Alas, My Consort Is Too Alluring

Meng Huan Zhen was born with jade-white skin and a delicate, beautiful face, a peerless beauty in all the world. She entered the palace one day, yet never had the chance to meet the emperor.

A year later, she finally saw him for the first time and mistook him for a lecher.

Terrified, she kicked him squarely in the groin and warned him fiercely: "If I see you again, I'll beat you again!"

The second time they met

He gritted his teeth and approached her. "Woman, do you know that I am the emperor?"

She burst out laughing. "You're the emperor? Then I'm one of the emperor's consorts!"

And so, the next day, Meng Huan Zhen, an invisible nobody in the imperial harem, finally spent the night with the emperor!

On the night she was to attend him, her feelings were complicated, and she was thrilled. With a peach-blossom flush on her face and eyes glistening like autumn waters, she looked up, only to widen her eyes the instant she saw the emperor!

At first

The emperor: "You don't recognize me? Is this some new trick to compete for my favor? I'll see when you finally show your fox's tail!"

Later

The emperor looked at the woman he had personally raised to the empress's throne, whose dazzling beauty outshone all the women in the six palaces, and declared: "I can't get enough!"

Coming soon: "Close Enough to Brush Ears and Temples"

A man named Lu Yan came to live with Shen Xinghe. He was supposedly a cousin from a very, very distant branch of the family.

He was handsome, with long, slanting brows and bright eyes, a straight nose and thin lips, and a tall, lean build.

Whenever Shen Xinghe spoke to him, he never dared look him in the eyes.

One day, while Shen Xinghe was taking a bath, Lu Yan suddenly walked in.

He moved close to Shen Xinghe and held his slender waist with both hands.

"Have you ever had a girlfriend?"

"N-no..."

"What about a boyfriend?"

"!!" Shen Xinghe's face turned red as he stammered, "N-neither."

"What about me?" Lu Yan leaned close and whispered beside his ear, "Want to give it a try with me?"

Coming soon: "Marrying the Frail, Disgraced Crown Prince"

Liu Yingying was once the treasured pearl of the Marquis of Yan's household, as well as the most famous beauty under heaven, with a slender waist and graceful, delicate bearing.

Then one day, a political coup sent her tumbling from the clouds into the dirt. Everyone wanted to lay hands on this lovely flower who had once seemed beyond their reach.

To protect herself, she accepted the empress's demand and married the former crown prince. It was a marriage in name, but in truth, she was there to keep watch on him.

Liang Yi, the disgraced crown prince, had once been Heaven's favored son, hailed as the next generation's ideal ruler.

Unfortunately, after a sudden change in the court, the favored son fell ill with madness and became someone everyone despised and avoided.

Everyone kept their distance from him. But then one day, he opened the door to find a delicate beauty, graceful as a flower untouched by the world, standing before him. She smiled gently and said, "Your Highness, from now on, I am your wife."

From that moment on, he knew he had fallen.

"Why did you marry me?"

Liang Yi could never believe anyone would willingly jump into his pit of fire. He was more suspicious than smitten. Yet the lovely young woman before him treated him with all her heart and always met his gaze, earnest and resolute. "Because I want to survive."

So he took her hand, gentle and adoring. "All right. We'll do it together."

Later, he wielded his sword through blood and slaughter, trampling over bones and conquering the imperial court, all so he could make her the one and only woman under heaven.

Theme: What I gain is my good fortune; what I lose is fate!