Politics

My mother, a concubine, wanted me to marry honorably: “A woman must be a proper wife.”

I made vague noises of agreement, but inwardly I didn’t take it to heart.

Being a proper wife to a peddler or servant meant poverty and beatings from the man.

Being a proper wife in a wealthy household meant constant scheming and exhausting yourself managing the family.

So as soon as my mother passed on, I went to Yujing Tower and registered as a prostitute.

Sixty taels of silver a night, absolutely no haggling.

After my eldest sister took her own life, her marriage to the Heir of the Marquis of Changping was passed down to my second sister.

After my second sister took her own life, the original betrothal landed on my head.

Less than half a year after marrying into Changping Marquis Manor, I wanted to take my own life too.

Just as I was hesitating over whether to hang myself like my eldest sister or swallow gold like my second sister, the heir returned from disaster relief.

And he brought back a concubine.

I looked at the delicate, beautiful concubine and nearly wept with joy.

Wonderful. In this grand, suffocating mansion, I was finally not the only unlucky one anymore.

My parents had always favored me most.

But on the eve of the imperial capital’s fall, they fled with the entire family-and somehow forgot to wake me from my sleep.

When I woke up, the courtyard was deserted.

Yet the moment I turned my head, I realized I wasn’t the only one who had been left behind.

The illegitimate son my father had with his mistress was still here too.

He stared at me without blinking, the look on his face hovering somewhere between a smile and a sneer.

“Second Sister, how did you end up reduced to the same state as me?”

Father and Mother will definitely come back for me.

The words were about to burst from my mouth, but I paused.

Then I cleared my throat and put on a calm, unbothered expression.

“I was the one who refused to leave.”

After my elder sister passed away, I entered the palace and became the new empress.

The emperor asked me to choose one of the princes to raise as my own.

The moment my fingers brushed against the two princes, I saw two chaotic glimpses of the future.

If I chose the Third Prince, he would one day ascend the throne, slaughter my entire family, and stab me to death.

If I chose the Ninth Prince, then after he became emperor, he would have me fake my death and confine me within the palace, turning me into a reviled temptress spat on by all.

I fell silent for a moment, then raised my hand and pointed at the little princess peeking in from behind the doorframe.

“Your Majesty, I believe I share a greater affinity with the Thirteenth Princess.”

My husband brought home a child.

I raised him as my own, teaching him poetry, books, and proper etiquette.

I molded him into a noble young gentleman skilled in both letters and arms.

Years later, when he had risen to the highest ranks of court, he locked me away in a dark dungeon.

With both hands, he crushed my jaw. “My birth mother was Shuang’er, the woman you murdered.”

“A venomous woman like you thinks she deserves to be my mother?”

My husband stood by and watched, his palms pressed together in prayer.

“Shuang’er, may your spirit finally rest in peace.”

After being tortured to death, I was reborn.

Faced with the child my husband had brought home, I still smiled and said, “Of course. From now on, he will be my own son.”

While the concubines of the harem fought for favor, the Empress was wondering when the emperor would finally die.

The emperor and I had been married since our youth, but ours was a match arranged without either of us having any say.

After all these years, we had only ever treated each other with distant courtesy.

And as my son grew older by the day, I found myself hoping more and more that His Majesty might depart this world sooner rather than later-if only so all my years of diligently managing his harem would not have been in vain.

The Han army captured Luoyang. My husband, His Majesty himself, knelt at the rebels’ feet, trembling like a lamb waiting for slaughter.

“The Empress is in Jiaofang Hall. Please, don’t kill me…”

I had been married to him for five years and had given birth to our daughter, Princess Heqing.

Yet at the moment of crisis, he offered me up without the slightest hesitation.

My father rebelled, and I became a noble legitimate princess.

Then, after taking the throne, he decided to make his old flame empress and force my mother to step aside.

Who could possibly tolerate that?

I command a hundred thousand soldiers and have won glory on every battlefield, yet he wants my mother reduced to a concubine—who does he think he is?

The emperor died too soon, and I became Empress Dowager at a young age.

To secure my son’s throne, I had no choice but to yield to the Prince Regent and become his illicit lover.

Later, when my son came of age, he finally reclaimed imperial power.

I sent the Prince Regent to the underworld with a cup of poisoned wine.

But I never imagined the Prince Regent had poisoned me as well.

As I coughed up blood in agony, he held me tightly in his arms and laughed madly in my ear: “If we die, we die together. Once we’re dead, we can be reborn together.”

Our blood mingled, and neither of us met a good end.

Before I died, through the haze, I thought: I had been such a pathetic Empress Dowager.

I had never lived a single good day.

If I truly could be reborn, I would stay far, far away from those two: the short-lived ghost and the madman.

But I did not get to be reborn into another life. Instead, I was reborn at the palace banquet where marriages were decreed.

The Crown Prince was about to hand the one and only Phoenix-patterned Jade Pendant to the woman he loved.

His gaze lingered on my face for an instant, as if he had made up his mind to give the pendant to me.

The next moment, I lowered my head and shifted slightly aside, letting him see Song Xiuying behind me clearly.

She was the one who had shared life and death with him in my previous life.