The Ambitious Empress and Her Beautiful Good-for-Nothing

Emotionless, love-shunning tyrant queen × cold-blooded, world-weary beautiful boy (older woman/younger man)

[Better to spill blood together in spring than to cling to each other through hardship]

*

Bai Zhenyue, the tyrant feared throughout the ages, takes life and death in stride and goes all-in on whatever she does. At the slightest disagreement, she has heads rolling, striking terror into the whole world.

Everyone thinks there is something wrong with her head. The common folk want to mete out justice on Heaven's behalf, the court officials want to protect the realm, and the imperial clan wants to take her place... Each has their own tricks, but somehow, no one can figure out what sin they committed to end up with a madwoman who simply cannot be killed.

In the end, they all lower their banners and resign themselves to serving the crazy empress.

Though serving the ruler is like serving a tiger, the empress's throne still draws countless noblemen. The refined gentleman of a corrupt age, the wondrous immortal seeking the Way, the fiery young general in red... They fight to the death, only for a fake eunuch to steal the prize.

No one knows where this thing came from. No pedigree, no strength, and as for looks... Well, he is indeed so beautiful he could put the moon to shame and captivate the whole kingdom.

The useless beauty is favored exclusively for months, and the court and harem are thrown into chaos.

"So this is Her Majesty's type!"

The remarkably resilient officials learn from their mistakes, promptly change course, and begin a new attempt...

*

Lan Feng, a famous idol, was born beautiful and possessed extraordinary charm. At the height of his fame, he once drew such crowds that the streets emptied.

One day, after practicing dance all night, he fell from the dance studio and landed in the private residence of the chief eunuch of the imperial court, a thousand years in the past.

Eunuch Lian looked him over and decided he was not much use. But with such an exceptionally handsome face, he shut his eyes, gritted his teeth, cleaned Lan Feng up, and sent him to the emperor that very day.

Lan Feng spent several days in the palace without catching sight of the emperor. With nothing better to do, he held a cup of tea no one would drink, while eunuchs and maids spied on him day after day. He began to think that the tyrant feared throughout the ages was nothing special. If she could not even manage her own palace, what business did she have ruling the people?

He was in the middle of grumbling to himself when he heard that Eunuch Lian had sent someone to fetch him. His Majesty wanted tea.

For the sake of his life and livelihood, Lan Feng brought out the highest standards of professionalism as he served tea to the emperor. Just as he reached her, curiosity got the better of him, and he stole the faintest glance upward. The ruler of all beneath Heaven was magnificently handsome, radiant beyond measure.

Bright as the blazing sun, pure as the silver moon, like someone from a dream.

In the years that followed came separation and death, love and hatred.

Mountains, rivers, and streams were all passing scenery. Right and wrong, love and hate, were beyond their control.

Female lead:

Though her life's goal is to fight the gods and her pursuit is to embrace death through life, Bai Zhenyue does not think she is insane. After all, she learned a secret when she was very young: gods truly do control the fates of mortals from the heavens above.

In truth, all the emperors of the Bai clan knew this secret. They held power over the world, yet squandered their lives in drunken pleasure, calling their refusal to resist a mandate from Heaven.

Proud and arrogant as Bai Zhenyue is, she finds this dull and disgusting. So she kills the crown prince, changes state policy, and ascends the throne as a princess, dragging the whole world onto her war chariot. She disregards the dreams of those who only want to live in peace, and in the name of the sovereign, commands the world to fight the gods. She will not hesitate, even if rivers of blood must flow.

Now and then, her conscience stirs, and she lazily repents to the air:

"My adorable subjects, please forgive yourselves for being born in My dynasty."

*

Male lead:

Lan Feng is a beauty with a sweet, manipulative front. He is also a transmigrator and a traitor.

The world he transmigrated into is a feudal dynasty ruled by gods.

Calling them gods is a bit misleading. They are more like contaminants: invisible, unknowable, and liable to kill you in bizarre ways if you get too close.

The seal on the gods defeated ten thousand years ago is beginning to weaken. Emperor Shengyuan and the people of the world stand ready on the Mother God's leaky ship.

The victors, intent on the empress's tastes, plucked Lan Feng from a thousand years in the future and ordered him to seduce her.

But Lan Feng has little interest in that. In his eyes, every life and soul under Heaven is wretched and rotten. If he could have Shengyuan by his side, being alive might not be so disgusting.

Lan Feng pretends to be obedient, pretends to be useless, and pretends to be lovesick, yet the emperor continues to treat him like a toy. If that's the way it is, then let them become true enemies. Drawing on the power of the gods, he rises in rebellion and stands against her.

Facing the furious emperor, the beauty smiles:

"If all my acting still can't make you truly love me, then of course I'll betray you. If we can't love and stay together, then dying together is the only way forward."

*

Female lead and male lead are exclusive to each other.

---- Upcoming Cthulhu fantasy, Qin-era transmigration novel: [Hidden Beneath the Skin] ----

A seemingly dependable, inwardly ruthless and unhinged college girl vs. a poised, accomplished young nobleman, gentle as water and secretly cunning

Blurb:

Nan Shanyue has been arrogant since childhood. She never cared what others thought or how they judged her, and she would never change herself because of it. Not even when the skill she was best at, and loved most, was declared "dead" in the twenty-first century.

Her skill had almost no commercial value. One shadow-puppet performer after another went from high hopes to disappointment and left the stage, until only Nan Shanyue and the theater owner remained.

On the day Nan Shanyue graduated from university, the theater owner died. She was all alone.

A twenty-three-year-old woman, graduated with a degree in Chinese Language and Literature, with no work experience beyond performing shadow puppetry of uncertain lineage at a small private theater in town. No connections, almost no savings.

She left school, dragged her luggage to a shop, bought a case of beer on credit, and drank alone in the dilapidated theater until late at night. When she opened her eyes again, she had already decided what to do next.

She kicked open the decrepit door. Yellow earth filled the sky, and white bones littered the ground.

Great. She had transmigrated, for crying out loud.

Because she could not understand the language, Nan Shanyue had to work hard to figure out that she had transmigrated to the Qin Dynasty. In a place where you needed travel documents just to walk a few steps, she became an unregistered person.

She had no time to grieve. She began a life on the run, hiding here and there. One day, while evading her "neighbors," she thought of a question: As a modern person who had lived through countless viruses, why had she not brought any epidemics to this era?

The moment the question arose, it was as if some vital channels had opened, and everything suddenly made sense.

From then on, tentacles that grew toward the sun, monsters who acted like dogs by day and people by night, and villages where the inhabitants merged with the soldiers... all took the stage.

Nan Shanyue: Σ( ° △ °|||)︴What on earth have I transmigrated into? Is this really the Qin Dynasty?!

Even stranger, she had the faint feeling that the shadow puppet in her hand was breathing.

One day, Nan Shanyue crouched in a hole she had dug herself, practicing shadow puppetry by moonlight. She thought she saw the reflected shadow open its eyes. Her hand shook, and she tore off the shadow-puppet beauty's long leg.

She heard it give a soft hiss, its voice ethereal and sweet: "Oh dear, how careless of me."

"Be a little kinder to the only thing you can rely on *^_^*, Master."

*

Young Master Fusu was clever from childhood, respected and loved his imperial father, and treated worthy men with respect. As he approached adulthood, he excelled in both civil and military affairs, earning the praise of the entire court.

Of course, a prince raised in the palace was no fool. Whether the praise was sincere or meant to curry favor with his imperial father, it did not mean they truly cared about him.

There was nothing wrong with that. Seeking advantages and avoiding harm was human nature, and saying one thing while meaning another was common in the world.

As the eldest prince, Fusu did not hold others to impossible standards, nor did he fear a challenging future. To him, he could meet soldiers with soldiers and water with earth. Everything was as ordinary and smooth as flowing clouds and running water.

Until he met a madwoman.

Strong, beautiful, striding with a breeze in her step and speaking in nonsensical riddles. Worst of all, from the moment she appeared, everything ordinary in the world seemed to shed its mask and reveal itself as a monster. Demons and spirits swarmed all around him, and not one of them looked familiar anymore.

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An unconventional Qin-era transmigration story

A parallel universe with cosmic horror

A mountain of original worldbuilding

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This story is fictional. Please do not conflate it with reality.

Theme: Become your own salvation and your own light, then meet me at the summit.