A Consort's Guide to Career Advancement

[Complete] [Extra chapter: Accession to the Throne] Thank you for supporting the official version.

[Shen Guifei's Daily Struggle to Stay Alive is updating. Its blurb is at the very bottom. If you're interested, ladies, feel free to add it to your favorites.]

Blurb divider

"The Crown Prince's Wife, the Emperor's Woman"

I

Everyone said Ji Yuanjia was lucky.

She became Crown Princess as soon as she came of age, and less than three years later, she became Empress.

She was valued by the Empress Dowager above, with a prince at her side below.

The most exalted position a woman could attain was hers to hold in the palm of her hand while still young.

But only Ji Yuanjia herself knew how much she had done, and how much she had given up, to get where she was...

The Empress is exalted?

Ji Yuanjia gave a cold laugh.

Only those who hold power can enjoy a lifetime of honor.

II

From the day she received the imperial edict arranging her marriage, Ji Yuanjia told herself she had to learn to accept her fate.

Become a dutiful Crown Princess, then an impeccable Empress. After a hundred years, her name would go down in history, and scholars would still speak of her with admiration. It certainly sounded like a blessed life.

But was this the life she wanted?

Ji Yuanjia didn't know.

From Crown Princess to Empress, her status became ever more exalted, and her authority seemed to grow greater and greater.

But her status had been bestowed by others, and so had her power.

She didn't want to accept a fate like that.

And later

Ji Yuanjia looked at the memorials spread across the imperial desk and at the vermilion brush in her hand, and finally smiled with satisfaction.

Now this was the life she wanted.

*

A story about a woman striving her way from the imperial harem to the imperial court.

[Reading Guide]

1. This is planned as a long novel, and chapters are already written in advance.

2. Plot-focused. The heroine initially tries to convince herself to accept her fate, but fails, and eventually grows into an ambitious woman.

3. The first volume covers her time as Crown Princess: domestic matters, a slight ensemble cast, a slow burn, and a steady pace. The second volume covers her time as Empress: my take on court intrigue, with careful plotting and a focus on building her career.

4. There are many female characters, with a slight ensemble feel. Each makes different choices in life under the pressures of her era and her limited perspective, but this is not a story of women competing against one another.

(The blurb was screenshotted and saved on July 28, 2024.)

Blurb for Shen Guifei's Daily Struggle to Stay Alive

Xuanli, the eldest daughter of the Shen family of Wuxing, was beautiful and graceful. Though her father had died young, her mother cherished and protected her, hired tutors at great expense to teach her and nurture her understanding, and the elders of her clan also looked after her.

When she came of age, however, she received an imperial decree summoning women for selection. She was named Consort Xi and sent into the palace alongside eight other women.

People of the time all said the eldest Shen daughter was doomed to misfortune. The Shen family had only just sent their daughter into the palace, and before long they would probably need to prepare two coffin boards to receive Shen Xuanli's body. Madam Shen was also weeping as she bade her daughter a reluctant farewell, asking only that she live a long life and remain safe in the palace.

There was good reason. The current emperor had been on the throne for barely ten years, yet he had already caused the death of his first empress. Several concubines had since died or been injured. For an unfavored woman, living in seclusion in the Cold Palace was already the best possible outcome.

Shen Xuanli had thought the rumors might be exaggerated, but after entering the palace she learned that the stories circulating among the people were not entirely baseless. She treasured her own life and couldn't bear the thought of her mother worrying about her outside the palace, so she began to tread carefully and learned to become a perceptive confidante who spoke with good sense and understanding before the emperor.

Among the women selected alongside her were one who became empress but died when she was left to perish in a fire, one who bore the Crown Prince but lived in constant terror until she eventually fell ill and died, and another who made a fatal misstep and was beaten to death before the emperor had even favored her... The emperor's consorts came and went, but Shen Xuanli remained steadfast, firmly rooting herself in the world of the imperial harem.

Many years later, Shen Xuanli sat high upon the seat of Imperial Noble Consort, watching a daughter with no blood relation to her bow in homage. She suddenly felt how unpredictable life could be. Who could have imagined that the young girl from the Shen family, born in Jiangnan, would one day become the foremost woman in the imperial harem?

But in the beginning, all she wanted was to stay alive.

Theme: The great roc rises with the wind one day, soaring ninety thousand li.