A word of warning from the start: angst, the leads are not each other’s first, and a bad ending.
A disgraced consort, driven to darkness after being framed, and a pitiful hostage prince from an enemy kingdom, forced to endure hardship.
On the day Su Wange entered the palace, her mother told her, “I don’t ask you to win the emperor’s favor. I only ask you to stay alive.” She became the least remarkable noblewoman in the harem, neither competing nor winning favor, like dust fallen into a crack between golden bricks. Only after she was accused of treason, her whole family was destroyed, and she was deposed and sent to the Cold Palace did she understand: staying alive wasn’t enough. She had to become someone others wouldn’t dare touch.
In a side hall of the Cold Palace lived a frail young man, Xie Yungui, a hostage sent from Southern Chu. They became each other’s light, sharing a steamed bun and a bowl of porridge. She told him all her plans, and he said, “I’ll help you.”
Later, she climbed to the phoenix throne over the bones of her enemies and became the only Empress Dowager of Great Zhou. He returned to Southern Chu and became a king, a man above all others. In the year peace came to the land, he wrote to her: “I don’t want a title. I only want to see you every day.” She did not reply.
He never came again. And she sat atop the highest palace wall, waiting for Yungui for the rest of her life.
