This Palace Has Rebelled

[Full manuscript completed]

The year Zhou Zijin turned eighteen, she learned firsthand what it meant for mountains to crumble and people to flee when you relied on them.

The emperor, old enough to be her father, issued an imperial decree to make her his empress. She didn't want it, so she sought help from every quarter.

She went to her grandfather. He had been the crown prince's tutor when the current emperor was still crown prince, and his words carried weight with the emperor.

But her grandfather said, "All under Heaven belongs to the emperor, and all who dwell within its borders are his subjects. Since you are a subject, you must obey your sovereign's command."

She then went to her betrothed. She had already been promised in marriage, but her parents died in an accident three years earlier, and the wedding had been postponed until after her three years of mourning.

Yet her betrothed returned their engagement token, declaring that their families would have nothing more to do with each other.

Zhou Zijin had no one left to turn to.

She could only enter the towering palace walls and live in constant fear, surrounded by wolves on every side.

The emperor was past forty and still had no children, which made him even more violent-tempered. Zhou Zijin was afraid he might have her dragged out and beheaded over the slightest mistake.

The emperor had also neglected state affairs for years, and the people of Dayu were suffering in poverty.

Zhou Zijin thought, if this emperor was no good, then why not replace him?

If a ruler could kill the mother to keep the child, then why couldn't she... kill the father and keep the child?

And so Zhou Zijin rebelled.

Qin Xie had a girl he liked very much. He planned to wait until she was a little older, then ask his parents to arrange a marriage. But urgent affairs at the border called, and he followed his father there. While he was away, he learned that the girl had become engaged to someone else.

He should have gone to ask for her hand sooner.

But when Qin Xie returned to the capital, the girl he'd thought of day and night was seated high upon the phoenix throne. Her vermilion phoenix robe and elaborate makeup made her nearly unrecognizable.

The girl he loved had become the current empress.

But the emperor was so much older than her!

Qin Xie was consumed by regret. He should never have hesitated. Because he had, the girl he loved never truly smiled again.

"I will repay my sovereign's favor with gold and lay down my life for him." Zhou Zijin crouched, her skirts trailing on the ground. "General Qin, don't repay him. Repay me instead."

Qin Xie cared nothing for the rules between sovereign and subject. If making his girl smile meant treating her as his sovereign, then so be it.

So he said, "I, Qin Xie, will be forever loyal to Her Majesty the Empress."

The male lead is an accessory to the heroine. If you can't accept that, don't read.

Theme: Resist inequality and oppression.