Stealing His Wife

At a banquet, fellow graduates who had passed the imperial examination in the same year teased Shen Zhiya again. “Top Scorer, your little wife came to bring you hangover medicine.”

Shen Zhiya was annoyed. Worried that Jiang Jiyue, the daughter of a criminal, might cause trouble, he hurried outside, took the medicine, and sent her away.

Who could have guessed that, just as he had taken his seat, the silent Prime Minister Xun Yinhe would speak to him for the first time? “Who is she?”

Shen Zhiya replied in alarm, “She is my wife, sir.”

A moment later, the wine cup in Xun Yinhe's hand shattered into pieces. Shen Zhiya was so terrified he fell silent, unable to figure out how he had offended him.

Then Xun Yinhe said softly, “Is that so?”

That very night, Jiang Jiyue was taken to Xun Yinhe's residence.

A hypocritical male lead with top-notch acting skills × a heroine who is as sweet and innocent as she seems

P.S. The heroine only develops a romantic relationship with the male lead after divorcing the second male lead. There is absolutely no deviation from core values.

No drama, I just don't want to argue with nitpickers, and I want to see what happens if I turn off the comments.

Let me recommend She Is So Heartless. Please add it to your reading list! Here's the blurb:

Heartless heroine × a male lead who doesn't realize he's in love | Fallen princess × older powerful official

After the Five Barbarians ravaged China and the Han court moved south, the royal house fell into decline. Only the Wang and Xie clans ruled the realm together.

To secure the royal family's standing, Princess Longhan was married off to Xie Yun, the Grand Marshal.

On her wedding night, Longhan met Xie Yun, her husband, who was rumored to be bloodthirsty and fond of killing.

His black hair was held in a crown. His skin was cold and pale, his lips thin, and his eyes so dark they seemed demonic. Even his festive wedding robes looked as though they had been dyed in blood.

He stood with his hands behind his back, looking at his new bride as she trembled with fear. His icy voice carried a note of disdain. “Can you?”

*

To show that the Han emperor was on good terms with the Xie family, he pored over the family genealogy. At last, he found a connection through a marriage alliance from a hundred years ago and forcibly made Xie Yun his uncle in name.

After their wedding, Princess Longhan knew her position as his wife was precarious. Hoping to win his affection, she also called Xie Yun “Uncle.”

Xie Yun lifted her pitiful chin with a hand wearing a jade thumb ring and patiently taught her, “Qingqing, if you want to claim kinship, you should call me ‘Daddy.’”

*

Someone once cursed Xie You, saying he would never be loved in return. Xie You had scoffed at the idea.

He was a formidable ruler of his age. How could he possibly become caught up in something as trivial as love?

Even with Li Huaji, he had only valued her intelligence and obedience, and the fact that she wouldn't cause him trouble. She was an excellent choice for a virtuous wife.

But love has always crept in silently, like rain soaking into the earth. By the time he came to his senses, he was already drowning in an ocean vast enough to swallow him whole.

He looked at his young wife, her belly swollen with pregnancy, kneeling before him and pleading with a composure he had once admired but now loathed with all his heart.

“If you let my younger brother and me leave, I will give birth to the child for you. I promise I will never acknowledge him, and he will never know who his birth mother is. You can still marry a noblewoman from a distinguished family and have her be his mother. But if you refuse, we will both die. I promise you, I mean it.”

Reader's Guide:

The leads are not related by blood. The emperor shamelessly claimed kinship to make Xie Yun his uncle. “Daddy” is just the male lead indulging his own perverse sense of humor.

Older dom with a fatherly streak / age gap / size difference

Slow burn. The early chapters lay the groundwork for their relationship; the wedding takes place in Chapter 23.

Theme: Love should be spoken aloud.