What's Wrong with the Third Prince?

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[Bright, resilient beauty vs. the seemingly gentle but secretly calculating prince]

Shen Qingyu regretted one thing more than anything else: marrying the current dynasty's third prince.

As the legitimate daughter of the Chancellor's household, with a powerful maternal family and an uncle commanding a great army on the frontier, she had always been able to get whatever she wanted. Yet at a lantern festival, she fell in love at first sight and insisted that her father petition for an imperial marriage decree. She would marry no one else.

For ten years, they weathered one storm after another, until she helped him become ruler of the realm.

Shen Qingyu thought her long ordeal was finally over. But on the very day she was crowned empress, she learned that one hundred thousand troops had been abandoned on the frontier and her father had been imprisoned on fabricated charges.

Only when she knelt outside the palace, pregnant with his child, and begged him did she learn that his apparent love at first sight had all been part of a scheme. He had endured for nearly ten years to bring about this day.

As her life ebbed away, she thought, if she could live again, she would never fall in love with him.

She never imagined Heaven would grant her wish. When she opened her eyes, she had returned to ten years earlier.

*

After being reborn, Shen Qingyu changed her ways completely. She proceeded with caution at every step, afraid of having anything to do with Zuo Xiuyi.

Wherever Zuo Xiuyi went, she refused to go. Anyone connected to Zuo Xiuyi, she refused to associate with.

She thought she could make everything right again.

But things went against her wishes. Just as in her previous life, the Shen family was falsely accused and imprisoned. Shen Qingyu ran around trying to save them, never noticing the increasingly dark look in his eyes.

Later, when her father resigned from office and left the capital, Shen Qingyu packed her things and accidentally found a stack of letters at the bottom of her makeup case.

They were written in Zuo Xiuyi's hand.

The familiar, vigorous strokes gradually gave way, letter by letter, to the awkward, youthful handwriting of someone who had only recently begun to practice.

The earliest letter was dated the third year of Yongchang. She had been only six years old.

The letters spanned nearly a decade of their childhood. She watched as “For Miss Shen, to open” became “Qingqing, may this bring you joy.”

Qingqing, Qingqing.

Not a single line spoke of love, and the letters were full of everyday trivia. Yet that one name was enough to reveal his whole heart.

His most sincere love was there between the lines.

At last, she remembered:

Why had she fallen in love at first sight?

*

Because they had been childhood sweethearts.

From the male lead's perspective:

The third prince, Zuo Xiuyi, was as handsome as a moonlit breeze, refined and gentle, a gentleman as pure as jade.

But his true nature was honeyed words hiding a dagger, and bottomless greed.

He was nothing but a hypocrite.

He bathed the capital in blood, killed his father and brother, and climbed to power over mountains of corpses. He was guilty of every evil and deserved eternal damnation.

But what did that matter? There was only one thing he wanted.

All he wanted was for his Qingqing to...

survive.

*

*Every divination foretold no chance of survival. I would trade my life for my wife’s.*

A guide to this story:

Story details:

Exclusive pairing, one-on-one, happy ending.

Not a strong heroine story.

The male lead didn't do it. He loves her to death.

The dynasty is fictional, very fictional. The political intrigue is extremely simplistic, and the author's not very clever. It's just a love story, so please don't read it if you want historical accuracy.

-

Coming soon:

A sweet modern entertainment-industry romance: Her Secret Crush on a Top-Tier Star. Visit the author's page to see it.

Cat cafe owner with a million followers x A-list superstar with billions of streams

In high school, the first time Shen Yang saw him was in the woods behind the school.

The boy had been kicked to the ground by the notorious rich kid in their class. He curled up on the ground, stubbornly biting his lip without making a sound.

The people around her told Shen Yang that he was He Chi, the illegitimate son who had been the subject of wild rumors ever since he enrolled.

Everyone told Shen Yang not to get involved, but amid the chaos, she couldn't help looking at him a couple more times.

There was only one reason: his handsome face, covered in mud but still impossible to miss.

Perhaps out of basic human decency, Shen Yang stepped in to help. But before long, she forgot all about it. She went on with her studies, graduated, and went abroad.

After returning home, she opened a cat cafe with a friend, and business flourished.

Her three years of high school felt like a past life. Shen Yang had no idea that one act of kindness had stayed with He Chi for eight whole years.

Eight years later, the pitiful boy who'd been bullied had become the youngest Best Actor in the entertainment industry. In his five years since debut, every role he'd played had been a leading man, and he'd basked in flowers and applause ever since.

-

That year, the Pet Protection Act was passed, and the first-ever pet-rearing variety show began filming. The cast was star-studded, and even He Chi, who rarely appeared on variety shows, signed on as a regular.

One episode's original non-celebrity guest had to drop out due to illness, so Shen Yang filled in at a friend's request. She appeared as the owner of a cat cafe with a million followers, never expecting to become an overnight sensation across the internet.

The sight of a handsome man and a beautiful woman caring for pets was too pleasing to the eye, and the comments were full of praise, until one quietly floated by:

[I've never seen Teacher He smile so sweetly at any other woman.]

!!

That single comment set off a storm. Countless “I ship them” messages flooded the comments on the full episode.

Fans turned into gossip detectives, digging into Shen Yang's past. The more they uncovered, the more extraordinary she seemed:

Her father had once been a vice president at an industrial company. Her mother was now a well-known Wall Street trader. She was an outstanding graduate of a top-five university in the world, and her impeccable London accent during her graduation speech had dazzled everyone. The wall-to-wall luxury goods she'd posted on her lifestyle account, which once had hundreds of thousands of followers, had left everyone stunned.

*They're afraid the future sister-in-law won't measure up, but also afraid their own brother isn't good enough for her.*

[How can you be so beautiful, rich, and accomplished, sis?]

As people dug further back, they discovered that Shen Yang and He Chi had attended the same high school. Even now, the school still used a photo of Shen Yang in its promotional materials.

A sharp-eyed netizen took a closer look at the shady corner beside her in the photo...

Wasn't that He Chi?!!

All at once,

#HeChiSecretlyInLove

#TheOneHeCouldNeverHave

became trending topics again.

Gossip-hungry netizens confronted the star himself. This time, the man, usually so discreet about his private life, did something extremely rare and posted a photo.

It was a yearbook photo with hundreds of students. Everyone else had been blurred out, leaving only his and Shen Yang's youthful faces clearly visible.

One stood at the far left, the other at the far right.

They had been only a few inches apart in the photo, and just a hundred meters apart back then. Yet in reality, the distance between them had been as vast as mountains and seas.

He captioned it:

My eighteenth year.

-

The gloomy skies of He Chi's youth should have darkened his whole life. By chance, she swept away the clouds for him, letting him glimpse a sliver of light that made life worth living.

In his heart, she had always been the moon in the sky and a flower reflected in the water.

A gift from Heaven, granted out of mercy.

Story details:

Happy ending, exclusive pairing, one-on-one.

The male lead secretly loves the female lead.

The entertainment industry is fictional. The author isn't involved in fan circles, and all characters and settings are entirely fictional. Some things may differ from reality, such as the male lead not filming kissing or intimate scenes. Everything is in service of the sweet romance and the plot. Please click away if that bothers you.

The heroine is an ordinary person, and this isn't a pure entertainment-industry story. The romance is the main focus.

A fluffy, brainless sweet treat, a little bedtime read for fun.

Author's Weibo: Chi Yao Hua Hua Hua (come say hi!)

Theme: Love yourself well, and love others well.