The Wife I Picked Up Is the Empress Dowager

Liang Hongzhi was the most skilled butcher for miles around. Honest and hardworking, she used her craft to win an engagement to the daughter of Li Xiucai, a fellow villager.

But when the wedding date arrived, she was told that her fiancee had climbed into the good graces of the powerful and agreed to marry someone else.

Her fiancee looked down on Liang Hongzhi for being a butcher's daughter, crude and uncultured, dull and inarticulate, and unworthy of her vast literary knowledge.

Heartbroken, Liang Hongzhi was on her way home when she found a beautiful woman who had lost her memory and suffered severe injuries. She took her home as her wife.

The woman's beauty was as cool and distant as a celestial maiden from the moon palace. She looked at everyone with indifference, and the villagers teased Liang Hongzhi that her wife was much too cold.

Liang Hongzhi only gave a silly grin. Only she knew how irresistible her wife was at night, when her eyes turned faintly red with desire and she called her Zhizhi.

She thought they would go on living their cozy life together forever.

Until a group of soldiers surrounded her little courtyard, shouting, "Empress Dowager!" Only then did she realize that the woman she had brought home was He Yiwan, the Empress Dowager of the realm!

They said He Yiwan had conspired with court officials to murder the late emperor, installed a puppet ruler, and then seized control of the court to do as she pleased. She was a vicious, disastrous ruler.

Convinced she was as good as dead, Liang Hongzhi escaped while no one was looking. But after just two days, she was caught and brought back.

She smiled bitterly and closed her eyes, only to be gathered into familiar warmth. The other woman's cool voice trembled softly. "Zhizhi, don't you want me anymore?"

*

Li Shuyouyao was not doing well after casting off her vulgar fiancee. The county magistrate's household had strict rules, and his wife treated her coldly, always looking down on her humble origins.

She began to miss Liang Hongzhi, who had once done everything she asked.

For some reason, the Empress Dowager came to visit in private that day. The people who had always treated her coldly now hovered eagerly around the graceful, dignified woman.

Feeling overlooked, she left the table and returned to her room, but spotted an old acquaintance in the courtyard. She hurried over excitedly, only to be stopped.

The Empress Dowager, dressed in finery, walked past her, then took the woman's hand and asked gently, "Aren't you hungry? I brought you some pastries."

Theme: A sweet romance