Drunk and Disgraced? The Ascetic Prince Woos and Swoons Me

“Tsk, I bet she let herself get her skirt soiled on purpose, just so she could be alone with the Zhao family heir while he was drunk and marry into the Zhao family!” “Exactly! And she’s the legitimate daughter of a marquis’s household. She has no shame!” In her first life, Xia Yuhua woke after being drugged at a banquet to find herself surrounded by women sneering at her in disgust. “No! I was framed!” Furious and heartbroken, Xia Yuhua protested her innocence, but a year later, she had no choice but to marry the Zhao family heir, Ying De, under a cloud of disgrace. Three years later, her widowed cousin Zhu Qingfang fell to her knees before the heavily pregnant Xia Yuhua, looking wretched. “Cousin Yuhua, you were once falsely accused of losing your virtue too. You should understand the pain of having my innocence stolen by a lecher! From now on, I’ll only be Ying De’s nominal secondary wife. I won’t compete with you!” But months later, when Zhao Yingde was away at war and her mother-in-law was gravely ill, Zhu Qingfang shed her usual harmless, unobtrusive demeanor. In a frenzy, she forced a bowl of safflower tea down Xia Yuhua’s throat as she struggled through a difficult labor. “Cousin, did you know? If you hadn’t shared a bed with my husband that year, I would have been the one to marry into the Zhao household.” After dying in anguish, Xia Yuhua’s soul traveled to the modern era. She quickly rose through the ranks while working tirelessly at the Ministry of National Defense, only to die of overwork and return to her first life, to the birthday banquet where she had lost her reputation. Wait, how had the man who shared her bed changed from the heir of a marquis’s household to the heir of a prince? Gu Haiyi, the Prince of Cheng’s heir, gave Xia Yuhua a flirtatious glance and drew her into his arms. “You want to protect your reputation now? Why did you drag me into bed back then?”