Great Sui: I Helped Empress Xiao Build the Canal While He Hauled Bricks

[Wild Imagination + Power Struggle + Political Scheming + Multiple Heroines: Xuanhua, Ronghua, Zhang Lihua] Everyone talks about living freely... The first person in history to cry out for “freedom” was an emperor driven to the brink by his wife’s control. He was saddled with history’s most jealous empress. Once, in a fit of rage, he rode alone out of the palace and headed straight for Mount Zhongnan. In a valley, he threw back his head and shouted, “I am the Son of Heaven, yet I cannot be free!”

They say he was so overcome with grief and anger that he nearly shaved his head on the spot and became a monk.

“Your Highness... why me, a princess of a fallen kingdom?”

“Beauty comes in many forms, each with its own charms.

Zhang Lihua is lush and dazzling, like a peony in full bloom;

Consort Kong is gentle and tender, like a crabapple in the spring rain;

Cai Xiangyu is graceful, like peach and plum blossoms swaying in the breeze, with a charm all her own.”

The Crown Prince paused briefly.

“But you, Chen Hui'er, are a secluded orchid beneath the moon, a winter plum in the snow.

“Lush, bewitching beauty is easy to find, but someone like you...”

His gaze swept over her from head to toe.

“Pure yet captivating, cool yet alluring, with a delicate, fragile air. One in ten thousand.”

“I’ve had my fill of stately peonies. Now I want to savor the early spring tea brewed with snowmelt that you are: crisp, with a sweet aftertaste.”