The Princess Goes Awoo

[Blurb] While his consort mother was alive, little Princess Yin, born in the Year of the Tiger, could do whatever she pleased in the palace. Even the princes had to step aside when they saw her. But when her mother died, she became the daughter of a calamity-bringing concubine and was sent away to marry for political reasons. And the person she was to marry was none other than the young hostage prince from a steppe tribe whom she had "bullied mercilessly" as a child. Now he was cold-blooded, cruel, and unpredictable, having become a khan who ruled over most of the steppe after climbing over mountains of corpses. He had specifically demanded her as his bride. What could it be, if not revenge? After crying in fear, Yin came up with a brilliant plan! Just before meeting the khan, she let out an "Ah!" and pretended to faint. Then she slowly came to and insisted, with absolute certainty, that she was no princess. She was the precious tiger the khan had raised since childhood. "I don't know why, but I woke up in the body of this wicked princess. How terrifying!" Yin, who swore she was a tiger, was entrusted to the care of a handsome foreign boy with a sunny disposition who was always laughing. He was the khan's own younger brother. He made sure Yin had plenty to eat and warm clothes, spared her beatings and hard labor, and took her all over the steppe to play. Just when Yin thought she might be able to scrape by until a peaceful old age, one night the handsome foreign boy suddenly sat down on her bed, smiling as he took out a vial of deadly poison. "Aren't you always afraid of my older brother? Don't worry. Let's team up and kill him. Then, with the younger brother succeeding the elder, I can marry you!" [A not-too-bright, pampered little princess who's always afraid of being harmed x a steppe tribesman who makes her laugh every day, seemingly cheerful and sunny but secretly wicked] Reader note: A sweet, silly, lighthearted short story. Theme: Love can heal anything.