In the twelfth month of the first year of the Hongdao era, Emperor Gaozong died in the Zhen'guan Hall.
A decree sent to the Imperial Historiography Bureau bore traces of four characters being added or erased in its final sentence.
"For matters of state and the military that remain undecided, the Empress should also be consulted."
With those four characters, the new emperor made the decisions first. Without them, all matters of state and the military could be referred to the Empress. Those four characters marked the boundary between the power of the new emperor and that of the Empress.
That same night, a draft edict to depose the Empress, written nineteen years earlier but never issued, also vanished from the back of an old map of the imperial palace.
Thus the story returns to many years before.
At the time, Li Zhi had not yet truly taken control of his court, and Wu Mei had not yet become Empress.
From the deposition and appointment of emperors to the succession, from changes at court to one memorial after another and each successive political choice, they would argue, distrust each other, and make mistakes. Yet time and again, amid power and responsibility, they would find their way back to each other.
History would later refer to them together as the "Two Sages."
A story of two people who went from being husband and wife, to emperor and empress, and then to ruling the realm together.
Theme: Understand one another through power and responsibility, and grow together amid the currents of history
