Behind Palace Walls: The Prince’s Bride Earns Her Merit on the Spot

When I was five, Father punished me by making me kneel in the ancestral hall.

The next day, I tore the hall down with my bare hands.

At seven, my eldest sister discovered that her fiancé kept a mistress. She cried all night.

I tracked down the woman’s house, locked the courtyard gate from outside, and invited half the street to enjoy the spectacle.

By the next day, the marquis’s household had broken off the engagement. The man and his mistress were famous.

Afraid I would bring the capital down around their ears, my parents packed me into a carriage that very night.

“Ruoruo, your brother sits the imperial examinations next year, and both your sisters need husbands. With you in the capital, none of it will happen.”

“Stay with your mother’s family for a few years. We’ll choose an auspicious day to bring you home.”

I was very obedient.

I stayed for ten years.

For ten years, I worshipped the Buddha every day and handed out porridge every month.

When my cousin took my jewelry, I never argued.

When she fell off her horse, I even sat beside her bed, tapping my wooden fish and praying for her.

Everyone praised my serene nature and a bodhisattva’s compassion.

Word eventually reached the capital: Grand Tutor Zhou’s youngest daughter was well brought up, gentle, and kind, the finest young lady of her generation.

No one knew I spent my merit and earned it back on the spot.

A few taps of the wooden fish, and the karmic debt was paid.

I was the one who had tampered with my cousin’s horse.

What I hadn’t expected was for even the great personages in the palace to believe my reputation.

The day I returned to the capital, my carriage had barely reached the Zhou residence when an imperial decree arrived, granting me a husband.