The Crown Prince's Beautiful Concubine

Preorder: Luring the Wolf (original title: The Jade Waist's Calamity), featuring a sweet-looking but dark and unhinged younger brother and a delicate, beautiful older sister. The blurb is at the end.

*Main novel blurb

A rebellion case sends Jiang Yinwan, the famed beauty of Chang'an and daughter of a noble house, to the Imperial Music Bureau.

She risks her life to escape, then flees blindly and hides inside a nobleman's carriage.

When she looks up, she finds Crown Prince Pei Ce seated before her.

The crown prince has always been aloof and cold, a man who keeps his distance from women. He sweeps her with a chilly glance. “Miss Jiang, if you want help, show some sincerity.”

From then on, she is a beauty locked away in the palace.

*

Jiang Yinwan trembles as she plays the role of a kept woman. One night, in a tall pavilion behind the red walls, she dreams of the wretched fate she suffered in her previous life. At last, she packs her things and fakes her death to escape.

The Imperial Guards seal off the city, and Pei Ce arrives at an unhurried pace. His eyes are cold and ruthless, but his voice is tender. “Wanwan, have you had enough fun?”

Jiang Yinwan thinks her faked death has no flaws, but she never imagined that on the day of her “funeral,” Pei Ce would go mad and climb into the coffin with her.

He says Wanwan is afraid of the dark, so he has to keep her company.

No one knows that she is the woman he has cherished in his heart across two lifetimes.

In this life, he vows to cage her in his arms: in life, they will be bound together; in death, they will share a coffin.

The crown prince, in black robes and a jade belt, speaks calmly. “Will you come back with me, or shall we lie together in this coffin forever?”

*

Whenever people speak of Jiang Yinwan, they sigh over what a pity it is that the frail, peerlessly beautiful noblewoman became the crown prince's plaything. Some even wait eagerly for a spectacle.

They wait until the cold, sinister man raises her to the honored position of empress.

At the Winter Solstice banquet, before the whole court, the new emperor bends down and kneels to brush the snow from her shoes.

A delicate, flirtatious beauty who knows how to ensnare × a possessive, scheming crown prince

* One-on-one romance, both leads' first time

* Both are reborn. The male lead has memories of his previous life from the start, while the female lead gradually remembers hers later. In their previous life, they were caught up in dramatic misunderstandings.

* Features coercive pursuit and taking what one wants by force.

* The female lead is fragile and prone to tears early on, and the male lead is possessive. Please read with care if this bothers you.

* Fictional setting. No historical fact-checking needed.

Note: “In life, they will be bound together; in death, they will share a coffin” is from one of the poems in Yang Fang's Song of the Acacia, written during the Jin dynasty.

*Preorder blurb

The new emperor ascends the throne, and an imperial edict turns Huizhong's intended husband into a prisoner.

Huizhong knows her younger half-brother has never liked her. Because of the conspiracy surrounding their births, Huizhong took the place of a royal child, while Xiao Chen, the true prince, spent years hidden from the world.

With no other choice, Huizhong kneels in Zichen Hall, pleading through her tears.

The gloomy, handsome boy of years past now sits on the imperial throne, dressed in black and crimson. He is aloof and noble. Lowering his eyes, he toys with a white jade thumb ring and slowly says:

“This man's crimes are grave. Could my imperial sister bear it if I were to make an even more outrageous demand?”

*

Rumor has it that the frail, peerlessly beautiful princess has been implicated in her intended husband's crimes and confined to her palace, where no one is allowed to visit.

Only the emperor comes and goes, interrogating her through the night until she is constantly in need of medicine.

The palace is full of sighs. Everyone says the emperor despises the princess and that she is doomed to a miserable fate.

Yet a servant who attends the emperor closely witnesses the ruthless, heartless sovereign kneeling and bowing his head as he carefully cradles her slender feet.

*

Xiao Chen was once despised and treated like dirt. Huizhong was the light he gazed at through the long years of darkness, and also the prey he patiently stalked.

For the sake of this shameful desire, he crossed mountains of corpses and seas of blood to claim the supreme throne.

In the dimly lit depths of the palace, the young emperor leans close to the princess's ear and calls hoarsely, “Imperial sister.”

“Grant me endless bliss, or descend with me into the lowest hell.”

A sweet-looking but dark and unhinged younger brother × a delicate, beautiful older sister

* One-on-one romance, both leads' first time, happy ending

* The leads are not related by blood and have no formal sibling relationship. They were switched at birth and returned to their rightful families before the story begins. The female lead's name is not recorded in the imperial register.

* Features coercive pursuit and taking what one wants by force. Please read with care if this bothers you.

* Fictional setting. No historical fact-checking needed.

* “The lowest hell” is another translation of “Avici,” referring to the Avici Hell.

Theme: Love is both a barrier of the heart and a salvation.