After the Hated Crown Prince Died

Please add my new novel, The Last Ordinary Person in the Cultivation World, to your collection and give it a look!

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Fifth Prince Ji Huaizhi was hated by everyone from the moment he was born.

His mother hated and resented him. She would often clamp a hand around his neck and curse him to die.

His father, the emperor, was annoyed by him and left him alone in a secluded side chamber of the inner palace, ignoring him completely.

His elder brother would frame him, then glare at him with the most venomous eyes and say he was the son of a dancer, born lowly and unworthy of being one of the Ji clan.

Only his frail younger brother, the Sixth Prince, treated him like an elder brother, respected and protected him, and would gently call him Fifth Brother.

After a palace banquet, unable to endure any more humiliation, he finally broke with his eldest brother, the emperor's favorite. With nowhere left to turn, Ji Huaizhi risked everything to ingratiate himself with the most powerful minister at court, the Grand Chancellor, Mu Heng.

All because, once while drunk, Mu Heng had praised him: "Your thin sleeves shed their fragrance, your skin and bones are like jade."

Ji Huaizhi never expected that the man who had always regarded him coldly would bend down of his own accord to tie a golden bell around his slender ankle on a rainy night when he came to offer a dance.

Warm breath brushed over his trembling shoulders and back as he fought to suppress his shame. Mu Heng embraced him from behind, his gaze darkening. "I can help you, but... you have to give yourself to me in exchange."

With Mu Heng's help, Ji Huaizhi finally got everything he wanted.

The crown prince's position.

His father's praise.

Unparalleled favor and the devotion of almost everyone around him.

But none of that truly mattered to him.

What mattered was Mu Heng, who would take his hand and tell him that he was a treasure too, kiss his eyes tenderly whenever he cried, and soothe him, telling him not to be afraid of the dark.

Two years later, a sudden palace coup sent Ji Huaizhi crashing from his lofty position. Overnight, he became the disgraced crown prince, reviled by everyone.

It turned out that Mu Heng's so-called help had been an elaborate scheme all along.

A scheme to help his Sixth Brother eliminate both him and the eldest prince.

Only when Mu Heng personally led soldiers to imprison him in a secret chamber in the cold palace did Ji Huaizhi understand that he was still the same hated, filthy mud he had always been.

At best, he had merely spent three years as a substitute for his younger brother, indulging in delusions he never should have had.

On the day the new emperor ascended the throne, Mu Heng sent for Ji Huaizhi from the secret chamber and ordered him to dance in front of everyone at the enthronement ceremony.

With trembling hands, Ji Huaizhi took up a sword and performed his final dance.

Through his blurred vision, he saw Mu Heng sitting on the high platform with his newly crowned Sixth Brother, their intimacy making them seem like a perfectly matched pair.

After today, he would be sent a thousand miles away to the Western Yan Kingdom, never to return to his homeland.

The enthronement ceremony continued.

The officials and citizens of the imperial capital all cheered.

Beneath a sky full of fireworks, Ji Huaizhi took one last look at Mu Heng in the hall, then raised his sword and killed himself.

Only when Mu Heng rushed out of the golden hall did he learn that, after taking his own life, Ji Huaizhi had fallen from the hundred-foot-high city tower. Not even an intact corpse remained.

Mu Heng refused to believe it.

He searched every corner of the imperial capital like a madman, but couldn't find Ji Huaizhi. At last, all he found in the secret chamber where Ji Huaizhi had once lived were a few wooden puppets.

Mu Heng recognized the one carved with the greatest care.

It was himself.

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After the disgraced crown prince Ji Huaizhi died, the new emperor of Da Qian and the powerful chancellor turned against each other and came to blows.

No one knew why this had happened. And no one knew how Mu Heng spent night after night leaning over a vast, icy empty coffin, coughing up blood.

"Zhizhi, if only you could come back, I'd give up everything..."

Reader's Guide and Content Warnings: 1. The uke suffers first, then the seme. I think both of them suffer terribly.

2. The story is told mainly from the uke's perspective.

3. They are each other's first and only. The uke misunderstands the relationship between the seme and the Sixth Prince. The seme has always loved the uke, who has always been his beloved. But the seme is a bastard and has issues.

4. The events in the blurb happen around the middle of the story. The uke experiences memory loss.

5. The dynasty is fictional, with lots of original worldbuilding. The plot serves the romance, so don't take it too seriously or overanalyze it.

6. The cover character design was purchased from an authorized template, with permission to use it.

Theme: Even in difficult circumstances, one should strive to improve, face hardship bravely, and never give up.