After My Husband Died, His Younger Brother Wouldn't Leave Me Alone

In the first year of the Tianqi era, Prince Ding passed away. In an instant, the vast princely residence lost its pillar, leaving only Princess Consort Ding, Shen Qingyi, and her three-month-old daughter to depend on each other.

Prince Ding was the Empress Dowager's own son and the new emperor's elder brother. Taking pity on her widowed daughter-in-law and orphaned granddaughter, who had no one to rely on, the Empress Dowager issued a gracious decree, bringing them into the palace so she could care for them nearby and enjoy the company of family.

Shen Qingyi had never liked going to the palace. Prince Ding was frail and often needed her to attend palace banquets alone. Back then, the man was still Crown Prince, and she could always sense his gaze burning unusually intensely whenever he looked at her.

A sudden illness took Prince Ding's life. After his death, the man's gaze upon her grew ever more brazen.

Deep within the palace, Shen Qingyi kept to her station, wearing plain clothes and simple ornaments, asking only to live in peace and raise her daughter. Everyone praised the Empress Dowager's kindness and the new emperor's benevolence, yet a thread of unease always lingered in her heart.

That new emperor always seemed to appear along the palace paths she took. At banquets, his unmasked, heated gaze would pass over everyone and settle on her. When night deepened and dew grew heavy, she could even sense a second, scorching breath beside her in the bedchamber.

*

Using her daughter's approaching adulthood as a reason, and saying it was no longer suitable for them to remain in the palace, Shen Qingyi intended to ask the Empress Dowager to issue a decree allowing her to leave. But the man blocked the decree. Late at night, the new emperor entered her bedchamber without restraint, his pupils dark as he said, "Sister-in-law, where do you want to go? When my elder brother was alive, even looking at you for a moment was presumptuous of me, a sin."

"But now that you've entered the palace, Sister-in-law, there's no reason for you to leave again."

His manner was domineering and left no room for argument. Shen Qingyi was powerless to resist. But gradually, rumors spread through the palace that the young princess's features were beginning to look remarkably like His Majesty's.

Terrified and shaken, Shen Qingyi knelt before the late emperor's spirit tablet and begged forgiveness, her body trembling uncontrollably. Chu Xuanye forcefully pried open her tightly clenched hand, his fingertips scorching. "What are you afraid of, Sister-in-law? I can give you far more than the empty title of Princess Consort Ding."

He began openly displaying his love and possessiveness toward her in front of others, neglecting his harem and waiting only for her to willingly become his empress. He even shamelessly coaxed the little princess, who could barely speak, into calling him "Father."

The court was in an uproar, and impeaching memorials poured in like snowflakes. The Empress Dowager also rebuked the emperor for defying the moral order by coveting his own elder brother's wife.

*

In a secluded inner hall, Chu Xuanye held Shen Qingyi by the waist, domineering and obsessive, but his voice carried a faint, almost imperceptible plea. "My elder brother is gone. Look at me, won't you?"

Shen Qingyi stared blankly at his handsome, wild, and unrestrained features, at the plea in his eyes. In the end, her heart softened.

But he did not know that she had a secret she had never told anyone.

[Reading Guide]

1. The heroine is not a virgin, the hero is a virgin + one-on-one romance + happy ending

3. Sister-in-law romance, melodrama warning

The blurb was screenshotted and archived on 2025/11/15.

Theme: The one who lives closest gets the moon first; he's her pavilion, and she's his moon