The Tenth Year of the Young Emperor and Empress's Marriage

The earlier chapters may be lightly revised from time to time. I’m not responsible for errors or corrupted content in pirated copies.

Marriage first, love later | The husband’s long road to winning back his wife | A sea of hatred and passion

My next book, After Marrying My Younger Sister Off to Someone Else, is now open for collection. Please add it to your library~

A kind, resilient empress x a brooding, obsessive emperor

The year Chen Huaizhu’s powerful minister father married her off to Yuan Chengjun, he was still the puppet emperor of Great Wei.

On their wedding night, Yuan Chengjun promised her, “Now that we have drunk the nuptial wine, we shall remain together until our hair turns white.” For the next ten years, he treated her with warmth and care as they lived as emperor and empress. She, too, believed that she and Yuan Chengjun could love one another for the rest of their lives in the depths of the palace.

But all that tenderness came crashing down the year her father died.

Braving the heavy snow, Chen Huaizhu knelt for hours outside Xuanshi Hall, hoping he would spare her family. But he kept the doors shut and refused to see her. His voice came through the doors: “A ploy like this only works if I care about you. The fact that I haven’t deposed you is already an act of extraordinary mercy.”

Only then did she understand that Yuan Chengjun’s tenderness all those years had been an act, meant only to keep her father in check.

To protect her family, Chen Huaizhu had no choice but to set aside her former pride and carefully curry favor with Yuan Chengjun.

*

Before she married, Chen Huaizhu had been the apple of her father’s eye. Even after Yuan Chengjun turned against the Chen family, he had once treasured her like a precious jewel. All she could do was clumsily imitate the way Yuan Chengjun had once treated her, and treat him in kind.

But she had overlooked how fickle emperors had always been, and finally accepted that the emperor before her was no longer the gentle, jade-like man she had once loved.

So, citing ten years without a child, she asked to be deposed and moved out of the palace.

*

Yuan Chengjun ascended the throne in his youth. Chen Shao had been the chancellor left to him by the late emperor, but after Yuan Chengjun became emperor, Chen Shao monopolized power and even forced him to make a Chen daughter his empress.

For this, Yuan Chengjun hated Chen Shao, and he hated Empress Chen Huaizhu just as much.

When Chen Huaizhu later tried to win him over by awkwardly copying his former gestures, he found it laughable.

Yet on New Year’s Eve that year, Chen Huaizhu’s sworn elder brother returned to the capital from the frontier. Seeing the two of them chatting and laughing outside Jiaofang Hall, he felt an inexplicable fire flare up inside him.

It had been a long time since he had seen such a radiant smile on Chen Huaizhu’s face.

The young woman’s eyes curved into crescents as she pushed a plate of pastries toward her sworn brother. “All these years, you’re the one I’ve worried about most, Brother!”

Yuan Chengjun, usually so cold and indifferent, darkened his gaze. Fury churned in his chest as he flung the gift he had prepared for Chen Huaizhu into the snow.

The snow glowed coldly, reflecting Yuan Chengjun’s grim face.

Even if he no longer wanted Chen Huaizhu, she was still his wife. She was only allowed to smile for him.

Later, the emperor’s hair turned white in the snow, just as his wife had once stood outside, begging for an audience.

From within the palace came only his wife’s indifferent voice: “Your Majesty once shut me out in the snow. There is no need for us to meet now.”

The person he envied was not someone else, but his former self. The person he hated was not Chen Huaizhu, but the man he had become.

But it seemed he had lost the Chen Huaizhu who had once held only him in her heart and eyes.

[Content warnings]

1. One-on-one romance, both leads are each other’s first and only, happy ending.

2. The male lead is a complete scumbag early on [emphasis, not a pet name]. He really is obsessive, gloomy, and deeply messed up. Expect angst: the heroine suffers first, then the hero. The sources of angst are already indicated in the blurb and tags. This is an old-school, melodramatic wish-fulfillment story, the sort of third-rate fiction that won’t win any literary awards. If this isn’t your thing, don’t click. Feel free to leave at any time.

3. The blurb uses a misleading narrative twist. The male lead never actually harms the heroine’s family or causes them any real damage.

4. This is just for fun, so please don’t insult the heroine. I’ll delete excessive insults directed at her or other readers. Anything else is not my concern.

Blurb written on November 17, 2025, and a screenshot has been saved on Weibo.

Coming soon: After Marrying My Younger Sister Off to Someone Else. Blurb:

A gentleman falls into the sea of love; an aloof beauty becomes the other woman for love

Ming Rong was conceived before her mother was taken into the Wei household. As a result, no one in the Wei family, from the master and mistress to her many older siblings, had ever liked her.

Without her radiant, noble elder brother, Wei Guanlan, she probably wouldn’t have lived to see seventeen.

She always did whatever Wei Guanlan wanted, until she learned that all the care he had shown her was only meant to ensure she married the frail puppet emperor.

She couldn’t believe it.

Wei Guanlan glanced up at her and said coolly, “Now that you’ve entered the Wei family ancestral hall, you have no reason to act willfully.”

*

At first, Wei Guanlan regarded Ming Rong as one of many pieces on his chessboard. Having her take someone else’s place in marriage was merely one ordinary move in his plans.

Until one snowy night, Ming Rong softly knocked on his door.

Snow clung to her long lashes, and hesitation filled her eyes and brows. She looked just like the little sister who had once come to him for help.

But this time, she had come to ask for help because of another man.

Wei Guanlan listened calmly to her request, then gazed at her intently. “Are you a daughter of the Wei family, or a wife of the Xiao family?”

Ming Rong was deeply uneasy. She quickly lowered her lashes. “But wasn’t Yunlang the husband you chose for me, Brother?”

Silence fell all around them.

All that remained in Wei Guanlan’s eyes was a chilling darkness.

She had actually affectionately called another man “Yunlang.”

For him, she had only the polite “Brother.”

It didn’t matter. They weren’t even siblings by blood. What kind of brother and sister were they?

How could the younger sister he had raised make herself a bridal gift for another man?

Theme: It’s important to recognize your own feelings