Name: Mei Yanran (梅嫣然)

Name Meaning: Mei is a surname that means "plum (blossom)", Yanran means "beautiful, sweet," and can also be found in the idiom 嫣然一笑 (yanran yi xiao), or "giving a charming smile."

Talents: Dance, acting

Notes: Back in her world, Mei Yanran is on her second to last year of dance academy. She's quite the talented dancer, considered top of her class and region, and her teachers have high hopes for her to make a good showing at the national dance competition next year. Her expressivity and flexibility are her strong points. In terms of academics, her grades are average across the board. She has a few close friends and no serious hobbies aside from dancing and webnovels. People consider her 'friendly and approachable, but also somewhat of an airhead.' She doesn't like to think too deeply into things and tends to oversimplify and generalize her problems.

Extra: Why did she make a wish to romance a fictional character? Well, she figured she wouldn't have time for that in real life since she's seriously looking into making a career out of her dance and acting. If that's the case, she'll probably stay busy with work for years until she makes headway in the entertainment industry...so why not have a little fun while she's young? 

Name: Ling Fengxiao (凌風嘯), Moxiao (墨曉) 

Name Meaning: Ling is a surname that also means "rise high, thick ice, pure/virtuous, maltreat", Fengxiao is "whistling wind." Moxiao is his courtesy name, and means both "ink" and "dawn, daybreak."

Occupation: Upper fourth rank official, owner of the Winterflower Woods

Talents: Subterfuge, weiqi, music, drinking, ???

Notes: An intensely private man except amongst his closest friends. Certain incidents in his youth left him jaded to the world and generally pessimistic. He has a tendency to think too much, but it also means he's prepared for all kinds of situations. Set in his opinions and has a bad habit of making others bend to his ways as well. Rather than cold, it's more accurate to call him pragmatic and a realist. Chu Yexuan privately thinks he acts like an old man. Has an extremely high alcohol tolerance.

Extra: Despite the fact that he's been described as handsome and mysterious, he simply has too little screen time in the book to matter to most of the readers, especially with 4 other male leads and two extra princes running around already. However, the small fanbase that does exist for him is quite a dedicated presence on the novel forums, with Mei Yanrang amongst their ranks. They've named their little corner of the community the Winterflower Woods (寒花林) in his honor. It's a official rule of the group to keep aloof from any and all shipping wars involving their beloved Lord Ling.

Appearance Aesthetic: Yang Yang

Name: Wei Wanru (衛婉如), Wenyu (文煜).

Name Meaning: Wei is a surname that also means "to guard, protect," Wanru together means "just like," but Wan also means "graceful, tactful, amiably restrained" while Ru is "as" or "like." Wenyu is her courtesy name, but it was never used in the novel. The author later provided it to fans who wanted her to match with the male lead. Wen is "script, language, literary," Yu is "illuminate, shine."

Talents: Zither playing, wordplay, medicine, various other skills convenient to the plot ;)

Notes: Brave, kind, and intellectually brilliant, Wei Wanru has all the typical qualities of a female lead and all the bad luck that comes with it. Fortunately, her main character halo attracts enough luck and extra love interests to get her out of most scrapes. Readers often praise her for her cool-headed calm and good sense during the story arcs that make her more relatable than a typical MC. Has perfect skin and moderate-level cheat skills.

Extra: "Is the MC a Mary Sue" is one of the more popular topics of debate on the Conspiracies of the Northern Court (CNC) forums. There are always people who complain that she's too pretty, or too calm, or generally too perfect in this way or that, and others who counter with other characters and stories. Despite this, most find her likable, giving her the highest fanart count amongst the CNC characters.

Appearance Aesthetic: Gina Jin

Name: Chu Yexuan (楚燁軒), Shuyang (叔陽)

Name Meaning: Chu is a surname that means "clear, neat, distinct," Ye is "firelight, sunlight," Xuan is "high, lofty." Shuyang is his courtesy name, with Shu being the character assigned to the third son of the family and Yang meaning "sun."

Occupation: 3rd imperial son of the Chu Dynasty, former student to General Lin, disciple to an undisclosed master

Talents: Martial arts, photographic memory, sneaking into houses, breaking random records for physical feats

Notes: A departure from most male leads, Chu Yexuan is actually a warm and honest blunt type that doesn't know much about love or even romantic feelings. His dorkiness acts as a foil for the female lead's intellectual brilliance even as he supports her as a silent pillar of strength. Eventually, he matures into a man worthy of being the Chu Dynasty's next emperor. He is exceptionally skilled in martial arts, to the point that Ling Fengxiao has actively considered using him as bait to lure out the enemy...multiple times. Has a tendency to miss subtle cues from others (thus creating drama and misunderstandings), while most jokes fly over his head.

Extra: A popular ship name for him and the female lead is the "Potato OTP" because the two characters in their courtesy names---Yang (陽) and Yu (煜) sound exactly the same as 洋芋 (yangyu), or potato. Fanart featuring the two with potato products has become a running meme in the Conspiracies of the Northern Court fandom. 

On a side note, his pairing with Ling Fengxiao is also jokingly referred to as the "Lambchop OTP" due to the fact that Xiao (曉) and Yang (陽) together sounds like 小羊 (xiaoyang), or little lamb. Shippers from both sides are collectively known as the French Fry Faction and Lamb Skewer Sect and engage in frequent bouts of grill wars on the Internet. 

(...don't ask.)

Appearance Aesthetic: Vin Zhang

Name: Chu Yeguang (楚燁光), Boyan (伯焱)

Name Meaning: His first two characters are identical to his brother, but Guang means "light." His courtesy name Boyan uses Bo to indicate his status as the first son, and Yan, or "flame."

Occupation: Crown prince/1st imperial son, amateur businessman, so-called brothel king, unofficial fashion model for the capital's latest styles

Talents: Extremely charismatic, social networking expert, trendsetter and playboy extraordinaire

Notes: With the proper drive, Yeguang has the potential to be someone great. He has excellent focus and knows exactly how to get what he wants; the problem is that he's only interested in girls and finds affairs of the country absolutely dull. If there's one thing he's looking forward to as the future emperor, it's his harem of 3,000 beauties waiting around the corner. His current betrothal to a foreign princess is merely an afterthought. Despite the fact that he's proud and arrogant, he somehow manages to charm his way to everyone's hearts. Whether or not he shows sincerity to anyone is still a mystery…

Extra: The crown prince is another antagonist character that the fanbase enjoys picking on, with most finding fault with his almost cheat-level charisma and inability to die. As an opponent, he actually isn't very difficult to deal with in the original novel; rather, it was the forces supporting him that were the bigger pain. Because he never showed an interest in the female lead, he had limited screen time beyond his usual Big Bad appearances. Most readers considered him a useless waste of space, yet somehow he's risen to second male lead status in Mei Yanran's version of the novel…

Appearance Aesthetic: Chen Xiang 

Name: Chu Yeci (楚燁辭), Zhonglang (仲烺)

Name Meaning: His first two characters are identical with his brothers, but Ci means "diction, phrase, ballad, resign/dismiss/decline." It's also the name for a type of lyric poetry that flourished in the Song Dynasty. Zhonglang, his courtesy name, uses Zhong to indicate his position as the second son. Lang means "blaze, light."

Occupation: 2nd imperial prince, aspiring scholar, unofficial assistant to the palace historian

Talents: Painting, poetry, calligraphy, some medical knowledge

Notes: Much like his name, Yeci is the scholarly type that busies himself with books. He would actually get along quite well with Ling Fengxiao since they're similarly thoughtful, contemplative types. Despite being the second son in line to the throne, Yeci has long given up aspirations for the crown in light of his weak health, and much prefers to bury himself in his personal hobbies. He carries sharp observation skills and quite a bit of knowledge as well, but has never sought to take sides, preferring to remain neutral in all struggles within the court. His favorite painting subjects are birds and flowers. Because Yan Capital is often buried in snow and ice, he spends much of the year indoors.

Extra: The original Yeci fades out by the end of the book as a background character, making him a prime candidate for spin-off fanfiction from readers. In fact, he's one of the most popular self-insert pairing characters around because much of his canon story is a blank slate, allowing fans to make things up as they like. Most of the plots revolve around some random girl miraculously curing his weak health before the new couple starts composing love poems and going on adventures together.

Appearance Aesthetic: Song Weilong

Name: Li Siyan (李思煙) 

Name Meaning: Li is a surname that also means "plum tree", Si is "thought," Yan is "smoke, mist, vapor."

Occupation: Main love rival/female antagonist, daughter to the head of the Ministry of Rites

Talents: Zither playing, emotional manipulation, various ladylike tasks

Notes: To put it simply, she's a girl in love who doesn't understand why she can't get the man she wants. The only difference is that her pride makes her keep trying long after she should've given up. As is typical with such stories, the ending might have been very different if she'd just fallen for a different person instead... Instead, she has one of the messiest mix of relationships in the story just to make Chu Yexuan notice her, not realizing that the more she tries, the less he's interested. A meticulous schemer and wholly selfish individual who still didn't manage to destroy herself until Ling Fengxiao gave her a helping hand. Her method of death remains unspecified in the original novel and is a great point of contention for the readers, some of whom argue she never died at all, just gave up and laid low for the rest of her life.

Extra: Because the third character in her name means "smoke," she's become associated with the saying "Where there's smoke, there's fire" among the fanbase thanks to all the trouble she's caused. Other jokes include the fact that all her plans "go up in smoke," hunting her and her minions is "smoking out the rats in their holes," and the fact that she's supposedly "smoking hot." Thanks to her unsatisfactory end, the popularity of CNC fell for a time until the author announced that she was expanding details for the chapter regarding her death. The revised chapter was still being written by the time Mei Yanran transmigrated into the novel herself.

Appearance Aesthetic: Li Qin