After Raising a Paranoid Emperor, I Devoted Myself to Faking My Death

Emperor Jin is absurd and capricious, and over the objections of his ministers, he insists on taking a man as his empress. Xie Yinchuan, heir to the Marquis of Jinghuan, has spent three years guarding the border and driving the enemy back a thousand li. On the day he returns to the capital to report on his service, he receives not a lavish reward, but an imperial edict naming him empress. Perhaps it really is true that what goes around comes around. On the day of the coronation, rebels rise up and Emperor Jin dies. Xie Yinchuan has been emperor's consort for only two hours before becoming the empress dowager. - The first time he meets Lin Yuzhi is on a stormy night. The little prince, abandoned by Emperor Jin at a remote palace in the wilderness and despised since childhood, doesn't even have a decent set of clothes. He cowers in the corner of the bed, trembling. "Who are you?" Xie Yinchuan places a hand warmer in his arms and patiently helps him into a golden dragon robe. "I am your subject, Xie Yinchuan. I welcome Your Majesty back to the palace." Lin Yuzhi gazes at him as if seeing light for the first time in his life. - Trapped within the palace walls by the late emperor's absurd edict naming him empress, Xie Yinchuan spends years confined there. All he has ever wanted is to travel through the drifting willows of Jiangnan and the lonely smoke of the desert, and see the splendor of the land. As the seasons pass, Xie Yinchuan raises Lin Yuzhi from an undernourished, scrawny boy into a spirited young man. He turns him from a rebellious, unruly child emperor into a ruler skilled in both letters and arms. When the beaded curtain is removed from the court, Xie Yinchuan thinks he has finally fulfilled his duty and can retire. He prepares a pill that will make him appear dead, then swallows it without hesitation. The Empress Dowager falls gravely ill and dies. The whole empire mourns. Lin Yuzhi sinks down in a daze before Xie Yinchuan's coffin, as if his soul has left his body. In a single night, his hair turns white. - Seven days later, the funeral procession sets out according to custom. The effect of the death-mimicking pill wears off, and Xie Yinchuan gradually regains consciousness. His breathing returns to normal. Once the coffin has been set down and the footsteps around him have faded, he feels along the coffin for the gap he'd prepared in advance and pries open the lid. Darkness greets his eyes. He assumes he must be in a mausoleum, and that he has finally left the palace walls behind and escaped his role as empress dowager. Suddenly, a low laugh sounds behind him. "Father, you've finally decided to wake up." "You've had me worried sick for seven whole days." There is a secret chamber in the imperial study, with a heavy copper lock hanging behind its door. Xie Yinchuan is imprisoned there. The dim candlelight cannot illuminate the darkness in Lin Yuzhi's eyes. Xie Yinchuan curses him as an ungrateful wretch who can't be tamed. Lin Yuzhi doesn't answer. He kneels at Xie Yinchuan's feet, burying his face against his waist. He once refused at every turn to call him Father, but today he repeats the word in a hoarse voice. The broad-shouldered young man acts like a child begging for affection. "Father, I've grown up. Touch me." Cover art credit: Veda and Chuansong Theme: Ride the wind and soar, beneath an endless sky.