A Palace Game, Starting in the Cold Palace

Lin Xiangwan transmigrates into a romance game where players can freely control the characters and compete for favor. But everyone knows the creators gave the game a bleak ending. Just when the player reaches the finale and takes the throne as empress, the court is overthrown, and the rebels kill the emperor and every player. Whatever choices you make, death is unavoidable in the end.

Lin Xiangwan becomes a low-ranking palace woman confined to the Cold Palace.

With a perfect-score pretty face, and surrounded by all the beauties vying for favor in the palace, Lin Xiangwan just wants to make a run for it.

She maxes out both medicine and poison, maxes out strength, and maxes out hidden weapons. As for buffs like a soft, boneless figure, fair skin, and beauty-enhancing flower dew, she turns them all into ways to forge her own path and build up her resources.

One day, an injured man falls into the courtyard of the Cold Palace. Even unconscious, he seems dangerous. Lin Xiangwan has no choice but to hide him and treat his wounds. But after seeing that handsome face day after day, one thing leads to another, and she ends up with a romantic entanglement.

She carefully hides her lover, never guessing that he's the powerful and highly trusted Imperial Preceptor.

When she sees the palace servants treating him with respect, then runs into him in the imperial garden, Lin Xiangwan: !

Well, at least she'll have another ally. Completely unfazed, Lin Xiangwan keeps sneaking around for sweet moments with her lover while using his influence to build up her resources, preparing to escape the day the capital falls.

At last, the day the city falls arrives. Lin Xiangwan packs her belongings and slips out of the palace, planning to leave the capital far behind and roam wherever she pleases. But as soon as she leaves the city, a group of riders catches up with her.

The rebel leader, the future emperor, smiles as he approaches and sweeps her onto his horse. "Where are you going, darling? How about becoming my empress?"

Fake Taoist x real discarded consort

One-on-one, body and heart devoted to each other, no switching or breaking up the pairing. Please don't request or imagine alternate pairings.

🍀: The bottom wears women's clothes early on, but is referred to as "he" throughout for convenience.

☘️: The top realizes his feelings after learning the bottom is a man.

🍃: The protagonist was sent to the Cold Palace and made a commoner before ever meeting the emperor. It has nothing to do with him.

Next upcoming novel: The Dragon-Pride's White Moonlight Is Actually Me

Right after transmigrating, Chu Xia falls off a cliff. Having always been pampered and sheltered, he's at a loss at the foot of the cliff, where the mountain winds howl and danger lurks everywhere.

Fortunately, there's another living being down here: a great demon lord who's been imprisoned at the bottom of the cliff for hundreds of years.

The great demon lord is cold and fierce. Even Chu Xia's attempts to coax him and act cute have no effect, and Chu Xia is so angry he nearly sheds a few tears.

Unexpectedly, the two are pulled into a secret realm. In this completely unfamiliar place, the great demon lord loses his memories and shrinks down, becoming a pitiful temporary guest of a family. Seeing everyone look down on him, Chu Xia can't bear to watch him suffer. To everyone's astonishment, he toddles over and hugs the demon lord's arm. "Big brother!"

Through one illusion after another, the great demon lord claims to dislike Chu Xia, but always puts him first.

It seems time will simply pass by like this, until the day the nine heavens' lightning tribulation descends.

-

Shen Wushan has never met anyone as delicate as Chu Xia.

Training has to fit into a nine-to-five schedule, and classes need a fifteen-minute break at regular intervals.

He's so afraid of the heavenly tribulation that he researches lightning rods. If he gets even a little hurt, his eyes turn red. Even when sitting on the ground, he makes sure to wipe every speck of dust away. He insists on being meticulous about bathing and eating, too.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, he says he can't live without a phone. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, he says life without the internet is incomplete. Then he gazes at Shen Wushan with big, watery eyes. Only when Shen Wushan teaches him formations, helps him gather gossip from far and wide, and shows him how to absorb the essence of heaven and earth does he smile.

Shen Wushan, unwittingly wrapped around his little finger: ...

Yet this very person later sets up a formation to deceive the heavens for him and withstands the heavenly tribulation.

When Chu Xia wakes up again, he discovers that he's actually the young master of the Chu family of Jingzhou.

His parents love each other, his siblings are close, and he's even engaged to the senior disciple of Tianyan Sect.

But Chu Xia clearly remembers that when he first arrived in this world, he was met by a pair of cold eyes and a hand that pushed him off a cliff.

His loving family also seems to have ulterior motives. Otherwise, why do they only comfort him after the fact when he's been wronged?

On the day of the engagement, Tianyan Sect is decked out for a joyous celebration, but twelve Heavenly Formation Arrays lie beneath the ground.

That is also the day the Sword Venerable rides in on the clouds, shatters the sword formation, and carries Chu Xia, dressed in red, away from Tianyan Sect.

Theme: Face every hardship and obstacle with all your strength.