She enters the palace in her elder sister’s place, wanting only to keep her head down and live in peace, yet ends up capturing the heart of the most obsessive emperor in the land.
Everyone says the emperor is cold and indifferent, and that his harem has stood empty for thirteen years. No one knows that from the day she was born, he tucked her away in his heart and waited a full sixteen years.
She is made a Noble Consort the moment she enters the palace, and his exclusive favor eclipses the entire harem. When the empress dowager makes things difficult for her, he steps in to protect her. When the powerful in-laws frame her, he purges them overnight, making an example of the guilty. When court officials urge him to take more consorts, he rejects them coldly: “In this life, I will have only one woman, a Shen.”
She asks timidly, “Your Majesty, why me?”
He lowers his head to kiss her brow, his voice low and burning:
“I kept the harem empty for you. I rule this empire to give it to you.”
Later, when she conceives his heir, he dotes on her so openly that the court is shaken. When she gives birth to a crown prince, he names him heir at once and proclaims to all under heaven that he will never take another concubine or appoint an empress.
Within the ninefold palace, in its silent, empty courtyards, all his passion is for her alone.
In this life, he offers her his empire as a betrothal gift and vows her the rest of his days.
He will cherish her to the core, protect her until old age, and love her alone forever, never to part.
