Surrounded by a Harem of Men

For the first five years of her life, Qin Yun was brilliant and exceptionally gifted. While studying under the Grand Tutor, she sometimes spoke with more insight than the Crown Prince. When the Emperor heard of it, he was displeased. He repeatedly scolded her in private, saying that as a mere woman she ought to know her place and follow the rules, and that women should live their lives by convention. From then on, Qin Yun restrained herself and stopped speaking offhandedly. In the eyes of others, she gradually became ordinary, even somewhat timid.

Yet she was born with such dazzling, alluring beauty, a kind of charm unlike the usual sweetness of noble young ladies. Even those who saw her for the first time thought her seductive and improper. Cui Ji, who was renowned in the capital as one of its two great beauties, had also fallen victim to one of her schemes and lost his voice to an illness. He, too, believed she must have come to the Cui household with ill intentions.

But as for the scheme that year, Qin Yun had merely seen someone by the waterside pavilion at Taiye Lake who looked remarkably like him. Like her, that person concealed his brilliance and possessed exceptional cunning. Though Qin Yun felt a deep kinship with him, she had no intention of making a pact with a tiger. They went their separate ways, and she became the princess everyone expected her to be.

At the time, she was engaged to a notorious young nobleman from the capital and was also sounding out the Crown Prince’s prospects. She thought she could find another opportunity to explain the misunderstanding to Cui Ji. Besides, Cui Ji was in love with her ninth younger sister. She believed that if she could secure the marriage between Cui Ji and her sister, he would see her as more innocent, and at least resent her less...

But just as everything seemed to be moving in the right direction, someone suddenly told her that her ninth younger sister had broken off the engagement. She had also learned of Qin Yun’s plans with that man. She had witnessed what had happened to Cui Ji and confronted Qin Yun, accusing her and demanding to know whether she could sleep at night after watching Cui Ji struggle in the freezing pool.

That was when Qin Yun’s heart died completely.

To keep the truth from spreading further, and before the Emperor’s old prejudice and her own grievances could drive her mad, she decided she could endure no more. Without another word, she turned and boarded the very ship she had previously been unwilling to board...

A heroine who grows through restraint and transforms VS a wily, scheming fox of a strategist

Theme: Never give up