Royalty

I was the Noble Consort.

An assassin struck at a palace banquet, and the Empress took a sword for me.

The Emperor was stunned.

“I’m right here!

Why are you saving her?”

The Empress collapsed into my arms, blood spilling from the corner of her mouth.

“Her crying is unbearable.

I don’t want to deal with her nonsense.”

But I’d trained in martial arts since I was little.

I could look after myself.

The crying was just to win favor.

Well, this was a mess…

Maybe I should ask Dad’s five hundred thousand soldiers what to do?

At twenty-five, I arranged for Bighead Xiao to take his first concubine.

Her dowry was an entire city.

At twenty-six, I arranged the second.

Her dowry was ten li of granaries.

At forty-two, he took his eighteenth.

There were so many women that I could no longer remember their names.

And I had gone from a farmer’s wife to the founding empress of Great Zhao.

I was the queen, confined to the ancestral temple for a grave crime.

The king despised me, and for fifteen years he never came to see me.

The world said I had lost my mind.

Then the diviners foretold that my child would bring the four corners of the realm to submission and become sovereign of all under Heaven.

Taken from me on the day he was born and raised by the king’s favorite consort, he had never even seen his mother’s face.

Day and night I prayed, waiting for him.

At last, he came.

The boy was grown now, his brow bearing all the cold majesty of an heir to the throne.

Calmly, he laid a dagger before me.

“Your son asks only one thing.

Grant it to me.”

Everyone calls Xie Qingwei the finest nobleman in Shengdu, and Jiang Zhiyu has perfected every virtue expected of a woman to win his family’s approval.

Then a vision shows her the miserable future awaiting her as his wife.

Determined to escape, she points to the impoverished Xue Shao and declares him the man she loves.

But securing a better marriage is only the beginning: in a world that gives women so few choices, Zhiyu may have to find a higher place of her own.

The third time my parents came to order me to pay my brother’s gambling debts, I tossed a dagger onto the ground.

“Fine.

One finger for a thousand taels.”

As they had so many times before, they cursed and lunged to beat me.

A guard caught them by the backs of their necks and pinned them to the ground.

I raised an eyebrow.

The guard kindly taught them to kowtow.

“Repeat after me—We greet Her Highness, the noble consort.”

My husband brought home his “true love” and insisted on taking her as a concubine.

Tears of emotion filled my eyes as I clasped his true love’s hand and refused to let go.

“How could I possibly let you settle for being a concubine?

You can have my place as his lawful wife!

“Why don’t we make it a one-stop affair today—divorce for me, wedding for you!”

There was no time to waste.

The imperial decree ordering the confiscation of the family estate was already on its way!

When my elder sister tossed her embroidered ball to choose a husband, it split in two.

The heir to the Marquis of Yongning and young General Xie each caught half.

Neither would give way.

They even came to blows, setting the whole city talking.

In the end, my sister had no choice but to push me forward.

“My little sister is beautiful and gentle, and bears a strong resemblance to me.”

“General Xie, marry her and think of me when you look at her.

Please, don’t make this harder for me.”

In my last life, Xie Chenzhou had married me unwillingly.

He despised me and never so much as touched me.

I gave as good as I got, with cold, mocking words.

“My sister simply didn’t want you.

Stop flattering yourself.”

“She’s already showing, and you still haven’t let her go.”

And so we spent our whole lives bickering, loathing the sight of each other.

Now I had another life.

And I was back on the day my sister tossed her ball to choose a husband.

I had been able to see the floating comments since I was very small.

They told me I would spend seven bitter years beside a fallen prince, only to be cast aside when he became emperor.

He would regret it when I was dying, turn back time, and treasure me in another life.

The comments told me to hold on.

But if happiness was certain, why couldn’t I have it in this life?

When the Fifth Prince fell from favor, I was the first maid to pay for a transfer.

The comments went wild.

Without me, how was their story supposed to continue?

On the day I ascended the throne, I discovered that I could hear objects speak.

The Dragon Throne was a chatterbox, and a scalding bowl from the imperial kitchens screamed in my hands.

When I dropped it, only I could hear the shattered pieces lamenting their fate.

Prince Xiang’s heir was every noble young lady’s dream—and the emperor’s favorite candidate for the throne.

I slipped a little something into his soup to secure my future.

Unfortunately, my sister and three other ladies had the same idea.

One bowl later, he dropped dead at the imperial banquet, and all five of us became suspects.

I swore on my father’s life that I hadn’t killed him.

The trouble was, every suspect had a secret—and I wanted far more than a handsome husband.