Transmigrated as a Love-Obsessed Scumbag Villainess (GL) - Chapter 2

Zhao Shangrong calmly recalled the Prince of Yingchuan’s memories and suddenly remembered that she had transmigrated and woken up on the very day of the wedding.

Only a few people knew the Prince of Yingchuan’s true female identity. As she was seventeen and of marriageable age, the Grand Minister of Ceremonies, who oversaw imperial clan affairs, arranged a marriage for her, decreeing that she wed the female lead, Wang Yaoshuang, who hailed from a prestigious family, to be her Princess Consort.

Wang Yaoshuang came from the aristocratic Wang clan—the Langya Wang clan, which was often mentioned alongside the Chen County Xie clan as “Wang Xie.” Wang Yaoshuang’s father was Wang Ru, a Grand Master of Splendid Happiness, holding a Rank Three position and acting as a true pillar of the court.

To solidify the status of the aristocratic clans, the Wang and Xie families frequently intermarried. By Wang Yaoshuang’s generation, Wang Ru had already set her engagement to Xie Shizhi, a son of the Xie clan.

Xie Shizhi was the nephew of the Chief Minister, Xie Mian, a powerful regent. He originally had a bright future, but a “regent with overwhelming power” represented a threat to the sovereign’s authority—those who could easily depose the previous emperor could naturally depose the next. Therefore, once the male protagonist stabilized his position, he began to deal with the three regents who had participated in deposing the previous emperor.

Upon receiving the news, Xie Mian felt cornered and went home to commit suicide. The other two regents were unwilling to be captured and decided to raise an army to revolt. However, their forces were insufficient, and the male protagonist was well-prepared. The rebellion was quickly quelled, and they were ultimately exterminated to the third degree of kinship.

Although the Xie clan was not entirely exterminated, their descendants either died or were exiled. Only a few distant, non-contributing side branches escaped the fate of being implicated.

Before the Xie clan fell, Wang Ru received the news. Fearing any further involvement with the Xie clan, he had Wang Yaoshuang annul her engagement with Xie Shizhi.

However, the annulment was not enough to ensure safety. As long as Wang Yaoshuang remained in the family, the male protagonist might still remember the past in-law relationship between the two families.

Coincidentally, the Grand Court of Ceremonies was arranging the Prince of Yingchuan’s marriage. Wang Ru, somehow, managed to have Wang Yaoshuang’s name submitted to the Grand Minister.

The Emperor had no objections, and disregarding the Prince of Yingchuan’s own feelings, the marriage was settled.

The Prince of Yingchuan was naturally reluctant, but she heard that the Emperor would finally send her to her fiefdom after she got married. Only then did she begrudgingly accept Wang Yaoshuang as her consort.

For the Prince of Yingchuan, Wang Yaoshuang was the Princess Consort, but they were destined to be husband and wife in name only. She had no pity or affection for Wang Yaoshuang. She didn’t even perform the most basic marital rites of personally welcoming the bride and bowing in the ancestral hall. She simply cast the woman aside and drank herself into a stupor with a wine jar in the main hall.

She never woke up from that drunken state because the person who awoke was now Zhao Shangrong.

Wang Yaoshuang probably knew the Prince of Yingchuan didn’t care for her, which is why she hadn’t appeared for the first two days. On the third day, had she finally been unable to hold back?

“Hiss—” Zhao Shangrong felt a headache coming on. If she had transmigrated any earlier, she definitely wouldn’t have wanted any connection with the female lead!

Everyone knows the female lead belongs to the male lead’s harem. By marrying her, her stance immediately became that of the male lead’s love rival!

And in male-frequency novels, the male lead’s love rivals are usually the ridiculously defeated villains!

Moreover, this female lead, who was enduring great hardship, was undercover by the Prince of Yingchuan’s side with the goal of helping the male protagonist monitor her… It goes to show that the male protagonist truly deserves his title. In order to consolidate his throne and prevent his younger brothers from seizing power, he began planting pawns so quickly!

Although she didn’t know how the male and female protagonists orchestrated all this in the original work, based on the male protagonist’s character design and past experiences, he was a deeply calculating, far-sighted, and ambitious individual.

She did not believe the male protagonist only learned of the Prince of Yingchuan’s treason after recapturing the lost cities, because his trusted generals recovered the cities far too quickly. Had they not made early defensive preparations and had ample troops and provisions, it wouldn’t have been so easy.

In other words, before the Prince of Yingchuan’s garrison was breached, the male protagonist’s forces were already lying in wait nearby.

Zhao Shangrong, having grown up in peacetime and possessing little guile, was certain she couldn’t outplay the male protagonist. Even if she hadn’t finished the original novel, possessing the book’s knowledge wouldn’t guarantee her victory over the male protagonist.

Therefore, never assume you have a god’s-eye view and underestimate the original male and female protagonists—that’s the first major taboo of transmigrators.

At this moment, the maidservant outside anxiously glanced at the woman beside her, unsure whether she should speak again.

Unbeknownst to her, Wang Yaoshuang was also extremely anxious and conflicted.

The Prince of Yingchuan was one of only three of Emperor Wu’s nine sons who had not been sent to a fiefdom to lead and garrison troops—the remaining two were the fifteen-year-old Prince of Yiyang and the eleven-year-old Prince of Luling.

In reality, the Prince of Luling was not yet thirteen, so it was normal for him not to control troops in a fiefdom. Therefore, only the Princes of Yingchuan and Yiyang were in an awkward position.

The new Emperor had considered sending them to their fiefdoms, but he was only in his second year of reign. He had just purged the court and eliminated powerful officials, and the situation was still somewhat turbulent. He genuinely didn’t have the time to settle his two imperial brothers.

Perhaps feeling guilty toward his two brothers, the new Emperor generally indulged their behavior in the capital, which led to their rather poor reputations in the city.

First, there was the Prince of Yiyang, who at a young age had picked up the bad habits of an idle layabout, like keeping cats and dogs. He was also quite overbearing in the capital, regularly getting into arguments with the children of powerful officials who crossed him, and even resorting to physical fights when agitated. If he won, he was smug; if he lost, he went crying to his Emperor Brother, making him one of the most detested figures among the capital’s aristocracy.

The Prince of Yingchuan didn’t have this particular problem, but her reputation wasn’t good either, as she was known for her brutal temperament and extreme harshness toward the servants and attendants in her residence. (In truth, such behavior was common among the powerful. Even if a servant, whose life and well-being depended entirely on their master, was beaten to death, no one would comment, let alone stand up for them. The Prince of Yingchuan’s downfall was that she rarely associated with the gentry, so no one spoke well of her or covered for her.)

Her failure to perform the Six Rites during her marriage to Wang Yaoshuang was a slap in the face to the Wang clan. Wang Ru did complain to the Emperor, but since Wang Yaoshuang had already entered the household and the marriage was set, even the Emperor could not interfere in the affairs of the Prince of Yingchuan and his Consort.

After three days of marriage, Wang Yaoshuang had not yet seen her “husband.” The day for her return visit to her family home was approaching. Unsure if the Prince of Yingchuan would accompany her, and afraid of angering him by returning home without a word, she personally came to ask.

In the midst of the strange, silent atmosphere, Wang Yaoshuang spoke: “Your Highness, this concubine requests an audience.”

There was no movement inside the door. Wang Yaoshuang’s willow eyebrows furrowed slightly. She asked the maidservant, “Why is there no sound inside? Has His Highness met with some trouble?”

The maid was also confused and honestly replied, “His Highness has done nothing but eat and sleep these past few days. Could he have fallen asleep?”

Wang Yaoshuang’s mind quickly turned. She said, “What if the water gets cold and His Highness catches a chill? I will go in and check!”

With that, she made to push the door open.

Just then, she heard the sound of splashing water from inside, followed by Zhao Shangrong’s slightly flustered voice: “Wait a moment, I’m coming out. No one is allowed to enter!”

The maid’s eyes widened in surprise. She momentarily doubted that the person inside was the Prince of Yingchuan, whom she had served for several years, because the Prince she knew was volatile and moody, maintaining a cold expression all day. It was hard to imagine the Prince of Yingchuan ever being flustered or losing composure.

However, years of survival experience in the princely residence taught her to never overthink things she shouldn’t know. She suppressed her astonished expression and stood by, head bowed, waiting.

Inside the side hall, Zhao Shangrong accepted the reality that the female lead was already in the residence. Hearing Wang Yaoshuang say she was coming in, she panicked, afraid her true identity would be revealed. She immediately forgot to maintain the Prince of Yingchuan’s cold persona, leaped out of the pool, and searched for her clothes.

As a modern person, even with the Prince of Yingchuan’s memories, she couldn’t dress properly. She hurriedly wrapped her modest chest, put on her top and trousers, and only after ensuring no part of her body could expose her identity did she calm down and slowly open the door.

The moment she opened the door, all the maidservants bowed low, not daring to look up even slightly.

Even the Princess Consort, Wang Yaoshuang, did not dare to look Zhao Shangrong directly in the eye, merely lowering her head and bowing: “This concubine, Wang Shi, greets Your Highness.”

Zhao Shangrong was keen to gain favor with Wang Yaoshuang, hoping she would speak well of her when reporting to the male protagonist. But she worried that a massive character break would arouse suspicion. After some internal struggle, she replied stiffly: “Mhm, you… what do you need?”

Seeing that he was not angry, Wang Yaoshuang was slightly relieved and grew a little bolder, quickly glancing up at him.

The sight made her freeze for a moment, as Zhao Shangrong’s clothes, though complete, were somewhat messy.

Although it was the current trend among the gentry to appear slightly disheveled, elegant, and unrestrained—even taking ‘Five-Mineral Powder’ to achieve a transcendent state—she felt that Zhao Shangrong’s disarray was not a deliberate pursuit of an unrestrained style. It was purely because he couldn’t put his clothes on properly.

The Prince of Yingchuan naturally had attendants to help him dress, but most of the time he dressed himself, so it shouldn’t be the case that he didn’t know how to wear his clothes.

Perhaps Wang Yaoshuang’s sudden arrival had flustered him, exposing a momentary flaw.

Wang Yaoshuang’s tone was humble: “This concubine has come to beg Your Highness to accompany this concubine on her return visit to her family home.”

Zhao Shangrong was also taken aback.

She felt utterly awkward. Accompanying a new wife on her return visit is standard, isn’t it? The female lead, as the Princess Consort, was being far too humble!

In the original work, this female lead seemed to have little presence in the princely residence because the Prince of Yingchuan didn’t like her, and she rarely ventured into the Prince’s presence.

She was also one of the few women in the residence whose face the Prince of Yingchuan had not destroyed. This was naturally not because she was unattractive, but because her status as Princess Consort and the powerful Wang clan behind her made the Prince of Yingchuan somewhat wary.

Furthermore, she was physically frail, and the Prince of Yingchuan feared that the slightest movement would be enough to kill her.

—Neglecting Wang Yaoshuang during the marriage rites was merely rude of the Prince of Yingchuan, but if the Prince dared to kill her, that would be a provocation of the Langya Wang clan. The Prince of Yingchuan, though brutal, was not brainless.

Setting aside the possibility that the male protagonist might use this as an excuse to blame her for humiliating his woman, even without external threats, Zhao Shangrong, as a fellow woman, couldn’t bear to see Wang Yaoshuang so subservient.

“There is no reason for this Prince not to agree to the Princess Consort’s request,” Zhao Shangrong maintained the Prince of Yingchuan’s persona. “When?”

The Prince of Yingchuan had failed to appear for the welcoming ceremony and the ritual bow, causing Wang Yaoshuang to be subjected to gossip and bringing great shame to the Wang clan. Therefore, she hadn’t held much hope at first.

She never expected the Prince to agree to her request so readily.

Wang Yaoshuang was puzzled, and also feared that the Prince of Yingchuan was planning a grander scheme. So, she cautiously replied, “The day after tomorrow.”

Zhao Shangrong nodded. At least that gave her two days to prepare.

However, the Prince of Yingchuan was marrying for the first time and had no experience accompanying a consort on a return visit. Zhao Shangrong, the outsider, had no reference material either. After a moment of thought, she sincerely asked, “Is there anything this Prince needs to prepare?”

Wang Yaoshuang was even more astonished. She couldn’t help but wonder if he had been drunk for the past few days and his mind still hadn’t cleared up, otherwise, why would he be so patiently asking her about the proper procedures?

Author’s Note:

Princess Consort: How many jin did you drink? You must still be quite drunk!

Prince: …