The Idle Heir Apparent's Wife

[Main story complete]

Shen Fu was content to scrape by, eat her fill, and wait for death. Marrying into the prestigious Prince An's household was pure luck.

Her elder sister, who was engaged to the heir, suddenly fell gravely ill, leaving cautious, timid Shen Fu to take her place.

Shen Fu knew perfectly well that the heir had no feelings for her.

She had none for him, either.

Though the heir was powerful and high-ranking, he was also notorious in the capital as a brutal killer. He was hardly her type.

The heir was distant and cold. He left on their wedding night, and after they married, she hardly ever saw him. Shen Fu didn't mind in the least. She was busy winning over her parents-in-law and enjoying the wealth of the prince's household. She had no time to worry about a husband who ignored her.

Her demands were modest. She didn't mind if he disliked her, as long as he didn't make trouble for her and let her lie flat in the prince's household.

Her good days lasted a long time. Not long after the wedding, the heir went off to war, and he would be gone for at least a year.

Shen Fu pretended to worry and squeezed out a couple of tears, then turned away with a smile almost splitting her face.

A year of carefree living was heaven on earth.

When the heir returned victorious, Shen Fu went with her parents-in-law to greet him at the gate, lamenting that her happy days had flowed away like water.

A year later, her husband, whom she had barely seen, looked even more stern and forbidding, like some underworld judge.

Shen Fu put on an excited, yearning expression to welcome him, thinking that once they reached the inner courtyard, they could go their separate ways.

When they arrived, she was just about to offer a word of concern and leave, when her husband, who hadn't looked her in the eye once since returning, suddenly stopped and said coldly, "I hear you've spent the past year eating, drinking, having fun, and playing cards, enjoying yourself so much that you nearly forgot you had a husband away suffering on the battlefield?"

Shen Fu was startled.

What did he mean? Was he about to hold her accountable?

At the thought, she hurriedly dabbed beneath her eyes with a handkerchief and said tearfully, "How could you think that of me, my lord? While you were away at war, I thought of you every day and worried so much I couldn't sleep. Those little entertainments were just a way to console myself. The truth is, all I ever think about, all I ever long for, is you."

Yan Zhan, who had been about to call her to account, froze.

Yan Zhan wielded immense power and was utterly unsentimental. He was the heir to Prince An, a man feared by everyone in the capital. He paid little attention to the timid, beautiful wife who had married into his household in another woman's place. As long as she behaved herself, that was enough.

Later, he gradually realized that she was exactly to his liking, and that spending his life with her would not be so bad. Then he learned that everything she said was honeyed lies, and that she had deceived him again and again.

His face darkened as he prepared to confront her, when she poked her head in through the door, came over with a bright smile, and called, "My lord, it's getting late. I've been waiting for you."

Yan Zhan: "..."

Reader's Guide:

1. Five-year age gap. Fundamentally, a sweet story of love after marriage! The heroine is beautiful and sweet-tongued, a timid, lazy beauty who believes you should fight if you can win and apologize if you can't. The hero is powerful and calculating, cold at first and always telling her to behave, but later becomes a doting husband who lets her walk all over him. Neither lead is morally perfect. If this isn't your kind of story, please proceed with caution.

2. The setting is fictional, with plenty of original worldbuilding.

3. A little domestic intrigue (highlighted). There are antagonists of both sexes, so please click away if you can't accept that.

4. Please don't imagine potential problems and use them as a reason to complain. If you don't like it, feel free to click away. No complaints after dropping the story.

5. More to be added if I think of anything.

My upcoming novel, My Husband Was Picked Up, Then I Divorced Him. If you're interested, please add it to your collection!

Blurb:

A distant relative of the Su family fell on hard times. The only survivor was a seventeen-year-old boy, who had no choice but to seek shelter with the Su family.

Though he wore tattered clothes and looked utterly wretched, the boy was strikingly handsome, with a high nose and red lips. The moment he appeared before the Su family, everyone was captivated.

Su Qing thought there was no harm in helping a distant relative. But the family matriarch told her that she and the boy had been engaged since childhood, and that he had once saved her life. Now that his family had fallen on hard times and he had no one, she could not break off the engagement and invite people's scorn.

Su Qing no longer remembered what had happened when she was little. Though marrying a strange man seemed difficult, she wasn't heartless or faithless. He was, after all, her betrothed, so she married him.

After the wedding, Su Qing continued to run the family's pharmacy, and she and her husband got along reasonably well most of the time. Her handsome husband was rather aloof and proud, though, and would get angry over the smallest things, leaving Su Qing exhausted from having to soothe him.

Just then, her cousin, who had been away doing business, returned. He discovered that she had married so quickly, and for some reason, his expression turned sour.

Later, Su Qing learned that it wasn't her handsome husband who had saved her as a child, but her cousin. That was also why she had been promised to him.

Though Su Qing was a woman, she had always been upright and despised scheming, trickery, and deception. She immediately wrote a divorce agreement and told her husband she wanted to separate.

For the first time, her usually proud and handsome husband turned red-eyed and gritted his teeth. "You don't trust me, and now you're divorcing me because of him? If we divorce, I'll never come back!"

Su Qing closed her eyes, her mind made up. "You and I will never see each other again."

Later, he left the Su family in the middle of the night without looking back, not even taking the money Su Qing had given him.

Though Su Qing worried about how he would get by, her anger at being deceived had not faded, so she didn't send anyone to look for him. She could only watch him grow thinner.

When the family matriarch returned, she finally told Su Qing the truth.

It turned out that her cousin had been lying to her all along. He had been in love with Su Qing since childhood, and jealousy had driven him to make up the story.

Upon learning the truth, Su Qing literally coughed up blood.

Realizing that she had misunderstood him, Su Qing decided to bring him back. She heard he had gone to the capital, so she packed her bags and set out alone to find her husband.

After finally reaching the capital and asking around, she learned that he was at the Duke of Jin's residence.

Now the young heir to the duke's household, he stood before the grand residence and looked down at her. "Who are you?"

Su Qing: "I'm your wife. I've come to take you home."

But he only sneered. "Su Qing, we've been divorced for three years, one thousand and ninety-five days, and thirteen thousand one hundred and forty hours! You're only coming to take me home now? Too late!"

A proud, beautiful heir who has endured hardship and is hopelessly devoted x an upright, old-fashioned head of the Su family's medicine business who sometimes refuses to back down

Ji Yue after the divorce: Intermittently thinks he can live without Su Qing, but constantly wonders why she still hasn't come to take him home.

Not a female-dominated setting! A wife-chases-husband-to-the-crematorium story (not really).

Blurb written on August 28, 2024.

Theme: Embrace a happier life.