After the Crown Prince Was Deposed, She Changed Her Heart

Scheming sweet innocent x Obsessive hypocrite

/Anguished romance, rekindled love, and a groveling chase to win her back

-

1.

Shi Yao has been in love with the Crown Prince for years.

When she should gaze at him tenderly, her eyes brim with affection, as if she has a thousand things on her mind but is too shy to say them. When she should show him how much she cares, she shyly offers him a sachet, casually revealing her red, swollen fingertips.

Even though Rong Jin is naturally aloof and carries himself like an immortal, never once showing Shi Yao the slightest warmth, she remains steadfast in her love.

Only Shi Yao knows that her so-called sincerity is all a ploy. She has had enough of the disdainful looks people give her, and longs only for the day she can climb out of the mud and rise to the clouds.

So when Rong Jin is no longer the high-and-mighty Crown Prince, she turns her pitiful gaze toward someone else.

2.

At first, Rong Jin pays Shi Yao no mind.

He was named Crown Prince at birth. Over the years, he has seen countless women like her find different ways to get close to him.

Whether she is deliberately flattering him or simply unable to control her feelings, he doesn't care. He has never once taken her to heart.

But then the tides turn overnight, and the situation changes abruptly. An old case involving a false claim of royal blood is exposed, and another man takes his place as Crown Prince.

In the drizzle beneath the sky, he sees her standing under someone else's umbrella, smiling as she offers him the sachet she spent so long embroidering herself.

3.

After Rong Zhang, the newly appointed Crown Prince, takes the throne, the capital is thrown into chaos overnight on the eve of his wedding to Shi Yao. Before dawn, the palace has changed hands.

Shi Yao is summoned to the palace by urgent decree. In the flickering candlelight, she meets a pair of eyes as unfathomable as the deep sea.

The man she thought she would never see again is now seated high upon the imperial throne.

Rong Jin's pale, slender fingers toy with the sachet she once gave to someone else. His gaze on her is dark and inscrutable.

“Yao Yao,” he says, his voice as if steeped in ice. “When you pursued me, you said it was love at first sight, and that you wanted to grow old with me.”

He slowly rises, his shadow falling over her completely.

“Now prove it to me.”

#Jade splits itself apart, while a sunken pearl never surfaces.

^

SC, with a groveling redemption arc

The following are previews of upcoming stories

“After Her White Moonlight Faked His Death and Returned”

[Love rivals in a messy showdown // Rivalry between men // Groveling chase to win her back]

After her family falls on hard times, Jiang Ying is taken in by the Wen family.

She and Wen Yaoyu have been engaged since childhood. They grew up together, and though they are not yet married, they are in love. They are simply too young, and in public they are known as siblings.

Wen Yaoyu is bold and arrogant, the most dazzling young man in her heart.

But on the eve of their wedding, the Wen family is implicated in a political struggle. The imperial family shows no mercy, and in a single night, the entire Wen family is slaughtered.

When the Wen residence is raided, Wen Yaoyu entrusts Jiang Ying to his close friend, asking him to pull strings and escort her south to safety.

Before leaving the capital, she sees Wen Yaoyu's body wrapped in a straw mat and tossed onto a mass grave.

-

Pei Shijin is entrusted by a dying friend to escort his younger sister south.

To evade their pursuers, the two claim to be newlyweds traveling south to visit relatives, and share a room. Unable to sleep on the cold, hard floor, Pei Shijin spends night after night listening to her muffled sobs.

The young woman is delicate and timid, and her tears never seem to stop. She cries when she's sad, when she's hurt, and when she misses home. He has never met a woman so difficult to deal with.

At first, he finds her trying, but pities her tragic circumstances and remembers that his late friend entrusted her to him, so he takes care of her in every way.

He knows that sharing meals and lodging is improper, but it is only a temporary arrangement, and he is sure he has a clear conscience.

Until the day their pursuers catch up with them. The seemingly frail young woman throws herself in front of him to block a lethal strike. Warm blood runs over his hands, and the string that has been taut inside him snaps in an instant.

In that moment, he thinks that if she doesn't survive this, he probably won't either.

-

Jiang Ying never expected to see Wen Yaoyu again on the day of her wedding to Pei Shijin.

The Pei residence is packed with guests when the crowd suddenly erupts in an uproar.

Everyone knows that when the Wen family was raided a few years ago, their refined and aloof eldest son was carried out of the residence wrapped in nothing but a straw mat.

Jiang Ying and Pei Shijin bow to each other as husband and wife. Hearing that familiar name, she instinctively stops and looks toward the doorway.

Pei Shijin's hand tightens around hers. She winces in pain and comes to her senses, meeting the dark, shadowed gaze of the man she is about to marry.

“Ying Ying, let's finish the ceremony first. Then we'll toast your elder brother from the Wen family.”

At the doorway, Wen Yaoyu walks toward her step by step. His eyes are angry, but his voice is perfectly calm.

“A Ying, your big brother is here to take you home.”

^

The male characters have all slept with the heroine.

Rivalry between men, and a melodramatic groveling chase with little logic.

“After Forcibly Taking the Obsessive Male Lead as a Substitute”

Arrogant princess x Obsessive male lead

Coercive love / Male substitute / Groveling chase to win her back

-

Blurb

-

Princess Zhaoxi likes Ning Wuhui.

He is a prince from the State of Chu, sent to the capital as an envoy. He is refined and elegant, with a flawless countenance.

The day they first meet, Ning Wuhui follows his delegation to kneel before the steps. When he rises and takes his seat, the hall falls silent, and everyone keeps glancing at Zhaoxi. From her seat on the throne, Zhaoxi stares at his face for a long time, then turns to her royal brother with a smile and says she wants him.

So, as the Chu delegation leaves the borders of Great Zhou, bandits waylay them, and Ning Wuhui falls off a cliff and dies.

-

Ning Wuhui suffers a grave illness and can barely remember his past.

When he wakes, the people caring for him tell him that he was once a royal bodyguard, and his life belongs to the royal family. He was lucky, they say: just as he was dying, the kind princess used countless rare medicines to save his life.

When Zhaoxi comes to see him, he is kneeling on the ground. He sees the gold thread on the hem of her skirt trailing across the dirty floor of the guards' quarters, and instinctively wants to lift it up in his hands.

He can't bear to see a priceless gem covered in dust. Someone as radiant as her should be kept high above, in a place untouched by the dust of the world.

But she lifts his face, leans down slightly, and fixes him with those cold, alluring eyes. Her clear voice falls into his ear: “Would you like to be my lover?”

-

The two states arrange a political marriage, and Chu specifically requests Great Zhou's eldest princess, Zhaoxi.

In the capital of Chu, Zhaoxi sees Ning Wuhui again. By then, he has become the new ruler of Chu.

Few people in Chu likely know that this ruthless new ruler once spent three years as a lover in her residence.

Only later does he learn that she indulged and doted on him merely because his face bore an uncanny resemblance to the man she had loved before.

On their wedding night, Zhaoxi looks into Ning Wuhui's eyes, still slightly unfocused with pleasure, and is about to say a few soothing words when he covers her eyes.

“Zhaoxi, if you ever dare look at me with that disgusting expression again...”

“I'm afraid I won't be able to stop myself from strangling you.”

^

SC, one-on-one pairing.

The male lead really is a substitute; the heroine's white moonlight is truly dead.

Theme: When you feel most alone and helpless, love yourself first.