Chapter 1
Chapter 1
On the third day of the twelfth lunar month, I was married. My husband was the eldest son of the Duke of Wu’an.
His name was Rong Yi, and he was a fool.
Night had fallen, and the wedding banquet at the Duke’s Mansion had just ended.
Dressed in my splendid wedding robes, I sat upright on the canopied bed, so nervous my heart was pounding.
Everyone said fools had unpredictable tempers. Would he fly into a rage and pin me to the floor to beat me? Would he force me to do that sort of thing?
Mama Shi, standing beside me, noticed my panic and chuckled softly. “Don’t be afraid. This servant has already asked around. Though the Consort is twenty-four, he speaks and acts like a child. He would never offend Your Highness.”
Just then, a maid came in to report that the Lord Consort had arrived.
Before long, a young man walked in from outside.
The instant I saw him, I was startled.
He was tall and straight-backed, with extraordinarily handsome features. To call him peerlessly radiant would not be an exaggeration.
I could not help shrinking back a little and asked in a small voice, “Who is he?”
Mama Shi smiled. “He is the Consort.”
Rong Yi?!
He did not look foolish at all.
But just as doubt rose in my heart, Rong Yi threw a tantrum like a child. “You lied to me! There aren’t any big monkeys here at all!”
With that, he twisted around and ran off.
All right. He was indeed a fool.
In truth, the man I was originally supposed to marry was not him, but his second younger brother.
It was the Empress Dowager who forced me to marry this fool.
The Empress Dowager hated me.
Back then, my mother was the deeply favored Imperial Consort, while the Empress Dowager had been no more than a low-ranking consort.
Who knew whose instigation my mother listened to, but she heard some story about how Consort Liu had mocked her for being unable to bear a son, and even said there was no use in giving birth to a princess, since sooner or later she would only be sent off in a marriage alliance to the barbarians.
My mother flew into a rage. In front of all the imperial concubines of the six palaces, she ordered eunuchs to strip off Consort Liu’s outer robe and slapped her across the face.
Who could have known that by the end of that year, an epidemic would sweep through the land, and my mother would unfortunately catch the illness and die?
My devoted imperial father was overcome with grief. Before long, he followed her as well.
As they say, some people are simply blessed with good fortune. After the crown prince became emperor, he reigned for less than two years before suddenly collapsing from an acute illness.
The emperor had no heirs, so his successor could only be chosen from among his brothers.
And just like that, a heaven-sent fortune fell neatly into the lap of Consort Liu’s son, who was only four years old.
Two emperors had died one after another. It was strange and ominous. After the officials of the Imperial Astronomical Bureau made their calculations, they declared that a Lone Star of Doom was causing trouble in the southeast corner of the palace.
How convenient. Shangyang Palace in the southeast housed only me. Why not just report my name outright?
At the same time, court officials kept submitting memorials. They did not dare openly accuse my imperial father of dying from lust, so they merely claimed my mother had been a demonic concubine who brought disaster to the state.
As a result, my maternal grandfather was punished for failing to educate his daughter properly. My clan members were dismissed from office, exiled, imprisoned…
And I, the daughter of that demonic concubine, the Lone Star of Doom, was locked inside Shangyang Palace from the age of ten.
It has now been a full fourteen years.