The Embroidered Cage

Reporter: Mr. Li, please calm down... Li Chengyi: Waaaah, my aunt (Shangguan Wan'er) slept with my other aunt (Princess Taiping). Reporter: Oh, everyone knows that. It's no big deal. Besides, your cousins are the ones who should be crying. Why are you so worked up? Li Chengyi [sobbing]: They said they learned it from my mother and grandmother! The records of Court Lady Liu are sparse and scattered. Her identity was only confirmed through the epitaph of a younger male relative. She was born into a prominent family, the granddaughter of a chancellor and the niece of Empress Wang, wife of Emperor Gaozong. In the sixth year of Yonghui, after Wu Zetian defeated Empress Wang, Liu was taken into the Imperial Palace as an infant. The Imperial Palace: countless condemned souls grew numb there and were buried there. A condemned woman, she bore a prince as a slave, and her life is shrouded in questions. What was her relationship with Shangguan Wan'er, who grew up in the palace with her and was also the granddaughter of a disgraced official? As a palace woman, how did she meet Prince Li Dan? Was she as brilliant and eloquent as Shangguan Wan'er? When Wu Zetian discovered she was pregnant with a prince, how did she endure her wrath? Did she live to see Wu Zetian's abdication? Why did Wu Zetian kill her newborn grandson? This story begins at the end of the Zhenguan era: an unfavored concubine meets a fallen crown princess. The concubine rises to prominence with her help, then forces her to her death and takes her place, leaving a lifelong pain in her heart. More than a decade later, Empress Wu rules from behind the curtain, holding power over the realm. One spring day, as she tours the imperial gardens, she sees that familiar face again in the faint morning light... Theme: In tribute to every woman who vanished from the history written by men