Lu Song Lu Heshen was a vicious woman who spent more than a decade dominating the imperial harem. From a beauty, she climbed to the position of Noble Consort, with plenty of blood on her hands. Arrogant and willful, she was the most tyrannical lady in the harem.
But excess always brings a reversal of fortune.
In the fifteenth year of the Zhenyu reign, she swallowed a cup of poisoned wine. At last, this notorious consort in the history of the Dayue dynasty met her end in the cold imperial harem.
All her life, Lu Song had kept her temper in check and acted sweet and gentle before the emperor, while taking revenge on anyone who crossed her in private. As she lay dying, no one in the palace came to see her. The only one who had stayed by her side, a personal maid, had died before her.
Only at the point of death did she realize that she had lived for her family and for the emperor's favor, but never for herself. She gave a scornful laugh. The dead no longer cared about rank or status. Unwilling to let it go, she left them with one last wish: "I wish the emperor would die, too."
After drinking the poison and ending her life, she discovered she hadn't fallen into the animal realm. Instead, her soul drifted through the mortal world.
After her death, she saw how the people who had avoided her like the plague had left her to die, while a eunuch saw her through to the end.
*
Yu Shu, a newly promoted brush eunuch serving at the emperor's side, silently watched Lu Song drink the poisoned wine. In his eyes was an emotion that, even through her pain, Lu Song could never quite understand. Defying the emperor's order to bury her carelessly, Yu Shu secretly had a coffin made for her and laid her to rest.
Lu Song watched as, in the days that followed, Eunuch Yu became the seal-holding eunuch, took charge of the Eastern Depot, and rose to the pinnacle of power, second only to the emperor and above all others. Over those long years, he slowly poisoned the emperor.
In the end, his plan failed. He was sentenced to be cut to pieces and left with an infamous name for all eternity.
At last, the solitary soul returned to twelve years earlier, once again becoming Lady Lu, a newly entered consort.
Lu Song wondered whether Heaven thought she was worse than an animal, and had sent her not into reincarnation but back twelve years instead.
But since she had returned, she wanted to live differently this time, and make everyone who had harmed her pay with their lives.
And yet, in this life, she couldn't control where her eyes went: to the still-young Eunuch Yu. This eunuch was clearly a parasite on the emperor and on power, so why had he harmed his own master?
At first, all she wanted was to make Yu Shu her own and turn him into her blade. But she discovered that Yu Shu seemed to have been watching her silently from the shadows for a long time. She had gained Yu Shu, and Yu Shu had gained her.
Eunuch Yu climbed to the top alongside her. She reached for a desire so outrageous it was treason, and the emperor was about to fall at her hands.
The emperor asked her in fear, "Do you want to be Empress Lu?"
Lu Song shook her head, and the emperor breathed a sigh of relief.
"Then tell me what you want, and I'll give you anything."
She then said, word by word:
"Your Majesty, I want to be Empress Wu."
Reading tips:
1. Yu Shu (Shu, second tone) is the male lead, a real eunuch.
2. The second male lead is the emperor, and she does sleep with him.
3. An alternate-history Ming setting, broadly based on the Ming dynasty. The author isn't great at history, so the details won't withstand much scrutiny (bows deeply).
Theme: Be a person with a little more courage.
