Your Majesty, Her Highness Truly Has No Interest in Favor

In the seventh year of Yongxi, the Vice Minister of Revenue was convicted over a shortfall in the grain transport accounts, and Shen Heng, his concubine-born daughter, was forced to enter the palace in place of her legitimate elder sister.

Everyone thought she was a pawn the Shen family had thrown away to fill a hole. Even the empress, who ruled the six palaces, saw her as a piece to be discarded whenever convenient.

But Shen Heng never resented her fate.

She knew that in the palace, affection was never given without reason, and glory never came for free.

To survive, she had to make the emperor believe she was useful, beautiful, and impossible to do without.

She used her skill at blending fragrances to ease his old affliction, while hiding her sharp edges behind a gentle, submissive manner.

Amid rivalries among the consorts, factional strife at court, and betrayal by her own family, she climbed step by step.

At first, the young emperor thought of her only as a crabapple blossom at just the right stage of bloom: pleasing to the eye and refreshingly intriguing.

Only later did he realize that when the court was in turmoil, she alone understood his profound loneliness.

And when blood spread through the inner palace, she alone dared to take his bloodstained hand while everyone else shrank away.

But by the time he finally gave her his heart, Shen Heng wanted more than imperial favor. She wanted to carve out a destiny that no one could control for her.