After My Nemesis, the New Emperor, Praised Me to Death

Smiling emperor with a vicious streak x spoiled, wicked young woman who keeps courting death to survive

For seventeen years, Cui Minghe did as she pleased and never thought she'd get what was coming to her.

As a student at the Imperial Academy, she was the beloved pearl of the Cui clan, while he was, in her eyes, a dirt-poor nobody "born to a mother who didn't raise him." She shoved him into the city moat, tore up his essays, and mocked his origins. She was the brightest light in his heart, and the one that stung him most.

Then a palace coup changed everything. The once-disgraced prince donned the imperial robes and became the new emperor, with the power of life and death in his hands.

Hit over the head with "Never look down on a poor youth" and "You've already sealed your own doom," Cui Minghe decides her days are numbered. Will he settle old scores? Confiscate her family estate and exile her?

She lies flat and waits to die, trying to guess what "cruel scheme" he'll use to quietly finish her off.

But the new emperor only curls his lips and says gently, "The kindness Miss Cui showed me in the past... After much thought, I decided I must repay it."

*

Everyone says the new emperor hates the Cui girl to the bone.

So she's locked in a side hall of the Cold Palace, her allowance cut in half, with smoke stinging her eyes from the charcoal fire.

Cui Minghe gets it: The dog emperor plans to torture her slowly, like a hawk being broken in!

"The dog emperor is trying to kill me today." (Flips the table.)

"The dog emperor is trying to kill me again today." (Failed hanging attempt.)

"There'll always be a dog emperor trying to kill me." (Wraps herself in her little quilt.)

She refuses to give him what he wants! She makes trouble, stirs things up, and keeps testing him.

"The dog emperor is keeping me alive for an even more evil scheme!"

"Want to kill me? No chance!"

The entire palace bets on when the emperor will order her execution. Then she sets fire to a side chamber of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and he rushes into the flames to drag her out. Pressing her against him, he whispers hoarsely in her ear: "From today on, you'll sleep at my feet."

Other people's revenge: beheading, confiscation, and exile, the whole package.

Xiao Chengyi's revenge: Gold and silver? Here! A house? I'll build one! And he visits her in person every day to watch her eat, sleep, and copy out punishments.

The next day, enraged court officials protest: "The Cui girl is vulgar and immoral. How could she possibly serve at His Majesty's side?"

Xiao Chengyi smiles as he flips through the memorials. "Vulgar? Then make her a First-Rank Lady."

Cui Minghe: "I don't want it."

She despises his false gentleness and the way he hides the moon's reflection. He fears she'll shatter and bring down the palace, yet can't stop admiring her proud eyes.

[Reading Guide]

The male lead is not a virgin. Genuine palace intrigue.

Updates follow the rankings. Volume Two looks back at the past, covering their bitter rivalry at the Imperial Academy.

Former classmates fighting head-to-head. The author loves sweet treats. The male lead is a gentleman.

The male lead has been scheming for a long time and is a master of slowly simmered, sweet romance. The female lead stays clever throughout, isn't cowed by her privilege, and sits down to eat while sending everyone flying.

Alternate-history mashup, with light palace intrigue, light power politics, and a light ensemble cast.

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Coming soon: modern romance Forbidden Butterfly, a sweet treat starring another spoiled, wilful heiress.

Jiang Yu is the most notorious playboy in Hong Kong City. With a brow piercing and sanpaku eyes, he has luxury cars, yachts, and champagne towers. His pale hands can toss around fortunes or push people straight into hell.

He hated his younger sister for eighteen whole years.

She played the innocent, used his credit cards, sold his car, and drove off every girlfriend he ever had.

Then a paternity test came back. He personally threw her out of the house, laughing with careless amusement: "Get out. Don't dirty the Jiang family's doorstep."

When Jiang Yu was at the end of her rope, she once crouched on the steps in Sham Shui Po and texted him: "Jiang Yu, I hate you."

He didn't reply.

Later, amid the dazzling lights of a Macau casino, she flirted shamelessly and toyed with Zhou, a childhood friend who could never get along with him. He dragged her back into his arms in front of everyone.

"Don't you hate me? Then why are you trembling?"

Once siblings, now lovers.

He traps her between his arms and a mirror, his palm covering the slender nape of her neck. "You've called me 'brother' for eighteen years. Isn't that enough?"

"Call me something else. I'll take care of you."

Later, everyone in Hong Kong City knows that the young master of the Jiang family keeps a butterfly with captivating eyes by his side.

He lights her cigarettes, lowers his head for her, and casts aside supercars worth tens of millions for her sake. Yet every night, when they cling to each other in a desperate tangle, he turns his head away from the kisses she offers.

A turbulent darkness swirls in his eyes. "Jiang Yu, don't play with fire."

Love is a butterfly beating its wings over a festering wound. Whoever admits defeat first will be the first to drown in this game.

Theme: Grow fiercely through the storms of fate