[Dream of the Red Chamber] Baochai Enters the Palace

Baochai was dragged from her boudoir bed and into the imperial palace's deadly inferno by a midnight decree.

She never got to eat the spiced quail her mother had warmed on the stove for her.

She never got to hug her old pillow again before they stuffed her into a small sedan chair.

From then on, the moon over Hengwu Garden and the moon over the Forbidden City were separated by a lifetime.

One midnight decree. One cage.

The moment Xue Baochai stepped through the palace gates, she understood there was no turning back.

Step by step, she rose from consort to empress.

Yet every night, when she awoke, she remembered the bowl of spiced quail she hadn't finished, and the crabapple blossoms embroidered on her old pillow.

She remembered how the girl Xue Baochai had been was left behind, alive, on that cold night in Hengwu Garden.

Seated on the phoenix throne, she looked at the people kneeling below. But her gaze seemed to pass through the palace walls and settle in the distant Xiaoxiang Pavilion.

Could her tearful Lin Meimei understand the love, soaked in blood, beneath this phoenix crown?

Also known as:

Kill That Lord Hengwu

The Road to Greatness

Half a Lifetime of Snow

Baochai's Rise to Power: Nights from the Boudoir to the Empress's Throne

She Left Her Innocence in Hengwu Garden

The Empress's Handbook: First, Kill the Girl You Used to Be

From Hengwu Garden to Fengzao Palace: A Long Goodbye

Theme: Women's strength