Honorable Chancellor, Please Rise from the Brothel

[Blurb screenshotted on 2026.7.31]

Shen Yu discovers that he is the villain in a power-fantasy novel.

On the surface, Shen Yu is the Crown Prince's loyal tutor, having taken a blade and tested poison for him, and built up a network of supporters.

In reality, he wields power over the court, using the Crown Prince to control the government.

In the original story, his schemes are eventually exposed, and the new emperor he personally trained beheads him.

If the Crown Prince is too difficult to control, he'll just support someone more obedient.

Shen Yu sets his sights on the Seventh Prince, Jiang Xianwu.

A forgotten scrap of the royal family is the perfect puppet.

Shen Yu teaches the Seventh Prince everything he knows, helps him find his footing, and instructs him in the art of strategy.

But while the Crown Prince's faction grows ever stronger, the Seventh Prince remains hopeless. He's softhearted and cries easily, and all he does is cling to Shen Yu and fuss over him like an annoying little shadow.

All Shen Yu's painstaking efforts are no match for the protagonist's plot armor.

Shen Yu promptly fakes his death and disappears.

If he can't survive by standing up to the protagonist, he can at least stay out of his way, right?

*

Many years later, the nearly bankrupt Drunken Immortal House, a brothel in the capital, gains a new star courtesan.

Rumor has it this peerless beauty neither sells her body nor performs. She simply sips tea behind a gauze curtain, yet draws a steady stream of nobles and officials, who spend fortunes for a few words of advice to help them find their way.

The courtesan is given an elegant title: the Moon of Romance.

Then one day, the capital's fortunes change.

Power shifts, and the one who takes the throne is not the Crown Prince, who seemed certain to win, but the youngest son, whom the late emperor favored least.

On the day the palace steps are stained red with the blood of the Crown Prince's faction, a nine-pearl imperial carriage stops outside the Drunken Immortal House.

In the teahouse, a guest dressed in a python robe turns his teacup between his fingers. His gloomy gaze seems to pierce the curtain and trace the familiar outline of the beauty behind it.

"I... I am looking for someone," the guest says. "That person seems to be far away, yet somehow right before my eyes."

Behind the curtain, Shen Yu looks at the cold, handsome face, so changed from how he remembers it, and forces a smile. "And what will you do when you find them, sir?"

The guest smiles faintly.

"If you agree, you'll be appointed chancellor. If you refuse, I'll confine you in the inner palace and make you my lover."

"So, Master, what do you think of becoming a chancellor of romance?"

● Reader's Guide ●

The younger lead is ten years younger. No kk, writing advice, or personal attacks. If you want to drop the story, no need to tell me.

Theme: Love endures every storm