[I'm drafting my next book. Please add it to your favorites to help me get it started, orz]
During the holidays, Lin Yizhou's younger cousin got him to try a palace-intrigue visual novel.
At first, he dismissed it as a waste of time. But he got hooked on raising stats, and the more he played, the more engrossed he became. Before he knew it, he'd stayed up all night several times.
Then he closed his eyes and opened them to find himself lying in an unfamiliar room.
Lin Yizhou: ?
"You're awake."
Before he could react, an ominous electronic voice suddenly sounded in his mind.
"The Palace Heart has logged in. We hope you enjoy your experience."
Lin Yizhou: ???!
*
To avoid being summoned to the emperor's bed, raise favorability, and stay alive, Lin Yizhou spent every day thinking about how to make money the moment he opened his eyes. Invitations from consorts and trips out to escape the summer heat could all wait. He put the art of scrimping and saving to its utmost use.
One day, a eunuch came as usual to report that a consort had died after a long illness, leaving behind a prince in his early teens. He asked whether Lin Yizhou wanted to adopt him.
Lin Yizhou shook his head.
Raising a child cost too much. He wasn't interested.
It wasn't as if he'd come here to fight for power in the palace.
But the moment he saw Xie Ji, he silently began counting up all his assets in the middle of the night.
...He couldn't help it. The child was just too handsome. As a face-con, he couldn't possibly refuse.
*
By raising favorability through gifts, Lin Yizhou thrived in the imperial palace and got carried away. As a result, he failed to notice that the child he'd adopted had grown taller than him.
He'd also become more and more taciturn, increasingly difficult to read.
At first, Lin Yizhou thought it was just a rebellious phase.
Until one day, he opened his door and saw Xie Ji sitting by his desk.
A half-empty jug of wine sat beside him, and a lingering redness remained in his eyes.
"Mother Consort." The person who usually stubbornly called him Yizhou suddenly used this unfamiliar title, making Lin Yizhou's scalp prickle.
Xie Ji advanced step by step, pinning him against the door.
A strange sense of foreboding rose in Lin Yizhou. He had a feeling something was very wrong.
"Mother Consort." Xie Ji called to him again in a low voice, his brows drawn tightly together.
They were so close that Lin Yizhou could finally see his eyes clearly.
There was a strange, overwhelming obsession in them.
"Why... are you my mother consort?"
Lin Yizhou: ...
Isn't this development a little off?!
[A face-con who just wants to stay alive and raise a child, then gets turned into the one being raised x A taciturn, gloomy, obsessive, wildly improper prince]
A few reading tips:
1. There is basically no palace-intrigue plot, and there is no romance with the emperor, not even a fake one. The protagonist isn't competing with any female characters.
2. This isn't a political-strategy story. It focuses more on the romance, so it's not for readers looking for sophisticated plots of political scheming or power struggles.
3. The protagonist is male when he enters the game.
4. Both are exclusive to each other, 1v1, happy ending. A little pseudo-stepmother-son story, lol.
Saved on 2025.8.18
Theme: Diligently fulfill your duties
