Lie-flat slacker homebody mastermind heroine ✖️ overachieving, invincible crown prince hero (tea-serving edition)
Burned-out office worker Ye Yanze transmigrates into the orphaned daughter of a family of loyal military heroes. Delicate and frail, she is practically Lin Daiyu. The emperor may be a tyrant, but he still has to put on a show. To proclaim his benevolence to the realm, he graciously allows her to choose one of his sons as her husband.
The moment she opens her eyes, she is about to hand over the jade ruyi in her hand. Looking at the handsome man before her, whose face is full of impatience, Ye Yanze bursts into tears.
A blind marriage arranged without the couple meeting is a terrible idea! The weather is lovely today. Why don't we become sworn siblings instead?
Later, a woman joins the Eastern Palace, and Crown Prince Chu Chengtian gains a sworn younger sister.
Ye Yanze, softened into something deliciously pliant by years of workplace abuse, lies very comfortably amid the imperial family's riches.
Although she lives in the palace every day, Chu Chengtian rarely comes back, and the two see each other only a handful of times. That doesn't stop her from hearing all the rumors about the crown prince every day.
In short, he's a literary and, ahem, military all-rounder, peerless in both talent and looks, a bona fide ancient-world version of an overpowered hero!
But no matter which way the wind blows, Ye Yanze only wants to quietly enjoy her life as a parasite. Yet because she's his sworn younger sister, she is always there to watch the crown prince's greatest moments unfold.
In the Imperial Study, the Grand Tutor praises the crown prince's casual essay for its incisive analysis, as sharp as a knife carving into bone.
She sprawls over her desk, fast asleep, drool soaking her sleeves.
At the Qing Palace banquet, the emperor praises the crown prince for routing an enemy nation that had resisted for years, on his very first military campaign.
She takes a sip of the fermented mare's milk brought back from the frontier and nearly throws up her innards.
At the flower-viewing banquet, the capital's most talented young woman clings to the crown prince and showers him with declarations of love.
A bee in the flowers stings Ye Yanze right on the forehead, leaving a huge lump. She clutches her head and howls.
Ye Yanze had thought she could lie flat for the rest of her life. Then everything suddenly changed: Chu Chengtian was stripped of his position as crown prince and confined to the Eastern Palace, and her status as his honorary sworn sister plummeted along with his.
But this is no challenge for Ye Yanze, a seasoned homebody. There's a way to lie flat when you're rich, and a way to lie flat when you're poor.
The only problem is that every servant in the Eastern Palace has been dismissed. Ye Yanze, who has grown used to doing nothing, can't adapt, so she turns her gaze toward the only two living creatures left in the palace.
Ye Yanze: Big bro, I'm hungry.
Chu Chengtian: ? What did you call me?
Ye Yanze: Big bro. Don't you like that? Fine, I'll call you elder brother. I'm starving to death, elder brother~
Chu Chengtian: Don't you have hands of your own?
After years of navigating the workplace, Ye Yanze knows all about managing upward. With a few grand promises, she successfully empowers the former crown prince.
Now she can lie flat even more comfortably.
Chu Chengtian was an overlooked prince whose birth mother died early. He should have been left to fend for himself in the Cold Palace, but at the age of eight, he unexpectedly became bound to an enthronement System. Every time someone praised him, his personal strength increased. If he could earn the approval of everyone close to him before turning twenty, he would ascend the throne without a hitch.
His plans went smoothly for over a decade. Though he unexpectedly gained a lazy, gluttonous sworn younger sister, it was no great obstacle. Just as the throne seemed within his grasp, everything suddenly changed on the day he came of age.
[System: Mission progress at 99%. Host's sworn younger sister, Ye Yanze, has a low approval rating of you. Mission failed!]
He fell from the heights in a single day. The splendor of the past vanished like smoke, and his smiling face became that of a judge of the underworld.
Chu Chengtian's voice was icy as he pressed his forehead against the cold golden bricks of the grand hall.
