The Beauty in His Palm

[I'm a game narrative designer. My job isn't quite a 996 schedule, but the workload is still pretty heavy. Maybe I'm getting older, because lately I've found the work environment and workload hard to handle. I've been thinking about whether to take a temporary leave and find another job. Writing fiction also takes a lot out of me emotionally, and I haven't been in a state of mind to work on two stories at once. So I'm wondering whether I should finish the story next door, Jiao Jiao, before slowly coming back to this one! If I put this story on hiatus for now, the other one will probably update six chapters a day! So I wanted to ask the lovely readers still following this story what you think! Writing should be a joy, and I don't want it to turn into a daily task I have to complete!] Everyone knew that the Emperor doted on His Highness, the Prince of Qin. But, by contrast, the Emperor despised the Princess Consort of Qin. The high and mighty Prince of Qin had refused marriage to a noble-born lady for his Princess Consort, and even disregarded all propriety to forcibly take another man's wife. She was a calamity in the guise of a beauty. Every censor at court despised the Princess Consort of Qin. Her very existence was the Prince of Qin's greatest stain and the biggest obstacle on his path to seizing the throne. At the morning audience on the day after their wedding, the Emperor refused to see the Princess Consort of Qin and rejected the tea she offered him. He even dragged his feet over adding her to the imperial register. Though Shen Qing bore the title of Princess Consort of Qin, she had no standing as one and was not acknowledged by the imperial clan. In the eighteenth year of Yonghe, the Emperor, ruler of all under heaven, fell in love at first sight with a married commoner. He talked with her about everything under the sun and studied music, poetry, and books alongside her. It was as if his long-dormant soul had finally found its home, and the Emperor fell hopelessly in love with her. As he secretly planned to have the woman divorce her husband, he saw her again at his birthday banquet. Dressed in the formal robes of a prince's consort, she respectfully congratulated him on his birthday alongside the Prince of Qin. The woman he had fallen so deeply in love with was none other than the Princess Consort of Qin, whom he despised so much he hadn't even wanted to see her! The Emperor lost his composure on the spot, knocking the wine cup from his hand. Content warnings: 1. As the blurb suggests, this is a male rivalry harem fantasy, and everyone loves the heroine. Every male character is completely lovestruck. 2. This is an over-the-top, old-school melodramatic harem fantasy. Readers who dislike a delicate, stunning heroine or the forced-marriage trope should proceed with caution. 3. The Emperor is in his late thirties and has a harem. 4. The story has three volumes: Stealing a Minister's Wife, Imprisoned in the Palace, and Saving a Marriage. In the first two volumes, the heroine only loves her former husband. Her final destination in Saving a Marriage will be decided by reader popularity in the comments. She will fall completely in love with whichever male lead is most popular. 5. The ending is one-on-one. Theme: A woman must love herself before she can love others.