Princess Cuihua

Liu Cuihua was an orphan. When she was fifteen, the foster father she depended on passed away. She knelt for a long time before his grave and made a wish.

Father, go in peace. Your daughter will take good care of our tofu stall. Once I earn enough money, I'll find a husband who'll marry into our family.

Perhaps her vow reached the heavens, and perhaps the blessings of her father's protection were especially strong.

Early the following spring, she went into the mountains to gather firewood and came back with a handsome husband who was just her type, a man she had practically found for free.

Though injured and a little older, he had a truly distinguished appearance, was learned and literate, and possessed unmatched refinement.

Cuihua was delighted. Heaven had been good to her. Once she nursed her husband back to health and gave birth to a few chubby babies, with her husband and children warming the bed, a happy life would be just around the corner.

Who could have guessed that a senior lady-in-waiting to the neighboring country's empress would suddenly appear and announce that she was the legitimate imperial princess who had been lost among the common folk?

More alarming still, according to the neighboring country's ancestral laws, this tofu seller who could barely recognize a handful of characters might actually inherit the throne and become empress.

-

Pei Huaiche was once the iron-fisted regent of the Great Yuan, supporting the young emperor, commanding the court, and pacifying the four corners of the realm.

But his achievements threatened the throne. Rumors spread through court and martial circles that sooner or later he would depose the emperor, seize the throne, and don the imperial robes.

Pei Huaiche had no idea whether anyone else believed it, but the young emperor he had raised certainly did.

The first thing the emperor did after taking power was join forces with treacherous officials to eliminate him, leaving Pei Huaiche gravely wounded and tumbling off a cliff, his life hanging by a thread.

When he opened his eyes again, a rustic young woman, whose beauty shone through her coarse clothes and simple hairpin, was leaning close to him. Her eyes were bright, and she called out sweetly, "Husband."

She said she had no way to repay him for saving her life, so he would have to repay her by marrying her and settling down with her.

Pei Huaiche's heart was dead and his body weary, so he simply went along with it. Two years passed in a flash. Being a live-in son-in-law was great for a while, and being one forever was even better.

That was, until dozens of royal carriages with ornate canopies and jingling bells shattered the peace of the countryside. His little wife had suddenly become a princess of the neighboring kingdom.

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* A country girl blossoms into an imperial princess, while a regent who can't even teach his wife to act like a princess has no business usurping the throne.

* Both are virgins, happy ending, twelve-year age gap. The male lead is weak and unable to walk in the early chapters, but later recovers.

* An alternate history with a mishmash of systems and customs. Not much political scheming or infighting, mostly a romantic comedy.

* Both leads are strong, but this is not a female-dominant world. The male lead is strong and teaches the female lead to be strong. He's brilliant in both civil and military affairs, and a genius at palace intrigue.

--- Coming next: The Treacherous Chancellor Consort Is So Hard to Kill ---

[Fake: A cold-hearted, growing princess X Real: A stunning, tragic chancellor who falls for her on his own]

-

Without his protection, Yuan Zhen was the most inconspicuous princess in the palace. Her mother was low-born, her younger brother was still a child, and every step she took was like walking on the edge of a blade.

The year her father fell gravely ill, her royal brothers fought savagely over the throne, and her mother told her to seduce a man.

When she first met Nie Wujiu, he was the Second Prince's chief strategist, beautiful and elegant, with deep, aloof eyes. His long fingers brushed her cheek as if he were examining a newly acquired trinket. After a long moment, he smiled.

"Your Highness, I am deeply honored by the Third Princess's favor."

So she married him at sixteen, watched him help her younger brother ascend the throne at eighteen, and became pregnant with his child at nineteen...

Then she sent him to his death with her own hands.

Her mother, now empress dowager, earnestly advised her, "Zhen'er, that man is a wolf in human skin. As long as he lives, your brother's throne will never be secure."

She believed her. Until she was sorting through his belongings and spotted the only embroidered handkerchief she had ever made for him, inside the wooden box he had treasured above all else.

It turned out that the treacherous chancellor everyone believed had betrayed his master and usurped power, that black heart reviled by all, had contained only her from beginning to end.

-

Three years after she killed her husband, the new emperor had secured his rule. Princess Yuan Zhen set off for her fief with her daughter.

They were ambushed by bandits on the way and taken to a mountain stronghold.

She never imagined that the aloof minister she had spent another three years learning to love would, when they met again, be lounging in the bandit chief's tiger-skin chair and spouting vulgar nonsense.

They had been husband and wife, yet she had feared him and guarded herself against him, never truly understanding him.

She knew only that he had been born into poverty, helped the Second Prince defeat the Crown Prince at twenty, and held power over the entire court at twenty-one.

She had no idea he was a fugitive who had fled from the northern frontier, a man who had climbed over the bones of lowly slaves to rise, step by step, to become the Second Prince's favorite.

This time, he gripped her chin, his voice as cold as if it had been dipped in poison.

"You killed me, then gave birth to my child? If I believe another word you say, then I'm a worthless bastard who deserves to be ground into the mud by you!"

-

His words were harsh.

But that very day, he let her and her daughter go.

Five days later, he showed up alone at her door. "My daughter is here. Can't I come see her?"

He stayed ten days, changing his name and identity to become a male companion in her household. "Who'd turn down a fortune handed to them? I'll keep my daughter company and take the money. Don't expect me to fulfill any duties as a male companion."

A month later, well... you know how it goes.

Theme: Two people choosing each other and meeting at the summit.