The Dread of the Boudoir

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[Elegant, deceptively innocent noblewoman x obsessive, scheming, lovesick emperor]

Zhao Qingyi was born into a prominent family and married down to Li Che, a scholar from a humble background. For twenty years, she managed the household and helped her husband rise to the position of Grand Secretary. Her adopted son made a name for himself. In return, she received poison and a letter of divorce.

Her adopted son accused her of usurping his birth mother’s place. Her husband’s mistress, her cousin, took the noblewoman’s title that Zhao Qingyi had worked so hard to earn. Her mother-in-law even spat in front of everyone and called her a husband-killing jinx.

Only then did Zhao Qingyi realize that her entire life of devotion and labor had been a joke.

When she opened her eyes again, she was eighteen, in the third year of her marriage to Li Che.

Zhao Qingyi touched her hair and smiled coldly. The Li family had risen because of her in her previous life. This time, she would bring them down, then slap a divorce letter in Li Che’s face.

Later, Li Che knelt and begged her to come back. Zhao Qingyi smiled. “Too late. I have a lover on the side.”

Li Che: “!”

He refused to believe her and swore he would find that bastard!

Then one day, he discovered red silk swaying in the attic of his own home, the air thick with intimacy. A woman sat in a man’s arms, her figure as supple as water, her hairpins askew as she turned her head slightly.

It was none other than his dignified, gentle, proper... ex-wife.

Li Che flew into a rage, but when the man turned around, his legs went weak with fear.

Y-Your M-Majesty?!

*

Chu Yuanhe ascended the throne as a boy and fought wars in the northwest, leaving his harem empty. Yet rumors claimed that he had long kept a mistress hidden outside the palace.

Hearing this, Zhao Qingyi rubbed her aching waist and said in frustration, “So, which of us is whose lover on the side?”

She was the one who had bought the house and kept this man!

“That doesn’t matter.” The young emperor bit the soft flesh at the back of her neck, his voice hoarse. “I offer you my empire as a bride-price. When will you give me a proper title, my lady?”

Notes:

1. The male lead is sexually inexperienced. The emperor is secretly and obsessively in love with the female lead, so he uses a secret identity to seduce her and straightforwardly becomes her lover on the side. Eventually, his secret identity is exposed.

2. The romance and plot are evenly balanced. The first half focuses more on the female lead’s revenge and putting scoundrels in their place; the latter half focuses more on the romance.

3. The female lead gets a satisfying power-fantasy storyline in this life. The main characters aren’t very moral. Anyone who hurts me will be ground to dust.

4. The outline is set. I’ll write at my own pace.

Please add my new novel, A Concubine, to your reading list~

Qiao Yingying is breathtakingly beautiful, but her life is as precarious as a drifting weed. She is Lu Sui’s bedchamber maid and concubine. After finally outliving him, she manages to find her next patron.

Her betrothed comes from a count’s family and treats her with great tenderness. But on the day she accompanies him to pay his respects to his elders, Qiao Yingying discovers that the man she once served is the regent, and also her betrothed’s uncle.

Looking at the man in white, cold and aloof upon the seat of honor, risen from the dead, her face turns deathly pale. Her hands tremble as she offers him tea. “P-Please have some tea, Uncle...”

That night, before Qiao Yingying can escape, the man pins her against the door. He grips her chin, his tone playful.

“Does he know you belong to his uncle?”

“Stay with me. Once I’m satisfied, I’ll let you marry him.”

Qiao Yingying has no choice but to endure the humiliation and play along, hoping Lu Sui will leave her alone after she marries, and that they can go their separate ways.

*

Lu Sui holds power over the court. Refined and noble, he is an untouchable flower on a high peak. Yet while traveling incognito in the south, he lets a scheming maid into his bed and falls from his lofty perch.

Afterward, he treats her like a plaything and humiliates her at every turn. The lowly maid has no self-respect and doesn’t seem ashamed. She even clings to him night after night, saying she loves him. Gradually, he begins to enjoy it. He thinks that when he returns to the capital, he’ll grant Qiao Yingying the title of a concubine in his palace.

Until the little maid plots his “death,” then runs off with his money without looking back.

When they meet again, Lu Sui sees her using the same sweet lies to deceive another man. He watches her every move from the shadows, sneering.

He watches her become a noblewoman. He watches her and another man fall in love.

He repeatedly offers her an olive branch, but she turns him down every time.

Later, he witnesses her kissing another man in a garden.

To get away from him, she even elopes with some other man and secretly marries him behind his back...

That night, Lu Sui storms into the bridal chamber with a sword. The groom falls to the floor, his fate unknown. Qiao Yingying is bound to the bedpost, her red gown stripped away, as she curses him for breaking his word.

The man’s refined, handsome face is filled with cruelty. He sneers. “You want me to let you go, then watch you pleasure him and live happily as a loving couple?”

He would rather crush her and leave her to rot in the mud.

She will never escape him in this life.

Theme: Be self-reliant and independent