls could not return to their homeland, and their broken swords could no longer slay demons!

The court dug him out of a pile of corpses and sent him to the execution platform to give the people an explanation.

The execution supervisor was the Northern Empire's emperor, a madman who had spent years testing Pei Shen and getting entangled with him.

He refused to believe it. He couldn't accept it! He pledged his soul to the King of Hell in exchange for three years. Only three years.

He clawed his way back from the cold depths of hell to the world of the living!

So he schemed for power, usurped the throne, killed his rotten father, cut down the incompetent crown prince, and sent his vicious stepmother to her grave. With a Green Emperor spear in hand, he carved a path through the foul corruption.

Once again, it was the third month of spring. At the Northern Empire's court, a young man in white was wrapped in a fox-fur cloak, buried in soft white fur, his eyes weary and distant.

He stood below the steps, looking up at the puppet emperor who had only recently ascended the throne.

"I believe you would never kill me. Would you?"

It was simple enough, really. If the answer was yes, he would kill the emperor. If the answer was no, he would serve him.

And so...

The madman laughed as he chewed on a meat bun, and Pei Shen chewed alongside him, adding, "It tastes pretty good. Too bad it's cold."

The ministers: "...Urgh!!!"

The madman suddenly had an attack of madness and put Pei Shen on a flower-decked cart for the ministers to gawk at. Without changing expression, Pei Shen called for a sword, danced his way over to the emperor, and pointed it at his throat. "Your Majesty, do I look beautiful?"

The ministers: "We still want to live!!!"

Amid the ministers' daily worries over one disaster after another, Pei Shen raised the tyrant into the most benevolent and virtuous ruler the world had ever known.

Until, in the end, he fed himself to the tyrant as well.

Beneath a tree covered in flame-colored blossoms, the tyrant pinned him against the trunk and deliberately teased him from behind. "Pei Lang, I am hungry."

In the emperor's bedchamber, filled with the gentle breeze, he was pinned down on the desk buried under memorials. The tyrant leaned over him. "Pei Lang, I want you."

In a bitterly cold military tent north of the frontier, he was pinned down on the table where the generals had held their discussions. The tyrant had taken off his armor and wore only his underclothes, his burning body pressed against Pei Shen's. "Pei Lang, I am so cold."

Pei Shen: "..."

A sickly beauty who holds a grudge and always gets even as the bottom x an emperor who is utterly pure and utterly evil, a madman, as the top.

P.S.:

1. The top is genuinely awful at first. He treats tormenting people like walking a dog.

2. Both leads are equally matched and scheme against each other. If they haven't managed to kill each other, it must be true love.

3. There are some ensemble-cast elements, with two side couples, one male-male and one female-female.

4. The setting is entirely fictional, borrowing the official ranks of the Wei-Jin period.

5. The characters' values do not represent the author's.

6. The story brings together the imperial court, the martial world, and the unification of the realm. Power struggles run throughout the main plot.

Theme: Unwavering trust