I Won't Be This Substitute Crown Princess (Reborn)

After the pandemic, I suffered from brain fog. I was sick for half a year, and even though I worked hard at rehab, I couldn't reconnect with the story. I subconsciously avoided it for a long time and forgot to unlock the chapters. I'm sorry.

Shen Lingshuang married Zhao Yuanjing when he was at his lowest.

She cooked for him with her own hands, tended to him with warmth and care, and spent three years helping him struggle his way to the position of Crown Prince. Only then did she earn his tender calls of "Shuang'er."

For a time, she was dazzled, believing she had finally warmed his heart.

That was until his childhood sweetheart, Chu Rushuang, returned to the capital.

With a face three parts similar to hers, and sharing the character "Shuang" in their names, Lingshuang finally realized she was nothing but a substitute.

She fought for her place, only to become a laughingstock in everyone's eyes.

On her birthday, Zhao Yuanjing grandly took Chu Rushuang on a boat trip.

When Lingshuang discovered she was pregnant, Zhao Yuanjing demoted her from wife to concubine and welcomed Chu Rushuang as his principal wife with a lavish bridal procession.

He said, "Rushuang is kindhearted. As long as you obediently bow and serve her tea, there will always be a place for you and the child by my side."

Lingshuang gave up completely, ended her pregnancy, and perished in a sea of flames.

*

Zhao Yuanjing thought Lingshuang would always love him.

After all, the Shen family was long gone. In this vast world, where else could she go but to his side?

He locked Lingshuang, now his concubine, away in the desolate Jingxin Pavilion, thinking he could keep her there. But then a fire reduced the entire pavilion to ashes.

Zhao Yuanjing went completely mad.

He dug with his bare hands for three days and nights, his fingers bloody and raw. At last, a collapsing pillar struck him on the head, and he returned to the night of their wedding.

With trembling hands, he tried to hold his wife, whom he had lost and regained, close.

But the eyes that had always gazed at him with love and shyness no longer held a trace of affection.

Zhao Yuanjing did not lose heart.

Lingshuang had loved him so much. Surely they could make up and return to how they were before.

Until one day, he watched Zhao Yuanzhao effortlessly take his throne and place the phoenix crown of empress on the head of the woman who had once been his wife.

The slender young woman had a slight swell at her waist. The child she carried was Zhao Yuanzhao's.

*

The moment Zhao Yuanzhao recognized the face of his newly arrived sister-in-law, his heart skipped a beat.

With a bright smile, he drained his cup of wine, and for the first time, he conceived the idea of fighting for the throne.

Only a phoenix crown and embroidered robes, with all the realm as her bride price, could befit the wife he wanted.

"Frost Shines Beneath the Moon": The road is cold with frost, and the long night is hard to cross. Only you and the moon shine on me alone. (The character Zhao in Zhao Yuanzhao's name means brightness and goodness.)

[Reading Guide]

1. An old-school, melodramatic story. Zhao Yuanjing will suffer a spectacular downfall, while Zhao Yuanzhao rises to power.

2. Zhao Yuanzhao graduated from the School of Respecting Women, and he had no exes in his previous life either.

3. Cover design by artist @Shangu_miko.

4. [Important] None of the story involves ethical issues during an ongoing marriage!

5. This is, well, really melodramatic... If you don't like melodrama, please think carefully before reading!

6. My tendonitis is quite severe, and the doctor told me to rest. Updates may be irregular. I'm sorry.

Please add my next sweet story, The Pearl in Her Palm, to your reading list!

Cui Yan met a tragic end in her previous life.

Her childhood sweetheart and fiance personally shoved her into the midst of the rebel army.

Once Chang'an's greatest beauty, the pampered noble daughter of the Boling Cui family, with cloudlike hair and a flowerlike face, unrivaled in beauty, she met a wretched end, her golden hairpin dropped to the ground with no one to retrieve it.

When Cui Yan opened her eyes again, she found herself reborn four years earlier.

Only, this life was entirely different from her last.

She was not only married, she even had a child!

And she hadn't married her cold-hearted former fiance, Wei Sanlang. Instead, she was wed to an incomparable gentleman, as warm and refined as jade.

Oh, and her new husband was also a former friend of Wei Sanlang.

Newly awakened, Cui Yan was struck dumb with shock. "Wait... What's going on?"

*

Everyone in Chang'an knew that after the flower-viewing palace banquet in the second year of Yuanhui, the Duke of Yong, as elegant as a moonlit breeze, stood outside the Cui family gates for three nights before finally winning Cui Yan as his wife.

But the Cui daughter had her heart set only on Wei Sanlang. The two of them loathed each other, and could barely manage a single conversation in a whole month.

Cui Yan, reborn once more: "!"

Of course she wouldn't pine after that hypocrite again. She was going to make a good life with the Duke of Yong!

The beautiful young woman, with raven hair, snowy skin, almond eyes, and peach-blossom cheeks, hugged the soft, cuddly child who looked almost exactly like her and called timidly to Jiang Fei, "Husband..."

The little one followed along in a sweet, childish voice: "Papa!"

Jiang Fei's heart stirred. He lowered his eyes and answered, then turned and tore into tiny pieces the letter of separation he had spent several nights agonizing over in his study.

No one knew how devastated he had been in his previous life when he saw her die in the midst of the rebel army. Now that he had another chance, he had gone to every length to marry her. How could he let her leave so easily again?

*

Across two lifetimes, the only stain on the noble and illustrious Duke of Yong, something the censors could criticize him for, was that he took his former friend's fiancee.

But he never regretted it.

Reborn, Cui Yan had only wanted to get by with her convenient husband. She never expected Jiang Fei to place his whole heart in her hands.

Only later did she learn that in his previous life, she had been the one he yearned for night after night, unable to forget or let go.

Theme: Kick the jerk to the curb and find yourself again!