Your Highness, Isn't Your Substitute Quite the Catch?

Please add my upcoming novel, After Falling for Looks, the Timid Sweetheart..., to your reading list~

Ruan Taoyao owns Tiancheng Pavilion, a matchmaker's shop in Great Jin.

Her specialty is doing background checks like a lovesick puppy, then vanishing without a trace. She has never failed.

That is, until Liang Yan placed a box of gold before her.

"Miss Ruan, could you find out whether Young Master Mu of Jicheng is... up to the task?"

Looking at that familiar face, Taoyao's lips curved into a smile. "He is."

*

A month later, Taoyao propped up her aching waist with one hand and rested her forehead on the other as she gazed at Mu Qing's profile from the bed.

The man was stunning and capable... so she couldn't exactly complain.

What did it matter if she stole Liang Yan's man? She could keep him herself.

She got up and wrote four words.

Mu Qing: Not up to it.

*

With the job done, Taoyao happily went to find Mu Qing with a thousand taels of gold.

But on the way, she saw the carriage convoy of Commander Tan from Bianjing heading straight into Mu Qing's courtyard.

Taoyao's face darkened.

Rumor had it that Commander Tan of Bianjing preferred men. Could Mu Qing be Commander Tan's kept lover?

The thought sent a chill down her spine. She hurriedly forged a new identity and fled.

*

That night, Mu Qing appeared at the Ruan residence and backed her into a corner.

"Didn't you say you'd keep me?"

With nowhere left to retreat, Taoyao gave him a quick peck on the lips. "A-Qing, it's not that I don't want you. Your background is just too complicated. Be good and stay with the commander."

Mu Qing stepped closer again, his thin lips landing on her forehead.

"Boss Ruan, using someone and then throwing him away is a bad habit."

Taoyao blushed to the neck. "...It's not like you're that useful."

Mu Qing's face turned black as a pot. "Ruan Taoyao, you ruined my reputation and lost my fiancée, Liang Yan. How dare you!"

Taoyao was stunned!

*

It turned out Mu Qing was only an alias. He was Tan Mu, commander of Great Jin's Red-Clad Guard and head of the Tan family.

Taoyao hurried to beg for mercy, all timid and sweet. "Please spare me, Commander Tan!"

He lifted her chin with one finger, his gaze as deep as an abyss, his voice tight. "Spare you... How many times have you said that now?"

A memory of their first night together flashed through Taoyao's mind, and she blushed until she looked ready to drip blood.

The corner of Tan Mu's mouth lifted. "You can take Liang Yan's place at the wedding ceremony."

*

A year later, Taoyao was two months pregnant and eating pastries in the back courtyard of the Tan residence when one of her subordinates brought news of Liang Yan.

She touched her belly and hesitated. Then she took the letter to find Tan Mu.

Tan Mu did not even look at it. "Burn it."

Taoyao hid the letter against her chest. "The information is reliable. It took me ages to find it."

Tan Mu put down his brush, rose, and swept her into his arms. "You're about to be a mother, yet you still don't know when to take it easy. Go lie down."

*

Everyone thought Ruan Taoyao had climbed her way up by attaching herself to Tan Mu.

Only Tan Mu knew that ever since the day she said she was leaving, he had been the one afraid she would go.

[Reader Advisory]

1. Happy ending, both leads have no prior partners, both are strong.

2. Updates daily.

3. Fictional historical setting, please don't nitpick the history.

4. The heroine is good at making money, very good, but has a minor ailment.

(Text written on August 19, 2026. Screenshot taken after revision. Plagiarism will be pursued.)

He was Jingxing of the Wen family, the acting head of the leading clan in Great Chen. He made a name for himself young and was strikingly handsome.

Everyone was waiting for the mistress of the Wen family to appear. No one expected him to be dragged into a room by Princess Xiao Ling, a wastrel who wrote nothing but erotic poetry and kept male lovers.

He failed to control himself, and their illicit affair became the talk of the capital.

With the deed done, Wen Lin broke with the tradition that the Wen family never married into the imperial family and took responsibility by marrying her.

Afterward, he gave her the cold shoulder every day and let her sleep alone at the Princess's residence.

But Xiao Ling didn't care.

She continued listening to music and playing chess with her "male lovers" in the pavilion on the lake, chatting away with them.

Being the Wen family's matriarch was merely a stepping stone. Once she entered the court, she intended to claim power step by step.

Soon, Wen Lin realized something was wrong.

She had an extraordinary talent for statecraft and could leave old ministers speechless in court.

She was more than capable of being the Wen family's matriarch, and the clan members wholeheartedly respected her.

She was exceptionally resilient, compassionate and generous, yet keen-edged. She was nothing like the pampered princess people claimed her to be. That reputation had been deliberately manufactured.

He went from loathing her to missing her more and more.

Then, just as their separate households became public knowledge, the clan elders demanded that Wen Lin take a concubine.

Wen Lin firmly refused and decided to make a sincere start with Xiao Ling.

But she disappeared.

He searched for her like a madman, and when he found her, he could barely breathe.

It turned out that she had deliberately dragged him into trouble, and the one she called "Brother Lin" in a moment of passion, whose face resembled his, was someone she was tenderly caring for.

For all his standing as the celebrated Jingxing gentleman, he was worth less than her "male lovers". He was nothing but a substitute.

Furious, Wen Lin claimed her that very night.

After that, he showed her the Wen family's true power, tempting her to come to him and offer herself in exchange for achieving her goals.

He knew she was treating him as part of a bargain, yet he willingly let himself fall deeper.

*

Dragging Wen Lin into trouble had never been Xiao Ling's intention.

She ruined her own reputation to refuse a marriage; she manipulated him to break out of a deadlock.

The whole court called her outrageous, but who knew that she walked alone, striving to hold up a Great Chen that was on the verge of collapse amid wind and rain?

She never intended to make him take responsibility, but Great Chen needed him.

Just hold on a little longer, until her younger brother comes of age...

But why had she started to care about him, too?

*

After their wedding, the princess continued to live at her own residence. People began to suspect Wen Lin was impotent.

One night, the wall between their two residences was completely torn down.

Beneath the moonlight, Minister Wen held her by the waist and kissed the hollow of her neck, his voice low and husky.

"Your Highness, I want you to learn through experience, day after day, to get used to being 'Wen Jingxing's wife,' until you can no longer tell whether this is a dream or simply how things should be."

She had invited him into this game of strategy. He would never stop playing, not even in death.

[Reader Advisory]

1. Happy ending. Please add it to your reading lists, everyone!

2. Updates daily, updates daily.

3. The heroine has extraordinary talent for statecraft, truly extraordinary.

4. Fictional historical setting, very fictional, please don't nitpick the history.

Theme: I just like an assertive heroine~~