Royalty

On the eve of His Majesty’s bestowal of marriage, I lay in the Crown Prince’s arms and murmured, “Your Highness dotes on me so much. When my sister marries into the household, she won’t be angry, will she? Everyone else envies Your Highness for receiving His Majesty’s favor and being allowed to hold the wedding in the palace, but all I feel is sorry for you. It must be exhausting.”

I thought I was just putting on a fragile, sweet little act for the Crown Prince.

I never expected him to be sincere with me.

The Emperor brought a beauty back from Jiangnan and declared his intention to make her his Empress.

I adamantly refused.

“Empress Dowager, why? She and I share such a striking resemblance; it’s a sign we’re meant to be!”

You have the nerve to say that? You’ve gone and dug up the illegitimate daughter I hid so far away!

My Mother was a courtesan, earning money with her own flesh and blood to support my father’s studies and imperial examinations.

Five years later, my father succeeded and was granted marriage to a princess by the Emperor.

Yet, in the Golden Throne Hall, he refused the marriage at the risk of his own life, and with great fanfare, married my Mother with ten miles of red bridal procession.

The princess was displeased.

Three days later, Mother was found abused and disheveled, dying at the entrance of an alley.

Half a year later, the princess finally married my father as she wished.

She did not know that this was the beginning of her misfortune.

Emperor Yuanzhen has ruled Jing for sixty years, while Empress Dowager Xue governed from behind the curtain for thirty-three.

I served as the empress dowager’s personal maid for seventy years—and I know a secret that could overturn the dynasty.

The emperor is not the late sovereign’s son, but a bastard born to the empress dowager and a Sumo barbarian.

The day she died, a heavy snowfall blanketed the capital, sealing the city gates.

When the eunuch came to report the news, I was drinking in Noble Consort Liu’s palace.

I simply said, “Understood.”

It wasn’t until that cup of plum blossom wine-the one meant for our reconciliation-seared through my chest that I finally understood.

She had waited ten years, but she was never waiting for me to have a change of heart. She was waiting for me to die with her.

I am the Empress.

The Emperor wished to take my maid as a concubine, claiming that any child she bore would be recorded under my name.

Later, the imperial physician informed me that I had been pregnant for a month.

I said to the Emperor, “In consideration of your many years without an heir, I shall have this child recorded under your name.”

I was once the hardworking, dedicated wife of a low-ranking official.

But when my husband decided to take a concubine, I simply stopped caring.

“I’m going back to inherit the throne.” Xie Canghuai froze. “Stop messing around. There’s a limit to how much you can act out just because you’re jealous.”

I told him I wasn’t joking. I really did have a throne to inherit. “I can’t give you the position of Imperial Husband, but you can start as a Selected Attendant.” He thought I’d lost my mind and locked me away in a rural manor.

Me: “?” Why couldn’t we just do this the easy way? Do I really have to summon my eight thousand secret guards and give him a wicked smirk?

Two years after my daughter’s death, I traveled to the capital.

The people there asked me, “Who are you looking for?”

I replied, “I am looking for my child’s father. His name is Shen Zhao.”

Everyone laughed. They said Shen Zhao was the capital’s premier noble scion.

“He is Princess Xunyang’s Prince Consort now,” they said. “How could someone like you harbor such delusions?”

I laughed, too.

Good. Because the one I intend to kill is precisely the Prince Consort.

Chapter 0

I was the most beautiful woman in the capital, but because I was a little slow by nature, no one dared to marry me.

The Fifth Prince pined after my legitimate elder sister to no avail, then gave up on himself and married me as her stand-in.

He mocked himself, saying, “A fool and a cripple. I suppose we really are a perfect match.”

Very generously, I comforted him. “From now on, I’ll be my elder sister’s stand-in, and you’ll be the Crown Prince’s stand-in. We can still live our lives just fine.”

At the homecoming banquet, I watched the Crown Prince and my elder sister exchange tender looks.

The Fifth Prince’s expression was terrible, and my heart ached bitterly too.

Everyone else laughed at us, calling us a lovesick man and a resentful woman.

After we returned home, the Fifth Prince wrapped his robes tightly around himself and sneered, “Don’t even think about touching a single finger of mine tonight!”

I obediently lay down beside him and repented.

Sigh. It was my fault. I had stared at the Crown Prince for too long.

I was half-asleep when the Fifth Prince suddenly shoved me.

Furious, he snapped, “Shen Yufu! Are you really that honest?! I told you not to touch me, so you actually didn’t touch me?”

I said honestly, “All right, then you pretend to be the Crown Prince, and I’ll pretend to be my elder sister.”

The Fifth Prince bit my lip, forcing me to shut up.

I thought to myself, Didn’t we agree to be each other’s stand-ins? Why is he angry again?

The Fifth Prince’s heart is truly hard to figure out.

Born a princess yet treated as the sacrificial “flower” for her twin brother, Lou Guanqi grows up with her health, fortune, and future quietly drained away.

After enemy soldiers carry the twins beyond the border, she survives humiliation and abandonment before finding a real family in Yunhuai Village, where Lou Sibao becomes the devoted elder sister she never had.

When the court drags Guanqi back into imperial power, every betrayal pushes her closer to vengeance—and every victory costs another piece of the love that once saved her.

As an ancient gu curse begins to reverse, Guanqi must decide whether a stolen throne can heal a life built on sacrifice, or whether power will devour everyone who still calls her family.