Yongzheng's Consort Yu

[Drawing on Qing history, this is an imagined tale of love and hate in the imperial palace, set against a historical backdrop, where deceit and hidden schemes abound] I know the time for me to leave is near. Those seemingly endless eighty-odd years of glory and disgrace, of rising and falling, were no more than a fleeting illusion. In the end, ashes return to ashes, and dust to dust. Amid blooming flowers, I hide my thoughts and turn away with a smile. Looking back on the past, I gaze calmly upon the love and hatred behind the vermilion walls and green-tiled roofs. It turns out I, too, was once a shadow in the long river of history, a passage in the annals…