The Cruel, Tyrannical Emperor's Sultry Woman

[Moody Tyrant x Sobbing, Competitive Little Drama Queen]

The tyrant Yin Ji, sitting high on his throne with his chin propped on his hand, has grown bored of playing the same old games. Born to rule, he is a master of schemes and manipulation.

He builds a magnificent “Hall of Kings” and has gold and silver forged into “King's Robes.”

He has lips red as a demon's, striking good looks, a powerful and muscular physique, and an imposing, fearsome presence.

All his life, he has levied excessive taxes and waged wars at will. Sensitive, suspicious, domineering, cruel, and used to being the only one who matters, he spends every day in a state of alarm, terrified of dying.

Even when a mosquito flies past him, he wonders if someone has raised it as a venomous bug to take his life.

The tyrant is a fanatical warmonger, obsessed with fighting. While leading his troops against the barbarians, he is struck by a rebel's arrow and tumbles off a cliff.

So ends, by accident, a life full of evil...

*

He opens his eyes again.

A delicate, willowy woman has picked him up by a stream and taken him home to be... to be her live-in son-in-law!

The woman is shamelessly forward, forcing him to sign a contract and call her “wife.”

Country women are sly, crude, and greedy.

The village is full of beautiful women chattering and competing with each other. They compare husbands who wash up and cook, wives who pass the scholar examinations, plow two mu of land, and even embroider pearl blossoms on their wi... their wives' soft waistbands.

After losing in every category,

the woman comes home with a sour face and makes a scene for no reason.

How dare she!

The tyrant scowls and scathingly berates her.

The gentle woman turns red-eyed and deathly pale, looking so frail she might faint.

She clings to his waist and sobs pitifully, then, still crying and with tears like pear blossoms in the rain, reaches around to grab his neck and lands a flurry of soft punches on him, ~~

With a bruised nose, a deep-purple eye, bleeding lips, a leg beaten lame, and a dislocated arm,

the tyrant, barely drawing breath, grabs the woman's little fist.

Draped in his torn, bloodstained robe, the tyrant's eyes turn blood red as he looks ready to devour her. He forces a twisted smile through gritted teeth. “Don't worry, my lady. Your husband is much more... capable than they are.”

“I'll make you proud!” You competitive little demon! Sooner or later, I'll chop off your head and offer it as a sacrifice to the gods!

For the sake of women's baffling competitive streak, the tyrant, face black with fury, is forced to cook, plow fields, sit the imperial examinations, and embroider pearl blossoms on her wai... her robe.

On a dark, windy night, the tyrant clenches his fists. In his dark, twisted mind, he has already figured out how to build a golden cage and torment her until she wishes she were dead.

*

[Golden Cage: A Little Scene]

Yin Ji locks the dungeon door once more.

He sees the woman leaning against it, looking aggrieved. “Your Majesty, the dungeon is cold and damp. Could you give me a quilt of silk velvet? I've been a delicate eater since childhood and can't just eat anything, but I could probably manage half a bowl of Luoyang's ‘Ten Taels of Gold’ rice.”

Then,

she hurriedly grabs his royal robe, looking worried. “Your Majesty, when I do my hair and burn incense each day, will there be a maid attending me?”

Doing her hair and burning incense? She really has some nerve.

Yin Ji scoffs, taps the bars, and rebukes her. “Behave yourself.”

*

Later, in the dungeon room where the woman lives,

there is an ornately carved canopy bed against the wall, with beaded curtains and gauzy drapes hanging above it. Her dressing table is covered in jewelry, and, worried she might catch a chill, he has even found a Persian rug to cover the floor.

Even the bathwater she uses for her daily bath and incense ritual

is carried in by Yin Ji himself.

Underling A, carrying the outrageously expensive food in his hands, can't help thinking,

“What did this ancestor come here for?”

Underling B is just as confused. “Maybe... to be punished?”

*

Upcoming historical romance novels:

2. After Becoming the Tyrant's Beloved Mistress and Slave

3. My Dearest Was Won Back Through My Own Efforts

4. The Cruel Hegemon King Zhou and His Delicate Flower

Note from 2020.8.31: The blurb has been screenshotted and saved~

Theme: I will reach for the light and become a ray of light in the darkness.