I Woke Up to Find My Husband Had Become Emperor

[A reluctantly capable jack-of-all-trades academic who'd rather lie flat, top x a cold-on-the-outside, warm-on-the-inside, sickly emperor, bottom]

Jing Zhou, a post-apocalyptic overlord, dies and wakes up as the son-in-law of the Great Ye Dynasty, a man with the same name. His husband is the dynasty's only male prince, Prince Zhaoning Gongjun, Dugu Yu.

Since Dugu Yu is a sickly little medicine jar, he and Jing Zhou have always been polite and distant since their wedding, with no real relationship. Jing Zhou is quite satisfied and happy to take it easy.

In this era, with no zombies to fear and food and drink in abundance, all he wants is a peaceful life, lying flat like a carefree salted fish.

Who would have thought that one day, he would wake up to find the Great Ye Dynasty turned upside down?

The Third and Fifth Princes conspired to seize the throne, going so far as to invite foreign enemies to lay siege to the capital. In the end, both sides were defeated and died together.

The old emperor died on the spot from a sudden illness brought on by rage and worry.

The empire could not go a day without an emperor, and the throne ended up in the hands of Dugu Yu, whose body was frail and sickly.

So Jing Zhou, who had always been a mere ornament in the Prince Gongjun's residence, was carried into the Taiji Palace in a phoenix palanquin and became the emperor's consort.

That night, countless plot details flooded Jing Zhou's head, and he finally learned that he had transmigrated into a book.

The entire Great Ye Dynasty was cannon fodder, doomed to fall to the Northern Chi Kingdom, the protagonists' homeland.

As the ruler of a fallen dynasty, Dugu Yu's ending was to burn himself to death in the main hall.

As for the original Jing Zhou, he was bound hand and foot and drowned in a lake after enemy forces breached the palace.

Jing Zhou, who had wanted to spend his whole life as a salted fish: ...

**

In the early years of the Yan Jia era, the new emperor ascended the throne. The Great Ye Dynasty was beset by internal and external troubles, and everyone lived in fear.

The emperor was gravely ill and, somehow, had been fed some kind of love potion by his male consort, Jing Zhou. He actually allowed Jing Zhou to rule from behind the curtain and meddle in court affairs.

The old ministers were so furious they wanted to risk their lives to remonstrate at court, crying that interference by the imperial harem was an omen of a fallen dynasty and begging Dugu Yu to execute Jing Zhou.

But Dugu Yu had just four words for them: "I trust my consort."

The entire court: Despair.jpg

Who didn't know that before marrying into the imperial family, Jing Zhou had been a notorious libertine in the capital? Letting him meddle in government would surely bring nothing but chaos, and the nation would be doomed!

Yet over the following years, Jing Zhou encouraged farming and mulberry cultivation, reviving the hundred trades; improved administration and reformed the civil service examinations; opened up trade routes and filled the treasury; strengthened the army and prepared to conquer the realm.

In the end, the people prospered, the court was clean and honest, the four seas were united, and the empire flourished once more.

The Great Ye Dynasty's greatest enemy, Northern Chi, submitted to its awe-inspiring majesty and willingly became a vassal state for all time.

**

In the bedchamber, the curtains hung low.

Jing Zhou pounced on Dugu Yu, whose health had grown steadily better.

"Your Majesty, now that everything is settled, it's time for me to fulfill my duty as your consort... and help you continue the imperial line and grow our family."

[Reading Guide]

1. In the blurb, "marrying into the imperial family" traditionally refers to a man marrying a princess. It's used here by extension. "Gongjun" is the author's invention, a term meant to distinguish a prince from a princess.

2. The protagonist is the top. The leads dote on each other. The main plot is about developing the country and farming, with perhaps a little political intrigue at an elementary-school level.

4. The original Jing Zhou and the bottom lead did nothing together except get married. They had no feelings for each other, either.

5. This is a presale blurb and may be adjusted before the story opens, but the broad outline will stay the same. Thanks for bookmarking~

(Presale blurb archived from a screenshot dated 2023/06/23)

Theme: A peaceful country means a peaceful people