I entered the palace at seventeen, a pawn in the struggle to balance power at court.
The emperor was still a young man. He was perfect in every way, except that he loved someone else.
Yet he made me empress.
At nineteen, I gave birth to a prince. The emperor had promised to let me leave the palace once I gave birth to an heir.
But he went back on his word.
*
At the palace gates, attendants knelt in a dense throng.
He stood tall and upright, like a pine tree in the wind. “Gu Yizhen, I have admired you for a long time. Could you stay?”
I knitted my brows slightly. “But a gentleman’s word is as good as gold.”
He walked toward me with his hands behind his back. “What if I give up the title of gentleman?”
A few things to know before reading:
1. This story is told in first person.
2. The leads are not each other’s first.
3. The heroine is mild-mannered and easygoing. She suffers setbacks and grievances early on, and the leads have a huge misunderstanding that is eventually cleared up.
4. The characters’ values don’t necessarily reflect the author’s (?˙▽˙?)
