[BL] Treacherous Minister

There is indeed a significant age difference: I think Xiao Zhongru is 37 and Gu Jun around 18/19/20? when they first have sex.

The premise of Gu Jun entering the Xiao household is that Gu Jun is an omega orphan with distant family connections to Xiao Zhongru’s primary wife. That primary wife had no children herself, so she proposes that Xiao Zhongru’s teenage son (from another wife/concubine) marry Gu Jun in order to boost the prestige of her maternal family. The marriage goes through, but Xiao Zhongru’s son finds himself suffering from erectile dysfunction so they never fully consummate. Then Xiao Zhongru’s son gets the brilliant idea to pop a bunch of random pills to make himself hard... well he made himself hard alright RIP.

Xiao Zhongru is furious at this news. He interrogates, jails, tortures, and kills probably hundreds of people while investigating his son’s death. Only Gu Jun manages to escape this fate: he professes his loyalty and voluntarily drinks poisoned wine, only for Xiao Zhongru to go “yeah the wine wasn’t poisoned, you can live.” Gu Jun is banished to one of the other Xiao family’s properties for a year, before Xiao Zhongru runs into him again by chance and then decides to take him back to the main household.

Yadda yadda Gu Jun wins Xiao Zhongru’s trust through various events, to the point where they seem to have a “godfather-godson” kind of relationship. Seeing this, the first wife is like “ooh I’ll help out, I’ll treat Gu Jun well by cementing him as part of the family” so she suggests remarrying Gu Jun to a nephew in the Xiao family. Xiao Zhongru hears this and is furiously jealous, and finally gives into his desires to take Gu Jun by force (this occurs around midway through the main story).


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Gu Jun very much feels intertwined love and hate towards Xiao Zhongru. Xiao Zhongru’s literally only positive quality is that he is a caring and loyal husband to Gu Jun—he is uncharacteristically tolerant of Gu Jun’s every action, gets murderously angry on Gu Jun’s behalf, will abandon all his work to rush back to Gu Jun’s side in times of need, actually never sleeps with anyone else after their first time to the point of dismissing all his wives/concubines, etc.
He’s also a loving father to their child, even though this son was born with an unlucky cleft lip. (Yes, there is mpreg.)
If there is one thing Gu Jun likes about Xiao Zhongru, it is that true heart. (I mean there isn’t much else to like about him lol....) Probably the best example of this weird relationship is when Gu Jun says to Xiao Zhongru after sex: “If you weren’t.... how nice would that be....”


Whether what happens in the story falls under “dog-blooded drama” or not... depends how you define “dog-blooded drama”. I suppose it does, especially with the story’s climactic reveal. 

How did mc react to ml preg 

Honestly, novels like this give me no hope. It's like 'you're all stuck in your reality and there's nothing you can do but clench your teeth and muddle through it till sweet death envelops you and saves you from the drab, banal and tiresome life'. I wouldn't want to be any of those characters. It gives me no joy reading about them. It's like reading classic literature, sans the value. 

The summary is very interesting and intriguing thank you for providing.
Based on your summary I’m assuming there’s a huge age difference between the mc and ml. If it’s that case how did they meet up and what made the mc love the ml ?? 

For some more teasers and clarifications...

The alternate title "Palace of Eternal Life" is also the title of a famous Chinese play about the love story between Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and his favorite consort, Yang Guifei [Noble Consort Yang]. Despite forcing countless women into his enormous imperial harem, Emperor Xuanzong fell in love with Yang Guifei to the point where he spent all his time with her and neglected the country. In the end, a rebellion broke out and Yang Guifei was forced to commit suicide.

The play puts a romantic spin on the whole story, saying that Yang Guifei and Emperor Xuanzong reunited in the afterlife as immortal lovers. In general the play is hailed for how it examines the intertwined and sometimes conflicting nature of love and politics.

Now y'all can probably see how this play's story may or may not be relevant to this novel

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For extra fun stuff, in his childhood Xiao Zhongru encountered a fortuneteller, who foretold that in the course of his life he would have "Both extreme nobility and extreme disgrace. Extreme nobility as in the highest and most honorable position in the land, extreme disgrace to the point of being worse than the dogs and pigs."
The fortuneteller also read his face and judged it as "one of a high-ranking official, yet also a harsh and unkind face destined to destroy his own parents, wives, and children. The appearance of great treachery and evil."
Finally, seeing the red teardrop mole below his eyes, the fortuneteller prophesized that Xiao Zhongru's ultimate fate would originate from affection/love.

And that last sentence is why the alpha Xiao Zhongru has historically welcomed anything into his bed except omegas.

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(Rereading this story is really cool thanks to some good foreshadowing and a great reveal at the end.

Honestly, I think Xiao Zhongru got off a little easy, since both he and Gu Jun ultimately had as close to a happy ending as they could have possibly gotten.) 

The story about such treacherous ML encountering the love of life seems interesting . But I need to know if he is a scum to MC ? And If there is any dog blood drama , especially due to the ML or any other characters BTW the MC and ML. 

Xiao Zhongru was ecstatic at the news. He was originally in a terrible mood because a rebellion had cropped up and refused to be stomped out, but he rushed home immediately upon hearing of the pregnancy. Gu Jun initially thought Xiao Zhongru would probably neglect him upon becoming pregnant, but Xiao Zhongru still insisted on them sleeping in the same bed.

Now for Gu Jun’s reaction to becoming pregnant... it was very complicated, to say the least.

First, for more about Xiao Zhongru... he was probably born with an inherent hunger for power and control (and lust...). I found it refreshing that he doesn’t have a particularly sympathetic backstory to excuse his horrible deeds.

Spoiler: Xiao Zhongru’s BackstoryHe was the bastard son of a servant/prostitute girl, who didn’t know who his real father was. The previous emperor believed himself to be Xiao Zhongru’s father, so he bestowed many favors upon Xiao Zhongru and stirred up Xiao Zhongru’s ambition. Then when Xiao Zhongru was riding the peak of glory, it was revealed to him: he’s not a noble son of the emperor, but the son of a wandering actor/performer, making him the spawn of the lowliest possible classes in society. This reveal of course made Xiao Zhongru furious, and it may have drove him just a little bit insane—he strangled his own mother to death on her sickbed, and killed this actor father who he’d never met with his own hands.

All the way to the climax of the story, the matter of Xiao Zhongru’s parentage is still an extremely sore spot for him and a sure way to set off his murderous temper. None of his crimes ever haunt him except for his nightmares of him killing his mother and father.

And I finally had the time to write this up, so here goes:

Spoiler: Major Spoilers for Climactic RevealIn the ending of the main story, when Xiao Zhongru’s power base is collapsing due to a rebellion, Xiao Zhongru orders Gu Jun and their newborn son to flee from the capital. Gu Jun sends their son away but stays behind to accompany Xiao Zhongru. In their conversation, he subtly drops this bomb on Xiao Zhongru:

Gu Jun is not actually the real Gu Jun.

In the very first chapter and very first paragraph, it’s mentioned that the first thing Xiao Zhongru did upon coming to power was to utterly exterminate the family of the previous prime minister, Fu Chang, because Fu Chang righteously opposed him. This included sentencing Fu Chang and his oldest son to Lingchi (a torturous death by a thousand cuts).

What he didn’t know was that out of >600 Fu family members, a single person had escaped the massacre: Fu Chang’s youngest son Fu Changsheng. Fu Changsheng originally had poor health problems as a child, so a fortune teller was consulted. Following the fortuneteller’s advice, his death was faked and he was separated from his family to focus on his health.

Fu Changsheng vowed revenge on Xiao Zhongru. Then it just so happened that the original Gu Jun, the only son of a county magistrate, also died of plague in the same area around this time. Fu Changsheng secretly replaced him and moved to the capital to get closer to Xiao Zhongru through that original marriage proposal.

Fu Changsheng was quite knowledgeable in medicine and poisons—He was the one who manipulated Xiao Zhongru’s son into drugging himself to death.
He also provided one of Xiao Zhongru’s similarly vengeful concubines with poison for a different assassination attempt, but when he realized that concubine’s attempt would fail, he turned the situation around and heroically offered himself for testing a cure, thus winning Xiao Zhongru’s trust.
Near the ending as the rebellion draws ever closer, he reduced Xiao Zhongru’s mental ability in the guise of medication. That’s not even mentioning how Xiao Zhongru basically abandoned a large portion of his governing in favor of staying with his beloved wife and son. It’s also heavily implied that Fu Changsheng was in communication with the leader of the rebels, and that was one reason the rebellion was so successful.

These revelations are hinted at quite well ahead of time! Ex: Gu Jun sometimes talks in his dreams, weeping for his father and mother. Ex: The very first time Xiao Zhongru forces himself on Gu Jun, he notes that Gu Jun’s eyes are filled with such complete and utter hatred as if Xiao Zhongru had slain his family and kin. Ex: when Gu Jun is pregnant, there is a scene where he tearfully considers taking poison to abort their child, but ultimately cannot go through with it.

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In the end, even upon learning this truth, Xiao Zhongru doesn’t hate Fu Changsheng, but still loves him. He thinks, for this one lifetime of love he would willingly endure a thousand years of torment in hell.

Fu Changsheng himself doesn’t end up killing Xiao Zhongru. He fakes their death in a huge fire, burns Xiao Zhongru’s face to be unrecognizable, and then uses poisons to damage Xiao Zhongru’s memory and mind. They and their son end up living an impoverished and humble (yet still happily married) life as a wandering doctor and a Jianghu street performer.

Of course, in the extras Xiao Zhongru eventually regains his memory, but he is content with faking being an idiot to keep this love. Fu Changsheng finds out when he catches Xiao Zhongru coming back at night after brutally torturing to death a man who threatened their family and humiliated Xiao Zhongru. After a confrontation, Xiao Zhongru promises him they will continue living this peaceful life together.

See, this can honestly be called a happy ending!


Honestly, some parts of this novel are indeed terrible, but the plot events can be quite exaggerated to the point where it instead becomes darkly hilarious, like “damn how much worse can this dude get”. Still other parts can even be interpreted as somewhat hopeful: even the most horribly cruel and heartless human being is capable of love, and that love may even have the power to cause his downfall and change him for the better.
It helps that in general, the story progresses to become less depressing over the course of the novel—even if Xiao Zhongru never stops being that bloodthirsty and torture-happy maniac, he actually grows to care about something besides himself \o/

(I found this novel less depressing to read than say, The Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir lol) 

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