So the Crown Princess Doesn't Love Me

🌟Male stand-in romance | Chasing his wife to the crematorium | The aloof beauty turns into a vengeful ghost | Romantic rivalry

🌟Proud and haughty Crown Prince X Crown Princess with her heart set on someone else

Xie Chengzhou didn't like his Crown Princess.

She was uneducated and dull, with none of the poise expected of a noble young lady.

What he hated most was that, after he rejected her marriage proposal, she drugged him at the Qujiang Banquet, ruining his childhood sweetheart relationship with his cousin.

So even after Jiang Mei bore him a son and helped him hold on to his position as heir, Xie Chengzhou felt little affection for her.

When rebel forces stormed the imperial city,

he even left his heavily pregnant wife behind to save his cousin.

After the rebellion was put down, he ignored how frightened and sleepless she was during her pregnancy, insisting on taking his newly widowed cousin as a secondary consort to make up for the regret of the past.

And Jiang Mei truly did love him deeply.

She never resented his harsh treatment. Instead, she even helped persuade the Empress Dowager to let his cousin enter the palace.

Xie Chengzhou was pleased.

If she could remain so obedient and understanding, he might even grant her the rank of consort after he ascended the throne.

Until the day of the Qujiang Banquet.

On his father's orders, Xie Chengzhou went to meet this year's successful candidates in the imperial examinations, and saw the top scholar's face, so much like his own.

His Crown Princess, who usually couldn't stand socializing, had endured the discomfort of pregnancy just to meet that man in secret.

The eyes that had never shed a tear for him were now brimming with tears for the other man.

The lips that had never called him by an intimate name called the other man, “Zhaolang.”

Only then did Xie Chengzhou realize that his Crown Princess had never loved him. She had only liked that his face looked so much like the man she loved.

And Jiang Mei was not truly uneducated and dull, either.

Her zither playing had once kept the orioles in the sky circling overhead for three days;

her lyrics had once been eagerly imitated by scholars throughout the region.

That short lyric he had praised endlessly was written by Jiang Mei, once the most celebrated noblewoman in Hedong. It told of the unforgettable past she shared with the man she loved.

It was just that her dazzling talent and the fierce passion of a girl in love had never belonged to him.

*

The moment Jiang Mei was maneuvered into marrying into the Eastern Palace, her heart died completely.

She would no longer care about other people's misunderstandings or her husband's indifference.

She never expected that when they could finally part ways for good, the man who had once looked down on her most would be the one most unwilling to let go.

She never expected that the proud Crown Prince, so noble and self-possessed that his arrogance was carved into his very bones, would one day pin her down in a fit of madness and ask her over and over:

“Did he kiss you here?”

“Or here?”

(Blurb written on August 20, 2026)

Theme: Love built on equality.