Taking in a Crown Prince as My Lover

Gorgeous older woman vs. pure-hearted young wolf

Lin Fangran transmigrates into a book, becoming the mistress of a duke's household, and painlessly acquiring a ten-year-old son.

In the book, she is the first wife of Duke An, Chen Liheng. Chen Liheng is handsome, but a notorious womanizer. After Lin Fangran enters the household, he brings concubine after concubine into the manor, and he has more mistresses than she can count on both hands.

The story's heroine is one of Chen Liheng's mistresses. After the two pursue and flee from each other through countless trials, they finally end up together. In the end, Chen Liheng marries her as his principal wife and dismisses all the women in his household.

As a cannon-fodder character, Lin Fangran cannot best the various concubines, retreats to a secluded courtyard, and dies on a bitterly cold winter night.

After reviewing the entire plot, Lin Fangran wears an impassive expression: How wonderful!

Lin Fangran has no desire to get involved, so she hands off the household management and lets the others fight over it. She keeps to her own corner, spending her days praying to Buddha and practicing calligraphy. Sometimes she even goes to a men's pleasure house to flirt with the male entertainers. What could be better?

One day, she spots a cool beauty at the pleasure house. He's so handsome, and, best of all, he has an eight-pack.

Lin Fangran's heart stirs, and she decides to keep him as a lover. But the beauty has a bad temper, and it takes a great deal of effort to win him over.

★

Li Xunan is a man of elegant bearing who keeps himself to strict standards. Later, he is named Crown Prince and devotes himself even more diligently to state affairs.

Later, during a campaign to suppress bandits in the south, he is betrayed and barely manages to escape back to the capital. To evade assassins and investigate why he is being hunted, he takes refuge in a men's pleasure house.

He never expected to run into a difficult woman there. She has a face as lovely as a hibiscus, and, despite being married, is outrageously wanton. All she wants is for him to become her lover.

Li Xunan wants to quit, but his advisers all urge him to endure this small indignity for the sake of the greater plan.

So Li Xunan puts up with it again and again. At last, he can take no more. When Lin Fangran comes over, he grits his teeth and asks, "When are you going to let me move in?"

Lin Fangran: ???

★

When the new emperor ascends the throne, everyone knows that while he was still an unrecognized talent, he kept himself pure and had no one close to him.

The ministers rub their hands together, all hoping to secure a place in the imperial harem for their daughters. Just as they are fighting tooth and nail over it, the new emperor personally goes to Yongning Temple to bring back a divorced woman. The very next day, he issues an edict naming her Empress.

There are rumors that the new Empress was once Duke An's wife. When the ministers see Duke An at court after that, they give him knowing looks.

Reader's guide:

★ The male lead has no sexual experience; the female lead does

★ Includes an ex-husband's redemption arc

★ Older woman-younger man romance: she's 26, he's 23

★ The setting is entirely fictional, with plenty of original worldbuilding

Theme: Facing life with a positive attitude