Guaren has a sickness 《寡人有疾》 by Sui Yu Er An 《隨宇而安》

Synopsis:

It is said that Guaren¹ is a lecherous ruler.

That year when I was thirteen years old I just ascended to the throne. On the Qionglin feast, that tanghua² official, just because I have swept two glances at him, with grief and indignation jumped into Taiqing pond to express that he would rather die than be humiliated.

The next day, my immoral notoriety spread all over the empire.

Since then there was no talented and ambitious person with who would dare to share a room with me………

In fact, on that night at Qionglin feast I wasn’t looking at tanghua official but at zhuangyuan official³ who stood by Taiqing pond – an honest nobleman, gentle like a jade. Moonlight overflowed Taiqing pond. It has also rippled the lake inside my heart.

Yet, Pei Zheng who was leaning on the side spoke with a smile: “Your majesty, your illness has relapsed again.”

Yes.

Guaren has a sickness. It’s name is lovesickness. Only love can can cure it.

Review

This is one of few ancient cnovels without time traveling element I have listened. Yup, it has an audiobook!

I am quite picky when it comes to audiobooks since I really hate the ones that hves only female voice actors. Everytime when I hear them trying to imitate the male characters I just can’t help myself shuddering! It’s the same feeling as if I was forced to read a shoujo-ai manga! Just not my cup of tea.

So, I’m really happy that this one had not only female but also a male voice actor. What’s more, I really liked the voice of male voice actor. I think that he also dubbed voices of male characters in the book The Tang Dynasty’s Female Forensic Investigator.

But let’s get back to the story.

As you have read from the synopsis, our female lead Dou Dou (her nickname, which literally means little bean) is a female emperor, who ascended to the throne in a young age. The story beautifully depicts her loneliness and emotional struggles as an emperor as well as an young girl, who never wanted to become a female emperor, yet was selfishly put to this position by her mother.

Her mother, the previous emperor, before abdicating the throne and passing it to Dou Dou, made sure that Dou Dou would have a smooth reign.  She, along with her husbands, cleaned the court of those, who would be a threat to Dou Dou and also ensured that she would have loyal officials by her side.

Here, thus, comes chancellor Pei Zheng, who was a pupil of one of her fathers. According to her parents, Pei Zheng  was supposed to help her but Dou Dou regarded him more as an enemy since he wielded more power than her – the actual emperor. This led to later power struggles between the two – with Dou Dou trying to weaken Pei Zheng’s influence in the court and Pei Zheng seeming to go against the emperor and plotting something behind the emperor’s back.

So, how would their love blossom under such circumstances?

Big spoiler. The ending wasn’t was I had expected (be prepared for tons of tissues!)

[1] first person pronoun used by sovereigns

[2] candidate who came third in the Han-lin examination

[3] top scorer in the palace examination

Unofficial Raw: quanben