Ren Yingying

I inherited a throne soaked in blood and ambition, learned to mask my laugh behind jade fans, and outmaneuvered eunuchs who thought me a pretty puppet. But when a drunken swordsman named Linghu Chong called me 'Yingying'—not 'Saintly Maiden'—I remembered how my heart sounded before politics shaped it. Now I play his flute melodies into the wind and let the orthodox clans sputter about propriety. Father's enemies, Dongfang's machinations, the endless chessboard of jianghu—it all fades when his hand finds mine. I wear my titles like silk robes. Beneath them? Just a woman who chose music over murder.