The Empress Rises to Greatness

[A sweet romance between two people who are each other’s first love. Updates at 9 a.m.] The new emperor was nearly assassinated, but a fishmonger’s daughter risked her life to save him, leaving him safe and sound. People said the fishmonger’s daughter was trading on her favor, shamelessly forcing her way into the palace to become Lady Yu. Sure enough, the emperor never summoned her after she entered the palace. Everyone was eager to see her make a fool of herself, but in a secluded palace courtyard they found a carefree beauty with skin like fine jade and breathtaking looks. Jiang Yueya was a fishmonger’s daughter with neither father nor mother. She had saved the emperor by sheer chance, and in an instant, a sparrow had become a phoenix. She couldn’t read a single character, had a face as thick as a city wall, and was vain, greedy, and lustful. The moment she saw the young emperor, her eyes lit up. “Your Majesty, where’s all that wealth and glory you promised me?” The new emperor disdained her lowborn background, and he also resented the amorous thoughts she kept stirring up in him. Whenever he saw her graceful figure, he found it impossible to look away. How could he let himself do whatever he pleased with a fishmonger’s daughter? On her first night attending him, Jiang Yueya gazed at him with clear, sincere eyes and asked, “Your Majesty, aren’t you having a late-night snack?” Xiao Chengye: “…” Half an hour later, Lady Yu had gotten her wish and eaten braised bamboo shoots, and had also enjoyed a thoroughly satisfying kiss with her handsome young man. They went to bed, pulled up the covers, and fell asleep at once. Xiao Chengye stared at the canopy in the dark, unable to sleep all night. Was she making a fool of him? One day, Consort De, born into a powerful family, punished her. Jiang Yueya was not only scolded but also confined to her quarters. Xiao Chengye sat with a cold expression, reviewing memorials until the middle of the night, but he still couldn’t resist going to her palace again. He expected to find her looking pitiful and crying as she complained, but instead he was greeted by the mouthwatering smell of grilled fish. The new emperor: “…Aren’t you upset?” Jiang Yueya held grilled fish in one hand and osmanthus wine in the other. Her round face was rosy, and her eyes curved into crescents as she smiled. “If the food is good, the sleep is good, and life is good, what’s there to be upset about?” Everyone looked down on her and waited for her to be banished to the Cold Palace. A year passed, then two, and instead they watched her rise higher and higher, enjoying the emperor’s unparalleled favor. No one in this palace was as carefree or comfortable as she was! Jiang Yueya: If Baby sees it, Baby wants it, and Baby gets it! Who says a fishmonger’s daughter can’t be a treasure? Reader’s guide: [An adorable, sunny heroine with an abundance of self-worth * a cold emperor with an overpowering possessive streak] A one-on-one sweet romance where each is the other’s first love. A different take on marriage before love, with lighthearted pure romance and plenty of delicious food. Comments on individual chapters are now open. The rank chart is in the author’s note at the end of Chapter One~ My Weibo: @QueShangXinTouYa. Please follow me~ Please add my author page to your favorites~ My completed novels: I See the Noble Consort’s Many Charms | Noble Consort, May You Enjoy Wealth and Glory | Gathering 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 Rise Through the Ranks | Murder in the Ladies’ Quarters of Yanjing. Enjoy! Please add my upcoming novels to your favorites~! Noble Consort Her father doted on his concubine and neglected his wife. Not only did he let the concubine drive his wife to her death, he also planned to switch their daughters and let the concubine’s child take her place. Chu Yunshu barely survived. Only then did she learn that the fake legitimate eldest daughter of the Yongning Marquis household had entered the palace as a noble consort and remained in the emperor’s favor. To avenge her mother, she would have to enter the palace and reclaim everything that had once belonged to her. Consort Hui, born into a powerful family, wanted to bear a child on another woman’s behalf. She happened to take an interest in Yunshu, the palace maid who brought meals from the Imperial Kitchen. Yunshu’s skin was whiter than snow, and she was naturally alluring. An orphan with no one to rely on, she seemed easy to control. Consort Hui was so pleased with herself that she immediately forced Yunshu into the emperor’s bed. But behind the gauze curtains, Yunshu’s black hair fell like a waterfall as she nestled against the man’s broad chest, like a weary bird seeking shelter. “Your Majesty, Yunshu can finally behold your face,” the beauty said, her eyes full of emotion and tears glistening on her lashes. “Yunshu asks for no wealth or glory. She only hopes Your Majesty will let her stay by your side and serve you.” Her delicate vulnerability moved even Xie Jiyuan, a man whose heart was usually as hard as stone, to feel a little pity. “From now on, you belong to me,” the man said, his eyes dark and unfathomable as he claimed her soft lips. “I will not mistreat you.” Three months later, Consort Hui was completely overthrown and sent to the Cold Palace. Meanwhile, Chu Yunshu, the very palace maid who had attended the emperor and whom everyone in Consort Hui’s palace looked down on, was made a Lady and moved into Guanju Palace, the residence everyone coveted. Consort Hui, Consort Duan, and even the Noble Consort meant nothing to Chu Yunshu. What she wanted was to see her enemies utterly defeated. And to claim the phoenix throne in Kunning Palace. Reader’s guide: An old-school palace intrigue novel, set in a completely fictional world. The male lead is not a virgin. It focuses more on daily life in the imperial harem, and the heroine’s only goal is to rise to the top! She becomes the emperor’s sole favorite in the middle and later parts. My next novel will be Reborn as the Second Empress: a marriage-before-love story with a painful redemption arc. If you like this kind of story, please add it to your favorites! #No one is born to be someone else’s replacement# Xie Qingqi was the most ordinary replacement imaginable. She was awkward and naive, the least outstanding of the illegitimate daughters in the Yong’an Marquis household. But when her elder sister suddenly died, the Xie family had no other eligible daughters. They could only send her into the palace to preserve the Yong’an Marquis household’s glory. And so, this good-for-nothing became the second empress from the Xie family, succeeding her legitimate elder sister as the empress of Emperor Tianqi. She admired the wise and divine emperor. She paid her respects morning and night, took care of everything herself, and worked hard to imitate every aspect of her elder sister, hoping to become a virtuous and gracious empress. But everything went wrong. The emperor was always cold and harsh, never gentle. Her son was taken from her and raised into a useless man, her daughter died young, and she grew sick from overwork before dying amid a storm of accusations. Before she died, she even heard the emperor say, “She was nowhere near as good as the late empress.” So it turned out she had never even been worthy of being a counterfeit. When she opened her eyes again, Xie Qingqi had been reborn at the moment she had just given birth to the Third Princess. The emperor had just ordered Consort De to help ease her burden by raising the First Prince alongside her. Suddenly, Xie Qingqi no longer wanted to imitate her elder sister. A copy would always be just a copy, never a rare treasure. To hell with being virtuous, gentle, and loving. Everything she had worked for seemed meaningless. Why should she be someone else’s replacement? For the first time, she firmly said “no” to the emperor. This time, she would be herself, protect her children, and carve out a bright future of her own. But as she grew cold and distant, the emotionless emperor in her memories began looking at her with ever-increasing tenderness. Theme: Pursue a happy life