I Never Wanted to Be Empress, Yet My Mother Crowned Me

In the first month of the year, the capital lay blanketed in snow, all silver and white. Plum blossoms braved the frost in the Plum Garden of Prince Jin's residence. Seen from afar, they looked like clouds of many colors streaked with pure white. Behind the garden stood the study, a place where visitors were normally forbidden. Guests who wanted to admire the plum blossoms had to go to the heated pavilion across from the study. Its floors and walls were warm, though no one but His Highness Prince Jin knew how it was done. Hua Yuexi wore a red flowing gown embroidered with golden plum blossoms and a pale-red jade headdress shaped like a luan bird. Her beauty was breathtaking, her features cool and composed, her bearing graceful and gentle. Surely this was what a fairy in a painting looked like. She sat quietly on the soft couch by the window, staring outside in a daze. The bottle of wine in her hand was already half empty.