By the time Lan Ci transmigrates to the state of Qian, it is already too late.
Wearing a red bridal veil, he sits in a pepper-scented chamber strewn with nuts. Heavy gold ornaments are tangled densely in his hair, weighing painfully on his scalp.
The protagonists of this tragic romance have already reached their happy ending.
The heroine, a daughter born outside marriage and kept in a country house by a cold-hearted prime minister, endures endless hardships and humiliation, caught in a tangle of love and hate, until the prime minister finally goes mad for her.
The hero topples his own in-laws' political allies and drives his legitimate wife to her death. In the end, defying social rank and public opinion, he formally marries the heroine in a grand wedding.
At the end of the story, the heroine gives birth to a daughter. The hero cherishes her like a precious jewel and names her Lanzhu. The three of them live happily together from then on.
As for Lan Ci... he is Lanzhu's older brother, the son left behind by the hero's deceased wife.
He is only two years older than his half-sister, but he is treated far worse. The prime minister dumps him at a country house in the care of a wet nurse, then forgets all about his son.
More than ten years after the story's happy ending, the young tyrant of Qian, whose debauchery and cruelty know no bounds, finally gives in to his ministers' repeated petitions and decides to take a wife.
The empress of Qian, the mother of the nation, must come from a respectable family.
So the tyrant lounges halfway across his throne and lets out a sinister laugh. Pulling a bloodied peach blossom branch from his sleeve, he smacks it against the prime minister's black official hat.
Lou Tingxue, the ruler of Qian, has personally chosen to marry a daughter of the Lan family.
When word gets out of the palace, the cherished Lanzhu would rather die than comply. That very night, she elopes out of the city with a young Daoist priest.
Lan Ci, forgotten by the hero and heroine in the country house, suddenly becomes the Lan family's only lifeline.
Forced to don a phoenix crown and bridal robes, he has his face plucked and his hair styled in the middle of the night, then applies bright red lipstick... disguises himself as a woman and marries the tyrant.
*
On the wedding night.
Lan Ci feels utterly numb. He struggles out of his golden hairpins and wedding robes, then sprawls across the dragon bed without a shred of decorum.
He can't be bothered to fight his fate and decides to let things take their course, only to accidentally discover the tyrant's secret.
What a joke. The man is impotent.
Reader's Guide
1. Desperate, straight Empress gong x cold-blooded, twisted Tyrant shou
2. The tyrant really is impotent, though that may change later
3. Both are sexually inexperienced, 1v1, happy ending
Theme: Everything has two sides
Crawling Miserably Through Your Sea of Love
The Most Terrifying Man Is Pursuing Me
What Are We to Each Other Now?
A Demon King's Daily Life in Another World
Superpower Academy
Bound to a Simp System [Quick Transmigration]
It's So Hard to Pretend to Be Human
After Becoming a Eunuch
A Guide to Escaping the Scummy Bottom and Saving Yourself [Book Transmigration]
The Tribulation Survivor's Easy Life in Another World [Book Transmigration]
A Male Insect from a Matriarchal World [Insectoid]
The Whole World Thinks I’m the Bottom [Quick Transmigration]