War Flames Illuminate the Dragon Robe

In the tenth month of the eighth year of the Jingyou reign of Great Qi, a piercing newborn’s cry broke the silence in a side hall of Mingxu Palace in Zhongjing. Mi Qizi fainted from exhaustion after giving birth, and only the Imperial Medical Academy’s full efforts pulled her back from the brink. When the emperor heard the news, he was overjoyed. He immediately ordered three months’ stipend for Mingxu Palace and personally bestowed a name upon the child: Qi Jue. But this newborn favor did not last long. At the one-month-old’s grasping ceremony, amid splendid silks and dazzling treasures, I crawled straight toward the jade seal, the symbol of the Mandate of Heaven. Father’s face changed at once, and he swept away in anger. From then on, he never set foot in Mingxu Palace again. The palace attendants whispered that Father’s favorite was my second elder brother, Qi Lian, the son of the late Empress Xiaoding. He was Father’s legitimate eldest son, born while Father was still Crown Prince, and the late emperor had personally chosen his name. Empress Xiaoding died in childbirth. After ascending the throne, Father posthumously made her empress. Before the enthronement ceremony had even taken place, he had already appointed Qi Lian Crown Prince and installed him in the Eastern Palace. By comparison, I, a young son born to a concubine, was no more than a speck of dust in a remote corner of the palace.

Time passed. In the twelfth month of the twenty-third year of the Jingyou reign, Father finally issued an imperial decree: I was to be made Prince of Song, appointed magistrate of Wannian County, and betrothed in the first month of the coming year. On the surface, it was a reward. In reality, it was a way to send me far away, to the outskirts of the capital. But I knew this was no ending. It was a beginning. Mother often wept in the dead of night, saying I should never have been born into this imperial family. But today, I have come of age, and I have plans of my own. Mother, rest assured. I will not let your years of hardship go to waste. One day, I will win back the title that should have been yours, and make the whole realm understand: though I never sought the jade seal, I will claim the empire itself.