There's one thing Yin Chengyuan never tells anyone.
His imperial consort has died once.
Su Wanqing is reborn before entering the palace, and the imperial edict arrives right on schedule.
In her previous life, she was left alone in the empty palace, only to receive poisoned wine from her younger sister and news of the emperor's military victory.
This time, she decides to live differently.
She makes no bids for favor and starts no fights. Whenever something happens, she goes to Yin Chengyuan.
A concubine sends her pastries laced with something? She takes them straight to the emperor.
Someone spreads rumors behind her back? She tells the emperor to his face.
The entire palace laughs at her for being useless, for doing nothing but hiding behind a man.
Yet Yin Chengyuan spends every night at Zhaoyang Hall.
If she goes three days without coming to him with a complaint, the emperor becomes so restless that he has to go see her in person to make sure she's all right.
She says, “Your Majesty, I don't know how to fight palace battles.”
He replies, “With me here, you don't need to.”
She thinks she's been reborn to take revenge,
but she doesn't know
that in her previous life, when Yin Chengyuan returned from the campaign, he held her cold body and sat motionless in the Golden Throne Hall for three days, without food or water.
Over the next three months, seventeen high-ranking court officials were executed, more than three hundred people were implicated, and half the ministers of the Six Ministries were replaced.
The court officials knelt before the hall, and not one dared raise his head.
Looking at the empty Zhaoyang Hall, he said only one thing:
“I've come back. Why didn't you wait for me?”
