The next serial, You're Not My White Moonlight, is now underway!
Emperor Cheng of Han x His Favorite Consort, Zhao
The first time Zhao Shu saw the emperor, she had only recently transmigrated to the Han dynasty. She was then a farmer's daughter, with a down-on-his-luck Confucian scholar for a father who worked as a tenant farmer, and a little sister who was thin as a rake, her face pale from hunger. The village where she lived had gone months without rain, and locusts were devastating the land. The emperor's procession was passing through Yu as he traveled to pray for rain.
In a brief pause amid the people shouting long live the emperor, his profile caught her eye. She felt contempt, recalling the historians' verdict on him: debauched and immoral, addicted to drink and sex, neglectful of state affairs, and overly fond of his maternal relatives.
The second time Zhao Shu saw the emperor, she had become a dancer. She had lost her home and land, her father had died, and her sister was gone. For twenty thousand coins, the only relatives she had left sold her to become a dancer at a marquis's residence. Her dancing caught the emperor's eye, and he was intoxicated by her as if he had been drinking.
"Her graceful figure stirs my heart with longing."
The emperor's words, tinged with wine, fell by her ear and made it tingle.
She played hard to get, coyly resisting his advances, and became a woman of the imperial harem, winning his exclusive favor. In the end, however, she became a notorious beauty blamed for the country's troubles.
But at the very beginning, she had drawn close to the emperor only because she wanted to help her neighbors, who had suffered under forced labor four years earlier; save the girl she had been, sold into dancing two years ago; and rescue the wretched lives that, decades later, would be lost to a dynastic collapse, endless warfare, and a land laid waste, strewn with bones.
"Was he not the one who knew it could not be done, yet did it anyway?"
The bamboo slip bearing these words of a sage should have ended up as firewood for the kitchen stove, but somehow she saw it.
She did not yet know that, at the end of his life, the sage who lived by those words gazed at the setting sun in the west and sighed, "My Way is at an end."
Notes | Content warnings:
1. A historical story. The male lead is an emperor with a harem, and he is not a virgin.
2. This is not a wish-fulfillment story. The leads are slow to understand their feelings for each other, but the central romance is one-on-one.
3. This is not a self-insert fantasy. I will not whitewash the male lead. This is simply history seen from another angle.
4. In an apocalyptic era, the people suffer. Personal romance is insignificant.
5. There will be over sixty original poems and rhapsodies. I hope you enjoy them!
Coming Soon: You're Not My White Moonlight
[The Emperor's Desperate Pursuit]
[Gentle, Resilient, Sunlike Heroine x Patient, Scheming Emperor]
Emperor Xiao Xun lost his mother when he was young. Supported by powerful ministers, he ascended the throne as a boy, only to become a puppet and a pawn, unable even to decide matters concerning his own harem.
After years of restraint and careful maneuvering, he finally reclaimed his authority, slaughtered the powerful minister's entire family, and purged their supporters from the court. The officials praised the emperor's decisiveness and said he had the bearing of Emperor Wu. Others said he was cold-hearted, willing to depose even an empress who had done nothing wrong.
Having spent so long in a lightless abyss, Xiao Xun's heart of stone had only one tender spot: his childhood sweetheart, the daughter of a princess, radiant as the moon among the clouds.
Yet when he issued the edict appointing her empress, his heart suddenly ached for some reason. The place that hurt had once been struck by a common-born woman. She looked up, her features bearing a slight resemblance to his beloved, while sunlight danced across her face.
But where was that woman now?
*
A Yuan was always saying how lucky she was.
When she was a little girl, the stray dog she rescued brought her a jade pendant, and her family's farmland grew from fifty mu to a hundred.
After she came of age, she entered the palace. Though she was only a palace maid in the Bureau of the Palace, she no longer had to worry about food, and her coarse clothes were replaced with silk.
She never imagined that she would catch the emperor's eye. The young emperor was as cold as snow on a mountain, yet he smiled just for her.
During her prime, she endured cruel insults and was drawn into court struggles where one small move could affect everything. But she stayed by his side until he became a true emperor with power in his hands.
On the day he deposed the powerful minister's daughter as empress, His Majesty got drunk, an unusual sight, and held A Yuan tightly in his arms. His eyes red, he told her he could finally give the very best to the woman he loved most.
A Yuan accidentally saw the draft edict appointing a new empress on the writing desk in the Xuanshi Hall. The characters flowed in long, sweeping strokes, and she couldn't read them all. She recognized only one surname. Before her eyes appeared the graceful figure of a dignified, beautiful woman, and she suddenly understood that His Majesty kept a white moonlight in his heart. In the end, she had been the one to pave the way for another, a pawn meant to take the blows.
"Tell me what rank and title you want, and I can grant them to you."
"Your Majesty, I've come of age. It's time for me to leave the palace."
She believed that once she left this enclosed world, she would find a peaceful place beneath the boundless sky and someone to share her life with.
But wherever she went, someone relentlessly pursued her.
That person said he had to find his sun again.
He had spent too long in the abyss, mistaking the sun for the moon.
Thesis: The history we know is only the history of the court. When we read history, we can't help imagining ourselves in the lives of its famous figures. Yet we forget that every person is just one insignificant member of the vast multitude, suffering in life and suffering in death.
It's very good. I finally finished it after a few months. The ending is very good, no harm, and very satisfying. I often think of this novel. The characters are really vivid, the male and female protagonists are romantic, and the author wrote a sentimental emperor (Diejia: not romantic! He is a bit sentimental and full of emotions). Such a person is suitable to be an emperor in the prosperous times, but he is not hard-hearted enough to be an emperor at the end of the dynasty. He cannot be like the Qin Emperor and the Han Dynasty. Achievements, because he is not a cruel person, which makes it seem extra real, and the heroine is also so melancholy and thoughtful. Every frame of the collision between two romantic people is beautifully described. I thought it would be a tragic ending in history, so this is good. The two people lived happily together, and life, old age, illness and death are difficult to control, but everyone has a good ending. The teacher is great. The first book is so great and there are so many poems. What a talented woman.
It's over!!! Throw flowers!! [Let me be healthy] [Let me be healthy]
I stopped watching it for a long time, and finally finished watching it together. The author has written this novel as beautiful as poetry, but also has the richness of history. Very, very good
Watching it for the first time ~ it's very well written, but I just don't want to follow the historical development After all, the author has created for us male and female protagonists that are completely different from history.
Everyone knows that the Wang family was rebellious and had power over the government and the public. Later, they changed dynasties. However, the queen with the worst reputation in the harem was Queen Zhao Feiyan. She was forced to commit suicide after the death of Emperor Ai. It is true that the powerful Wang Zhengjun who overthrew the Western Han Dynasty was a powerful man, and critics are still tolerant of it. This can be seen in the historian's writing.
I read it again recently and I still like the story very much (≧w≦)
Coincidentally, it has been exactly one year, and I suddenly remembered the ending of this novel. I read it again, and I had to sigh again that the ending was just right.
Love it! Looking forward to the new article~
I didn't dare to watch it until I saw the ending. I mustered up the courage to watch the ending. I expected this ending but was still very sad 😭, but it's great to be able to go home and see my mother [Spread Flowers]
[Spreading Flowers] It looks good, waiting for my wife to open a new trap