Radiant Beauty

Yun Qing was the legitimate daughter of a family of scholars, gentle and reserved, with quiet wisdom beneath her graceful exterior.

At fifteen, she was ordered to enter the palace. She had only hoped to live in peace and protect her family, but the vermilion walls of the imperial palace have never shown mercy to the innocent.

On her first days in the palace, her half-sister framed her and the nobles made life difficult for her. Trapped in a quagmire, she was controlled at every turn.

With no way out, she cast off her timidity, concealed her radiance and kept her sharpness hidden. In the treacherous power games of the imperial harem, she fought for a chance to survive and found a way out of a seemingly hopeless situation.

If she did not fight, she would die. If she did not scheme, her family would be destroyed. She turned others' power against them, swept aside petty villains, quelled chaos, and unraveled conspiracies.

The emperor's affections were impossible to read, her sisters in the harem vanished once they had gotten what they wanted, and the family's fortunes rested on her alone.

A young woman from the inner quarters, she navigated the worlds of imperial power and noble families, and the schemes of consorts, rising step by step to the top. Through the rises and falls of palace life, she made her own way to a brilliant future.