The Scheming Beauty (Reborn)

[The First Hairpin of Jinling is now updating, a delicious wife-chasing hellscape]

Yan Youning has been reborn in the year she comes of age.

She's still the fake concubine-born daughter, really the true heiress, raised at a horse ranch.

She still hasn't taken her younger sister's place and married the useless Prince of Dongzi, who will be installed as a puppet emperor.

And Huo Xizhou, once a stable slave, hasn't yet donned the imperial yellow robes and become the powerful Prince Changyuan, whose marriage to the deposed empress was demanded by the court officials, only for him to die in her bed.

Nobody knows yet that the filthy boy holed up in the stable will one day become Prince Changyuan, the powerful regent, and the man she searched for desperately for ten years before being reborn.

Wait... Did she just give the order to castrate the man she loves today?

"Waaah, for the sake of our happiness in the years to come, Xiaozhouzhou, I'm coming to save you!"

*

After being reborn, Yan Youning not only has to reclaim her identity and the affection that belongs to her, she also schemes every day to get closer to her own stable slave.

"He got hurt because of me today. Sob, my heart aches. I need to put medicine on his wound."

"I hinted at my feelings today, but that stupid mute still won't say he loves me back..."

"The Princess of Lin's household looked at him for a moment too long today. Hmph, what's so good about that stupid mute anyway!"

At last, one day, the man is teased past his limit. He pins her against the wall, his expression dark. Waaah, the stable slave's eyes are so scary!

"Will you castrate me, or kill me?"

Huo Xizhou's voice is husky as he lowers his head and silences her incessantly babbling, rosy, full lips with a kiss.

One day, the scumbag father and mother of the Duke of Xia's household discover that the warlord who has brought an army of a hundred thousand to the capital to be invested as Prince Changyuan is the very stable slave they once schemed to get rid of.

Yan Sheng and Madam Lu: Sorry, I'm feeling dizzy...

A few days later, Madam Lu sees that the Prince Changyuan who has made all the lands tremble is holding the biological daughter she only recently got back, and for whom she feels little affection, in his arms, gently coaxing her: "Don't like them, my princess consort? I'll take care of them."

Reading Guide:

1. Taciturn, devoted-to-his-wife Grand Marshal x scheming beauty, true heiress

2. The protagonists are both flawed. If you don't like that, don't take it out on the author.

3. They redeem each other. The male lead starts as a stable slave and will become emperor later.

Preview for The First Hairpin of Jinling:

The Crown Princess Ji Yan is a laughingstock. A year into her marriage, she has neither favor nor affection. The Crown Prince would rather sleep in his study than in her room.

Ji Yan thinks the Crown Prince doesn't like her, so she does everything she can to flatter him and win him over, taking care of everything for him with meticulous attention.

Then one day, quite by chance, she has a long dream.

In the dream, the Crown Prince will soon bring back a woman he loves dearly from the borderlands.

The beloved has glossy black hair and a slender waist, her waist small enough to fit in one's hands.

Day after day, they put on a show of marital bliss right in front of Ji Yan. In less than a year, the beloved becomes a secondary consort, and later is made Imperial Noble Consort, effectively stripping the empress's palace of its power.

Ji Yan becomes a bridge for others to cross a river, a ladder for them to climb a wall, the wife whose husband dotes on his concubine and neglects her. On a snowy night, she is pushed into an icy lake and drowns...

When Ji Yan wakes from the dream, she understands at last, and divorces him.

*

Wang Xiuge never expected that woman would really slap a divorce agreement down in front of him.

Hah, women are nothing but toys for me. She'll come crawling back to me sooner or later. If she wants a divorce, fine.

But why, after that quiet, refined, barely noticeable Crown Princess leaves, does every flower, blade of grass, stone, and tree in the Eastern Palace suddenly remind him of her?

She can play polo and compose music. She has a keen eye for talent and helps her father and brothers make their business thrive.

After the divorce, she becomes the most dazzling flower among Jinling's beauties.

The heir of the Xiao family starts pining for her, the new top scorer in the imperial examinations falls at her feet, and even the emperor's uncle... actually takes a liking to her.

Her ex-husband, Wang Xiuge, can't sit still anymore.

He corners her, eyes red. "A Yan, do I still have a chance?"

Ji Yan cuts off the sleeve he has grabbed with a dagger. "Your Highness, please behave with dignity."

A wife-chasing hellscape, difficulty: infernal.

The woman suffers first, then the man.

Premise: Redeeming each other in the depths of despair, shining together at the heights of success, staying by one another's side and overcoming every obstacle.