Plotting for a Wife: The Sickly Prince's Beloved Concubine

One moment she was putting on an act, and the next Gu Qian, cunning, devious, and ruthless, had become the lowly concubine Nalan Qian, abandoned in a mass grave. An unexpected turn of events changed her identity. She became Yin Liyue, the legitimate eldest daughter of a general’s household and the chosen Crown Princess. He was the idle prince of Yanchi. Sickly since childhood, he had no cure, and his twisted temperament shifted wildly with his moods. When he saw something beautiful, he could not help but destroy it! When the two first met on the street, a certain man naturally sprawled across a certain woman’s lap and whispered, “My chest hurts.” The woman pointed angrily at his red lips. “That’s where it hurts, isn’t it?” “Will you rub it for me?” He smiled seductively and leaned close to her ear. At the imperial audience, a single sentence from him was enough to get him through her door. On a dark and windy night, a shadow climbed through the window and slipped into the warm bedcovers. “Thud!” “Ah!” “Get out!” “Cough, cough… I’m cold, cough… I’m afraid my time is up, cough… I’m about to faint… I’ve fainted…” So the next day, the capital was abuzz with rumors that the eldest daughter’s reputation had been ruined. She had gone mad and laid hands on the idle prince, leaving the sickly man unconscious and bedridden for seven days and nights. [What It Means to Cling to Someone Powerful] In the gloomy, haunted mass grave, a woman lay wrapped in a mat, covered in blood. A trembling hand reached out, and she roared, “Damn it! I’ll make you bastards pay… Hiss, hiss…” Her hand shook and twitched from the pain when she got worked up. The man waiting for her watched a bloody hand point at him, beckoning. Smiling, he walked over just as the woman crawled out. Her body was covered in mangled flesh, with not a single uninjured spot. The sight was so gruesome that it stirred his compassion, much to his amusement. The instant the woman saw him, she was struck by his beauty. With the last of her strength, she threw herself at him and hugged his leg. “Beauty, save me…” she mumbled. “Huh? Why does this beauty have a…?” “…” The man’s face darkened as he suppressed the urge to chop her into pieces. [What It Means to Take a Concubine] “A wife is a road, friends are oxen, and concubines are side roads. Everyone can only walk one road. You may meet plenty of oxen, but whatever you do, don’t stray onto the wrong path.” Nalan Qian patiently explained this to discourage him from taking concubines. “What if an ox gets on the road?” the man asked, puzzled. “…Then let the ox make its own road.” The man considered this, rubbing his chin. “Doesn’t that mean I need to make a road of my own, away from the wrong turn?” “…” Damn it, she had actually forgotten she was a concubine herself! Nalan Qian flicked her slender hand and wrote him a letter of divorce, kicking the man out and packing her things as she went to seek her next romance. She was determined to rise from concubine to wife… [Strong hero and heroine, one-on-one romance, both are chaste and emotionally devoted]