The Empress's Alluring Scent

My new novel, Reborn: The Bright Moon in My Arms, is currently updating. My upcoming Tang-style historical romance, The Traitor's Wife, is also open for preorders. Please see the notes at the end for content warnings, and I recommend reading them. A Sheng had known since childhood that one day, the daughters of the Su family would enter the palace. Her eldest paternal aunt had been the late emperor's consort, her half-sister was the most favored concubine in the Eastern Palace, and A Sheng herself was destined to become the crown princess. But the crown prince rebelled during his eldest son's first-birthday banquet and was imprisoned. All the noblewomen and young ladies in the hall were confined by the emperor, and the entire Su clan was exiled. Only Su Sheng escaped punishment. Instead, the emperor kept her at Qianniu Palace and treated her well. The Son of Heaven imprisoned his beauty in a gilded cage. Su Sheng wore plain clothes and little makeup each day, then cut off a lock of hair and offered it to him, asking to become a nun and pray for his blessings, in exchange for mercy toward the Su family. But after seven days, she still had not received an imperial decree granting her permission to leave the world. Instead, the tipsy emperor arrived, still holding the lock of hair she had cut off. "What the crown prince can give you, I can give you too." The male lead's perspective: After the full-month celebration for the Eastern Palace's eldest son, the emperor happened upon the banks of Taiye Pond and paused to admire the peonies in full bloom. Then, beyond the flowers, he spotted a beauty sleeping in a drunken stupor. Her shawl slipped to the ground. All the gorgeous blooms in the garden paled beside her graceful, alluring bearing and fragrant, jade-like beauty. She raised her lovely face slightly, her eyes hazy with drink. Mistaking the man in white robes and a jade belt for someone else, she smiled at him. "My lord, come here." As if possessed, he took a step forward. One step wrong, and every step after it was wrong. He schemed and plotted at every turn, wanting only to keep her by his side openly and honorably, to share a lifetime of tenderness. A little scene The ruler, high above the world, gently wiped away the tears rolling down his beauty's cheeks. His voice was detached. "A Sheng, are you afraid of me?" The woman bit her lower lip, seemingly overcome with shame, but her fingers hooked around the jade belt at the emperor's waist. "Your Majesty, as a member of a rebel faction, I don't know what I must do to earn your forgiveness." He leaned close and whispered, already certain of his victory. "A Sheng, you're not the one begging me. I'm the one who wants to beg you." He wanted her to willingly shed her disguise and become the happiest, most carefree woman by his side. The Traitor's Wife When Jiang Lanwu was fifteen, a new emperor ascended the throne and granted a group of palace servants their freedom. She bribed the director of the palace women's quarters and was able to leave the palace and marry her cousin. Her husband was an upright, refined gentleman. Their marriage was harmonious, and they treated each other with mutual respect. Then a cheating scandal in the imperial examinations left her husband falsely accused and imprisoned. A Wu ran everywhere seeking help, but no one would hear her. She could only watch as her husband was exiled a thousand miles away and her uncles drove her from their home. Just when she was at her wits' end, a nobleman passing by took her and her mother-in-law in. In return, she would have to serve another nobleman. Her benefactor said that if she served this nobleman well, her husband might still have a chance to live. The emperor had countless women. When her husband returned in the next amnesty, she could still be Madam Jiang. In the palace's temporary residence, in the middle of the night, the beauty emerged from her bath wearing only a thin veil, her loose hair draped over her naked body. She presented the emperor with the appeal her husband had written in his own blood. But the emperor did not hurry to read the letter. Instead, he gently parted the wet hair clinging to her body, strand by strand, revealing her breathtaking beauty. "I've long heard that your beauty is unmatched in all the world. Now that I've seen you, I find the rumors were true." She couldn't remember when she had attracted the most powerful man in the world, but the emperor had never forgotten her. A Lovely Beauty (Reborn) [Fourteen-year age gap, semi-fictional setting, slight age-raising romance] A gentle emperor and a spoiled, clingy, arrogant, petite beauty Yun Ying was a famous beauty at the Directorate of Music. At the Thousand Autumns Palace Banquet, her exquisite palm dance stunned everyone, and the empress's elder brother became so smitten he could neither eat nor sleep. He insisted on bringing her into his household as a favored concubine. Every woman in the troupe envied her, but Yun Ying was terrified. In her previous life, the man who demanded her had given her fine clothes and good food, but he was extremely violent in bed and took particular pleasure in mistreating delicate beauties like her. After much thought, Yun Ying decided to disfigure herself in front of the empress to prove her resolve. She would rather become a nun than leave the palace. She had been laying the groundwork in the Jiaofang Palace for a long time, and was just about to pull the silver hairpin from her sleeve when she suddenly heard a chorus of voices outside, shouting, "Long live the emperor!" The emperor had taken a fancy to a beauty at the Thousand Autumns Festival, a woman with a slender figure and natural allure. But early the next morning, an attendant reported that the empress had already given her to the emperor's brother-in-law. Now that she thought of it, the woman didn't seem willing, did she? The story only becomes one-on-one later on. Content warnings: 1. The male and female leads are physically and emotionally exclusive to each other. The crown prince is the son of the late Emperor Yingzong and the emperor's stepson. The emperor is Yingzong's elder brother. The first half of Chapter One is a dream the female lead has while drunk. 2. The female lead is not yet married to the crown prince. The emperor is thirty-three when he appears, and the female lead has a natural fragrance. 3. The historical setting is a mashup of dynasties, so please don't nitpick the details. The author doesn't recommend asking whether the characters have been with anyone before, and please don't mention me in other people's stories or other people's stories in mine. Theme: Even in adversity, never give up hope