The Princess Consort Wants to Rebel Every Day - Chapter 1
The day Zhou Ting’an sent over his betrothal gifts, my father nearly fainted against the wedding chests.
“I never dreamed anyone would propose to this impossible daughter of mine. The ancestors have taken pity on me at last.”
He dropped to his knees at once, kowtowed three times in the direction of our family shrine, then gave the servants who had brought the gifts a solemn bow. “Please tell His Highness that if he is willing to marry my daughter, he may keep every coin of the betrothal gifts. I’ll add a hundred thousand taels of silver from my own pocket.”
At that, my calculating elder sister, Jiang Yuhe, burst into tears. “Father, have you lost your mind? How much silver have you earned in your entire life? If you give it all away for Jiang Qingye, what will you offer when I marry? Your old bones?”
The old man slapped her. Spittle flew as he shouted, “I have lived with honor. How did I raise a daughter so greedy for riches? Your younger sister is a menace. If she stays, sooner or later she’ll bring disaster on us. Why compete with her? Say another word and I’ll thrash you today!”
Jiang Yuhe crumpled to the ground, clutching her handkerchief as though she might faint. “Father, you’re driving me to my death…”
The old man kicked at her and kept ranting. “If you weren’t my own flesh and blood, I’d have asked the Emperor to have you executed long ago! All day long you chase men, throwing yourself at princes and landing in young lords’ laps, and still not one of them wants you. You’re worse than your sister… How did I end up with the two of you? What sins did I commit?”
The courtyard rang with their wails. The servants from the prince’s residence looked as if they wished they could dig holes and disappear.
I snorted, pulled out my little leather whip, and split a wedding chest with one lash. Gold ingots spilled across the ground.
Jiang Yuhe’s eyes fixed on them. She flicked her handkerchief and said in her sweetest voice, “Qingye, if you have to hit someone, hit Father. He’s tough enough to take it. Your sister needs to keep this delicate skin intact so she can find you a fine brother-in-law to protect you…”
She crawled over, picked up a gold ingot, and bit it hard. Once she knew it was real, she stuffed a handful into her clothes, heedless of how they pressed against her chest.
I stepped past the chest and approached the servants.
“Tell your prince I have no taste for these vulgar things. If he truly means to win me over, he can seize a throne and bring me that!”
The servants shook so badly they could not speak. My father recovered first: his eyes rolled back, and he fainted.
My father, Jiang Zheng, was a censor of Xihai. Upright and incorruptible, he loved his sovereign and his country so fiercely that no one in Xihai could claim to surpass him.
Unfortunately, neither of his daughters was easy to manage.
Jiang Yuhe was famous in the capital for her honeyed, calculating ways. She had flirted with every eligible son from an official family of the third rank or above. She was beautiful, and men fell at her feet, but her reputation kept anyone from seeking her hand.
As for me, rebellion had been in my bones since childhood. My sister chased men, so I wanted her to settle down. My father was loyal to the throne, so I wanted to see him rebel and topple the court.
Ever since I was small, I had tried countless times to put a little backbone in him. While he still had the Emperor’s favor, why not stab the young emperor and crown ourselves?
But my father was hopelessly rigid. His life’s ambition was to dash his head against a pillar in the throne hall and leave behind an honorable name.
Our paths could hardly have diverged more. Father and daughter were never close.
The Regent, Zhou Ting’an, was no ordinary man either. At three he could read and write. At four he lost his mother. At five the Empress Dowager abused him so badly he almost died. At six the former emperor pushed him into a lake, and he nearly drowned. At seven he was sent away as a hostage to neighboring Xiliang, where he suffered humiliation after humiliation. At fifteen he returned to the capital, killed the former emperor, installed his younger brother on the throne, and settled into the Regency for more than a decade.
I sympathized deeply with everything he had suffered. What I couldn’t understand was what he chose to do with his power.
If he could overturn the entire court, why settle for governing in someone else’s name?
It made no sense to me.
So every few days, I visited his residence to discuss our grand plan for making him emperor.
Each time I arrived full of enthusiasm. Zhou Ting’an would recline on a couch, head propped on one hand, watching me with the languor of an invalid.
When I had finished laying out all the advantages, he would order a plate of osmanthus cakes. He’d eat them, then say at his leisure, “Show her out.”
After enough visits like that, I lost all interest in him.
Why waste my time on a coward whose head held nothing but osmanthus cakes?
