On my husband’s thirty-fifth birthday, he asked the emperor to let him retire from military service and return to the countryside.
He was the Grand General Who Guards the Nation, renowned for his many military victories. When the emperor asked what reward he wanted, he knelt with all his military honors to his name and pleaded:
“I beg Your Majesty to grant a proper status to the child I have out in the world.”
Fu Cheng’en and I had been a loving couple for more than ten years. Back then, the imperial physician said I would have difficulty bearing children, but he never minded. He even secretly obtained medicine to make himself infertile and took it himself, saying he would rather never have children than let the princess suffer even the slightest heartache.
Now, the words he spoke at the banquet had made me the laughingstock of the entire nation.
Only then did I learn that his affection for me over all those years was a lie, and that he had truly been having children with his mistress.
Fu Cheng’en wanted to secure a legitimate status for his illegitimate child, leaving me, his lawful wife, to face the humiliation.
But he forgot that I am the princess of this dynasty. All his glory and wealth were gifts from me!
