No Doubt In Us (两不疑, Liǎng bù yí) is a 2016 romance comedy manhua by Lu Ye Qian He (绿野千鹤) and You Zhi Jiaozi (有只饺子). In the state of Chen, the young Emperor Xiao Jinyun and his Empress Xu Yu have a frosty relationship, until they fall into a pond in the palace garden. When they wake up to discover that they have swapped bodies and now until the Court Astrologer can discover the cause and solution, they have to live each others lives without arousing suspicion.
The web comic has been adapted into a donghua that aired from April 2021 to April 2023 and a live action C-Drama titled The Trust in April 2023.
Tropes in the series include:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Thanks to Zhao learning about the mind swap a little too late, she becomes convinced Jinyun is still in Xu Yu's body and vice-versa, and becomes the ultimate suck-up to Xu Yu, who is totally horrified.
- Action Girl: The Empress and the Queen of the Tartars. When the members of the harem complain of being put through martial arts training by Xu Yu, Huna shames them by revealing that her maids could kill wolves with their bare hands and to be thankful that their Empress is willing to teach them how to defend themselves. Thankfully their training manages to pay dividends when the Prince of Ning tries to seize power.
- Alpha Bitch: Noble Consort Zhao, Xu Yu's chief rival at court, who does everything she can to get rid of her.
- Animal Motif: One of the credits of the animated adaptation sums up Xiao Jinyun and Xu Yu respectively as a cat (aloof and distant, but not incapable of affection) and dog (warm, friendly, full of boundless energy).
- Arranged Marriage: Jinyun married Xu Yu because of her family's power and prestige among the military, and also tries to choose concubines in balance with their families' influence at court.
- Contrived Coincidence: The trading caravan Xu Yu and the Imperial army stumble upon just happens to have the deposed and enslaved Crown Princess of the Tartars in their midst.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Prince Jinming (also known as Prince Happy-Go-Lucky) may be a philandering pleasure seeker (which he is), but he is also an astute and insightful investigator who can get down at the bottom of any plots within the palace.
- Decadent Court: Comes standard to Imperial China, in fact the body swap allows Xiao Jinyun to find out exactly how badly he let things get.
- Dramatic Irony: Everyone who figures out the Emperor and Empress have switched bodies all seem to come to their conclusion only after they had returned to normal.
- Evil Uncle: Jinyun's Third Uncle, the Prince of Ning, is constantly planning on how to usurp the throne from his nephew, even being the source of the spell that caused the Emperor and Empress to switch bodies.
- Fake Pregnancy: After they return to their bodies, Xu Yu and Xiao Jinyun stage a false pregnancy to quiet down talk from the court about the lack of an imperial heir. Turns out to be subverted as they later find out she actually is pregnant.
- A Father to His Men: Or mother as the case may be, when Xu Yu goes to war, she inspires the troops by diving head long into battle and forgoing the no doubt sumptuous meal prepared for the Emperor to eat the same rations as the troops.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: The entire inciting incident of the story is that the Emperor and Empress have switched bodies.
- Green-Eyed Monster: During Huna's visit to the Capital, when she confirms that the Emperor she met in the desert was in fact Xu Yu, they begin to spend more and more time together (complete with what might as well be a dating montage), much to the chagrin of Jinyun.
- In Another Man's Shoes: The Emperor's storyline is mostly about realizing how much crap Xu Yu has to put up with from the rest of the harem. It also teaches him that he had no reason to be suspicious of the Xu family's loyalty to the Emperor.
- It Runs in the Family: All of the Xu family are skilled fighters; Xu Yu's brother figures if she hadn't been born a gal, Xu Yu would've become a capable military commander herself. Her other brother also shares a lot of Xu Yu's doofier behavior, while being no less dangerous.
- Locked Out of the Loop: By the end of the series Noble Consort Zhao has no idea that the Xu Yu and Jinyun have already switched back to their original bodies.
- Made a Slave: Huna, rightful Queen of the Tartars was sold into slavery in Persia by her brother when he usurped her throne.
- Marriage Before Romance: The reasons for their marriage were initially completely political (at least on Xiao Jinyun's end). However as the series goes on and they receive some much need perspective of each other's lives they do fall in love and clear up some significant misunderstandings that led to their frosty relationship at the beginning of the series at the same time.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The Empress is the daughter of a military family and is herself skilled in martial arts, the Emperor is terrible with all things martial, but is well studied and skilled in music and poetry.
- Mistaken for Cheating: When Xu Yu still in Jinyun's body goes off to war, people at court begin noticing Jinming and the Empress interacting more often, and think they're carrying on an affair behind the Emperor's back, when actually Jinming had recently found out Jinyun is stuck in Xu Yu's body.
- Modern AU Fic: The live-action drama has short vignettes at the end of each episode that casts the actors for Xu Yu and Xiao Jinyun as a creative couple going through a divorce that inspires the creation of the original web comic.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: The Empress Dowager does not hold Xu Yu in any high esteem before the series, favouring her niece Noble Consort Zhao, this is mostly because of her lack of manners, but also because of the Xu family's prestige and military power she regards them as a threat to her son's throne.
- Oh, Crap!: Zhao's reaction to realizing what's going on, and that the woman she's tried to have killed is now in the emperor's body, giving him the authority to do anything to her.
- Out with a Bang: Had the doll's spell been used correctly it would have drained Jinyun's lifeforce the next time he had sex, instead because it had been thrown into the lotus pond it only switched his body with the Empress.
- Poison and Cure Gambit: After his first few plots fail, the Prince of Ning uses magic to make it look like smallpox is running rampant. However, Jinming figures he wouldn't be stupid enough to unleash a plague that couldn't be controlled.
- Splitting the Arrow: How Xu Yu wins back Jinming's money from the Prince of Ning, challenging him to an archery contest and splitting each of his shots in quick succession.
- Spotting the Thread:
- Marshall Xu (the Empress's father) is the first one to realize on his own that his daughter and son-in-law have switched bodies because she (as the Emperor) used a family technique that takes five years to learn despite not having been in the Palace for that long.
- Also Huna can tell that the Emperor and Empress have switched bodies, and have already switched back, not only because the key ingredient and magic required are native to her country, but because the Emperor she met in the desert could hold their liquor far better than one she met in the capital.
- Super-Deformed: The series's most comedic moments are punctuated by the characters shifting into this art style.
- Taking the Bullet: Zhao leaps in the way of a sword meant for Xu Yu, thinking she's Jinyun.
- Windows of the Soul: Xiao Jinyun has blue eyes and Xu Yu has gold eyes, these switch along with their bodies.
