Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Minrong, daughter of the Hu Family, was born to become Empress.

That was what a distant maternal uncle from my grandmother’s clan once said.

His name was Xu Xun, a Daoist master in flowing white robes.

When I was five, my mother held me in her arms and taught me how to write.

Xu Xun came to our estate. The moment he saw me, he said to my father:

“The young lady was born with the fate of a phoenix. Her nobility is beyond words, and her future prospects are immeasurable.”

My father, Hu Zhihe, was overjoyed. He laid out a grand banquet and treated Xu Xun with the deepest gratitude.

I was too young then to understand.

I looked at my mother in confusion, only to see that she, too, was beaming as she told me, “Ah Rong, you are blessed. If this matter comes to pass, the revival of the Hu and Xu families will finally be within reach.”

The Hu Clan of Mount Tai was an old and powerful aristocratic house.

My great-great-grandfather had once been Right Chancellor of Wenchang in Great Wei. My maternal great-grandfather had once risen to the rank of First-Rank General Who Pacifies the South.

Unfortunately, by this generation, my father was only a vice minister, and none of the uncles in the clan had achieved anything remarkable.

After my maternal grandfather passed away, my uncles failed to hold up the Xu family as well.

To fall into mediocrity and decline after such former glory-how could anyone accept that?

The obsession with revival had been carved into everyone’s bones.

That distant uncle, Xu Xun, was a strategist serving Zhao Cui, Prince Liang of Great Wei.

The reason he was able to come to the Hu Family and meet me was thanks to the introduction of my eldest maternal uncle, Xu Jin.

From childhood, I was the darling of the household. My mother raised me very well.

Innocent and carefree, ignorant of worldly affairs, well-behaved and obedient.

It was not until I married Zhao Ling at fourteen and became the Empress of Great Wei that I gradually understood: the honor and favor of great clans was nothing but a joke.

During Emperor Huicheng’s reign, they had originally planned to marry me to Crown Prince Lun.

Unfortunately, that man was disobedient, so Prince Liang and the others found an excuse and killed him.

Later, they made the legitimate son of the late former crown prince the heir apparent.

It was said that the little imperial grandson was in poor health. Somehow, later on, he was gone too.

While I lived in naive innocence within the Hu Family, I had no idea that my future husband kept changing.

Until the tenth day of the ninth month in the First Year of Taicang, when I married Zhao Ling.

Emperor Jingwen, Zhao Ling, was seventeen, in the prime of youth and brilliance.

In Taiji Hall, the sky seemed high and the clouds vast.

I wore the phoenix crown and embroidered ceremonial robe, my long skirt trailing across the floor, every inch adorned with pearls and jewels.

Following my mother’s instructions, I lifted my chin, presenting myself with impeccable breeding to display the dignity an Empress ought to possess.

The young Son of Heaven wore an embroidered dragon robe with eight medallions. His face was as refined as carved jade.

Jiaofang Hall glittered with gold and jade. On the eastern table rested the “Empress Golden Register”; on the western table rested the “Empress Golden Seal.”

Golden gourds, jade ruyi scepters, coral, and jadeite filled the entire room.

Zhao Ling was the direct nephew of Emperor Huicheng, pushed onto the throne by Prince Liang.

As early as the reign of his grandfather, Emperor Xuanzong, the power of Great Wei had already begun to fracture, and conflicts had erupted everywhere.

By Emperor Huicheng’s time, he was weak and incompetent, while the various princes of the imperial clan began slaughtering one another in their struggle for power.

In the end, Prince Liang allied with Prince Qing, killed Prince Jingnan, and became the new victor.

Yet he still could not ascend the throne, because there were imperial clansmen who refused to accept him and would continue to rebel against him.

By then, all the heirs of Emperor Huicheng’s line were dead.

And so it was Zhao Ling’s turn to become this puppet emperor.

Fourteen-year-old Hu Minrong did not yet understand the court situation then. She lived inside the beautiful dream her family had woven for her.

My mother told me that as long as I behaved and obeyed, glory and wealth would never leave me in this life, and I would be the most honored woman in Great Wei.