Line #13 Literature/ThePrincessWeiYang


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wei_yang.jpeg]]
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3	''The Princess Wei Yang'' (original title either 锦绣未央, ''Jǐn Xiù Wèi Yāng'', or 庶女有毒, ''Shù Nǚ Yǒu Dú''; also called "Beautiful Wei Yang", "The Poisonous Daughter", or "The Concubine's Daughter is Poisonous") is a Chinese novel by Qin Jian. ''Series/ThePrincessWeiYoung'' is a very loose adaptation. The novel has also been adapted into a manhua.
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5	Wei Yang goes from being a young lady from the prime minister's family to being the empress. But then her husband falls in love with her stepsister, deposes Wei Yang as Empress, and forces her to commit suicide. Wei Yang wakes up years in the past, before she met the emperor, and decides to change her future.
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7	An English translation of chapters 1-31 is available [[https://solstar24.wordpress.com/2016/02/15/tpwy-chapter-01/ here]]. The rest of the chapters are being translated [[https://jasminechaitea.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-princess-wei-yang-chapter-32.html here]].
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9	!!Contains examples of:
10	* AntiHero: Wei Yang will do anything to get her revenge on everyone who wronged her. ''Anything''.
11	* AttemptedRape: Gao Jin plans to rape Wei Yang (who's only ''thirteen'' at the time). [[DamselOutOfDistress Wei Yang kicks him in the groin when he grabs her and orders her servants to beat him up.]]
12	* BatmanGambit: Many of Wei Yang's schemes hinge on this, particularly those involving Chang Le:
13	** Wei Yang suggests a Five-Steps Disaster Relief Policy to her family to help out commoners affected by a particularly harsh winter. As she expects, [[GladIThoughtOfIt the family decides to pass it off as Chang Le's idea]], with Chang Le going along with it due to the rewards the Emperor promised while failing to notice the hidden flaws in the plan. Thus, when the Five-Steps Disaster Relief Policy fails to deliver, Chang Le quickly goes from being praised for her wisdom to being publicly mocked for her foolishness, allowing Wei Yang to [[EngineeredHeroics "save the day"]] by offering a revised version of the plan that fixes the problems, which she's generously rewarded for.
14	** Wei Yang asks that Chang Le be brought back home from the nunnery for [[spoiler:Da Furen]]'s funeral, knowing that Chang Le would use it as an opportunity to make a big entrance for her return and show off how she was still a legendary beauty. Thus, Chang Le ends up arriving to [[spoiler:her own mother]]'s funeral wearing extravagant jewelry and a colorful red begonia dress instead of mourning clothes, which naturally shocks all the guests present.
15	* BitchInSheepsClothing:
16	** Chang Le pretends to be kind and compassionate. Wei Yang is one of very few people who can see through her pretense. Their grandmother also knows that Chang Le's quite arrogant under her façade of kindness, though she underestimates the true extent of Chang Le's cruelty.
17	** Wei Yang herself also qualifies. She typically acts like a well-mannered daughter of the Prime Minister while secretly scheming against all her enemies and sometimes subjecting them to gruesome tortures, even if [[PayEvilUntoEvil she only targets those who've genuinely wronged her]].
18	* CoolBigSis: How the Ninth Princess sees Wei Yang.
19	* DamselOutOfDistress: Wei Yang uses her wits to foil almost all the plots against her. And if that doesn't work, she won't hesitate to fight back against anyone stupid enough to attack her.
20	* DeathByFallingOver: Wei Yang kills Zhao-mumu by hitting her on the head with a vase. Zhao-mumu dies instantly.
21	* DitzyGenius: Chang Le is described as being well educated, having perfected her speech at a precocious age, read many books, and mastered cooking, singing, dancing, and various musical instruments. However, her arrogance and AttentionWhore antics often lead to her making rash, ill thought-out decisions without much concern for the long-term consequences ([[spoiler:most notably, she insists on wearing an airtight LatexPerfection mask to hide that her face has been ruined despite being warned that it will only make the rotting scars on her face worse and will eventually cause the rot to spread to the rest of her body and kill her]]). She also refuses to accept responsibility for her own actions and continues to scheme against Wei Yang instead of giving up and cutting her losses even when it's clear Wei Yang hopelessly outclasses her.
22	* {{Doorstopper}}: The full novel has over 290 chapters. The English translation currently has over 140.
23	* EvenEvilHasStandards: The Jiang family feel that anyone who prevents them from getting what they want, even if it's because they simply refuse to be trampled by the Jiangs in the process, is an enemy that must be destroyed. [[spoiler:Wei Yang's visions of the original timeline also shows they'd even abandon Chang Le when she needs them the most simply because her surname is Li and not Jiang]]. Nevertheless, many of them are disgusted by Chang Le's level of selfishness [[spoiler:in the wake of her mother's death]].
24	* {{Fingore}}: Chang Le stabs a needle into Tan Xiang's fingers.
25	* GroinAttack: Wei Yang kicks Gao Jin in the groin when he tries to rape her.
26	* HeroicBastard: Wei Yang is illegitimate and the protagonist, though she isn't exactly heroic.
27	* HypocriticalHeartwarming: Prior to being reincarnated into her thirteen-year-old body, Wei Yang vowed to never do good deeds in her next life and continues to insist she isn't a good Samaritan. However, she still promises the dying San Furen to take care of the latter's adoptive son Min De, which Wei Yang continues to hold herself to.
28	* IHaveManyNames: Everyone has multiple names and titles, which is TruthInTelevision for ancient China.
29	* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Li Xiao Ran is this, often only doing the right thing due to his own self-interest:
30	** He initially appears to love his children Chang Le and Min Feng due to how much he spoils and favors them, but only because he expects a lot from them in return. He's quick to doubt and even assume the worst from them when given even a minor reason to [[spoiler:and eventually disowns Chang Le and leaves her to die when it's publicly revealed she's lost all her beauty and killed her maternal grandmother]]. [[spoiler:It's quite telling that Li Lao Furen, who'd always disapproved of Li Xiao Ran favoring Chang Le, is the only one who thinks to send a poisoned food box to Chang Le to spare her the pain and indignity of the CruelAndUnusualDeath and public execution she'd been sentenced to]].
31	** While he makes sure none of the children in the Li family is treated too badly, it's because he doesn't want his reputation tarnished.
32	** He's horrified when he learns Wei Yang and Min De were seemingly kidnapped after their carriage were attacked, which means that someone was actually bold enough to go against the Li family. Additionally, he only worries about his adoptive nephew Min De because he fears Min De dying so soon after Li Xiao Ran's sister-in-law, the third Furen, could make others think Li Xiao Ran covets the third household's assets.
33	** When Chang Le publicly accuses Wei Yang of [[spoiler:murdering Jiang Lao Furen]], Li Xiao Ran scolds Chang Le for accusing her sister, hoping to avoid any [[HitlerAteSugar guilt by association]].
34	* KarmaHoudiniWarranty:
35	** In the present timeline, Chang Le initially only gets what amounts to a slap on the wrist each time for her wrongs, assuming she even gets caught. As time passes, however, the comeuppances she receives increase in severity, [[spoiler:with her being sent to a nunnery, losing her mother, and then being forced to wear a mask to hide that her face has been ruined]]. [[spoiler:Her luck finally runs out when she is found guilty of murdering her own maternal grandmother and sentenced to a CruelAndUnusualDeath, with none of her family members on either side willing to save her]].
36	** This is seemingly also the case for [[spoiler:Tuoba Zhen and Chang Le in the previous timeline]]. [[spoiler:Despite at first living a life of luxury and power as the Empress, Chang Le's obsession with maintaining her fading beauty eventually drives a wedge between her and Tuoba Zhen, who seems to have had a BelatedLoveEpiphany regarding Wei Yang and finds himself thinking back fondly of her gentleness, loyalty, and the happy, stable years of marriage they had]]. [[spoiler:He ends up taking many concubines, all of whom resemble Wei Yang, and when Chang Le opposes letting her own niece from the Jiang family enter the harem (much like Wei Yang herself opposed Chang Le joining the harem right before she got deposed), Tuoba Zhen confines Chang Le to her palace and later surreptitiously sets fire to it, causing Chang Le to be badly burned]]. [[spoiler:Chang Le then learns from her son that the Jiang family will not help her out since she is technically a member of the Li family, not the Jiang family, and they only supported her in the past because of her mother and maternal grandmother who favored Chang Le the most, both of whom are now dead; in fact, it was the Jiang family's idea to have Chang Le's niece seduce Tuoba Zhen and replace Chang Le in the first place so that the Empress will be a member of their family]]. [[spoiler:Enraged, Change Le sneaks out of her palace to confront Tuoba Zhen, and seeing him with her niece leads to a scuffle that ends with Chang Le falling down the stairs and then dying as she gazes at a young and beautiful Wei Yang (who is watching everything from the present timeline in a dream)]]. [[spoiler:Meanwhile, hoping to avoid a repeat of what happened with Wei Yang and Chang Le, Tuoba Zhen refuses to make Chang Le's niece Empress, which leads to her and the Jiang family staging a rebellion]]. [[spoiler:Tuoba Zhen is able to stop them with the help of his son from Chang Le, but just as he's hugging his son, praising him for being the only one he can trust, his son stabs him and leaves him to die as he prepares to seize the throne while using the Jiangs as a scapegoat]].
37	* MentalTimeTravel: Thirty-six-year-old Wei Yang time-travels into the body of her thirteen-year-old self.
38	* OutlivingOnesOffspring: In the original timeline Wei Yang outlived her son Yu Li.
39	* ParentalFavoritism:
40	** Chang Le is her maternal grandmother's favorite grandchild as well as the most favored child in the Li household due to a combination of her beauty, her status as the only daughter born to the main wife, and her maternal family's power. Both of her parents are quick to take her side in any argument, and they also both plan to make Chang Le the Empress someday. Unfortunately, as Chang Le's and her mother's mistakes add up and their reputations deteriorate, Li Xiao Ran becomes less willing to give them any leeway. [[spoiler:When Chang Le is publicly revealed to have been wearing a LatexPerfection mask to hide the hideous rotting scars on her face and killed her own maternal grandmother to frame Wei Yang, both her maternal and paternal families [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness realize she's of no more use to them, refuse to help her, and declare her an imposter]] to avoid any [[HitlerAteSugar guilt by association]]]].
41	** Unlike her son Li Xiao Ran, Li Lao Furen doesn't favor Chang Le, finding her arrogant and two-faced and feeling Chang Le doesn't need to be favored by her as well when she's already constantly spoiled by her parents and has plenty of support from her maternal family. Instead, Li Lao Furen favors Wei Yang, justifying it on the grounds that without her support, Wei Yang would have been TheUnfavorite and lived an extremely difficult life in their household. She also points out that Wei Yang has in return acted carefully and done many things to help the family, whereas Chang Le simply let the favoritism she was shown go to her head and repeatedly caused the family trouble due to [[ItsAllAboutMe only thinking about herself]].
42	* PetTheDog: Despite Wei Yang's cold and calculating nature and her insistence that she will not be a kindhearted person this time, she's genuinely touched and sometimes even moved to tears by her grandmother and mother's concern for her. She also forms a close bond with Min De and goes out of her way to protect him, though she tries to dismiss this as simply keeping her promise to his deceased adoptive mother to take care of him.
43	* PrettyBoy: Min De. Even when he's a child Wei Yang describes him as "so beautiful that it was unbelievable."
44	* SoBeautifulItsACurse: [[ProudBeauty Chang Le]] herself definitely doesn't feel this way about her unearthly beauty, but Li Lao Furen certainly does, feeling Chang Le's beauty has made her too arrogant and caused the family more trouble than it's worth.
45	* SpellMyNameWithAnS: The translations vary on whether Wei Yang's half-sister is called Zhang Le or Chang Le.
46	* StartsWithASuicide: Wei Yang is forced to commit suicide in the first chapter.
47	* SuicideNotMurder: Played with. [[spoiler:With only days left to live, Chang Le's maternal grandmother tries to poison herself in a way that Wei Yang will be blamed for it]]. [[spoiler:However, she ends up dying instead from a poison Chang Le herself uses on her grandmother to frame Wei Yang, which Wei Yang later manages to use to identify the real culprit]].
48	* SureLetsGoWithThat: [[spoiler:Chang Le gets identified as her maternal grandmother's killer, causing her LatexPerfection mask to peel off and her scarred, rotting face to be revealed to the public]]. [[spoiler:Wei Yang then declares that Chang Le must actually be an imposter of the real Chang Le, whom Wei Yang insists is beautiful and kind and would never kill her own grandmother]]. [[spoiler:She doesn't actually believe it, though, instead only saying it to challenge both their father and the Jiang family to defend Chang Le and recognize her as their kin when there is no hope of salvaging her reputation]]. [[spoiler:Both sides realize [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness that acknowledging the "imposter" as the real Chang Le when she has no use left will only damage their family's reputations]] and end up agreeing she's an imposter]].
49	* VagueAge: Min De's age is unknown, but he's between eight and ten years old.
50	* WickedStepmother: Da Furen is this for Wei Yang. [[spoiler:After her death, Jiang Yuelan marries Li Xiao Ran and begins to scheme against Wei Yang, too]].
51	* WouldHurtAChild:
52	** Da Furen sends two servants to attempt to kill Min De, who's only about eight, and they would have succeeded if Wei Yang hadn't rescued him in time.
53	** Chang Le tries to poison [[spoiler:Wei Yang's infant brother Min Zhi]] with a drug that causes the victim's skin to itch so much that they eventually scratch themselves to death.
54	* XanatosSpeedChess:
55	** Wei Yang often finds herself doing this whenever she seems to be backed into a corner.
56	** The Jiang family also resorts to this [[spoiler:once [[SuicideNotMurder Jiang Lao Furen's attempt to frame Wei Yang of her own death]] fails due Chang Le's interference and Wei Yang cleverly discarding the evidence planted on her]]. [[spoiler:They first try to insist Wei Yang was the only one with opportunity and motive, then attempt to have Wei Yang killed in the dead of night and make it look like she was DrivenToSuicide out of guilt for the murder, which fails]]. Deconstructed, [[spoiler:as the rapid change in plans to frame Wei Yang creates enough inconsistencies to make the inspector suspicious and ultimately exonerates her]].

Context Literature / ThePrincessWeiYang