In the twenty-second year of the Jianzhang era, ten-year-old Xu Yuanjun entered the Eastern Palace as the crown princess, with a pair of entwined lotuses embroidered on her sleeve by her mother, Grand Princess Rongcheng. She believed this was the beginning of a love in which two hearts would be joined as one. She did not know that within these vermilion walls, virtue was a shackle, favor was a blade, and bearing an heir was a sin.
From Empress Dowager Gu's worry over having no children to Noble Consort Wanyan's peril because she had a son; from Zheng Zhenting, who sought favor with her poetry only to die in childbirth, to Yin Huiwan, who rose to the top with her vow of "one lifetime, one person" only to be trapped in the Cold Palace: the imperial harem of the Jiazhe dynasty was a battleground for the emperor's schemes, and a furnace where countless women's hearts were consumed.
When the court historian wrote in the Records of Jiazhe, "The harem is solemn, and the consorts observe women's virtue," the maids' diaries in the dry wells of the palace, the blood-written vows on the Cold Palace walls, and the parrots repeating words before the imperial tombs all told the same truth: the so-called wise ruler and virtuous empress were merely an ornate curtain woven by the system. Behind it lay the bones, blood, and souls of countless women, consumed without a trace.
Theme: A lament for the women trapped under the feudal system. Within and beyond the red walls, they are all beasts in cages.
