Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Strictly speaking, I am the successor empress.
The former empress refused to heed the warnings and insisted on teaching Li Qiyue the rules. On her second day in office, she was thrown into the Cold Palace.
I, on the other hand, know better.
Zhao Yan once hinted to me that as long as I continued to know my place, the entire Meng family would remain safe and sound, and I would be able to sit steadily on the throne as Empress for a long, long time.
The main reason I became Empress was that Li Qiyue did not want to be Empress. She thought there were too many things to manage. Too troublesome.
Li Qiyue arrived late to pay her respects, and Zhao Yan personally escorted her in.
Her small face was half-hidden in a collar of silver fox fur, leaving only a petal-red mouth exposed. Light shimmered in her eyes, making her look like a lazy, aristocratic Persian cat.
The olive-yellow dress I had on suddenly seemed terribly old-fashioned by comparison.
Just like me. Bound by rules in every way, raised on Admonitions for Women, doing ten parts for every one required, impeccable to the point that no fault could be found. The problem was, Zhao Yan disliked old sticks-in-the-mud like me most of all.
He liked Li Qiyue. She was beautiful, quick-witted, and astonishingly brilliant.
No one knew where all her strange and clever ideas came from. Who could have imagined using a series of long and short marks to encrypt military intelligence? Who could have imagined adding certain gases to water to make iced water even more thirst-quenching?
I heard she often practiced something called “yoga,” which gave her an excellent complexion. Even standing there doing nothing, her bearing was already three parts superior to others.
Lately, she had been pampered into even greater delicacy. She did not even stand properly, half-leaning in Zhao Yan’s arms, her waist curving inward, so slender it seemed one hand could encircle it. She bent her knees ever so slightly, and that counted as her salute.
Before I could say anything, Zhao Yan spoke first. He said the Imperial Noble Consort had tired herself out yesterday and was feeling unwell, so she needed to return and rest.
Since the emperor had said as much, the consorts naturally had no objections. Or perhaps they had long since grown used to it.
The rear palace had become a stagnant pool long ago. No one still harbored fantasies. The former empress was the exception, a fish in that dead water that insisted on thrashing about one last time.
In the end, she battered herself bloody.
If I were to be honest, I did not actually hate Li Qiyue, though she had taken all of the emperor’s favor for herself. Even if Zhao Yan had not doted exclusively on her, what difference would it make? There was only one emperor. His love splattered outward like flecks of mud. Who among us could truly get much more than a speck or two?
Such was an emperor’s love.
Li Qiyue was merely luckier than the rest of us.
I just felt sad.
I was only eighteen, yet I could already see the end of my life at a single glance. The sky beyond the palace walls was no longer mine to see. I could only wait within these walls for the emperor’s occasional mercy, then grow older day by day.
After the late emperor bestowed the marriage, I once saw Zhao Yan from afar. He was dressed in bright yellow, tall and long-legged, handsome in appearance, striking even in the middle of a crowd.
“So this will be my future husband,” I thought, clutching my handkerchief. “We will honor and respect each other, living together in harmony.”
Later, I heard the romantic tale of Zhao Yan and Li Qiyue. They had met during a hunt. It was said that Miss Li loosed three arrows at once and forcibly snatched from Zhao Yan the roe deer he had been certain to claim.
She was a farmer’s daughter, wearing the plainest coarse-cloth clothes and the simplest braid. Sunlight fell over her, and she radiated a beauty startling enough to stop the heart.
That tiny trace of girlish yearning I had nursed before marriage was burned away by the blazing sun of July. But at the time, I was full of spirit. I disdained fighting a farmer’s daughter over a man. If Zhao Yan did not love me, then so be it. I had no wish to interfere in someone else’s love. I could learn to manage a household, read account books, take charge of internal affairs. When I grew old, I could even assist the imperial princes and grandsons in founding a glorious age that would last a thousand autumns.
After hearing this grand declaration, Mother did not praise me. She only stroked my head and said the heat in July was oppressive, and that I should drink two bowls of iced mung bean soup before going to the courtyard to play on the swing.
On the day of my wedding, Mother dismissed the servants and personally dressed my hair.
The first comb, combed to the very end.
The second comb, may you grow old together with brows of white.
The third comb, may your children and grandchildren fill the hall.
Before I entered the bridal sedan, Mother tearfully pressed a brocade pouch into my arms.
She said, “Do not open it unless you have no other choice.”