Liang Jingli suffered endlessly in her own household. Even the concubine-born daughters and her father’s concubines could walk all over her.
Her childhood sweetheart, Gu Duzhou, said, “Miss Liang, I want to marry you.”
Liang Jingli thought it over. “If you can keep me safe, I’ll marry you.”
But the emperor declared, “The Liang family’s daughter is a peerless beauty. I decree that she be married!”
What the emperor decreed had to be good.
For a time, the princes competed fiercely for her hand.
It was said that the Third Prince had been bedridden for years with a chronic illness, and was impotent, so weak he could not even consummate a marriage. Yet he secured the betrothal to Liang Jingli.
The capital buzzed with gossip. It seemed the emperor did not value the Liang daughter that much after all, or he would not have married her to his worst prince.
Unexpectedly, the Crown Prince, the Second Prince, and the Sixth Prince still refused to back down. Before long, they were all fighting the Third Prince for her.
They declared one after another,
“How can a woman this beautiful exist? I want her.”
“I want her to be my woman.”
“Third Brother, you’re in poor health. I’ll take care of her for you.”
The Third Prince said, “Anyone who touches my woman dies.”
Liang Jingli became famous throughout the capital. The noblewomen envied her, and some were jealous.
But no one knew that her betrothal to the Third Prince had been won with blood, tears, and her very life.
An old woman with silver hair and a stooped back, yet clad in shining armor, said, “I wish to ask His Majesty for a favor.”
The Third Prince, covered in blood, knelt in the great hall at the emperor’s feet. “Father, in this life, I want only her.”
After the wedding, the Third Prince doted on Liang Jingli as if she were a queen.
Unclean???????