Your Highness, Please Contend for the Throne

[Fictional Historical Setting | Female-Led Story | Political Intrigue and Ensemble Cast | Nation and People]

Eleven years after the fall of Great Qi, its last princess was finally found.

At the time, Qi Ningyan was nineteen and traveling the realm as the young master of a merchant house.

She had seen the mountains and rivers of north and south, balanced the accounts of trade routes, and witnessed both the scars left by the old dynasty and the cooking smoke rising under the new one.

So when the former ministers who had spent eleven years searching for her knelt before her, presenting the seal of her fallen homeland and asking her to reclaim her throne and restore the nation, Qi Ningyan asked only one question:

"What if I don't want to?"

Of course she remembered her homeland.

She remembered the people of her past deep within the palace walls, the hurried separation eleven years ago, and the home she could never return to.

But eleven years was long enough for a child to grow up, and long enough for her to see with her own eyes that the old dynasty was not necessarily worth restoring, and the new one was not necessarily beyond saving.

She had thought that as long as she refused the seal, she could remain the young master of her merchant house and continue on her own path.

But the former ministers had found her, old friends were gradually reappearing, and the long-buried past was beginning to reveal another face. Trouble stirred along the borders, currents ran beneath the court, and more and more people turned their eyes toward the princess who should have died eleven years ago.

Some hoped she would return; others feared she was still alive. Some would walk beside her, while others would eventually draw their swords against her over their country and their convictions.

Qi Ningyan finally understood that some games couldn't be escaped simply by refusing to make a move.

If that was the case...

She would see for herself whose realm this really was.

At first, they knelt before her and said:

"Your Highness, please restore the nation."

Later, as the mountains and rivers changed hands, old friends and new allies all entered the game.

When others bowed before her again, their plea had become:

"Your Highness, please contend for the throne."