Back to My Boyhood as Everyone's Favorite

[The original premise went through several outline attempts and I couldn't make it work, so I replaced it. If that bothers you, feel free to remove it, orz]

In his previous life, fourteen-year-old Ci Qing stood between two hands reaching out to him. Timidly avoiding the hand of the Third Prince, who was rumored to be born with an illness and have a vicious temper, he placed his hand in the Second Prince's, who smiled warmly at him.

They held hands for five years. When he was seventeen, the Second Prince secretly led him up onto the city wall and earnestly promised beneath the fireworks that they would hold hands for the rest of their lives.

For the sake of that promise, he endured the Second Prince's supposedly fake engagement. When the Second Prince committed a terrible crime, he stepped forward and took the blame. Then, to protect himself in prison, he disfigured half his face. His already frail body was worn down until he was on the verge of death, barely clinging to life.

At long last, he made it out. The day he left prison, he heard that the Second Prince was getting married.

Disfigured and stripped of his former glory, Ci Qing was despised by everyone. He stumbled miserably to the Second Prince's residence and listened to the revelry inside. Just as his heart turned to ash and he was about to collapse, a hand he had never expected reached out to steady him.

The Third Prince, Lu Chengwei, stared at him in silence. Ci Qing seized his wrist and said in a trembling voice to the man with whom he had long been at odds, "Take me away."

For a long time, Ci Qing believed he was nothing more than a plaything Lu Chengwei had picked up on a whim.

He did his part as a plaything. There wasn't a part of him the Third Prince hadn't touched.

Lu Chengwei was arrogant and had a terrible temper, yet he never said a word about the scars on Ci Qing's face. Instead, he forbade anyone from keeping mirrors in the residence and had every artificial lake filled in. At night, he would kiss the ugly scars on Ci Qing's face again and again.

Ci Qing figured he must have some sort of peculiar fetish.

The struggle for the throne was at its fiercest when Lu Chengwei set out to campaign in the northwest. If he won that battle, there would be no doubt about who would claim the throne.

Yet Lu Chengwei died in what was all but a guaranteed victory.

On Ci Qing's birthday, the Lu Chengwei who had promised to return and surprise him never appeared. Instead, he heard the news that not even Lu Chengwei's body remained.

When Ci Qing discovered who was behind it all, the culprit, the Second Prince, came to him of his own accord.

Looking at the Second Prince, who spoke with the same earnest remorse as he had all those years ago, Ci Qing smiled and softly said, "I would like to share a pot of wine with Your Highness."

The instant the poisoned wine took effect, the Second Prince spat black blood, unable to believe what was happening. Ci Qing, however, smiled as he let the agony sink into his bones.

As his consciousness faded, he heard a poem he had once recited in class:

On and on, then on again, we part from one another.

You go, and go, and keep on going, until we are parted in life.

When he opened his eyes again, Ci Qing realized in a daze that he had returned to the day he was fourteen.

Two hands were reaching out before him.

Without hesitation, Ci Qing flung himself into the arms of the astonished young Lu Chengwei.

From that day on, everyone in the capital knew that the ill-tempered Third Prince had a porcelain doll. No one else was allowed to touch him, or even look at him. Every day, the Third Prince coaxed him into his arms and combed his hair himself.

-

The person Ci Qing threw himself into the arms of: ...!!! The cat chose to come home with me!! I'm not talking to any of you people without cats!

Both leads are reborn.

Probably a lovestruck top x a sickly, irresistible bottom. It's mostly romance, focused on the two leads falling in love.

The blurb, setting, and title may all change before the story begins.

Theme: When you love someone, their appearance isn't what matters most.