The Crown Prince Looks Just Like My Dead Ex

After making a mistake, Hua Zhao was sent to Hangzhou by her grandfather and stepmother. Resentful, she set her sights on the most outstanding impoverished scholar in the city.

The scholar was graceful and striking, as if he belonged in a painting, yet distant and cold, keeping everyone at arm's length.

Hua Zhao would often look at him with tearful eyes, cling to him coquettishly, and play the pitiful act, but the scholar remained cool, self-possessed, and unmoved.

That is, until he saw another young man take Hua Zhao's hand...

In an instant, a trace of anger clouded the scholar's eyes. At last, he lost his composure, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her until she could barely catch her breath.

At a Qixi banquet, as Hua Zhao listened to the noblewomen praise her, her rival suddenly gave a faint smile and said, "I concede this bet."

"What do you mean, you concede?" a sinister voice called out.

Hua Zhao stiffened, her hands and feet turning cold.

That night, Hua Zhao experienced her first taste of being alternately scorched and frozen. She looked at the impoverished scholar, who stood over her, aloof and impossibly noble yet chillingly cold, and for the first time, he felt like a stranger.

The next day, a swollen corpse was pulled from the West Lake. Hua Zhao fell gravely ill and returned to the capital.

.

The autumn breeze was crisp. Hua Zhao's stepmother was making elaborate preparations for her own daughter to compete to become the Crown Prince's consort, but arranged a matchmaking banquet for Hua Zhao on Starry Lake.

Hua Zhao had no interest in the Crown Prince's selection, but she went anyway. Suddenly, a boat crashed into hers. Still shaken, she heard her potential match beside her greet someone with a bow: "Your Highness, Crown Prince."

She looked up to see a jade-like young nobleman seated at the table, an icy chill lurking beneath his calm expression.

He looked at Hua Zhao and remarked with a leisurely, mocking smile, "A matchmaking date?"

Hua Zhao shuddered, her face deathly pale. In her panic, she fell into Starry Lake...

[I'd already decided to hate her and ignore her, but she only burned her hand while pouring tea, and my heart was in chaos.]

Happy ending, both leads' first love

My new novel, The Noble Young Lord's Quest to Win His Wife, is now available. Please add it to your collection if you're interested.

Yangyang was stunningly beautiful, with countless admirers. As the third young lady of Kyoto's second-richest family, she had always done as she pleased and spent money like water. The one thing that troubled her was Huo Jingheng, the most eligible young nobleman in Kyoto, heir to the Yu'an title.

Huo Jingheng was noble and otherworldly, cold and distant to the point of seeming inhuman. He was a beautiful dream countless young noblewomen dared only to indulge in behind closed doors.

They say that a determined woman can wear down a persistent man. The reverse is true, too.

So Yangyang endured the aristocrats' scorn and spent a fortune to enter the academy. She ignored their mockery and stuck to Huo Jingheng's side. She thought that since he hadn't driven her away all these years, he must like her at least a little!

Until he left the capital on official business and returned with his little cousin, a young princess.

She saw him speak gently and softly to the princess. She saw him turn red-eyed with concern for her. She saw him lead the princess out at his birthday banquet, where the streets had been emptied by the crowds...

She even heard him say to a friend in a voice cold as icy water, "Let her realize she's out of her depth and give up."

Yangyang froze... So, so he was waiting for her to give up...

**

Yangyang accepted an invitation from one of her admirers to go boating. As she stepped ashore, the young man brushed her arm, and the two said their goodbyes by the water.

"Move aside." A cold voice sounded behind her. Yangyang turned in surprise and met the young lord's dark gaze.

Behind him stood the innocent-looking young princess and two or three friends wearing amused expressions.

The young man nervously pulled Yangyang aside. A while later, the young lord's icy voice came from behind them: "Should I congratulate Third Miss?"

Yangyang looked back, glanced at the nervous young princess beside him, and smiled. "I'll accept Your Highness's congratulations."

The young lord's eyes turned cold, and he boarded the boat.

Later, he watched helplessly as Yangyang paired off with the newly appointed top scholar, laughing and chatting, ignoring him again and again. At last, he lost all composure and broke into the Second Manor in the dead of night, appearing before Yangyang covered in wounds.

For the first time, he showed weakness. "Yangyang, can you really bear to do this?"

Theme: People should treat one another with sincerity.