On the day she was sent away as a replacement bride to marry for peace, no one remembered her name.
Helian Ye, the ruler of the grasslands, was neither kind nor sentimental. Anu suffered endless torment in his camp, but learned to grow crops and ride horses, and to take control of her own life.
Later, the king was defeated. Everyone thought she would flee, but she turned back and took the bloodstained blade with her, not out of compassion. She still had a use for that blade.
The road back to the Central Plains passed through Fengzhen. There was plenty of water, swarms of mosquitoes, and disease everywhere. Anu collapsed by the roadside and was taken in by an old man who ran an herbal medicine shop. She did not save the whole city. She simply helped her master grind herbs and learn prescriptions, diligently and carefully.
But the people remembered her.
As she continued south, she met someone.
She was a frail woman, with little time left to live, yet she could set the entire grasslands’ game in motion with a few words and a laugh. Helian Ye’s defeat was partly her doing.
Anu stayed by her side.
Later, the woman died. Anu became her.
The new dynasty’s emperor and empress had humble origins and cared little about people’s backgrounds, judging them only by their abilities. The old minister Lin Zhengfu assumed she was the daughter the emperor had lost and treated her politely, but refused to accept her.
That is, until she took the throne.
She had never been Roujia.
She was Anu.
A maid sent as a replacement bride, a captive on the grasslands, an apprentice at a clinic, someone else’s shadow...
And at last, an empress who ushered in a new age.
She came from the mud.
She was the emperor herself.
