Broken Blade [Matriarchy]

What others think is his being deeply favored by the emperor and spoiled by her is actually the result of his careful scheming, every step taken as if he were walking on thin ice.

Ten years ago, Su Huaixue, the legitimate son of the Chancellor, had great ambitions and no desire to marry. He disguised himself as a woman, passed the imperial exams, then had his identity as a man exposed in front of everyone at a flower-viewing banquet.

The young empress, seated high above, took a second look at him and "rewarded" him by sparing him from prison and sending him into the imperial harem.

Proud and aloof, Su Huaixue was so dull and uninteresting that even the empress lost interest in him after only a couple of encounters.

Everyone thought that the brilliant young man of Chang'an would waste away in the desolate cold palace.

But Su Huaixue managed to emerge from it. He became virtuous, gentle, and well-mannered, and with the Chancellor's family backing him, he rose step by step from a low-ranking consort to become the empress's husband.

He selected consorts and took charge of the six palaces, enjoying boundless splendor. But behind it all lay his wife's loathing and an endless loneliness.

Then one day, after the empress drunkenly indulged herself with him, Su Huaixue discovered that he was pregnant.

*

Yu Muge was not the kind of ruler to deny herself. She had been taught the ways of an emperor from childhood and ascended the throne while still young. She knew that the people in her bed were merely diversions. She liked pretty, fair-skinned young men, bright and carefree, and she liked obedient little playthings.

Except for her bland, water-like royal consort.

She had taken Su Huaixue into the harem for his looks and his laughable backbone. She grew tired of him, but he clung to her like a stubborn plaster, bearing her heirs and helping her keep the harem in order...

Flawless in every move, he maneuvered her into using him as a pawn and pushing him into the heart of the storm, the position of royal consort.

She grew to loathe Su Huaixue's scheming more and more. Even when she was intimate with him, it was only to humiliate him on purpose.

Until Su Huaixue accidentally became pregnant with her child.

She had no choice but to spend every day and night with him. She had no choice but to get to know him. And it was this very accident that led her to discover Su Huaixue's secret.

A top scholar's cap at the bottom of a box, books burned halfway through, poems no one had ever read.

Medicinal soup to help him conceive, silver needles to keep his body soft and supple, and... portraits of her, from the time she was a girl to the young woman she had become, spanning ten whole years.

It wasn't loneliness or wealth and glory that had broken his backbone. It was simply that he had fallen in love with someone.

So he had willingly submitted to her and allowed himself to be trapped in the deep palace for her sake.

[A big-hearted, oblivious, naturally awful empress x a reserved, devoted, frail royal consort]

*Male pregnancy, and childbirth is very difficult. Lots of pregnancy scenes. Don't question it, it's my guilty pleasure.

An unequal relationship, and there will be no equality. The heroine favors the hero but he won't be her only partner. In the end, she'll love only him, but she won't dismiss the harem. No chasing the husband to win him back.

(2023.3.2)

Theme: None at present.