The First Lackey Under The Empress

The best grades in reading, yet ranked last in coursework? Zhao Du'an instinctively sensed there was a story behind it.

Atop the Emperor's Tower, Xu Zhenguan paused before saying, "Because I am a woman."

Zhao Du'an was stunned: "Just like that?"

"Or else?" The white-robed Empress turned her head to glance at him, "Not enough?"

She picked up the wine jug, tilted her head back, and took another gulp, then threw the large jug down from the railing, smashing it to pieces with a "bang."

The palace servants below were not surprised, as if accustomed to it.

Xu Zhenguan said with a hint of self-deprecation:

"Since ancient times, princesses have been famous but without power. Even if they are born into the royal family, none are exceptions.

If my, a princess, coursework surpasses all the princes, especially the Crown Prince, and it spreads out, wouldn't it make people say the royal men are incompetent? To be suppressed by a mere woman?

Moreover, princes, from a young age, should cultivate a confident heart. Too many setbacks are harmful to the cultivation of imperial dignity… My imperial father firmly believed in this, so he instructed the Grand Tutor to rank me last."

Zhao Du'an was silent, thinking that perhaps it was also because the Third Princess was not favored by the late Emperor.

Otherwise, there wouldn't only be one princess in the school; even if ranked, she should be one of the last few… Inconceivable.

"So, Your Majesty was often depressed back then?" he slowly asked.

Xu Zhenguan nodded and softly said:

"At first, I was kept in the dark. Every time the school posted the rankings, I would be in a bad mood and come to the watchtower to relax.

The scenery here is very good. I have a telescope that I can put on my eyes to see the lives of people in the city… Those are lives far more vibrant than those in the palace.

Hmph, princesses are not allowed to go out before adulthood, but the Emperor's Tower is on the edge of the imperial city, and below it are government offices, so it's the furthest I can leave the palace.

It was also then that I first learned to drink, and it was Mo Chou and Sun Lianying who secretly helped me find it.

They were scared to death at the time. If the imperial father knew they dared to give the princess alcohol, they would also be punished with a staff."

No wonder the two were deeply trusted by the Empress… Zhao Du'an thought to himself.

And he noticed that the Empress had changed her self-reference to the word "I."

He said, "But you still found out."

"Yes," Xu Zhenguan exhaled a breath of wine and smiled:

"After a long time, Grand Tutor Dong finally couldn't bear it and secretly told me the truth. Only then did I know that, in terms of talent and learning, I was the first.

From then on, I no longer cared about the academy and learned the four words 'hide one's talents and bide one's time'. My imperial father also gradually stopped paying attention to me… As long as I didn't compete with the princes, he didn't care what else I did."

Zhao Du'an said, "So Your Majesty started cultivating?"

Xu Zhenguan corrected:

"It's reading and cultivation. The imperial palace has a library, gathering books from all over the world, near the armory, rarely visited. I became a regular, and my cultivation also rose steadily."

Zhao Du'an tentatively asked, slightly daring:

"Did Your Majesty have the ambition to seize the throne at that time?"

Xu Zhenguan raised her hand and summoned a new jar of wine, shaking her head:

"I never did. Even if you all may not believe it, but before the Xuanmen coup, I never thought that I could really become a female emperor."

You keep saying '朕 (zhen, imperial 'I')' all the time, it's not very convincing when you say that… Zhao Du'an complained.

Xu Zhenguan was perhaps getting drunk, her desire to confide exploding, and she said to herself:

"At first, I just had a surge of ambition, wanting to prove that I was not weaker than others. Until that year, the Heir of Jing arrived in the capital to seek a marriage…"

Zhao Du'an vigilantly perked up his ears:

"Seeking a marriage?!"

…

…

The capital, on the way between the Emperor's Tower and the Zhao family.

There is a snack street, the night is getting late, and pedestrians are gradually thinning out.

On the long street, an elderly man of great stature quietly walked by, his demeanor otherworldly.

"Old sir, what would you like to order?" Inside a soup noodle shop, the middle-aged boss draped a towel over his right shoulder and asked, looking at the old man who entered the shop.

Zhang Yan smiled and said, "Do you have any sobering soup?"

"Old sir has been drinking?" The soup noodle shop owner asked suspiciously, saying:

"It can be made now, but you'll have to wait a while."

Zhang Yan smiled, stepping outside the shop and sitting down at a table under the awning:

"No rush, slower is fine. I'm waiting for someone to come."

The middle-aged boss suddenly understood:

"Old sir is preparing the soup for a friend? I wonder where the person is, so I can estimate the time."

Zhang Yan, one of the four "Heavenly Humans" of the Great Yu Dynasty, the old Celestial Master of this generation of the Celestial Master's Mansion, the legendary strongest cultivator of the current era, smiled.

He raised his gaze, passed over the awnings propped up by the shops on both sides of the street, and looked towards the brightly lit "Emperor's Tower" in the distance, leisurely saying:

"That's hard to say…"

…

"Seeking a marriage?!"

Zhao Du'an frowned, this was knowledge he didn't know.

Xu Zhenguan suddenly threw him a jar of wine, saying:

"Asking you to accompany me in drinking is not to let you not drink a drop. Drink this jar completely, and I'll tell you."

After a pause, she added, "No expelling."

"Yes…" Zhao Du'an smiled wryly, thinking that with the amount of alcohol he had developed in his previous life, dealing with this ancient low-alcohol wine was no problem.

Immediately, he boldly picked up the wine jar and swallowed it cleanly, without using internal force to expel the alcohol.

Xu Zhenguan nodded in satisfaction and said:

"The Heir of Jing, asked the late Emperor to marry me."

Isn't this consanguineous marriage? Zhao Du'an was incredulous.

Immediately, he remembered that the Prince of Jing was not the late Emperor's biological brother, but a prince enfeoffed by an earlier emperor.

In addition, in the history of this world, the royal family was not so strict about intra-clan marriage.

Compared to childbirth, they valued the political significance of "strengthening ties."

There were even examples of close relatives marrying but not having children, allowing concubines to give birth to heirs to inherit.

It's the Prince of Jing again. The sorcerer almost hurt me before, and now the Heir wants to snatch my Empress… Zhao Du'an was unhappy.

He developed hostility towards the "Heir of Jing" whom he had never met.

"How did Your Majesty respond?" he asked sourly.

Xu Zhenguan glanced at him with a smile that was not a smile and said:

"Of course I didn't want to. What is the Heir of Jing? He wants to get his hands on me? Under the late Emperor's coercion, I simply took my bedding and went to live in the Shenlong Temple, wanting to shave my head and become a nun.

Seeing that I was determined, and because the Heir of Jing had a bad reputation, the Crown Prince, my imperial brother, and my mother and concubine tried their best to speak for me, and this matter was dropped."

Her tone was casual, but Zhao Du'an listened with trepidation.

He could imagine how resolute and unyielding the Third Princess was at that time.

Xu Zhenguan calmly said:

"It was from that time that I resolved to master my own destiny in this life. I don't want to marry, even if the Taizu Emperor crawled out of the imperial mausoleum to force me, don't even think about it."

In the calm tone, there was amazing power.

These words cannot be said casually… Zhao Du'an's heart stirred, and he tentatively asked, in line with his persona:

"Then I wonder what kind of man can make Your Majesty fall in love?"

Xu Zhenguan looked at him strangely, and after a moment, smiled:

"At least the current you, can't."

Zhao Du'an was unconvinced: "People also grow."

Xu Zhenguan chuckled. Perhaps she was drunk, or perhaps she had done something "pleasant" tonight and was in a good mood, and she did not scold him, but softly said:

"Then you should work harder."

"What did Your Majesty say? This subject didn't hear clearly." Zhao Du'an blinked.

Xu Zhenguan flicked her sleeves and returned to the table, putting on a stern face:

"Nothing. I'm hungry, I want to eat. You tell me some interesting things outside the palace to accompany the wine, immediately, right away."

"…This subject, obeys the decree."

Thus, under the silent Emperor's Tower in the night, when a group of palace servants waited with their heads bowed, the wine-crazed Empress began to feast without any image.

Zhao Du'an sat beside her, telling her stories.

The night deepened.

When a "female prime minister" in a female official's robe, wearing a wingless black gauze hat, with a cold and beautiful temperament, arrived at the bottom of the watchtower, she couldn't help but frown:

"Has Your Majesty not come down yet?"