1
The late emperor died the very night I was married into the palace. Every consort in the imperial harem had to be buried alive with him, regardless of rank.
The original owner of this body was only a young empress who had just come of age, yet she was scared to death on her wedding night. Then I transmigrated into her body.
How unlucky could I get? I’d transmigrated into the body of an empress dowager who’d just lost her husband—and was about to be buried alive with him.
But that wasn’t all. The new emperor had the exact same face as my ex-boyfriend!
I suspected he’d transmigrated here with me, too.
That was because this dog of an emperor wore the same cold, twisted smile as my ex-boyfriend had in our old world. But… I didn’t have any proof.
When the accident happened, we were in a car, arguing. The moment I finished speaking, a truck came barreling toward us with a deafening crash.
Now he held my life and death in his hands.
Baby, if I want to go back now, is there still time?
I dropped to my knees on the bed with a thud, tears welling in my eyes as I clutched the hem of Tống Tư Kỳ’s robe.
“Your Majesty, please don’t make me be buried alive with the late emperor.”
To my surprise, he suddenly shoved me down onto the bed and pinned me beneath his muscular frame.
You treacherous little brat!
He gave a smile that wasn’t quite a smile, his tone suggestive:
“I remember your name is Trần Uyển Uyển. You don’t want to be buried alive? Then you’ll have to pay a fitting price, won’t you?”
Me: “…”
I hesitated for a moment, looking at the same bewitchingly beautiful face he’d had in our old world, then suddenly… lay back and went along with it.
“All right. Come on.”
Don’t hold back just because I’m a delicate flower.
It’s not like we haven’t slept together before.
But then he suddenly stood up and coolly ordered:
“Trọng Hỉ, keep watch over the Empress Dowager and make her sweep every path in the palace.”
???
I’d already taken off my pants, and now you’re talking about this???
Why are you pretending to be such a gentleman? Who was it that almost laid hands on me just now?
He turned and walked away.
Wait!
Come back! I think we can still negotiate a little!
2.
As I swept the palace path, an outrageously treasonous idea suddenly came to me.
I wanted to seize the throne! I was going to sit on it myself—there was no way I’d let that bastard keep it!
“I’m going to a nunnery. When I come back, I’ll be Nữu Hỗ Lộc Uyển Uyển. I’m going to be Wu Zetian!”
Under cover of a dark, windy night, with no one around, I gritted my teeth and said it aloud. It wasn’t as if anyone here knew who Wu Zetian was. This was a fictional dynasty called Đại Lăng, after all.
If anyone asked who Wu Zetian was, the answer was simple: my bestie!
“You think you can be Wu Zetian? Is that tiny little brain of yours even up to the task?”
A contemptuous, icy laugh rang out in the darkness. I saw Tống Tư Kỳ standing there in imperial robes, his long black hair loose, his brows sharply defined, his gaze deep and cold.
Perfect! Now I had proof. He really had transmigrated here with me!
“But if you want to go to a nunnery, I can grant your wish.”
Listen to him! Is that any way for a human being to talk?!
“We did have a thing once, after all. Don’t be so heartless.” I had no choice but to bow before supreme power.
After I said that, I immediately looked around.
Tống Tư Kỳ frowned. “What are you looking around for?”
“Where’s the eunuch who’s usually with you?” I asked, a little uneasy.
If someone else had heard what I’d just said and spread it around, it would become a fatal weakness.
“Of course I sent them all away.” As he spoke, he came closer step by step and backed me right up against the palace wall.
How thrilling! A dog of an emperor sneaking off for a midnight rendezvous with a beautiful empress dowager!
He slowly leaned closer. Sure enough, he still wanted my body!
I looked at him calmly and smiled. “Call me ‘Mother’ and let me hear it.”
If I was going to seek a thrill, I might as well go all the way!
3.
Tống Tư Kỳ’s face darkened, as gloomy as the night. Gritting his teeth, he said:
“Do you want to be buried alive or not?!”
Threatening me? Figures. What a dog of an emperor!
I gave him a shameless, fawning smile. “Just kidding. If you won’t call me that, then don’t.”
In front of everyone else, you can’t escape it anyway,
my
good
son!
“Behave yourself, and I’ll spare your life.”
He lifted a lock of hair from my chest and gently tucked it behind my ear, then bent down and lightly kissed my earlobe. His breath was scorching, sending a tingling shiver through me.
Suddenly, his eyes sharpened like a hawk’s, and he glanced behind me.
“Who’s there?”
His hearing was way too sharp!
“Your Majesty, spare my life! This servant didn’t see anything!”
A palace maid fell to her knees, trembling.
Tống Tư Kỳ let go of me, his gaze icy. He reached up, pulled the gold hairpin from my hair, then slowly turned and walked toward the maid.
He clamped one hand over her mouth and drove the hairpin straight into her stomach without hesitation.
Damn it!
He killed her! And he did it so smoothly!
He’d adapted to his role as emperor with terrifying speed.
Beneath the moonlight, Tống Tư Kỳ’s expression was calm and his gaze cold and merciless. He didn’t let go until the maid had stopped breathing.
His long, slender fingers pulled the hairpin out of her limp body. Dark red blood smeared the gold, and a few drops spattered across his knuckles.
He calmly wiped away the blood. In the moonlight, he seemed eerie and otherworldly.
I stared at him, stunned. “Why did you ki// her?”
“Only the dead can keep a secret.”
In that moment, I suddenly realized… I’d never really understood Tống Tư Kỳ at all.
4.
After finishing the palace paths, I returned to Từ Khê Điện.
Without meaning to, I found myself thinking about Tống Tư Kỳ again.
I met him in college. He was a year ahead of me.
I’d heard he’d placed first on the college entrance exam. He’d always been an outstanding student, had won countless prestigious awards, and was so handsome it was hard to look away.
The first night I met him was at a bar. We got into a confrontation with a few other people.
A bottle was about to hit me in the head, but he stepped in and stopped it.
In the shimmering lamplight, his face was so devastatingly handsome it took my breath away.
So I started pursuing him. Luckily, I wasn’t half bad at it.
They say, “When a woman pursues a man, it’s only a thin veil between them.” It took me just two months to get him to say yes.
At first, things between us were great.
Then, just before the car accident, his ex-girlfriend suddenly came back as an exchange student.
After that, he started going out at night all the time.
I couldn’t take it anymore. Eventually, I fought with him and suggested we break up.
After that… we transmigrated to this godforsaken place.
But what was even more terrifying was… he still had the presence of mind to scheme!
He said he wanted to wrest power from the regent at court to secure his own life. To do that, he needed the backing of my body’s original owner’s maternal family.
5.
A banquet was being held in the palace, but before it began, the regent came to my palace to request an audience.
Rumor had it the regent was a living Yanluo—a bad mood was all it took for him to kill someone for amusement.
Honestly, I really didn’t want to meet a lunatic like that.
But did I have a choice? Not at all.
The moment I saw the regent, Tống Tử Kỳ, I froze.
“Your subject pays her respects to Your Majesty.”
He… he had the exact same face as Tống Tư Kỳ!
When the palace maid Tiểu Thúy saw me standing there dumbstruck, she trembled as she called out, “Empress Dowager.”
I snapped back to my senses and hurriedly told him to rise.
Oh my God, what was going on? Which of the two was my ex-boyfriend?
“Mother, I have something I’d like to discuss with you.”
He was clearly much more polite than Tống Tư Kỳ. He called me “Mother” once, then “Mother” again, as if it came naturally.
If he’d put it that way, he obviously wanted to speak with me in private.
I told the servants to leave first.
I tested him: “Stay the same no matter how things change?”
He raised an eyebrow. “That one’s old.”
“What do you call your father’s father?”
“I’m your old man.”
I took a deep breath and asked solemnly, “Are you from the twenty-first century?”
He chuckled, a familiar glint in his eyes.
“I’m Tống Tư Kỳ. When we were arguing, we got hit by a car. After we woke up, we were here. Uyển Uyển, I’m just glad you’re all right. I was worried sick about you.”
“You have to be on my side now, on the same front. If we win, I’ll keep my position and be able to protect you.”
Wait… He was Tống Tư Kỳ?
Then… who was the emperor, after all?!
6.
I let him leave. I needed some quiet time to process everything.
Then I called Tiểu Thúy over to ask her about it.
I finally learned that the emperor and the regent were both sons of Consort Xian, the late emperor’s most beloved consort.
According to ancient beliefs, twins were considered an ill omen.
But the two of them were different. On the day they were born, flocks of birds circled over the imperial palace, and at the same time, a sudden downpour broke a long drought.
The late emperor already doted on Consort Xian, and now she had given birth to two princes. The Imperial Astronomical Bureau declared it an auspicious sign, so both boys were allowed to remain in the palace.
The elder son is now the emperor.
The younger son is the regent.
The two of them now command equal power at court, but the regent has always resented his brother. How could he swallow the fact that he lost the throne just because he was born one moment later?
They’d been fighting in secret for years, leaving the court constantly on edge.
One of them is trouble enough.
Two are even worse.
I was made empress at a very young age, of course, because my maternal family held considerable power at court.
My family had influential figures among both the civil officials and the military, with power that reached across the court.
But… what did that have to do with me?!
I was obviously a useless, unloved daughter. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been sent to the palace to marry an old emperor nearing fifty and become a sacrificial pawn in this game of political scheming.
I wanted to go back to the twenty-first century!
If I couldn’t, then living comfortably as the Empress Dowager, eating my fill and waiting to die, wouldn’t be so bad.
Anything would be better than this—being trapped in the mystery of which one was my ex-boyfriend while getting dragged into a fight for the throne, with my head at risk every moment!
I really ought to thank them for that.