No more emotional self-torment. I deserve to be enshrined in the Imperial Ancestral Temple!
[Harem + lightly ensemble-based + no transmigration + no rebirth + follows the major events of the Kangxi era]
Within the square walls of the Forbidden City, no one has ever had control over their own life or death, joys or sorrows.
Those outside the city envy the wealth and privilege within; those inside long for the freedom and ease of life beyond its walls.
Day and night I yearn for you, yet the emperor’s affection is so slight.
My youth fades before dawn. By the railing, my tears fall one by one.
I will never forget Empress Xiaozhao, whose eyes shone with affection and anticipation when she first entered the palace, later reduced to a withered husk as she cried, “Father, your daughter was wrong.”
I also witnessed the gentle and kind An Pin nearly murder every child in the palace in its early years.
Truth and lies, illusion and reality.
The lovesick Crown Prince Yinreng, the sinister and arrogant First Prince Yinti, Noble Lady Bu, a knife hidden in the dark, and Her Ladyship Consort Tong, who wants no part in the struggle...
A thousand people, a thousand faces. What bloody truths lie beneath their masks?!
The affections of youth and the tender love of my early days in the palace could not withstand the fading of beauty and the changing of power.
I am grateful that the emperor cherished and loved me;
I pray that my children remain safe and healthy;
I do not want to fight, yet I have no choice. I fight so my daughter will not be married off to distant Mongolia, and so my son can live a smooth and fortunate life. Day after day, I am trapped in the whirlpool of palace intrigue, with no control over my own fate. At last, I ascend the highest throne, and the enemy I fought all my life bows in submission.
But when I look back, there is no one by my side to call me “Malü” again; no one to sit with me late at night, drinking wine by the railing and whispering softly.
In the dead of night, I wake to a cool pillow. I would rather never have entered the Forbidden City, never have put on that powder-blue dress...
