War Flames Illuminate the Dragon Robe

In the eighth year of Jingyou, in the tenth month, a baby’s cry shattered the silence in a side hall of Mingxu Palace in the capital, Zhongjing. His birth mother, Concubine Mi, fainted from a difficult labor, but the imperial physicians managed to save her. The emperor was overjoyed and named the boy Qi Jue, rewarding Mingxu Palace handsomely. Yet at the one-month celebration, I crawled toward the jade seal, a symbol of Heaven’s Mandate. My imperial father flew into a rage, swept out, and never set foot in the palace again. Everyone in the palace knew that Father favored my second imperial brother, Qi Lian, the legitimate eldest son of the late Empress Xiaoding. He had been named crown prince as a child and lived in Yuqing Palace. I, by contrast, was merely an illegitimate prince, forgotten in the deep palace like a speck of dust.

Fifteen years later, in the twelfth month of the twenty-third year of Jingyou, Father decreed that I would be made Prince of Song, appointed county magistrate of Wannian County, and married off the following New Year. On the surface, it was a reward; in truth, it was a way to cast me out of the center of power. But I knew this was no exile. It was the beginning of my journey. My mother often wept in the middle of the night, lamenting that I should never have been born into the imperial family. But I am grown now, with ambitions hidden in my heart. Mother, rest assured. Your son will not let your suffering go unanswered. One day, I will win back the honor you deserve and show the world that though I never sought the jade seal, the realm will be mine to rule.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.