A Rhapsody of Palace Flowers

[No formulaic palace scheming, hard-nosed court intrigue, no love for the emperor, ensemble of women] Everyone has their own ambitions. I have no interest in fighting over a man among a crowd of women. She was Qing Luo, a young woman who cherished her life above all else. Abandoned by her parents as a child, she wandered from place to place. It wasn’t until she entered the Forbidden City and met the beautiful, gracious Yue Ren and the clever, perceptive Lü Zhu that her drifting heart finally found a home. The three sisters stood by one another through thick and thin. In the aftermath of the Tumu Crisis, they witnessed the restoration of the Southern Palace and personally endured the cruelty of the imperial burial system. Desperate to stay alive and escape being buried with the emperor, Qing Luo clung to the emperor’s favor, played a substitute, pretended to be devoted, and put on a dazzling performance to save the emperor. He was moved and fell for her completely. “You silly girl, I know there’s at least a little genuine affection in your heart for me.” With the emperor’s favor behind her, she rose all the way to Imperial Noble Consort, leaving everyone in the harem envious. But when the emperor demanded that she choose between his favor and her sisters, she answered without hesitation: “You think I did it for you? No, I did it for her! You’re not worth it. You never were!”