Schemes in the Inner Palace

Slow burn + everyday life + no golden finger + ensemble cast, multiple female leads

Only she knows how hard the climb from the bottom to the top was.

The new emperor of the Da Qing dynasty ascended the throne. At eighteen, Xu Jingfei entered the palace as a fifth-rank consort and was assigned Guangyang Hall, the most remote part of Changle Palace.

Her allowance was skimmed, and she never received her full monthly stipend. While the other consorts vied for favor, she crouched by the back window, digging through frozen soil to plant a few sprigs of gentian. Consort Shi had a firstborn son and was riding high.

Consort Jing was aloof and proud, with murderous intent hidden beneath the surface. The Empress sat firmly in the central palace, watching coldly from the sidelines.

She relied on no one but herself. When someone mixed eupatorium leaves into her medicine, she said nothing and boiled it herself.

When someone framed her for "trying to interfere in government," she neither defended herself nor protested her innocence. After six months under house arrest, she presented the Emperor with irrefutable evidence of the consort's relatives' corruption.

From fifth-rank consort to Lady Wan Yi, Noble Consort, Consort, Noble Consort, Empress, and finally Empress Dowager ruling from behind the curtain, she took the slowest, steadiest road.

Along the way, Sheng Ruozhao was reborn. She appeared to rely on others while secretly scheming, living cautiously all her life for the sake of her daughter's safety.

Jin He followed her from the Eastern Palace to Fengyi Palace. When the plot to depose the Empress left her bound in a woodshed for three days, she endured without giving anything away. She never married, guarding her alone for the rest of her life. Cheng Yunxiu once shared a bed with her, but when the eldest princess was sent away to marry, they could only gaze at one another through a closed door. She died of grief. Yu Bingyan went from ally in hard times to rival for half a lifetime; in their later years, they sat by opposite windows, speechless.

She won the empire, security, and the whole realm. But old friends withered away, sisters became strangers, and after her son ascended the throne, she retired to the depths of the palace. All that remained by her side was a courtyard of gentian.