Schemes of Love and Desire

[Alluring, power-wielding empress dowager x regent general]

Gu Yanyue's life was full of tumult, a legend recorded in the history books of the Dayin Dynasty.

As the legitimate daughter of the Gu clan, which shared the realm with the imperial family, she entered the palace at ten and was named empress.

Before the emperor could consummate the marriage, he died, and the princes rebelled.

During the palace coup, a guardsman saved her. She went into hiding among the common people and pledged herself to him for life.

Later, her husband disappeared. Her clan found her, and she was forced to return to the palace alone. There, she enthroned the young emperor and took control of the court.

After struggling for years against internal strife and external threats, Gu Yanyue turned her attention to the regent who had risen to prominence on the border.

She gave herself to him, pretending to plot with him for control of the realm, and won his wholehearted support.

She executed the rebellious princes, crushed the insurgents, and pacified the realm, becoming the chaste empress dowager who held all the power in the Dayin Dynasty.

A memorial tablet stood in her palace all year round, and no one was allowed to touch it.

Everyone assumed she was mourning the benevolent late emperor.

But they did not know that a small portrait was hidden behind the blank tablet.

*

Huo Sheng holds power over an entire region. With the ambition of a wolf, he is a treacherous minister denounced by all.

No one knows that before he changed his appearance, he was a low-ranking guardsman who once had a relationship with the current empress dowager.

The past he keeps buried in his heart is a stain she will never speak of again.

By day, before the palace steps, he lifts his battle robes, drops to one knee, and cries, "May Her Majesty the Empress Dowager live for a thousand years, a thousand years, and a thousand thousand years."

At night, beneath the thin quilt on the embroidered bed, he whispers against her cheek, calling her by her childhood name, "Yanyan," and unleashes his hatred between the sheets.

He hates her because she not only broke her promise to stay by his side for life, but also tried to destroy him completely.

He hates her even more because she returned to the palace as empress dowager and painstakingly maintained the late emperor's realm.

Most of all, he hates her for honoring the old emperor's memorial tablet and mourning him year after year, as if she loved him beyond measure.

So he is determined to overthrow the realm and put a new ruler on the throne.

On the day of the palace coup, Huo Sheng leads his troops into the inner palace and crushes the layers of deadly traps she had set for him.

He catches the dagger she thrusts at him with his bare hand. With his bloodied hand, he caresses her face.

"Your Majesty's heart was never something I could warm."

Her vermilion lips move, and a smile of rapture appears on her face.

"My heart has only ever belonged to one man."

He sneers, snatches the tablet she is holding, and smashes it on the ground.

A small portrait slips out from behind it and drifts down before him.

The young man in the painting wears armor. He is spirited and peerlessly handsome.

He is Huo Sheng, just as he looked back then.

#I smashed my own memorial tablet

#I'm jealous of myself

[Two powerful leads with their own agendas, constantly testing each other. They are fiercely passionate one moment and trying to destroy each other the next. A little court intrigue.]

[One-on-one, both leads are sexually inexperienced, happy ending, and each is the only one for the other in body and heart. The heroine was married to the old emperor, who was close to death, in name only. She was too young for them to consummate the marriage. The young emperor is the son of the old emperor and his previous empress, not the heroine's biological child.]

[The male lead appears cold-blooded, but is actually cunning and devoted. He's so in love with her.]

Blurb dated 2023/8/13

Theme: The family, the nation, and the realm