The Tyrant's Imitation Princess

Cruel, unhinged true tyrant VS soft yet resilient fake princess

#A “granduncle’s darling” façade, true “forced love”#

(Updates at nine every night. Please, please, please add it to your reading list!)

On the day of the palace coup, Princess Jiayao disguised herself as a palace maid and fled, only to die beneath a rain of arrows.

Jiang Yueli, her unlucky companion, had been ordered to impersonate the princess and draw away the rebels. Instead, she was brought before the new emperor, Rong Ce.

The ruthless prince of a vassal state had just killed his own nephew, the emperor, and seized the throne. Blood stained his silver armor, and his eyes were as cold as frost.

Jiang Yueli was prepared to die in the princess’s place, but the man tossed aside his bloodied blade.

“My useless elder brother and his son have so little blood left in the family. And you even call me Granduncle...”

His long, powerful fingers lifted the girl’s chin. Meeting her clear, lovely eyes, he smiled charmingly.

“How could I wipe you all out?”

From then on, the “fake princess” became the lowliest servant at the new emperor’s side. He humiliated her in every way he could, intent on crushing the last shred of dignity left to the late emperor and his son.

Jiang Yueli knew she was an impostor, and she knew the man on the throne was violent and ruthless, with a blood feud against the late emperor and his son for killing his mother and taking the throne. She carefully placated him, hoping only to stay alive.

Rong Ce had evidently gone soft. If it wasn’t the pull of “a granduncle’s affection for his grandniece,” perhaps something was wrong with him. Why else would that little wretch, barely old enough to have all her hair, look more and more appealing to him?

He punished her by sending her to the dog kennel, yet after snow began to fall, he worried she’d freeze and brought her back in the middle of the night.

He threw her into the Cold Palace, but when she was bullied, he arrived in time and severely punished the culprits.

When assassins attacked, he even instinctively threw himself in front of her...

He treated her like this, yet never expected her to seize a chance to escape and vanish without a trace...

Late at night, a sword scabbard knocked on the wooden gate of a border-town house.

Outside stood the emperor, dressed in black, his dark hair and figure sharp against the frost. Behind him, ranks of armored guards loomed.

“So you dared to deceive me...”

He approached step by step and brushed his fingertips over the girl’s deathly pale face. His voice was so cold it made her tremble.

“Tell me, this time, do you think I’ll be able to bring myself to kill you?”

One-on-one, both leads are sexually inexperienced, happy ending. Nine-year age gap, size difference, and a difference in rank and generation.

Please add my next historical romance, After Winning Over the Ascetic Power Minister, to your reading list!

Blurb:

#Career-focused heroine who flirts and runs, VS hero who knows he’s bait but can’t help taking the hook#

Su Heng enters the Palace Directorate as a female official. She’s set on joining the Imperial Secretariat and becoming its highest-ranking female official so she can make a life for herself. But her beauty makes the palace maidens hoping to become imperial consorts wary of her, and they often trip her up.

To show where her ambitions lie and avoid trouble, Su Heng claims she already has someone she likes. The future crown princess doesn’t believe her and insists on knowing who it is, so Su Heng points at the handsome, refined, cold-faced power minister standing beside the crown prince.

~

Xiao Zhiyan is the youngest man to head a marquis’s household in the capital. He serves as deputy commissioner of the Imperial Guard, is one of His Majesty’s most trusted men, and is known for ruthless decisiveness. No one dares cross him.

Then he meets a bold female official who not only confesses to him in public, but often makes him pastries and other treats, flirts with him whenever they meet, and even dares to take liberties with him whenever she gets the chance.

Xiao Zhiyan warns her coldly to stay away. He only wants to find a reason to have her expelled from the palace.

Until one day, she risks her life to save him. He thinks, She loves me so deeply she might not survive without me. Perhaps I should give her a proper title.

Just as he prepares to go ask for her hand, he hears the little woman, now promoted to the highest-ranking female official, sneer to someone:

“Who could actually like that humorless tyrant? I just didn’t want the crown princess to misunderstand. It made things more convenient for me in the palace!”

Xiao Zhiyan, the “useful tool,” stands on the other side of the wall, his face turning livid.

So all the signs had been there. She only confessed and said sweet things in front of the crown princess and the other palace maidens. She made him food without ever considering what he liked. Even risking her life to save him had been a calculated act of suffering to win his sympathy...

When they meet again, the ascetic power minister pins the beauty in a corner, his gaze cold and his voice hoarse.

“Crossing the river and burning the bridge, taking what you want and then abandoning me. Do you know what happens when you treat me this way?”

One-on-one, both leads are sexually inexperienced, happy ending.

Theme: Hard work pays off.