Widowed-in-all-but-name Crown Princess × scheming, beautiful, powerful, tragic Crown Prince substitute
For fifteen years since transmigrating, Lin Yuanjin had lived cautiously and obediently, for fear of making a mistake and losing her life in this devouring ancient world.
Unexpectedly, in a single decree, she was granted in marriage by the emperor to the current Crown Prince, only to be framed and cast into the wilderness.
She had thought she would die beneath the cliff, yet a black-clad youth came alone to save her.
He just so happened to have a face almost identical to that of the Crown Prince.
“I am the Crown Prince’s shadow guard, a lowly person. The Crown Princess need not know.” The youth’s brows and eyes were cold, the corners of his eyes slightly raised like sharp blades, as he extended a hand and lifted her into his arms.
“I have come under orders to rescue you.”
A shadow guard is the Crown Prince’s shadow—blocking disasters and injuries for him, doing everything he is unwilling to do.
After Lin Yuanjin married into the Eastern Palace, her life was not as glorious as outsiders imagined.
The Crown Prince was two-faced, foolish and irritable, incapable as a man, seeking help from witch doctors without success, and later became infatuated with male lovers.
Even the wedding ceremony was completed by the shadow guard in the Crown Prince’s stead.
That person moved soundlessly, guarding her day and night, protecting her from poison and from being crushed by power.
In Lin Yuanjin’s eyes, there was no Crown Prince who treated her perfunctorily and harshly—only the young shadow guard who had saved her.
Yet she did not know that, to him, Lin Yuanjin was also the first private desire to arise in a life where he had been used as a tool and schemed against.
He was meant to accept his fate, always ready to die in the Crown Prince’s place, yet in the end, for the sake of being “rightfully justified,” he developed the intent to kill, beginning to scheme to seize everything that should have belonged to him.
Until one day, the Empress summoned the Crown Princess. Seated at her side was the young shadow guard.
Yet he lowered his eyes and said nothing, only his ears flushed red as he guiltily avoided her gaze.
Lin Yuanjin mistakenly believed their feelings had been exposed, and that disaster was imminent.
The Empress said, “I want you, for my Cui clan, to bear a royal grandson for the Crown Prince.”
The emperor was suspicious and intended to punish the Crown Prince.
The real Crown Prince fled in fear of guilt, while the shadow guard seized the opportunity to take his place, controlling the palace and seizing power to ascend.
When the Crown Prince saw the situation had stabilized and returned to survive in disgrace, he found that the impostor sat calmly upon the throne, treating his Crown Princess with utmost care.
The man’s features were noble, his smile faint. When he saw the disheveled former prince, he paused slightly, yet beneath his eyes, killing intent rose silently, and he spoke in a low murmur.
“She married the Crown Prince. Now, I am the Crown Prince.”
