Carefree Oriole

Fake Sweetheart, Unfeeling Beauty x Lovesick, Utterly Devoted Dog

Also known as: #KnowsShe'sActingButLovesHerAnyway# and #The Substitute Princess Consort#

Prince Yan, Jing Heng, thought he would never fall in love again.

Until, while suppressing bandits, he met a woman bandit who looked almost exactly like the late Crown Princess. Jing Heng brought her back to the capital to serve as a maid.

The maid soon became the talk of the town. Hearing about her, the emperor, Jing Heng's elder brother, specially reminded him: "I hear a remarkably beautiful woman has recently come to your residence?"

Jing Heng was unconcerned. "She's just a maid who happens to look like someone else. She'll be gone soon."

He had no idea that before long, he would defy the emperor and marry her.

With ten miles of bridal finery and colorful banners stretching to the sky, Jing Heng married his maid and brought her into his residence, unconcerned by talk that she was a substitute or accusations that his conduct was immoral and depraved.

The imperial nobles throughout the capital were astonished, but then understood why Jing Heng had become so cold and heartless. The late Crown Princess had been his unspoken beloved, and now that the late Crown Prince was dead, he had nothing left to fear.

*

Ye Ying, a widowed village woman who had become a bandit, saw her fortunes change when her pretty face made her a princess consort. Showered with favor, she lived freely and flaunted herself about the palace. She rode with a great retinue to the military camps outside the capital, and even when Prince Yan went on campaign, she begged shamelessly until he agreed to take her along.

Though she was a thousand miles from the capital, news of her beauty and escapades kept arriving there. They said that on the night of a bloody battle, seductive cries rang from Prince Yan's tent until midnight, leaving him so sore and weak that he couldn't even leave camp when a fire broke out...

Just as the capital's nobility looked askance at Ye Ying and the young ladies grew green with envy, a fall into the water ended her life. The people could only sigh that she had been a substitute, a maid with a short and ill-fated life.

*

Three years later, the late Crown Princess Ming Hua came back from the dead, leading an army toward the capital, determined to reclaim everything that had belonged to the late Crown Prince.

Jing Heng led troops to suppress the rebellion.

The people of the capital were deeply worried. Prince Yan had gone mad over Ye Ying, the Crown Princess's substitute. Now he was leading an army against the real Crown Princess. It hardly seemed like a battle he could win. Losing his mind in front of the real one would likely cost him his head.

Ming Hua thought so too.

The battlefield raged as the two armies faced off and the situation became deadlocked.

That night, Jing Heng went alone to Ming Hua's tent and was captured. He had nothing on him but the head on his shoulders.

When Ming Hua heard, she was overjoyed. She drew the sword she had just acquired and inspected it carefully by candlelight. Its blade gleamed coldly, radiating a fierce, murderous aura.

Remembering how she had trembled and pretended to be someone else by his side three years earlier, she furrowed her brow.

The sword was too sharp. Compared to all the times he had taken whatever he wanted from her and indulged himself, running her through with one thrust would be far too quick and painless.

Reading notes:

1. One-on-one romance, happy ending, both leads' first love.

2. Amnesia, fake substitute, and a groveling pursuit.

3. Both leads are strong, neither is perfect. The heroine is stunningly beautiful. The hero did not abandon his troops; there is more to the story.

4. Set in a fictional world inspired by the late Tang dynasty.

5. I have a compulsion to revise, but I only change the wording.

Theme: Love in adversity