I Ran Away After Treating the Crown Prince as a Substitute

Completed story: Xiuxiu (Angsty Romance). Coming soon: Mianmian (Angsty Romance). Please add it to your favorites. Blurbs below.

Qingxiang was merely the daughter of a minor official. She had few ambitions in life and assumed her parents would simply marry her off to someone of equal standing, where she would live out her days. She never expected an imperial edict to send her straight into the Eastern Palace as the Crown Princess.

Everyone said Qingxiang was a clueless, crude fool who was unworthy of the Crown Prince. The Crown Prince had a white moonlight in his heart, and he had only married Qingxiang because her face resembled that person’s. How pitiful.

After the wedding, Qingxiang indeed struggled to adapt to life in the Eastern Palace, making one blunder after another and becoming a laughingstock. Her husband, the Crown Prince, merely watched coldly from the sidelines.

Even so, the two of them got along well in bed.

The palace servants all said Qingxiang was deeply in love with the Crown Prince. Even the Crown Prince himself thought so. But gradually, he began to sense something was wrong. He always felt that Qingxiang was looking through him at someone else.

He thought it was just his imagination.

Until one day, while hunting, he happened to hear her tell someone, “Even if you want to see someone every moment, that doesn’t necessarily mean you like them.”

It was an ordinary remark, but something stirred in the Crown Prince’s heart.

Perhaps she didn’t like him.

That thought grew stronger and stronger, until he saw the young man in the portrait she had painted for him. The young man looked almost exactly like him.

But it wasn’t him.

Furious, the Crown Prince ordered a brazier brought in and burned the portrait in front of Qingxiang.

Qingxiang gathered up the scraps. Her hand was burned, but she didn’t care.

Only then did the Crown Prince finally realize that his suspicion had been right. She loved someone else. He was merely the substitute she had chosen.

The Crown Prince was proud by nature and resolved to ignore Qingxiang. He never imagined that one day he would kneel before his former Crown Princess, put embroidered shoes on her feet, and ask, “Qingxiang, could you look at me one more time?”

Ongoing story: Xiuxiu (Angsty Romance)

Xiuxiu was an orphan, forced to marry a sickly man. He died before the wedding, and his family forced Xiuxiu into a coffin with his body and buried them together.

When she met Cui Daozhi, Xiuxiu had just crawled out of the coffin. He tripped her with one blood-covered foot.

One needed time to recover, the other needed a hired hand to take revenge. They hit it off and officially began living together.

Xiuxiu took Cui Daozhi home, bought medicine for him, and cared for him around the clock. After half a year, she thought there was something between them, until she brought another well-born young lady home after rescuing her.

Cui Daozhi clearly got along better with the young lady. Their education and family backgrounds were similar, and they always had plenty to talk about. Whenever they were together, Xiuxiu could only sit off to the side and silently feed the chickens.

She followed them to Chang’an and became Cui Daozhi’s maid, watching him play the qin, drink tea, and play polo with the young lady. She could only be like a shadow, unseen in the light, serving them tea and even warming Cui Daozhi’s bed.

The day they were supposed to get engaged, Xiuxiu quietly packed her things.

She didn’t like Chang’an. She wanted to go home.

Three-legged toads are hard to find, but there are plenty of two-legged men. After much thought, Xiuxiu soon forgot Cui Daozhi and found herself a new fiancé.

On her wedding day, a light rain fell. Someone stopped the bridal sedan halfway along the road. Xiuxiu lifted her veil and saw Cui Daozhi glaring at her with gloomy eyes.

She was just about to ask if he had come to celebrate when he tossed her fiancé’s head at her feet.

“Good Xiuxiu, you’ve made me search everywhere for you.”

Coming soon: Mianmian (Angsty Romance)

Mianmian was the emperor’s consort, but he showed her no favor. No matter how hard she tried to please him, he simply didn’t like her. He was fond of the newly appointed Noble Consort and even wanted to disband the harem for her.

Mianmian went to see the emperor every day. Perhaps she annoyed him, because before long she was sent to the Cold Palace. There, she endured torment every day. One of the consorts she was close to couldn’t bear it and tearfully urged her:

“Admit you were wrong. Stop saying such nonsense and calling His Majesty A Chou. Maybe then he’ll let you out.”

Mianmian wiped away her tears and smiled. “But he is my A Chou. He likes it when I call him that.”

The consort had never seen anyone so brazenly treat the emperor as a substitute. She had no answer and could only leave.

Every day in the Cold Palace, Mianmian waited for the emperor to come get her, but he never did.

Later, during a palace coup, the emperor instinctively shoved Mianmian in front of a blade. At the instant the blade pierced her chest, Mianmian finally saw a hint of concern in his eyes. But soon he left her there, injured, and ran to his Noble Consort.

Mianmian decided to stop loving him.

She left the palace and married. She thought she would never see him again, but on the day she learned she was pregnant, the emperor came into her home with a bowl of abortion medicine.

“Be good. Drink it, and come back with me.”

Mianmian looked at him and said, “A Chou, I don’t love you anymore.”

The emperor, whose memories had returned, instantly went red-eyed.

He remembered. He had never been anyone’s substitute. She had always loved only him, but he had ruined everything himself.

That year, a young man lost his memory in a neighboring kingdom. After being sold into slavery, he was saved by a young woman. They fell in love and promised to marry the following year.

If nothing had gone wrong, they would have become an enviable young couple, had children, and grown old together.

But later, the young man became emperor and forgot everything.

Amnesia, angsty romance, and a husband’s long road to winning back his wife.

Theme: Live in the present and look toward the future