[I disguised myself as a man and rose to become Minister of Works. One night, the emperor, drunk, put his arm around my shoulders:
“If you were a woman, my beloved minister, I would make you my empress.” I wrote eighteen resignation letters that very night.
The next day, an imperial decree arrived at my residence: “Minister Shen serves the throne and the realm with unwavering loyalty. She is hereby granted quarters in the palace and ordered to attend the emperor day and night.”
Clutching a “book chest” full of rouge, I trembled as I entered the palace, only to discover that the windows of my quarters faced the emperor’s bedroom.
Even worse, the
Empress Dowager urged me to “bathe with” the emperor every day, my colleagues kept dragging me off to “verify my sex,” and the capital’s most talented woman declared she would marry no one but me.
And late every night, the emperor would knock on my door: “Beloved minister, I dreamed again that you had turned into a woman.”
Later, my identity was exposed, and I knelt to beg for the death penalty.
Instead, he pulled me into his arms before the assembled court and announced:
“Allow me to introduce my Minister of Works, and my empress.” The entire court erupted in shock. He lowered his head and chuckled in my ear:
“My beloved minister, you deceived me for three years. Now you’ll have to make it up to me for the rest of your life.”]
Wondering where those concubines are? Is it still Sannomiya?
It's quite nice, the writing is good and quite satisfactory, but the writing is a bit jerky.