[Palace Intrigue + Favorite Consort + Emperor’s Partiality + Stealing a Minister’s Wife + Coquettish Beauty]
Shen Si had been pampered and raised by Crown Prince Gu Lingyun since childhood. The first time she begged him, she said she didn’t want to enter the Eastern Palace because she feared the struggles and schemes. He granted her wish to remain at home, intending to bring her into the palace as a consort after his coronation.
The second time she begged him, the new Emperor had just ascended the throne. At the height of her favor, on the eve of her induction into the palace, she knelt and kowtowed at the palace gates, begging His Majesty to grant her marriage to the world-renowned Xie Xiaohouye. She claimed she only wished to share life and death with him and was unwilling to enter the palace as a concubine.
In an unprecedented move, the Emperor issued the imperial decree, sparing her entire clan, but he refused to see her.
On the night of her rebirth—the third time she sought him—she appeared in plain clothes with her hair down. Overwhelmed by grievance and fear, she disregarded all decorum before the hall and threw herself into the arms of the man who was now Emperor, begging for his favor and clamoring for a divorce from Xie Queshan. Only after dying once did she realize that only the Emperor’s favor could keep her alive.
— “Your Majesty, please dote on me…”
Shen Si had been crying for a long time. Had His Majesty forgotten her after only three years!?
Gu Lingyun held her in his arms, his gaze dark and inscrutable. “Which kind of ‘doting’?”
Shen Si steeled her heart and kissed his lips. “Your Majesty said you would dote on me to the bone.”
Gu Lingyun looked at her delicate and pitiful appearance; how could he possibly endure it?
