A Side Consort’s Survival Guide

[Updated daily at 12 noon]

Important notes!!!

First, both the male and female leads are clear-headed and won't get caught up in romance. Their careers come first, no matter what.

Second, this is set in ancient times. The male lead is not a virgin. He had a primary consort and several secondary consorts before the story begins. After the female lead marries him, he takes no other secondary consorts, but his primary consort is still there.

One more thing: everything the female lead does is for the innocent victims who were murdered more than twenty years ago. That's all.

Su Qingyi is taken as a secondary consort by Xiao Ke, Prince Cheng.

As a secondary consort, Su Qingyi has her own rules for survival.

One: Never provoke the primary consort.

A secondary consort is still a concubine. As long as the princess consort is alive, all the women in the prince's household depend on her to get by. So she must never offend her.

Two: Understand your value to Prince Cheng.

A woman can never rely on her looks alone. Looks are the least important thing of all. She needs to make herself indispensable to Prince Cheng.

Three: Don't act like an untouchable beauty.

If you've married, then you've married. Prince Cheng's favor is extremely important to the women in his household. If you want a good life, you have to compete for his attention. Dignity won't put food on the table.

Xiao Ke has taken a new secondary consort, the only one he has ever taken.

He originally took her as a secondary consort because he wanted to use her wealth to accomplish great things. What he didn't expect was that she could support him in more ways than just financially.

His secondary consort is exceptionally intelligent and can clear many obstacles from his path. She is the perfect person to stand by his side.

And so, little by little, he begins to treat her differently.

That doesn't stop his wonderful secondary consort from driving him half mad every now and then.

Xiao Ke: Keep smiling.jpg

Coming soon: The Bucket List

There are always things in this world that ordinary people cannot discuss or see. People usually call them "supernatural incidents." To deal with them, the Special Affairs Administration was established.

The Special Affairs Administration has many departments. One of them is the Special Operations Division, which handles fieldwork. Team Two is responsible for dealing with people's lingering obsessions and sending them on their way, so they don't disrupt the normal order of human life.

Shen Jiangyue is a member of Team Two of the Special Operations Division in Xicheng. Since joining, she's received top marks on every assignment. But she always seems out of place among her fellow team members.

The others dress inconspicuously for their assignments, doing their best not to attract attention. Shen Jiangyue, on the other hand, dresses outrageously: hanfu, JK uniforms, and Lolita fashion. She's the complete set of the Three Broke Sisters.

A teammate once asked curiously, "Yueyue, do your salary and bonuses really cover all that shopping?"

Shen Jiangyue calmly pointed at the new consultant in their division. "See? We've got a sucker right here."

Yan Jing adjusted his new glasses. "Yeah. She adds things to her cart, I pay."

Their teammate: "...Honestly, tormenting single people isn't illegal, but being single is painful."

When Yan Jing first transferred to Xicheng, he happened to run into Shen Jiangyue during an assignment. His first thought was: Someone like Shen Jiangyue must be unpopular even with her own team. She says the most infuriating things.

Later...

"I was wrong. I'm a complete idiot."

It's impossible for anyone in this world not to like Shen Jiangyue.

Of course, Shen Jiangyue is his girlfriend. No one can take her from him.

Coming soon: This Palace Rebels

The year Zhou Zijing turned eighteen, she learned what it truly meant to have your support collapse and everyone you rely on run away.

The emperor, old enough to be her father, issued an imperial decree to make her empress. She didn't want to, so she sought help from every direction.

She went to her grandfather, who had served as the emperor's tutor when he was still crown prince and could speak freely in front of him.

But her grandfather said, "All under Heaven belongs to the emperor, and everyone within its borders is his subject. Since you are a subject, you must obey your ruler's orders."

Then she went to her fiance. She had been promised to someone, but her parents had died in an accident three years earlier, and the wedding had been delayed until her three-year mourning period was over.

But her fiance returned the betrothal token, declaring that their families had nothing more to do with each other.

Zhou Zijing had no one left to turn to.

She could only enter the towering palace walls and live in fear, surrounded by wolves on every side.

The emperor was over forty and still had no children. This made him even more violent, and Zhou Zijing was afraid that one careless mistake would get her dragged out and beheaded.

At the same time, the emperor had neglected state affairs for years, and the people of Dayu were suffering.

Zhou Zijing thought: If this emperor is no good, then why not replace him?

Some rulers have killed the mother to keep the child. So why not... kill the father and keep the child?

And so Zhou Zijing rebelled.

Qin Xie had a girl he liked very much. He planned to wait until she was a little older before asking his parents to arrange a marriage. But the border was in crisis, so he followed his father there. While at the border, he learned that the girl had become engaged to someone else.

He should have gone to ask for her hand sooner.

But when Qin Xie returned to the capital, the girl he had never stopped thinking about was seated high upon the phoenix throne. Her vermilion phoenix robes and elaborate makeup made her almost unrecognizable.

The girl he loved had become the empress.

But the emperor was so much older than she was!

Qin Xie was furious with himself. He should never have hesitated. Because he did, the girl he loved never truly smiled again.

"To repay the ruler's favor, I would take up my jade-handled sword and die for him." Zhou Zijing half-crouched, her skirt trailing on the ground. "General Qin, don't repay the emperor. Repay me instead."

Qin Xie didn't care about the rules between ruler and subject. As long as his girl could smile, he would even make her his ruler.

So he said, "I, Qin Xie, will forever be loyal to Her Majesty the Empress."

Theme: Who says women are inferior to men? Women can outshine them, too.