The Empress Is Coldhearted (A Second Chance at Love)

Power-hungry consort × lovesick minister

Faked death and hidden identity | Rekindled love | Cold-faced, hot-tempered, lovesick and adorable

1.

Jing Yao, the emperor's most favored consort, was elegant and refined, renowned for her dignity and composure.

Ji Changying, the Prince of Ning, held power over the court and commanded a mighty army. He was ruthless and merciless, and officials trembled wherever he went.

One was the crown prince's mother. The other was a treacherous minister who wielded power.

They were like fire and water, utterly incompatible.

At a palace banquet, the officials whispered among themselves: if the Prince of Ning rebelled, surely the first thing he'd do would be to wring the necks of the young crown prince and his mother.

Whenever he glanced at the mother and son from across the table, his eyes were sharp with icy murderous intent.

No one knew that, during the long, warm nights behind closed curtains,

The man who held her slender waist tight, his eyes dark red, would ask in a hoarse voice:

“Your Highness, is the young crown prince my sovereign, or my son?”

2.

When Jing Yao was young, she used the name Huangfu Yuan and spent some time at Medicine King Valley.

Those days were peaceful and carefree. The only unexpected event was finding a wounded, amnesiac boy by the stream, whose beauty was breathtaking.

As the days passed, feelings grew between them.

Then Jing Yao discovered that her mother had died a wrongful death.

Looking at the boy, whose life still depended on medicine, she swallowed a vial of fake-death medicine.

“Live well. I'm going to kill someone.”

From the daughter of an official's family to the emperor's favored consort, she plotted and schemed at every turn.

The one thing she never expected was to meet that boy again in the palace.

3.

In the great hall, the emperor introduced the officials to the people present. When it was Ji Changying's turn, he said, “The consort is gentle and courteous, with a heart like the Goddess of Mercy. Prince Ning, you're unruly. Don't frighten her.”

Jing Yao lowered her eyes and said nothing. Below her, the man toyed with his jade thumb ring and glanced up languidly. “Is that so?”

In private, the man snuffed out the palace lantern and cornered her against the rock wall of a man-made hill. His gaze was deep and unreadable.

“Your Highness is certainly well-behaved. Back in the valley, when the heat was upon us, you couldn't wait to pull off my clothes.”

Everyone at court knew the Prince of Ning was a man-eating mad dog, insensible to pain and with no weaknesses.

But no one knew that on that rainy night in Medicine King Valley, he'd already placed his leash in the young girl's hands.

Now, even with all the power in the world, all he wanted was to kneel at her feet again and beg her to show him a little more kindness.

=v=

Content warnings:

1. One male lead, one female lead, both sexually inexperienced, happy ending.

2. Fictional setting, very fictional, with lots of invented details. No need to fact-check.

3. I'm bad at writing blurbs, but I wrote the novel with my whole heart. Please give it one chapter!

Thank you~

Coming Soon: After Sharing Dreams with a Brooding, Beautiful, Tragic Hero

#MarriageFirstLoveLater #TensionToTheExtreme #ChasingHisWifeToTheCrematorium #MaleLeadGetsItInDeepEveryDay

When Chi Yao was young, a boy risked his life to save her from a pit of corpses.

He never gave his name, and she never learned where he came from.

Many years later, Chi Yao returned to the capital with her father for an official report and unexpectedly found the boy who had saved her: Prince Ding, Chu Yue.

But who could have guessed that her old benefactor was now afflicted with a deadly miasma, his martial arts ruined, and would spend the rest of his life relying on medicine and unable to sleep at night?

To draw out the deadly miasma in Chu Yue's body, Chi Yao took the initiative to ask the emperor to arrange their marriage.

She married into the prince's household and stayed by his side, only to find an opportunity to transfer the life-protecting Gu she had raised since childhood into his body.

Prince Ding, Chu Yue, was gloomy, brutal, and bloodthirsty.

But he had a secret. Every night after their wedding, he fell into the same absurd, feverish dream, filled with insatiable desire.

In the dream, he claimed his nominal new wife inch by inch, losing control until all reason deserted him.

When he woke, he grew more insecure and twisted, convinced his heart was filthy.

Until the day...

In the garden, Chu Yue heard with his own ears as his “innocent, pure” wife told her elder brother that she'd planted a Gu inside him.

So all that madness had been an illusion.

Chu Yue hated her feigned purity. He would have the Gu removed, even if it meant tearing himself apart.

And as for her, she would naturally be given a vial of poison.

Three years later, the ruler of the Southern Border came to pay respects at court.

The emperor asked, “I hear the Southern Border has a Gu that can trade one life for another.”

The ruler smiled. “It's a life-protecting Gu. But making one is perilous, and requires enduring the agony of a hundred insects gnawing at your bones. In the last hundred years, only one little girl has ever received one.”

Then she looked at Chu Yue beside her. “Why don't I see that little girl?”

Only then did Chu Yue realize that even without the poisoned wine, she wouldn't have survived.

Afterward, Chu Yue went to great lengths and finally found his wife deep in the Southern Border.

Her white hair and blind eyes were all his doing.

For years afterward, Chu Yue searched for doctors and medicine across the world, coming close to death time and again. He even used the blood from his own heart as a guide, all in the hope that she would take back the words, “Go away.”

Content warnings:

1. Pure romance, written to indulge personal tastes. The heroine is reborn.

2. The life-protecting Gu is not a love Gu and cannot make anyone have improper thoughts.

Thank you~

Theme: Power is a woman's best beauty treatment