Synopsis: [Forbidden love + push and pull + powerful man learns to lower his head] [The heroine’s secret crush comes true] [The hero successfully seduces his way to the top]
Su Wanxing is the eldest legitimate daughter of the Minister of Rites. Since childhood, she has excelled at music, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, and prose. She was also meticulously taught court etiquette and rules. A marriage decree weds her to Prince Qi, the emperor’s half-brother.
Prince Qi loves to have fun. He spends every night at brothels and taverns, calling Su Wanxing too dull and never once stepping into her room. When the Empress Dowager hears of this, she blames Su Wanxing for failing in her duties as a wife and summons her to the palace every day to lecture and torment her.
Worried that the Empress Dowager is exhausting herself, the emperor decides, in a show of filial piety, to personally reprimand and punish Prince Qi’s wife for neglecting her duties. Everyone says the emperor is benevolent, dutiful to his parents above and caring toward his brothers below. But no one can explain why the princess consort seems to be growing more and more pampered and extravagant.
Later, inside the Hall of Mental Cultivation:
“When will Xingxing divorce him? Shall I issue an edict ordering you to divorce?”
“You said you loved me, that you loved only me. I love only you, too.”
“Will you be my empress?”
“Xingxing, leave him and be with me, all right?”
“I’ll offer you the whole realm as your bride-price. Just leave him, and the throne will be yours.”
