At sixteen, Cui Baoyin thought freedom was the most important thing in the world.
She wanted to see mountains and rivers, venture into the jianghu, and become a heroine who could leave as soon as her work was done.
Whatever was beautiful, she wanted. Whatever was interesting, she longed for.
It wasn't until the blades and flames of a chaotic age closed in that Baoyin realized land was the most important thing in the world.
Land was milk, nourishing her.
Land was money, allowing her to survive.
Land was home, where she buried her loved ones with her own hands.
The most precious things in this world are all in the earth.
A good death, or a miserable life? Baoyin thinks that when you feel you can't go on, you might as well look at the land. It never speaks, yet it has nourished generations of people.
*
Many years later, the historian of Great Yan recorded Baoyin this way:
Cui Baoyin, married three times to the Sacred Ancestor, was his first wife, and was known to the world as Empress Renwu Sheng.
In the thirty-seventh year of Jinghe, the empress died at Shangyang Palace at the age of ninety. Her posthumous title was Empress Qitian Chuangshi Liji Renwen Shengwu. She was the only empress of this dynasty to receive a ten-character posthumous title, and was accorded the honors of an emperor. She was not buried beside the emperor, but alone in Qiande Mausoleum. Every year during the Cold Food Festival, men and women came from all directions in carriages to gaze upon her tomb and pay their respects, their tears falling on the yellow earth.
Content notes:
1. Plot-driven. The female lead is the sole protagonist, and her personal growth takes precedence over the romance.
2. This is just a web novel, but I want to write it with seriousness and care.
3. The female lead and her first husband are both virgins. Later, she is a virgin, but he is not. The ending is happy, but not everything works out perfectly.
Theme: All eras of rise and fall bring suffering. Only the land is passed down from generation to generation.
