After the Crown Princess Awakens

Pre-release: Those Years After I Was Betrayed. Please add it to your reading list!

Shen Yu was born into the Duke of An's household. She was stunningly beautiful, with skin like ice and bones like jade, one of the most outstanding noble ladies in the capital. A marriage contract bound her to Crown Prince Xiao Heng.

Shen Yu had loved Xiao Heng for years. For his sake, she suppressed her playful nature and became a model noblewoman, caring for him and looking after him in every way.

Though Xiao Heng was distant, they did at least exchange courtesies.

Until one day, Shen Yu heard him say, "Miss Shen's mother saved my mother's life. It's only right that I treat her well."

Those words broke Shen Yu's heart. In Xiao Heng's eyes, all her devotion had been nothing but an attempt to exploit a debt of gratitude.

Looking at her swollen eyes in the mirror, Shen Yu steeled herself. If that was how he saw her, why keep throwing herself at him and making herself a nuisance?

After letting go, Shen Yu never went to the Eastern Palace again. She treated Xiao Heng with cold distance, and even began planning to break their seemingly unshakable engagement.

*

Crown Prince Xiao Heng was a man of noble bearing who planned everything with skill and had never made a misstep in government. Even when Shen Yu spoke coldly to him, he assumed she was merely throwing a tantrum.

It wasn't until Shen Yu challenged him for someone else's sake, and he saw the coldness in the eyes of the girl who had always looked at him with a smile, that Xiao Heng finally understood: Shen Yu had truly given up on him.

Watching Shen Yu hide behind the notorious little troublemaker, Xiao Heng could only suppress his temper and reach out a hand.

"A Yu, come here."

No one saw the hand clenched behind his back, its veins almost bulging.

P.S. The male lead will have to win back his wife, but the main story won't have a happy ending. The setting is entirely fictional.

Please add it to your reading list!

[Pre-release: Those Years After I Was Betrayed] [He Has to Win Her Back, but the Second Male Lead Gets the Girl]

Zhou Hua was Xie Zhong's wife, an orphan with no memories. All she could remember of her past was Xie Zhong's blurred face.

In other people's eyes, she was Xie Zhong's weakness, a helpless woman who couldn't hurt a fly, and an easy target. Along the way, Zhou Hua had taken blades and poison for him, and had looked after every detail on his behalf.

She stayed by Xie Zhong as he lay low and raised an army. At last, they fought their way back to the capital and restored the Jin Dynasty. In Zhou Hua's eyes, they were a couple who had endured hardship together and supported one another through everything.

On the day Xie Zhong ascended the throne, Zhou Hua received an imperial decree naming her a consort. Only then did she learn that Xie Zhong had never intended her to be his empress.

She was merely a stand-in who happened to resemble, somewhat, a Jiang family lady who had loved Xie Zhong for years. She had been used to soothe his longing and to serve as bait in place of the Jiang family's daughter.

Even her child had been promised to that woman to raise.

Remembering all their years of intimacy and vows of eternal love, Zhou Hua's heart turned to ashes.

She tried to leave, but was imprisoned in Zhaohua Palace, growing thinner by the day.

"Hua Hua, you can only stay by my side." The young emperor, crazed with grief and red-eyed, could threaten her only with words that held no power.

Because she no longer cared about anything.

*

The cold lake water sealed Zhou Hua's mouth and nose. As she choked, all her buried memories came rushing back.

The face in her memories had never been Xie Zhong's.

Zhou Hua no longer wanted to die. She wanted to live. She wanted to get out of here.

In the second year of Chongde in the Great Jin, Noble Consort Zhou died of illness in Zhaohua Palace. The emperor and consort had shared a deep love, so she was buried with the rites of an empress.

Rumor had it that the emperor's hair turned white overnight.

Years later, Xie Zhong saw the person standing behind Zhou Hua. The face resembled his own by eight parts, and his face turned deathly pale.

So I was the real stand-in all along.

Reader notes:

1. He has to win her back, but they won't reconcile. The male lead will be left with nothing.

2. Both the male lead and second male lead love only the heroine.

3. Includes a little forced-marriage trope.

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