Politics

My father rebelled, and I became the most honored legitimate princess.

No, wait-the Grand Tutor said it’s not rebellion.

How can it be rebellion when it’s the act of a founding emperor?

It was the descent of the Imperial Star, the gods and buddhas blessing the people, rescuing the masses from misery!

As the Grand Tutor taught, one should say:

The previous dynasty was tyrannical and unjust, the common people were in a living hell, suffering unbearably. My father the Emperor led a group of righteous men in uprising, successfully ended the chaotic times, and established the Great An Dynasty.

So I, an ordinary farmer’s wife in the previous dynasty, inexplicably became the one and only legitimate princess of the An Dynasty.

That’s right, I’m married, my husband is alive and well, I have both a son and a daughter, my life is happy and fulfilling, and for years I’ve topped the list of happiest young wives in the village.

Before becoming a princess, my biggest worry was that my son didn’t like meat and only ate vegetables, while my daughter didn’t like vegetables and only ate meat.

Now my biggest worry has become: being a legitimate princess and all that-I have no experience with it…

The Noble Consort resorted to every conceivable means to secure a baby boy, plotting to pass off another woman’s son as her own so she could regain the emperor’s favor.

On the day she gave birth, she sent her men to a secluded village, where they murdered a young couple and abducted their swaddled infant.

I survived by hiding inside a rice vat.

But what she didn’t know was that the village was called Half-Ghost Village.

Once its residents turned fifty, they began aging in reverse.

The baby her men had taken was my Great-grandfather.

Ever since I was little, I was determined to become the Head of the Six Palaces.

So I married the Crown Prince and fought for the position of Empress, until I was only one step away from my goal.

All I had to do was outlive the sickly Empress currently sitting in that seat.

Of course, aside from the Empress, I still had other rivals: Consort De, Zhaoyi Zeng, Jieyu Yao…

Diligently, I crushed dissent. Conscientiously, I built my own faction. Day and night, I colluded with officials at court. One after another, I brought down every consort in the harem who dared stand against me, until at last I became the most powerful woman in the world.

I was selfish, calculating, and vicious.

But on his deathbed, the Emperor held my hand and said gently, “All these years, you worked hard.”

The day His Majesty bestowed a marriage upon me, my entire household wept like we were holding a funeral.

Mainly because I was a woman disguised as a man attending court, and even my Adam’s apple was drawn on.

There was no way I could make the princess happy!

But the princess who bowed with me to Heaven and Earth was a full head taller than I was.

Tentatively, I reached toward a place I really should not be touching.

In a rough voice, the princess confirmed, “Yes, I have a peepee.”

I entered the palace to plead guilty, but His Majesty said that spending one son to make four generations of my family work loyally for him was an excellent bargain. Me: ?

After ten years by my side, my husband brought home a beauty and announced he would make her empress.

He said, “You have no son, but I need a crown prince.”

“What man under heaven doesn’t have three wives and four concubines?”

“When did you become so jealous, so incapable of tolerating others? You’ve changed. You’ve become hideous.”

That very night, I took my Young General with me and charged out through the city gates without looking back.

After I left, he said with red-rimmed eyes, “Ning Huan, come back.”

Of course I would come back.

Clad in the imperial yellow robes, I led three hundred thousand troops back to the capital, my loyal Young General standing at my side.

“Men, drag the Deposed Emperor and that beauty out and behead them. Hang their heads from the city walls. Let them go to hell and reflect on their disloyalty and lack of filial piety.”

You are a village girl from the mountains.

By a twist of fate, you save the Crown Prince from an assassination, and you leverage that debt to demand he marry you.

But he disdains your plain looks and gently refuses many times.

You settle for the next best thing and ask him to appoint you as an official.

Since you were five, you’ve decided you will rise above your station in this life.

If you become a consort, you’ll be like Wu Zetian.

If you become an official, you’ll be like Sima Yi.

When the palace announced that I was being elevated to Noble Consort, everyone in my family looked grim.

Everyone understood the principle that great merit can threaten the throne.

My father’s achievements were already so great that there was nothing left to reward him with.

This rank of Noble Consort was a naked warning.

If I wanted to keep my whole family safe, I had to hand the emperor a weakness of mine-something he could hold over me and use to put his mind at ease.

Father, Mother, your daughter is off to be arrogant by imperial command!

Starting today, I’m going to be the most outrageously overbearing little menace in the harem!

“Miaoren, this beauty mark of yours is truly lovely.”

Xuan Changjun lifted my bridal veil. By the light of a small lamp, he reached out and gently brushed the tiny mark at the corner of my eye.

I smiled at him. “Husband, is this beauty mark the only lovely thing about me?”

He did not answer. Instead, he said, “Xuan’er has a beauty mark just like it. It makes her look especially lively.”

I nodded and told him, “Wait a moment.”

Turning around, I fetched paper, brush, and ink from the writing desk and spread them out before him. “Go on. Write it.”

He looked up at me. “Write what?”

I straightened the tinkling jeweled flower in my hair and said unhurriedly, “A divorce letter.”

Xuan Changjun chuckled softly. “Miaoren, there are seven grounds upon which a man may divorce his wife. You have committed none of them, so how could I write such a letter?”

“Oh?” I lazily propped my chin on one hand while scraping the lid of my teacup with the other. “And what are these seven grounds?”

“A wife may be cast out for seven reasons: disobedience to her parents-in-law, childlessness, adultery, jealousy, serious illness, excessive talkativeness, or theft.”

I nodded, rose to my feet, and stood across from him.

“Go fuck yourself!”

I kicked him over. He toppled backward onto the bed and sank into the red silk wedding quilt embroidered with mandarin ducks.

“Y-you… Miaoren! You, you…” Struggling upright, he clutched his chest and stared at me in shock.

Taking up the brush, I neatly drafted the divorce letter for him:

There is now a wicked woman in this household. She is unfilial to her parents-in-law, disobedient to her husband, and disrespectful to her elder brother- and sister-in-law. She is therefore cast out.

“All you need to do is press your thumbprint onto it,” I said. “Otherwise, I’ll turn the entire Xuan Family upside down. Today I kicked you over. Tomorrow, I’ll dare to beat your father, curse your mother, ruin your family’s reputation, and squander your fortune. Changjun, you should simply accept your fate.”

“Miaoren, why are you doing this?” Xuan Changjun had been a scholar before entering officialdom, so he did not panic when trouble arose. Once he had caught his breath, he said, “I only married you because you liked me.”

“Oh, Changjun, that may be the most absurd joke under heaven!” I clapped my hands, sat down in the armchair, and lowered my head to peel a grape. “Do you know who I am? I am the Grand Tutor, an official of the first rank. Even His Majesty must courteously address me as his teacher. And what are you? A newly crowned Literary Champion. What official rank can you even expect to receive? I lowered myself to marry beneath my station, yet you somehow have the nerve to claim I married you because I liked you?”

Xuan Changjun’s face alternated between red and white. After a long silence, he finally managed to say, “Since we are both scholars, you should not use your official rank to lord it over others.”

“You’re a scholar, my ass. You’re clearly a lecherous creep pretending to be some charming libertine. What a joke!” I sneered, then continued, “I’ll tell you the truth. I chose you reluctantly because I thought you were devoted and faithful, which would spare me plenty of jealous squabbles in the future. If I’d known that a beast like you was lusting after his own younger sister, I would have refused even if the emperor himself arranged the marriage. I’d have gone and beaten the emperor too!”

“You… Miaoren!”

“What? Did I say anything wrong? I’d long heard that your younger sister Changxuan looked seventy percent like me-even the beauty mark at the corner of her eye was identical to mine. I didn’t believe it at first, but after seeing her in person, I realized she truly does resemble me.”

“How could you say Xuan’er resembles you? You’re clearly the one who resembles Xuan’er!” His face flushed red with agitation.

“Say whatever you like. The divorce letter is right here. Hurry up and press your thumbprint onto it. I’ll return to my residence at once, and from this day forward, we’ll each go our separate ways.” I gave the flimsy sheet of paper a shake. “Hurry. You’re a grown man, so why are you being so indecisive?”

Even as I was leaving, he still called me Miaoren.

I told him, “Lord Xuan, I happen to love throwing my rank around. You’d better address me as Grand Tutor Yu.”

After winning the war, I entered the capital, and the Old Emperor asked what reward I wanted.

I pointed at the handsome man in purple robes and a golden belt standing in the hall. “I beg Your Majesty to grant me a marriage. I am carrying his child, and he promised he would marry me!”

The elderly eunuch beside the emperor hurriedly tried to stop me. “General, mind your words. This is the Second Prince.”

A faint, languid voice sounded behind me. “Whose child are you carrying?

“Isn’t your belly full of roast duck, roast chicken, candied hawthorn, red bean pastries, dried sweet potatoes…”

I turned to look, only to find that the handsome man who had just spoken looked exactly like the Second Prince.

I made a split-second decision and cupped my fists toward His Majesty. “If that one won’t marry me, this one will do!”

The elderly eunuch was beside himself with panic. “My dear ancestor, this is the Crown Prince!”

Everyone in the capital said that a first-rank maid from the Prime Minister’s Residence was worth more than the daughter of a fifth-rank official.

As the personal maid to the prime minister’s daughter, I had followed the Fourth Young Lady since childhood, learning to read and write at her side.

I understood literature and ink, knew music, and was versed in arithmetic.

When I was nineteen, the merchant Wen Family of Qingzhou, eager to attach themselves to power, came specifically to ask for my hand-a mere maidservant’s-in marriage.

The Fourth Young Lady showed me grace, acknowledged me as her sworn younger sister, and married me off in splendor.

I had thought the inner courtyard of a merchant household would be simple. I never imagined its waters would run as deep as those of the Prime Minister’s Residence.

The Second Branch eyed the account books with envy, while the concubines banded together to put me in my place.

On the day I served tea to my elders, Concubine Zhou “accidentally” knocked over the teacup, and scalding water splashed across the hem of my newly tailored Su embroidery skirt.

I lightly brushed my fingers over the ruined twining lotus pattern on the fabric, then suddenly smiled.

Since some people insisted on throwing themselves onto the edge of a blade-

Then I would show them exactly what the methods of the Prime Minister’s Residence looked like.