Broken Begonia

After Song Shiwei died, her soul wandered for twenty years. Then she was reborn in the body of the Grand Tutor's daughter in the current dynasty. For some inexplicable reason, she also received an imperial edict arranging her marriage to Jiang Huaizhi, the head of the Mirror Bureau.

Step by step, she watched him try to clear her name, only to end up rejected by everyone and reviled by all.

“How absurd. My own blood relatives and my husband all wanted me dead so they could clear their path. And yet, twenty years after my death, a young official I'd never met pored over the histories and case files about me, exhausting himself in the sole effort to clear my name.”

“Since I was a child, my mother told me that the person who gave me my name was the finest person in the world. She named me Huaizhi: the Huai River flows gently, and the Chu Mountains rise straight and thick. She hoped I would be like the surging Huai, nurturing all things, and that I would keep ambition in my heart, rise high, and have a bright future.

The blessing she gave me was so grand that, before I had accomplished anything, I didn't dare learn about her.

It wasn't until I came first in the imperial examinations that I searched the histories for her life and the case files for what had been recorded about her.

But how could someone be so strange?

In the histories, she was a wise and resourceful princess who cared deeply for the greater good.

In the case files, she was a corrupt princess who brought ruin to the country, flooding an entire city and killing tens of thousands of its people.

Across the vastness of time, through the shifting light of written words, I begged for a glimpse of the shadow left by someone from the past.”

A princess of the former dynasty x a powerful official of the current dynasty

A tale of cause and effect spanning twenty years.

[An upcoming story]

Whenever historians speak of the empress, they can't help but marvel. Born a concubine's daughter, with a mother who died young and a father who showed her no affection, she suffered abuse from childhood, yet brought an end to a century of turmoil and founded the Great Yong dynasty as a woman. During her reign, she abolished harsh taxes and established schools for women. Great Yong enjoyed peace and prosperity, and the people lived in comfort.

When they write the history books, they scarcely know where to begin. How can a few short lines describe her turbulent, extraordinary life?

The one thing people love to speculate about is her ambiguous relationship with the chief councilor.

Before her mother died, she repeatedly warned Song Nanyin, “Romance is an illusion. Only power and money are worth holding on to.” Looking back on her life, from enduring abuse to becoming empress, Song Nanyin feels that the decades passed just as her mother had said.

But if she could go back, she'd tell her mother she was wrong.

Song Nanyin prides herself on never having owed anyone anything. When someone helps her, she gives them what they want, and they are even. There's only one person she doesn't know how to talk about. She owes him so much, yet he tells her she owes him nothing. The world praises her as exceptionally talented and virtuous, unmatched by anyone. But only she knows how selfish and heartless she once was. It was only after meeting Su Jing that he guided her, step by step, toward the right path. In the end, he gave everything he had to raise her to the throne.

“It's strange. I was so awful, yet he told me, 'Nanyin, you're a good person.'”

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Theme: Uphold the principles in your heart and build the foundations of a flourishing age