Later scholars considered Records from the Fragrant Grass Hall the first palace chronicle in history written by an emperor himself, documenting the childhoods of princes and princesses. In the twenty-eighth year of Chengxu, Emperor Wufen, acting both as emperor and father, used the form of a collection of anecdotal tales to recount the lives of his five adult princes and six princesses, one chapter at a time. As he recalled their childhood stories, he expressed his heartfelt hopes, as a father and ruler, that his children would stand united within the family and that peace and prosperity would reign beyond the palace walls.
Although the book was written by an emperor, its discovery still overturned people's rigid impressions of monarchs. On the one hand, the emperor wrote in an archaic vernacular style, making the princes' and princesses' concise anecdotes a pleasure to read aloud. On the other, his vivid recollections of the children's little habits showed the deep love he bore them as a father, even beneath the weight of feudal imperial authority.
A note: This is indeed a fanfic of the emperor-raising game Dragon's Child. However, since the children are the protagonists, their characterizations, personalities, events, and endings are mostly my own creations, not the game author's. I truly mean no disrespect to the original author. But it would also be unfair to my work if readers assumed that all the children's stories in this fic came from the game. (Five of the consorts, the children's mothers, are consorts from the game's storyline, but the children's characterizations and stories are entirely original.)
Theme: Imitating the writing style of New Anecdotes of the Tales of the World, this story uses classical Chinese in translation and the perspective of an emperor and father to portray the warmth of a fictional ancient imperial family. It is an experimental exploration of an ancient imperial household under ideal ritual norms.
