Underneath A Thousand Skies ✔️

59 Zhao Cheng, The Mad Emperor (1)

My name is Li Ling, and I am His Majesty's most favored concubine.

They tell me that it was because my features were the most similar to the late Empress that the Emperor bestowed me heavily with his grace. However, no matter how much he favored me, or raised up my rank until I became the second Imperial Consort, the Empress seat remained empty throughout these years.

Actually, the late Empress was my distant cousin. I lived far away from the capital, so we never met. I wish I met her and knew her. There were so many stories about her that I wanted to know which were the truth and which ones were lies.

For example, her virtuous conduct that treated Bai Guifei, His Majesty's previous sweetheart, with generosity. As a wife, she did not make it hard for her to live peacefully in the wangfu. It was only unfortunate, that Bai Guifei had already been imprisoned in the cold palace. I would have liked to talk to her about the Empress.

Bai Guifei's son, the current crown prince, was also neglected by His Majesty. They never talked much. Even when they were in the same room, there was only a cold silence that felt extremely suffocating. I sometimes feel that the gaze of the crown prince towards me was piercing, as if he hated me to the core. I could not help but shudder when I think about it.

There are 3,000 beauties in the palace. All of them, in some way or another, resembled the late Empress. Either in her smile or the way she walked, or her taste in clothes and the color of her hair. I know that His Majesty does not really love me. What he loves is my reflection of Her Majesty, the woman inside his heart.

There are many rumors about the insane things His Majesty did after the Empress died. The most popular one was that during the first decade of his reign, the Emperor tried to preserve the body of the Empress using all kinds of different methods. One of the rumors narrated how His Majesty filled the whole Kun Ning Palace with blocks and blocks of ice, an extravagance that made many officials in the court pale with anger and worry. However, His Majesty did not listen to their pleas. He also dispatched several envoys to search the world for godly doctors that could bring a dead person back to life, and herbs that were rumored to have extraordinary healing properties.

However, his desperate search ended up in vain.

A dead body, no matter how much it was preserved, would still ultimately decay. Ten years after his fruitless searching, the corpse of Her Majesty finally collapsed into dust. His Majesty nearly went insane, executing anyone whom he thought was responsible. However, no matter how much blood he spilled or heads he beheaded, it remained a fact that without a body, he could no longer resuscitate the Empress back to life.

So without the original, the Emperor could only satisfy himself with the next best thing.

Substitutes.

I am the most favored consort only because I was the best substitute for the Empress. Every time His Majesty shared my bed, he would tell me to call him by his previous honorary title, 'wang ye'. In return, he would call me "Jia'er." I was not to open my eyes during the times we made love, because he told me that it would break the fantasy. I dutifully obeyed his orders.

Sometimes His Majesty would be gentle, sometimes he would be rough. During the times it was especially painful to accommodate him, he would scold me, saying that it was only right for me to suffer because I abandoned him. However, I knew that it was not me he was talking to, but the woman he was seeing through me, Empress Li.

Empress Li would forever be the deepest wound in His Majesty's heart, the deepest regret in his memories.

I love His Majesty, but I know that this love would never be reciprocated. There are many of those who love him inside the imperial harem. Although we are substitutes, as long as he disillusioned himself that we are "Jia'er," His Majesty would pamper us endlessly.

Anything we needed, he would give. Anything we wished for, he would grant.

As long as we do not break the illusion...

However, one woman stood up against all expectations and cruelly shattered the mirror that His Majesty created.

"She is dead! Brother Cheng, she is dead! Stop closing your eyes to the truth and accept it!"

This was her scream.

Bai Guifei's scream.

Her last scream before the Emperor coldly threw out a decree to have her beheaded.

No one knew how she got out of the cold palace. No one knew...but me.

Truthfully, I...just really wanted to know more about the Empress. I wanted to know more about the Empress' habits so that I could substitute her better. Her Majesty's personal maids were all executed for not protecting her properly, so Bai Guifei was my only choice.

However...I think the crown prince suspected that I was the one behind it. He probably suspects that I schemed against his birth mother.

I think His Highness would try to kill me soon.

But I am not afraid.

There was another beauty that entered the palace, and she looked even more like the Empress than I did. I heard from the palace maids that His Majesty flipped her nameplate tonight.

He would probably not come to my palace today, or in the near future.

Maybe after I died, I can finally ask my cousin Li Jia about how she captured the Emperor's heart when I meet her in the afterlife.