The Splendor of Jintang Spring

(Not a strictly monogamous romance; he dotes on her alone later. Read with caution.) The day I entered the palace, the setting sun was red as blood. I gazed at the golden eaves stained crimson by the rosy clouds and remembered the spray of blood at my mother’s neck when my father held a knife to her and forced me to enter the palace. He said I was his most beautiful daughter, and that I would surely be able to bewitch the emperor of the Central Plains into leading his northern cavalry south to conquer it. I scoffed, but still agreed to marry far from home. As soon as I arrived at the palace, I was targeted for being a foreigner. Though I had once been sheltered from the ways of the world, I gradually grew into a bewitching consort. The emperor of the Central Plains was so besotted with me that, defying his ministers’ objections, he took my hand and led me to the imperial throne, intending to make me empress. That day, blood filled the entire throne hall. My father had truly come, leading the northern cavalry. The ministers urged him to execute me to bolster the army’s morale, but instead he took my hand and fled the palace with me.