Master, Save Me!

[The story is complete. Aside from the place names and some government offices, which are based on the Tang dynasty, everything else is fictional.]

Ruyuan hates Dugu Mingyi. He holds all the power in the regency, and people in the capital tremble at the mention of him. But her father thinks he'd make a suitable match and keeps trying to marry her off to the Prince Regent.

Ruyuan likes Xuanming, the Daoist priest who always comes up with a plan to save her life. All she wants is to win the priest's heart. Whenever she has nothing better to do, she pokes at him, and he acts aloof as he calls her "mischievous," only to blush at the tips of his ears when he turns away.

So Ruyuan often badmouths the Prince Regent in front of Xuanming, and after a long time, she finally persuaded the statue-like priest and tricked him into agreeing to save her life at the cost of his own.

Ruyuan suddenly found that Dugu Mingyi wasn't so annoying after all.

Satisfied, she kept up her act, eyes red as she played the victim. "Please save me one more time, Daoist priest. The wedding invitation should bear your secular name. What is it?"

Under her intensely expectant gaze, the man she loved wiped away her tears and answered solemnly, eyes lowered: "Dugu Mingyi."

Ruyuan: "..."

Ruyuan: "...Damn."

An alternate-history, lighthearted, sweet 1v1 romance. Bring an actor to justice and have some fun (...)

A gentle, reserved Daoist priest who's pretending to be an aloof beauty × an optimistic, cheerful, energetic girl with outstanding acting skills

[Take a look at the upcoming novel, After Catching the Substitute ↓↓↓↓↓]

Shen Jingying's life was all planned out.

Born into a prestigious family as its legitimate daughter, she'd known the Prince of Chu in the past. Now she worked as his strategist, waiting for his plans to succeed so she could bow and pledge herself to him with gentle submissiveness, securing a lifetime of wealth and protection.

Everything went off course at the Anxi Protectorate. Shen Jingying went there on the Prince of Chu's behalf to find a substitute, but instead she met Poli, who was nothing like the dignified, proper people she'd known for the first seventeen years of her life.

The young man was carefree, passionate, bold, and spontaneous. He took her to see the desert winds and the full moon in the vast sky. When the mood struck, he would sit on a sand dune with a musical instrument from the west and play and sing for her. He also told her that she didn't have to be bound by her noble family, and that she had countless choices.

Once, beneath the moon, he gently pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes reflecting only her. "I don't see the Prince of Chu's strategist. I only see you, Shen Jingying."

So Shen Jingying began planning how to run away with Poli once everything was settled.

But she never imagined that, when the mists of the past were swept away, this lowly substitute would turn out to be a noble with imperial blood, a lost jewel of the royal family. And the choice Poli eventually offered her would leave her torn.

He pointed toward the Prince of Chu, whose face was identical to his, and asked:

"Will you choose him, or me?"

1v1, with a little bit of a love rivalry later on. Alternate history, written for fun and personal taste, with no political scheming.

A carefree, passionate, devoted desert rose × a cool, reserved, tough-minded woman

Theme: Wherever you are, stay positive and love life, and you can build a beautiful future