Temptation on Spring Mountain

[Marriage first, love later / taking someone by force / long-planned scheme / an old flame reignited]

[Rebellious, unhinged princess x icy, pure-hearted imperial uncle]

I, Nan Huiyin, am a princess.

My father loves his daughters beyond reason. He has ten of them, and none is as beautiful as me.

Of course, that's because I'm not his biological daughter.

The emperor likes other men's wives. My mother was someone he picked up while traveling south of the Yangtze.

All my mother and I did was go out for a stroll, and look where we ended up.

Now the emperor is dead, and the crown prince has ascended the throne. A princess must be sent to the Kingdom of Hushe to marry for peace.

The ministers and everyone in the harem all look at me.

I weakly raise my hand.

"Sorry, but the Regent has already climbed into my bed..."

Everyone turns in unison to the man at the front, his head lowered and fists clenched.

The man clicks his tongue. This little troublemaker is pretty good at turning the tables, isn't she?

-

In his previous life, Tang Jue personally escorted Nan Huiyin to marry for peace and personally caught her when she fled.

When Hushe tore up the treaty, he also witnessed her being beheaded on the battlefield.

Although Tang Jue eventually destroyed Hushe, he couldn't bring Nan Huiyin's body back intact.

Holding her head in his hands, he spent every night dreaming of the girl, her face covered in tears as she clutched his robe and asked him:

"Imperial Uncle, do I really have to go?"

Reborn, he stained the battlefield with blood and earned great honors, all just to avoid making the same mistakes again.

Watching her come of age, seeing her married, seeing her become a wife and mother: if her life was safe and peaceful, that would be enough.

Who knew that, in the name of fostering friendship between the two countries, the newly enthroned emperor would once again send Nan Huiyin to marry for peace?

Tang Jue's fists began to itch. For some reason, he wanted to replace the man on the Dragon Throne.

But then one night, a thief climbed the wall and knocked on his window, her voice soft and alluring.

"Imperial Uncle, are you asleep?"

-

Nan Huiyin, who had nearly married someone else, eventually became Princess Consort Yan. But the two of them had barely spent enough time together to drink a cup of tea.

The icy man couldn't be warmed, and he even went out of his way to divorce her and send her off to someone else.

If she hadn't accidentally discovered the prince's dungeon one day and seen the wall covered with the personal belongings she'd lost, Nan Huiyin might really have believed the man's claims that he was unmoved.

Once his secret was discovered, Tang Jue stopped pretending and pinned her to a table in front of the dungeon's grim torture devices.

Nan Huiyin trembled, her skirt and stockings soaked through, while her red mandarin-duck bellyband hung from the madman's belt.

"My lord, do you also... like other men's wives?"

The man laughed in exasperation, but didn't deny it.

"I told you to run away long ago. Why wouldn't you listen?"

#My lord, please calm down!

#After I discovered the Regent's secret in his dungeon

Also known as The Princess as His Wife

[Romance-focused, sweet fluff, melodramatic marriage-first-love-later]

[Set in a fictional world, with invented details. Please don't flame if it's not your thing.]

Premise: A match made in Heaven, a pair of phoenixes in harmony