Chapter 1
My eldest sister was the most beautiful woman in the capital. Music, chess, calligraphy, painting—she excelled at them all, and her talents were famous throughout Shengjing.
My second sister had trained in martial arts since childhood. At thirteen, she followed Grandfather onto the battlefield. By sixteen, the emperor himself had made her a marquis with a fief of a thousand households.
As for me…
I was the duke’s third daughter, no good with either books or weapons, and none too bright besides.
When I was three, I fell terribly ill. The imperial physician said the fever had damaged my mind.
I wasn’t entirely witless, but everything took me a little longer than it took other people.
Even when I reached fifteen, no one came to ask for my hand.
We had finally managed to arrange a betrothal to the young heir of the Marquis of Pingyang, but he fell in love with someone else and broke it off.
I asked Mother whether no one wanted to be Ah Yu’s husband because Ah Yu wasn’t clever.
Mother’s brows shot up. She bent down and looked at me very seriously.
“Who says our Ah Yu isn’t clever? We call this ‘great wisdom appears foolish.’”
Mother said that meant truly wise people were all like Ah Yu.
So yu, the word for “foolish,” was the Yu in Ah Yu after all.
At the end of the year, an unexpected decree arrived from the palace, ordering me to enter it.
The whole household fell into chaos.
Father paced around the courtyard with his hands behind his back. Mother grew so annoyed at the sight of him that she simply gave him a slap.
Father grimaced with pain but didn’t dare say anything. In the end, he squatted beside me to count ants.
When we reached the thirty-seventh ant, Father suddenly spoke.
“Ah Yu, would you like to go into the palace?”
“What would I do there?”
“Become one of the emperor’s consorts.”
“Who’s the emperor?”
“Ah Yu’s future husband.”
“Then Ah Yu won’t be a fool without a husband anymore!”
I jumped up with delight.
Father turned away and secretly covered his eyes with his sleeve.
In the end, he couldn’t hold it in. He flung himself into Mother’s arms and cried.
I grinned at him.
“Shame on you, Father!”
Father cried even harder.
On the day I left for the palace, my eldest sister secretly stuffed a great many storybooks into my arms.
Normally, she never let me read such filthy books.
She said all those tales of love and romance were utterly useless.
Yet today, for the first time ever, she’d given me ten!
I stared at her with wide eyes, squealed with delight, and went to hug her.
But she turned her face away and whispered:
“Keep your voice down. Don’t let your second sister find out.”
“Don’t let me find out what?”
The words had barely left her mouth when my second sister appeared behind us.
She’d gone to war with the army since she was young, and she was always terribly strict.
Father and Mother spoiled me.
My eldest sister sometimes turned a blind eye.
But my second sister…
She dealt with me as if I were an enemy tribesman.
If I made a mistake, I was punished. If I couldn’t recite a poem, I was punished. Even if I sneaked a bite of the pork knuckle in the kitchen, I was punished…
I shrank behind my eldest sister in fright.
My eldest sister’s lovely face arranged itself into a coaxing smile.
“Sister, it is Ah Yu’s last day before entering the palace. Couldn’t you just…”
Before she could finish, my second sister suddenly tossed us a bundle.
She muttered:
“Yours are out of date. These are the most fashionable ones in Shengjing…”
Then she turned and left.
She walked so fast you would have thought some ravenous beast was chasing her.
My eldest sister opened the bundle and exclaimed in astonishment:
“The Tyrant Emperor and the Pretty Widow!”
“Who would have thought your second sister liked this sort of thing?”