How to Humiliate the Aloof Powerful Minister

(Beautiful and proud, from unhinged to sane, the regent princess vs. restrained and devoted, from sane to unhinged, the power minister in a chaotic age)

Xiao Li ascended the throne, a woman who became empress.

Looking back on her life, from an orphan girl abandoned in the palace's rear quarters before her kingdom fell, to an empress who drove wolves against tigers and reclaimed her homeland, it seemed that every desperate predicament and every victory had hinged on the man who stood unwaveringly by her side.

Cheng Shu, Grand Secretary and Great General of the Southern Dynasty.

When this all-powerful general returned to Luoyang with a hundred thousand cavalry, the entire court thought he would seize the throne. Instead, he removed his armor, held out his military seal, and knelt before her, bowing his head in submission.

-

After court, Xiao Li trailed her phoenix robe as she strolled back to the inner palace.

Between the layered curtains and deep bedchamber, the bitter scent of medicine lingered. A man's hoarse cough came in fitful bursts.

His lean, powerful frame remained, but years of old wounds had left him hollow within.

“They say, Teacher, that you can foresee every move...”

Xiao Li sneered, pinched his pale, fragile face, and hurled him hard against the foot of the bed.

“Now that things have come to this, do you regret saving my life when the kingdom fell?”

He tumbled from the bed, and the unhealed knife wound on his chest split open. Blood seeped across the lean lines of his back and waist, staining his thin white sleeping robe red.

He lay sprawled on the floor in a wretched heap, his gaze unfocused, yet his hand reached beneath her layers of skirts and seized her ankle.

“I do not regret it, Your Majesty.”

His callused fingertips brushed her lightly. Xiao Li's expression changed, and she recoiled half a step as if shocked.

Cheng Shu did not hold on. He let the warmth, like a bird's fluttering wings, slip from his palm.

A dark, mad red flashed unmistakably through his eyes, but he lowered them and coaxed her meekly:

“Jiaojiao, don't be afraid.”

“Afraid?”

Xiao Li scoffed. Her embroidered shoe slid over his long, jade-like fingers and ground down hard.

“I seem to remember that before you sent me away to marry for an alliance, you said, ‘If Your Highness can return to court, I will endure a thousand cuts and ten thousand slashes.’”

“Shouldn't you be the one who's afraid now, Teacher?”

Cheng Shu smiled with his eyes closed. Pain stabbed through his fingertips, yet his voice held a trace of delight. “I wonder how Your Majesty plans to cut me up tonight?”

-

Xiao Li once thought Cheng Shu's heart was made of iron and thorns. But when she truly carved it open, layer by layer, with the tip of her blade, all she found was fathomless devotion and a tenderness surging like storm-tossed waves.

Cheng Shu had once tried to test Xiao Li's heart, too...

Never mind. His princess had no heart.

From the day she returned to court, he had been the most loyal dog at her side, the swiftest blade in her hand. She commanded love and hate, life and death.

Reading Guide:

1. Teacher and disciple x sovereign and subject. Older man, nine-year age gap. Happy ending.

2. A sea of bitter love and hate early on, with a little melodrama for spice. Male rivals of every stripe throughout. The heroine is adored by everyone but doesn't realize it.

3. Plenty of battle injuries, torture, and sickly-hero tropes. The male lead is maxed out in both brains and fighting ability, so let him suffer a little flesh and blood.

4. The blurb takes place near the ending. The story opens after she returns from marriage for an alliance, following her journey from regent princess to empress.

5. Not an ambitious, domineering heroine story, nor a hard-core political intrigue novel. Everything serves the heroine's growth and triumph.

6. The transmigrator is the second female lead.

Content Warnings:

1. The male lead was once engaged to the heroine's older sister, but they never married.

2. The heroine spent three years in the Northern Dynasty for a genuine political marriage.

Note: The title comes from the song “Qing Shang Yue” by Vagary. The blurb's line “She commands love and hate, life and death” comes from the song “Na You Ta” by Chen Zhang Taikang.

Theme: Scars can be a hellish sea of suffering, or a place where flowers bloom against all odds.