The Princess Is No Ordinary Woman

Upcoming historical romance in my column: Reborn, I Cling to My Childhood Friend’s Leg. The original wife fails to win back her husband and he regrets it too late + the childhood friend takes his place. Blurb at the end. / I Win Over the Imperial Grandson by Being Weak-Kneed (marriage first, love later)

This story:

#Sis, you’re so noisy. You’re so loud, I can’t stop thinking about you.

Sweet, impulsive little sun x scheming, patient wolf pup

The Kingdom of Cangnan had a sixteenth princess. Sixteenth in the Cao royal family, she was named Zhi You. Pretty and charming, with rosy cheeks and red lips, she spoke as smoothly as a string of pearls.

As the youngest, Cao Zhi You spent every day surrounded by her fifteen older brothers, hearing “little sister” this and “little sister” that until the words made her ears go numb.

Then a hostage prince arrived from the neighboring Kingdom of Yubei. He was strikingly handsome, peerlessly beautiful, and possessed a pair of exceptionally distinctive phoenix eyes, cool and aloof yet utterly captivating. Looking into those eyes, Cao Zhi You heard the first “older sister” directed at her in seventeen years.

From then on, she spent her days chattering away at her hostage younger brother:

“Prince Xian, will you call me older sister one more time?”

“Prince Xian, you’re just a little cat baring its claws.”

“Prince Xian, I’ll protect you from now on.”

“Prince Xian, you... don’t sleep well in unfamiliar beds, do you?”

“Prince Xian, why is your face so red?”

*

Duan Tingxian thought that as a prince, his life, filled with vengeance, schemes, and slaughter, would hold nothing but endless darkness.

Little did he know that in the springtime of Cangnan, he would unexpectedly meet a ray of warmth, and for her, overturn Yubei’s royal rule all by himself.

“Princess, older sister, I think we need to change our relationship.”

A little scene:

After the court session, an old official asked Wu Qi, who had weathered life and death alongside the new emperor:

“I hear His Majesty used to sleep poorly in unfamiliar beds. To be frank, General, I suffer from the same problem. Do you know how His Majesty eventually overcame it?”

At this, Wu Qi remembered that stormy night in Cangnan, with thunder and lightning overhead. Duan Tingxian, still a hostage then, had clutched a quilt and gone looking for an axe in the middle of the night. He had hacked apart the bed that had traveled all the way from Yubei to Cangnan, enduring the journey with him for ten years, then dashed into the princess’s bedchamber next door.

Wu Qi smiled and left him with two meaningful words: “Ruthless enough.”

Upcoming historical romance in my column: Reborn, I Cling to My Childhood Friend’s Leg

[Scheming, frail beauty x arrogant young war god]

*The leads are the same age, just a few months apart.

Zhao Ning was born with the looks of a celestial maiden and came from the prestigious Changxin Marquis household, yet married Li Yanqing, a student of the marquis. He once swore that he would search everywhere for a miracle cure to keep her safe, for she was a sickly girl rumored not to live past her teens.

When she finally reached that age, she saw him rise to the highest ranks of the court. She also received news that he was to marry a princess, and that the entire Changxin Marquis household had been sentenced to execution. In the end, she was left humiliated and on the brink of death.

As she lay dying, a strong arm suddenly lifted her up. A spirited young man’s face came into view, like the stars she had seen through her window on so many nights of despair, bright and dazzling.

Then she heard a long-missed voice, hoarse with anguish:

“Older sister... please, wake up!”

**

When Zhao Ning opened her eyes again, she was sixteen. After spending three years recuperating at the Duke of Wei’s residence, she had returned to the Changxin Marquis household.

At the entrance to the marquis’s residence, Li Yanqing walked toward her, smiling warmly.

Zhao Ning instinctively stepped back. In this life, she refused to go through the ruin of her family again.

Without hesitation, she placed her slender hand on the arm of the upright young man beside her, her pale fingertips sinking slowly into the dark sleeve of his robe.

That young man was Wu Yao, the young master of the Duke of Wei’s residence who had escorted her home.

And he was also...

The young general who, in her previous life, clad in black armor and red-eyed with rage, had slaughtered the Li family to the last man.

Zhao Ning parted her red lips and murmured softly, “Yao, your older sister is very sick. You’ll have to carry me on your back.”

Wu Yao looked back at her, a faint light moving in his eyes. Then he curled his lips into a smile and slowly crouched down.

**

Li Yanqing maneuvered his way to become a rising star at court, only to look back and discover that Zhao Ning, who once had eyes only for him, had fallen into the arms of his sworn enemy, Wu Yao. He refused to believe it and panicked so badly that he lost his reason for the first time in his life. In the middle of the night, he barged into the Duke’s residence and openly challenged the young war god, now draped in honors and more arrogant than ever.

“I’ve found a miracle cure for you, Ning’er. Leave him and come home with me.”

But to his surprise...

The Ning’er he kept calling for slowly emerged from behind Wu Yao, her hairpins askew and her eyes brimming with tenderness.

#A devoted servant beneath his older sister’s skirts from beginning to end

Theme: Love means growing together