The Son of Heaven arrived in Hexi with tens of thousands of elite troops, in a grand procession, intending to marry the daughter of the Hexi military governor and make her his empress.
Not the talented second daughter, nor the innocent and carefree third daughter, but the eldest daughter, Xiao Wan, a widow whose husband had died.
She was now twenty-eight, old and past her prime.
*
When Xiao Wan was young, a twist of fate led her to marry a hunter. Their life together after marriage was far from happy. She called him a toad who had somehow eaten swan's flesh, and despised him. She hated that he was lowborn and had neither wealth nor power. She hated his rough voice and brute strength, his lack of romantic sensibilities, and most of all, his insatiable demands at night.
Until one winter, the hunter went up the mountain to hunt a fox for its fur because of a joke she had made, and was killed by a tiger.
She wiped the tears from her face, took off the pearl hairpins and finery she loved, and became a widow in his memory.
She thought that while he was alive, she had treated him cruelly. If he was willing to wait for her at the Bridge of Helplessness, she would treat him better in their next life and be his wife again.
*
On the night of the emperor and empress's wedding, Xiao Wan hid a sharpened gold hairpin in her sleeve. She looked up and saw the emperor's stern, handsome face.
#Shocking! The emperor looks exactly like my ill-fated late husband!#
Theme: Sincerity brings sincerity.
