The emperor and empress were entering the seventh year of their marriage.
For seven years, palace maids had come one after another, hoping to follow the empress’s path to success.
After all, before she became empress, she had been nothing but a lowly dancer.
But the emperor’s harem remained practically empty, with the empress as its sole occupant.
Until the seventh year, when the emperor brought another woman back with him.
The empress often felt that she ought to be content.
She had risen to the most exalted position a woman could hold, and given birth to the heir to the empire. Surely the history books would preserve at least some trace of her.
She could never have imagined any of this in her former life.
She had almost forgotten that life.
The empress looked at the woman beside the emperor, who came from the same background as she did. Seven years ago, the empress had been just as young, but the emperor had been even harder to get along with back then.
Only the palace’s old servants still remembered that the empress had originally been seized and brought into the palace by force, and that the golden bricks of Kunning Palace had been stained with blood several times.
The empress had forgotten much of the pain of becoming empress. She remembered only that she needed to hold more power.
She had gathered too much, and so the emperor began to fear her.
At first, ministers often sent women to fill his harem. But back then, he still had feelings for her, so he refused them while she wept and pleaded.
Later, he brought back a dancing girl. He waited all afternoon, but she never came.
He lost interest.
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Sweet romance, at its heart.
Theme: Strength.
