After Moving to the City, I Became the Prize of the Powerful

The main story is complete.

[Marginalized, kind-hearted, honest woman & beautiful, gloomy male ghost & obsessive, deranged emperor. A niche kink.]

Hui Niang is a country woman, timid and withdrawn, who dislikes socializing. Her husband is a gambling addict who also loves to drink. Whenever he loses money and gets drunk, he takes it out on her. To escape that home, she begged an elder relative who worked as a cook at Prince Chu's residence to help her get a job there as a menial maid.

Hui Niang is the lowest-ranking maid. She never sees the master of the residence, and only hears that he wields enormous power at court, even making the emperor wary of him. People call him the Jade-Faced Yama.

The name Jade-Faced refers to his peerless good looks, while Yama describes his twisted, brutal nature. Anyone who crosses him meets a terrible end.

Hui Niang fears him even before she has ever seen him.

One stormy night, she went outside to relieve herself and came across a wounded man unconscious in the rain. Her compassion stirred, and she hid him in the woodshed and bandaged his wounds. In his delirium, he said he was cold, so Hui Niang hurried back to get a blanket. By the time she returned, the man had vanished.

Later, she saw Prince Chu, Helian Ye, in the crowd and was astonished to realize he was the wounded man.

He cast her a glance, his face stern and cold as a fearsome god. Hui Niang lowered her head, trembling all over with fear.

The third time they met, he barged into her home while fleeing an assassination attempt. Her husband was away, so she let him hide inside for the night. Helian Ye did not say a word to her and left without a goodbye the next morning.

She thought he had never given her a second thought, until that day...

Her husband had beaten her until she was covered in blood. Barefoot and weeping, she ran out of the house and collapsed by the roadside. By sheer coincidence, Helian Ye was there with several powerful nobles, enjoying the countryside.

The nobles looked at her with either indifference or amusement. Hui Niang curled up her battered body, wishing she could sink into the earth.

Then Helian Ye walked toward her and held out his hand.

His hand was long-fingered and clean, beautiful as jade. Hers was rough and calloused, like deadwood. She did not dare reach for it, afraid she would dirty him.

Yet he waited patiently.

She raised her head in surprise and looked up at him. Meeting his icy gaze, she silently let her tears fall.

She lived in hell, and the Yama was the one protecting her. She should not have been afraid of him.

*

As the supreme ruler, Emperor Jing would never have paid attention to a country woman if not for Helian Ye.

Hui Niang was crude, ordinary, and utterly unremarkable. What right did she have to win the favor of the person he loved? He saw her as a thorn in his side, a bane in his flesh, and wanted nothing more than to be rid of her. Yet he never expected that one day she would enter his heart, leaving him to endure the agony of unrequited love every night.

*

To Hui Niang, Emperor Jing was a towering mountain. If it ever fell, it could crush her spine.

His temper was violent and unrestrained, and she feared him.

She thought their stations were too far apart, like clouds and mud, and that their paths would never cross. She never imagined he would one day become her doom.

He was so obsessive and deranged that he painstakingly built an extravagant cage, hoping to lock her inside it.

Notes:

* The female lead is not a virgin, while the male lead is.

* The second male lead is the emperor, obsessive and deranged. He first falls for the male lead and sees the female lead as a rival in love, then falls for her.

* The male lead and second male lead never have a physical relationship. They later become rivals in love, competing for the female lead.

-

Please add my upcoming novel, My Husband's "Lover" and I Get a Happy Ending, to your reading list!

Du Shuyu was born into an aristocratic family of the previous dynasty. She always upheld old traditions and family values in her words and actions. Following her parents' wishes and the matchmaker's arrangement, she married Zhao Chengfeng, a man from a humble family who had risen to prominence in the current dynasty through the imperial examinations.

Zhao Chengfeng was handsome and elegant, like a graceful orchid tree. She was reasonably pleased with him, but he despised her.

Du Shuyu did not quarrel or complain. She diligently fulfilled her role as a wife in the Zhao family.

Only when that woman appeared did she understand why her husband was cold toward her and why he had delayed consummating their marriage.

That woman was sometimes beautiful and seductive, full of irresistible charm, and sometimes pure and gentle, so lovely that one could not help but feel for her.

Du Shuyu could understand her husband's infatuation, because even her own heart, still as a dead pool, rippled at the sight of that woman's stunning beauty...

*

Zhao Chengfeng did not like Du Shuyu. Their marriage was a matter of mutual convenience. At first, he thought her old-fashioned and rigid, and incapable of romance.

But after they married, his wife cared for him attentively, managed the household well, and stayed by his side without changing her clothes when he was ill.

Spending every day together, he inevitably developed some affection for her. Then one day, after his feelings had begun to grow, he saw Du Shuyu blushing as she hurried out of a pavilion.

He thought she was cheating on him behind his back. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, yet he could not find the slightest evidence.

Later, he caught his wife cuddling in bed with the woman he had just taken as his beloved concubine.

It should have been a scene of harmony between wife and concubine, but for some inexplicable reason, jealousy welled up in him, and he could not even tell which of them he was jealous of.

*

Chu Yu, heir to the Prince of Jiangbei, was so beautiful that it was hard to tell whether he was male or female. He had an odd quirk: he liked wearing women's clothes.

He was uninhibited and loved to enjoy himself. Just for a jug of fine wine, he made a bet with a friend and disguised himself as a woman to toy with Zhao Chengfeng.

At first, he was the one pulling all the strings in front of Du Shuyu.

Later, he became the slave Du Shuyu controlled and toyed with.

A seductive, outrageous cross-dressing charmer & a rigid, old-fashioned aristocratic wife.

Theme: Break free from the cocoon and become someone new.