Wu Zhao has a huge secret. Every year, late at night on her birthday, her older sister Wu An brings her a strange peach-shaped bun with a candle stuck in it and tells her to make a wish.
"I, Wu Zhao, was born to be emperor, the greatest emperor in all of history!" She repeats the same vow from age three to fourteen, never taking it seriously. She's just an ordinary girl of the Tang Dynasty. How could she possibly make history and become emperor?
Until one day, she becomes Lady Wu and sees such beautiful clothes for the first time. She thinks they must be meant for her. Later, her sister Wu An tells her they're called the imperial robes.
Armed with a black-tech System, Wu An must keep speeding up Wu Zhao's ascension to the throne so she can unlock knowledge from the future and avoid dying of a common cold.
So she works incredibly hard. Ever since her younger sister Wu Zhao was born, she secretly teaches her to talk every day. The results are remarkable: the first word out of the mouth of the tiny toddler is "I!"
Many years later, Wu An, head of the Royal Academy of Sciences, is best known not for her many technological inventions but for her book, The Manual for Raising an Empress. Who wouldn't want to know how the greatest emperor in history was raised?
Reading Guide:
1. Focuses mainly on infrastructure, with political intrigue as a secondary element. There is a male lead, but little romance. The heroine has no children, is a straight-talking STEM girl, and loves engineering above all.
2. The Martial Empress and Li Zhi are a scheming emperor and empress who genuinely love each other. Li Zhi dies young and remains her lost love. Princess Taiping is the Martial Empress's successor.
Theme: Women should stand on their own
