The Empress Rises to Greatness

[A sweet story about two people experiencing first love, updated at 9 a.m.]

The new emperor was attacked, but a fish-selling girl risked her life to save him, leaving him safe and sound.

Rumor had it that the girl was using her good deed to get ahead, shamelessly forcing her way into the palace as Talented Lady Yu.

Sure enough, after she entered the palace, the emperor never summoned her again.

Everyone was eager to watch her make a fool of herself, but in a secluded palace courtyard they found a carefree beauty with skin as smooth as cream and a face of exquisite loveliness.

Jiang Yueya was a fish-selling girl with no parents. One moment of good luck in saving the emperor, and she went from sparrow to phoenix.

She couldn’t recognize a single character, had skin as thick as a city wall, and was vain, greedy, and lecherous.

The moment she saw the young emperor, her eyes lit up. “Your Majesty, where are those riches and honors you promised me?”

The new emperor despised her as a commoner, and he despised the improper thoughts she kept stirring up in him.

Whenever he saw her graceful figure, he could hardly tear his eyes away.

How could he let a fish-selling girl have her way with him?

The first night she attended him, Jiang Yueya gazed at him with guileless sincerity and asked, “Your Majesty, aren’t you having a late-night snack?”

Xiao Chengye: “…”

Half an hour later, Talented Lady Yu had her braised spring bamboo shoots, and had also contentedly kissed the handsome young lord.

They went to bed, pulled up the covers, and she promptly fell asleep.

Xiao Chengye stared at the canopy in the dark, unable to sleep all night. Was she making a fool of me?

One day, Noble Consort De, who came from a distinguished family, punished her. Jiang Yueya was not only scolded but confined to her quarters.

Xiao Chengye sat up late with a cold expression, reviewing memorials, yet he couldn’t help visiting her palace once more.

He expected to find her looking pitiful and tearfully complaining, but instead the first thing he smelled was delicious grilled fish.

The new emperor: “…Aren’t you upset?”

With grilled fish in one hand and osmanthus wine in the other, Jiang Yueya’s round face was flushed, and her smiling eyes curved like crescent moons.

“When the food is good, the sleep is good, and life is good, what is there to be upset about?”

Everyone looked down on her and waited for her to be sent to the Cold Palace. A year passed, then two, and instead they watched her rise higher and higher, enjoying unrivaled favor.

No one in the palace had a freer, more comfortable life than she did!

Jiang Yueya: If I see a treasure, I want it, and I get it!

Who says a fish-selling girl can’t be a treasure?

Reader’s note:

[An adorable, sunny heroine with sky-high self-worth * a cold emperor with an intensely possessive streak]

One-on-one, both experiencing first love, a sweet little story with an unconventional marriage-before-love, easygoing romance, and plenty of food. Comments on individual chapters are open. The consort-rank chart is in the author’s note for Chapter One~

My Weibo: @QueShangXinTouYa.

My completed works: The Noble Consort I See Is So Alluring | The Noble Consort’s Wealth and Glory | Embracing the Flowing Light | A Maid’s Daily Life in Bianjing | The Noble Consort Is So Charming | The Noble Consort’s Favor Never Fades | A Palace Maid Becomes Empress | A Palace Maid’s Promotion Record | Murder in the Swallow Capital. Enjoy!

The Reborn Second Empress

#No one is born to be someone else’s substitute#

Xie Qingqi was the most ordinary substitute imaginable.

Clumsy and naive, she was the least remarkable of the Yong’an Marquis household’s concubine-born daughters.

But when her elder sister suddenly died, the Xie family had no other eligible daughters, so they could only send Xie Qingqi into the palace to preserve the glory of the Yong’an Marquis household.

And so, utterly unremarkable as she was, she became the second empress from the Xie family, succeeding her legitimate elder sister as Emperor Tianqi’s empress.

She admired the wise and divine emperor, so she attended upon him morning and evening, took care of everything herself, and worked hard to learn all her elder sister’s ways, hoping to become a virtuous and gracious empress.

But nothing went as she wished. The emperor was always cold and harsh, never once tender. Her son was taken from her and raised into a good-for-nothing, her daughter died young, and she was worn down by overwork until she died amid a chorus of curses.

Even before her death, she heard the emperor say, “You can’t compare to the previous empress.”

It turned out that in her whole life, she hadn’t even been worthy of being a counterfeit.

When she opened her eyes again, Xie Qingqi was reborn to the moment just after she had given birth to her third princess.

The emperor had just issued an order for Noble Consort De to help ease her burden by raising the eldest prince alongside her.

Xie Qingqi suddenly no longer wanted to imitate her elder sister. A copy would always be just a copy, never something precious.

To hell with virtue, grace, gentleness, and kindness. Everything she had worked so hard for seemed meaningless.

Why should she be someone else’s substitute?

For the first time, she firmly said “no” to the emperor.

This time, she would be herself, protect her children, and build a broad and bright future of her own.

But when she grew cold and distant, the heartless emperor from her memories began looking at her with ever-increasing affection.

Theme: Pursuing a happy life