I Fell for the Empress While Imprisoned With Her, and She Wants Me to Enter the Palace as a Eunuch

When the empress married the late emperor, he swore that she would be his only wife for the rest of his life and that he would take no concubines.

As the late emperor fought to unify the realm, first becoming a marquis, then a king, and finally the emperor, a beauty who looked almost exactly like the empress appeared by his side. He bestowed upon her the name Yuan Yi.

Lady Yuan was much favored in the harem, which held only two women: the empress and Lady Yuan.

When a minister once urged the late emperor to take more consorts, he refused. "In this life, I want only one wife and one concubine. That is enough."

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After the late emperor died, the former empress, now the empress dowager, took control of the throne.

Lady Yuan thought the empress dowager would take revenge on her, but instead she had Lady Yuan's own brother, Yuan Wudu, brought into the palace and made a eunuch.

Someone spread rumors in Chang'an that the empress dowager was a poisonous woman who would castrate her lover with her own hands so she could keep him by her side forever.

Lady Yuan knew better than anyone what had happened between the empress dowager and her lover all those years ago. Her hopelessly lovestruck brother had spent three years in prison at the county yamen with the empress. After they were released, the empress treated Yuan Lang as her husband and even wanted to divorce the late emperor. The late emperor was jealous of Yuan Lang, so he took Yuan Lang's younger sister, Lady Yuan, as his concubine.

He even gave the child Lady Yuan bore to the empress to raise. Yet the empress had wanted to divorce the late emperor her entire life, but he refused to let her go.

And Yuan Lang refused to let go, either.

The only real victim was surely Lady Yuan herself.

Theme: A woman's struggle to make her own way.