After overwork killed her, modern-day office worker Shi Yuyan woke up in the Qing Dynasty as Kangxi's Crown Princess.
Yes, the wife of Yinreng, the crown prince for over thirty years whom his father, Kangxi, deposed twice and reinstated twice.
Shi Yuyan thought, I'm doomed. I'll work myself to the bone for over a decade, get nothing out of it, and end up dead!
No way. Whoever wants this job can have it. She's going to give up and focus on her health!
She braced herself for the Crown Prince to reprimand her.
But the more she watched him, the more something seemed off.
How was the Crown Prince even more laid-back than she was?
·
Yinreng woke from a dream and found himself back in his youth, twelve years before his confinement.
After being deposed and reinstated twice and watching father and brothers turn against each other, he had stopped caring whether he lived or died.
His father's favor was all fake.
His brothers' affection was all an act.
The empire supposedly depended on him, but hadn't the Fourth Prince done a fine job after taking the throne?
His life's ambition had been utterly destroyed. With nothing to live for, Yinreng slowly decided to lie flat.
He was halfhearted about his studies, called in sick to avoid court, ignored the First Prince's provocations, and stayed calm when the Eighth Prince won favor.
He tried cultivating immortality, but blew up his alchemy furnace, then turned to Catholicism... What? The English invited him to go to the Americas with them and seize quinine?
As the Crown Prince was about to be led astray by a charlatan, Kangxi was frantic with worry, while Suo'etu was so devastated he threatened to hang himself at the Eastern Palace gate.
The palace was full of tiresome gossip! Only the Crown Princess looked at him with admiration, respect, and understanding!
Yinreng: At last, in this vast world, I've found someone who understands me!
And so the two became allies.
·
The Crown Prince and Crown Princess hit it off at once. They lay flat together, wholeheartedly and with gusto.
But somehow, things seemed to be going a little differently than expected.
The Crown Prince said he only wanted to quietly reflect on life and voluntarily asked to be stripped of his position as heir.
Kangxi was horrified. "Who bullied my Baocheng? Investigate! Find out! I'll kill them all!"
The First Prince's faction was wiped out.
Yinreng: ?
The Crown Princess secretly bought ships along the coast, hoping to travel the world with the Crown Prince.
But she accidentally prompted Kangxi to lift the ban on maritime trade. He borrowed her ships, converted them into warships, and won a naval battle?
At court, Kangxi praised her lavishly: "As befits the future empress, the Crown Princess is virtuous and devoted to the people!"
He then bestowed upon her the honorary title of admiral.
Shi Yuyan was stunned: ?
In the end, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, the palace's resident pair of quitters, watched their younger brothers and sisters turn into their admirers, the beginnings of a Qing industrial sector take shape, and Kangxi's edict announcing his early abdication. Together, they fell into deep thought...
(The wedding takes place earlier than in history. In the main story, the couple are 17 and 15.)
Theme: Brothers treating each other with respect, unity, and friendship
