Splendid Glory

Li Yaohua was born into a powerful family, but raised in the mire. Her father was cold-hearted, her birth mother played favorites, and her stepmother watched her like a hawk. From childhood, she knew that kindness would not keep her alive.

At fourteen, she was already willing to get blood on her hands to save her sister. She plotted the murder of a mentally disabled boy with such meticulous ruthlessness that she caught the eye of the emperor.

Entering the palace through the selection was her carefully planned chance to turn her fortunes around. She battled her half-sister, killed other candidates, forged alliances, and leveraged the emperor’s favor. She turned the imperial harem and court into a chessboard, advancing one calculated step at a time.

Everyone said Consort Ning was the emperor’s favorite, ruthless and cruel. But they did not know that the mercilessness she showed had been taught to her by a world that devoured the weak, and her venom was armor to protect the people she loved.

From a concubine-born girl who was bullied by everyone to an empress with power over the realm, she made her way through a river of blood. But the man who saw through every one of her disguises from the very beginning: was he her pawn, or the one she was destined to be with?