(This story is entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental.) Shen Zhaoning is a common girl whose life is worth less than paper. When her father falls gravely ill, she pleads for help at the crown prince's carriage and receives a jade pendant as a promise. But her father still dies, and she is sold to a brothel. She rescues the badly wounded crown prince from a pack of wolves by torchlight, never knowing who he is.
Disguising herself, fleeing for her life, taking someone else's place, and coming in last to enter the palace, all she wants is to be an invisible little palace maid, save enough silver to leave, and get married.
Who does she want to marry? The young man who gave her the jade pendant all those years ago. She has no idea that the young man is the very emperor whose shoes she sweeps around every day.
Xiao Yanheng, the seventh emperor of Great Qi, ascended the throne in his youth. His thoughts are as deep as the sea, and his cold expression could make snow fall in the imperial garden in the middle of June. He has searched the whole realm for the little girl who captured his heart at first sight.
But she's right under his nose, going on every day about how she'll leave the palace and get married? And the man she's going to marry is him?
Fine. He'll just have to see when this girl finally recognizes him.
The Empress Dowager keeps trying to push her niece Su Wanqing into his arms. A daughter of the prime minister, the capital's foremost beauty and scholar, and his childhood companion, she has the perfect credentials. Countless eyes in court and palace are fixed on the throne's future empress.
Meanwhile, the fake childhood sweetheart who claimed the jade pendant is smiling as she waits to reap the rewards.
The palace maids secretly bet on who will crack first and confess: the emperor or Shen Zhaoning?
The odds are one to one hundred.
The chief eunuch bets his entire fortune: “I say Shen Zhaoning will recognize him first.”
He loses so badly he nearly has to steal steamed buns from the imperial kitchen.
This is a hilarious, sweet-and-angsty tale of a fiery girl and a cold-faced emperor who are secretly in love with each other and keep testing each other, while the whole world knows there's something between them, except the two of them. It'll make you laugh and cry.
Everyone:
