After My Kingdom Fell, I Hypnotized the Song Emperor

When she woke, a Daoist who called himself Chen Zhihui told her: In three months, the Song army will destroy Shu, and all 140,000 soldiers will lay down their armor. She will be captured and taken north, becoming a caged songbird for Zhao Kuangyin.

She didn't believe him.

Until she discovered she had a terrifying ability: by looking someone in the eye, she could use words and music to hypnotize them.

In court, one glance made a treacherous minister confess in public to accepting bribes from the Song army.

In the imperial palace, one poem made Meng Chang's consorts volunteer to taste her food for poison.

When the city fell, a few words from her made a Song general mistake her for an ordinary palace maid.

She thought it was only a way to stay alive.

Until she stood before the court in Bianjing and recited to Zhao Kuangyin, “All 140,000 laid down their armor, and not one of them was a man.” With the music of her words, she planted the first seed of a suggestion.

The ambitious emperor rose to his feet, his gaze burning. “I don't want your body. I want your heart.”

She smiled.

The highest art of hypnosis isn't making an enemy obey. It's making them willingly let you change them.

She would send the soldiers home and turn swords into plowshares. She would transform a land ravaged by years of war into an age of peace and prosperity under his rule.

Then, on the day he finally learned that “love is not possession”

she would disappear.

“My name will never appear in the history books. But every child who didn't die in the wars is proof that I lived.”