In Thin Glamour

Coming soon: The Empress Marries Again. Blurb below ⬇️:

The Cui and Gu families have always been at odds. The family heads vie for power at court, while the matrons compete to outshine each other in public.

They even compare whose children have the more splendid weddings.

On the day the Cui family’s daughter is married, the eldest young master of the Gu family takes a bride.

The two weddings become the talk of the town.

A drizzle fell through the night. By the glow of the wedding candles, Cui Hanyu finally saw the groom’s face.

He was strikingly handsome and refined, quite unlike the merely average-looking man he had claimed to be in their letters.

Perhaps he had been too modest.

Cui Hanyu thought nothing of it before he was ushered into the bridal chamber.

At midnight, a baby began to cry. Cui Hanyu trembled with fear and hid in the man’s arms, only to hear her maid call out, “Miss, this is the wrong family! You married the wrong person!”

Cui Hanyu pushed the man away and asked in shock, “You are...?”

“Gu Tingju.”

Cui Hanyu was thunderstruck. She had spent years cursing the Gu family alongside her father. She had never imagined she would end up in a wolf’s den!

But the rice was already cooked, so the two families could only make peace.

Fortunately, Gu Tingju was gentle and refined, unlike the calculating, worldly man everyone described.

The Gu family had few heirs and urgently needed someone to carry on the family line. Tired of her mother-in-law’s nagging, Cui Hanyu took Gu Tingju by the hand and led him into their bedroom.

In Cui Hanyu’s eyes, Gu Tingju was elegant, refined, and gentle. She often regretted all the things she had said about him over the years, until she learned that this accidental marriage had been orchestrated by Gu Tingju himself, and that both her fiancé and his fiancée had been Gu family pawns.

Only then did Cui Hanyu understand what it meant to be calculating and worldly.

*Planned from the start

Coming soon

Coming soon: The Empress Marries Again:

In the third year of the emperor’s favor, he finally remembered that the woman he loved was Su Yao’s elder sister.

That woman was aloof and proud, and would rather send her younger sister into the palace than stay beside a man who had forgotten her.

When the emperor looked at Su Yao again, every trace of affection in his eyes had been completely washed away.

“I will send you out of the palace and grant you a new identity.”

Naturally timid and weak, Su Yao was still begging for the emperor to remember their past.

The emperor sighed softly. “You only look like her.”

That was why he had favored her without even realizing it.

Su Yao could not remain in the capital and offend her sister, so the emperor gave her to a young court official who had been demoted and exiled, sending her far away to the borderlands.

On the day she left the city, drums and gongs rang out, and ten miles of bridal finery celebrated the new empress’s arrival at the palace.

Clutching a small bundle, Su Yao rode away in a swaying carriage, leaving the scene in lonely silence.

The emperor stood on the city wall with his hands behind his back, gazing into the distance. He never imagined they would meet again.

The following spring, the emperor personally traveled to the borderlands to inspect the army.

The people crowded along the route to welcome him. He happened to glimpse Su Yao in the crowd, holding a child and trying to escape the commotion.

She looked the same, bare-faced, with the same clear, pure eyes.

The baby in her arms looked a little like him.

“Is it mine?”

When the guards brought Su Yao into the imperial tent, the emperor raised his eyes and asked calmly, with just those words.

Su Yao furrowed her brow and hugged the baby close. Before she could explain, a man requested an audience.

“Your Majesty, the child is mine.”

The young official who had been exiled had become a powerful and influential official on the border.

The emperor watched them look at each other and smiled serenely, but only he knew how bitter his heart felt.

He had wavered. He had been wavering for a long time. Otherwise, he would never have come in person to see whether she was doing well.

*The second male lead wins

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Theme: Learn to treat one another with sincerity