5
When I learned he was engaged, my first instinct was to leave.
The modern education I’d received wouldn’t allow me to share the person I loved with other women.
Besides, I’d be nothing but a despicable homewrecker.
But he had bound me to him with my ambitions and aspirations.
If I wanted to change this world, shine, and make a name for myself in the history books, the capital was the best place to do it.
He said I was a free bird soaring across the sky, and he wouldn’t cage me in the little world of his harem.
I should use my knowledge to manage a household, govern a nation, and bring peace to the world.
He begged me to stay by his side as his adviser.
To help him wipe out his enemies and ascend the throne.
When that time came, he would appoint me a general so I could fulfill my ambitions.
He wanted us to join hands and usher in an age of peace and prosperity.
His beautiful promises moved me.
I thought he understood and respected me, that he saw me as a kindred spirit.
So I gave up the petty feelings of a young woman.
To repay his kindness, I disguised myself as a man and stayed by his side as his adviser.
Thanks to knowledge and technology thousands of years ahead of their time, as well as his quiet support, I quickly became a rising star at court.
The civil officials discussed my innovative strategies, while the military commanders marveled at my theories of warfare, unlike anything they’d ever heard.
My rise was unbelievably swift: in less than a year, I was promoted three ranks.
But just when I was at my most triumphant, everything came crashing down in an instant.
On New Year’s Eve, someone led me to an abandoned palace.
There I saw him. He’d been drugged, and his eyes were bloodshot.
Without saying a word, he forced me down.
Afterward, people discovered that I’d slept with him while drunk.
Setting aside the fact that I’d defiled the imperial palace, disguising myself as a man and deceiving the ruler was enough to get me beheaded.
He did everything he could to protect me, even at the cost of being reprimanded by His Majesty and confined to his palace.
I was lucky to survive, but I had to give up my official robes and be carried through the gates in a small sedan chair, becoming Prince Tấn’s concubine.
The ridiculous thing was, I was still touched that he hadn’t abandoned me. I thought that if he hadn’t stood up for me so steadfastly, I would have been beheaded long ago.
At the same time, I felt guilty over the sacrifices he’d made for me and vowed to help him become emperor.
But looking back now, it was a clumsy deception, laughable in its sheer obviousness.
The drunkenness, the drugging, the discovery of our affair—it had all been arranged by him.
It was because I’d been too arrogant, making him feel threatened.
He was afraid he couldn’t control me, so he wanted to clip my wings and turn me into an ordinary concubine in his harem, my intelligence serving him alone.
It was laughable that after someone sold me out, I still thanked him with tears in my eyes while counting out the money for him.
6
Just like the emperor and Imperial Consort Kỷ now, when I first entered the prince’s residence, Prince Tấn spent every night in my room, unwilling to give anyone else even a moment of his time.
Back then, I felt sorry for the Princess Consort.
Women in ancient times were taught the three obediences and four virtues from childhood; their husbands were their heaven.
And she had never been loved by Prince Tấn.
Though she always seemed calm, surely she harbored resentment.
Out of some vague sense of guilt, I often urged Prince Tấn to visit the Princess Consort more often.
Every time, he’d get angry and ask why I was always pushing him toward someone else.
Each time, my heart felt both sour and sweet.
Looking back now, I really had been too arrogant.
Pitiful?
She was the biological granddaughter of the Grand Tutor, her father a first-rank official, and her mother a noblewoman from a hereditary marquis’s household. Her brothers and sisters were all distinguished, each holding an important post at court.
She was Prince Tấn’s principal consort, and would later become crown princess, empress, empress dowager, and grand empress dowager…
A hundred years later, she could share a coffin and tomb with Prince Tấn, and go down in history. She alone would enjoy glory for generations.
And I was just an orphan born among the common people, a concubine whose reputation had been ruined. What right did I have to pity her?
No wonder she later called me “long on innocence, short on strategy.”
From the very beginning, I’d never been a match for her.
Forget her—even the other concubines in the residence had never taken me seriously.
Behind my back, they treated me like a plaything, a joke.
And I naively thought that because I’d stolen their husband, they must be heartbroken.
To ease my guilt, I often preached to these people from the past about what I considered progressive ideas.
I told them women could have careers of their own and didn’t have to spend their lives orbiting men.
I told them that just because men could do something didn’t mean women couldn’t.
I asked them why men could have several wives and concubines while women had to stay in the inner courtyards, hoping for their husbands’ favor.
Whenever I voiced these “truths,” they never showed it openly, but there was a hint of contempt in their eyes.
Only the Princess Consort, Thẩm Phù Nhược—
She remained as calm as still water, yet her gaze on me seemed thoughtful.
7
The three months of confinement passed quickly.
After Kỷ Linh’s confinement was lifted, she seemed more prudent and stopped making shocking remarks.
But I knew she hadn’t reined herself in at all. If anything, she’d become even more reckless.
“Take a look at this design for me.”
“What did you study before you transmigrated?”
“The sciences or the humanities?”
Kỷ Linh had handed me a whole set of pistol blueprints.
“Are you crazy?”
“It’s not just that I’ve never studied firearms. Even if you showed me these blueprints, I wouldn’t understand them.”
“Even if there’s nothing wrong with your blueprints, so what?”
“With the technological capabilities of ancient times, it would be impossible to manufacture gun parts with any precision, let alone mass-produce them.”
“Ignoring the historical context and the actual level of productivity to indulge in fantasies is nothing but nonsense.”
I couldn’t be bothered with etiquette or hierarchy anymore. I just wanted to shake her awake.
But the enthusiasm in Kỷ Linh’s eyes wasn’t dampened at all by my cold water.
“How will we know if we don’t try?”
With that, she took out several more designs and handed them to me.
I glanced over them: white sugar, glass, soap…
The essential toolkit of a transmigrator.
My temples throbbed.
“Kỷ Linh, what exactly are you trying to do?”
I set down the designs and looked at her coldly.
She met my gaze just as calmly.
“I want to help His Majesty usher in an age of peace and prosperity.”
“That’s why I need your help.”
“I know you’ve served Empress Dowager Thẩm for many years and are deeply devoted to her.”
“But in the end, this realm belongs to the Zhao clan.”
“Trụy nguyệt, we both came from another world. I don’t want to see you go down a dead-end path.”
Ha. A dead-end path.
I thought she was the one who’d fallen hopelessly into the trap of blind love.
As someone who’d been there before, how could I not know what was on her mind?
She simply thought the young emperor was wise and mighty, but unlucky—oppressed by Empress Dowager Thẩm and the court’s powerful families, unable to realize his ambitions.
She simply felt sorry for the man she loved and wanted to help him.
She simply thought that with her intelligence, she could help the young emperor take power back from the Empress Dowager.
She simply thought that if she helped him, he’d be grateful and love her more.
Feeling sorry for a man is often the beginning of a woman’s every misfortune.
“You say you want to usher in an age of peace and prosperity for His Majesty. Then let me ask you this.”
“During the years the Empress Dowager ruled from behind the curtain, she practiced frugality and let the people recover.”
“Now the realm is at peace and the people are safe. There’s no war abroad or unrest at home. The people live and work in contentment, and the nation is stronger than ever.”
“Why shouldn’t that count as an age of peace and prosperity?”
“Or does it only count as a golden age if His Majesty is the one who ushers it in? No one else is allowed?”
“What you want—is it an age of peace and prosperity for the people, or for ‘His Majesty’?”
“Who are you really pitying? The countless people of this realm, or that ‘poor’ man who lives in silks and brocades but has been stripped of his power?”
“Is everything you do for the people of the realm, or for him and his hunger for power?”
As if I’d exposed her innermost thoughts, Kỷ Linh flushed with angry embarrassment.
“So what?”
“His Majesty has been on the throne for years, yet Empress Dowager Thẩm is still ruling from behind the curtain. It’s illegitimate and improper—like a hen crowing at dawn.”
“She should have returned power to His Majesty long ago. All I’m doing now is giving things a push.”
A hen crowing at dawn?
Illegitimate and improper?
I gave a cold laugh.
“Isn’t what you’re doing now also like a hen crowing at dawn—illegitimate and improper? What, we transmigrated women can build careers just like men, but women in ancient times can’t?”
“If Empress Dowager Thẩm were abusing the people and plundering the realm to enrich herself, then I’d have nothing to say if you wanted to overthrow her. But from what I can see, she’s an exceptionally good ruler. Your emperor, on the other hand, talks big but can’t deliver.”
“He has plenty of schemes but little magnanimity. If power really were placed in his hands, he might not do any better than Empress Dowager Thẩm.”
Kỷ Linh was so enraged by my words she nearly went mad.
She’d meant to turn me against the Empress Dowager and have me act as a spy at her side.
She hadn’t expected me not only to refuse, but also to tear down the man she loved until there was nothing left of him.
After saying all that, I felt a little regret.
In the palace, even walls have ears.
If my words got out, I could be beheaded ten times over.
It was just that Kỷ Linh before me was so much like me when I was young.
I couldn’t help wanting to pull her back before she went down that dead-end path.
But she was lost in love and couldn’t hear a word I said.
“We have different paths and can’t work together.”
Kỷ Linh looked at me with an icy expression I’d never seen before.
“I hope you don’t regret this someday.”