The Old Emperor's Vermilion Cinnabar Mole

One day, Qi Lanyi dreamed that she was actually the hapless supporting woman in a novel about an old man.

Emperor Wu Murong Yao, courtesy name Yongguang, had spent his life making swift, ruthless decisions. He ascended the throne in his youth, waged war in every direction, and brought the whole realm to heel.

Murong Yao was cold and heartless. For the first thirty or forty years of his life, all he wanted was to be a competent emperor. His consorts were tools for producing heirs and venting his desires, and raising princes was like raising poisonous insects to devour one another.

Then one day, Murong Yao met a girl in her teens named Wei Xiaoman. His old heart caught fire. He abolished the imperial harem for her, made her empress, and cherished her like a precious jewel.

The eldest prince, Murong Xian, was the man Wei Xiaoman had once pursued in vain. First, he was stripped of his position as crown prince, then exiled, and he died on the way.

The second princess, Murong Xun, pleaded on behalf of her wrongfully deposed elder brother, Murong Xian. She was sent north in a political marriage and died young in a foreign land.

None of the other consorts, princes, or princesses had a good ending, either.

Qi Lanyi was one of those tools for producing heirs. She had been Emperor Wu Murong Yao's Consort Shu for decades. In the story, Qi Lanyi was voluptuous and radiant, and fairly well favored. But for Murong Yao's sake, she clashed with Wei Xiaoman and was utterly defeated.

Her two children died one after the other. She wasted away in the lonely palace, and as she lay dying, she heard bells and drums sounding outside. The new empress had just given birth to a prince, who was named crown prince, and an amnesty was declared throughout the realm.

Learning that she and her twins would meet such tragic ends, Qi Lanyi awoke in tears, realizing she had given her heart to the wrong man.

After waking from the dream, Qi Lanyi gazed at her chubby, sleeping twins in their little bed. In this life, she had no desire to fight for anything, nor did she want to love a cold-blooded emperor whose heart would never be hers. She just wanted to live a lazy life, take care of her health, raise her children, drink tea, read books, and sleep to her heart's content.

When the plot reached that point, she would ask for her son to take her and his sister to his fief, where they could live as wealthy idlers.

Bonus Scene 1

Emperor Wu Murong Yao returned after waging war on the border for several months. Hearing that Consort Shu had given birth to twins, he was overjoyed and hurried to her palace, still covered in dust from the road.

When Qi Lanyi saw Murong Yao step through the curtain, his brows looked as if ink had been painted on, and his sideburns were sharp as blades. He had just bathed, and his black hair fell like a waterfall. He was not yet the iron-hearted emperor in his forties from her prophetic dream.

He sat there with an air of authority that commanded respect, and his every gesture carried the lethal aura of a veteran of countless campaigns.

As he came to her bed, thinking of all his cold-blooded deeds in the future, Qi Lanyi felt a little indignant.