It was Wen Yanran herself who had guided the situation to this point, yet at this moment, she was quietly reading in the side hall.
Wen Yanran thought that although Grand Tutor Yuan was indeed a loyal minister, not every official under his influence shared his sincerity. Among them, there were bound to be those driven by ambition and thirst for power. Such was the way of the world. By pushing Wen Jingmei forward, even if the two of them had no wish to rival each other, those around them would inevitably begin to pit one against the other.
A female official came in to report and led a court censor into the hall. He had come to deliver a memorial from the Ministry of Rites for the Emperor’s review. It was early winter, and the year’s end was approaching; Wen Yanran needed to decide on her reign title for the new era following her accession.
In the memorial submitted, the Ministry of Rites had already drafted several proposed titles. At the top of the list were “Yanping” (“Extending Peace”) and “Cheng’an” (“Inheriting Tranquility”).
After glancing over the proposals, Wen Yanran couldn’t help but laugh softly.
“‘Yanping’ – what peace is there to extend? ‘Cheng’an’ – what tranquility is there to inherit?”
Given the current state of Great Zhou, even calling it “strong on the outside but hollow within” would be putting it mildly.
Seeing how adept her ministers were at glossing over reality and pretending that all was well, Wen Yanran felt that her goal of becoming a proper inept ruler had advanced yet another small step.
The traces of blood left by the palace rebels had only just been scrubbed clean. The court censor realized that the Emperor was not pleased, and, terrified that she might suddenly take offense and have him dragged away to join the traitors, stood trembling like a quail at the side.
Chi Yi, who was bolder and had come to understand the Emperor’s temperament after spending some time in her service, smiled and said, “The era name proposed by the Ministry of Rites can, of course, never compare to one chosen by Your Majesty’s own enlightened will.”
Wen Yanran thought for a moment, then picked up her brush and wrote two characters on the memorial.
“Since that’s the case, the reign title shall be Zhaoming.”
Zhaoming was a word with multiple meanings, but in Wen Yanran’s mind, she chose the one signifying “radiant light.”
When the heavens grow bright again, and people awaken from a long nightmare – that would be a good omen.
That day, for once, it did not snow. Only when the wind passed through the pines heavy with snow did flakes scatter like white foam.
Since ascending the throne, Wen Yanran’s daily routine had followed a fixed rhythm. After washing, she picked up a book, though it took her a long while to turn even a single page.
Chi Yi noticed that whenever the Emperor wasn’t discussing state affairs with her ministers, she would sometimes lapse into a silent daze, staring into the distance.
But Wen Yanran wasn’t daydreaming – she was looking at her system interface.
It had been quite a few days since her transmigration, yet the line of text at the top – “Ascended to the throne” – hadn’t changed in the slightest. Wen Yanran, who had at least hoped for something like a progress bar to appear, couldn’t help grumbling inwardly: if this thing had been made by a programmer, the developer had probably wrapped up the user interface and then vanished with the paycheck.
A female official entered the hall and reported to the Emperor, “Your Majesty, the imperial carriage awaits outside.”
Wen Yanran set down her scroll, glanced at the sky, and rose to her feet.
“It’s time,” she said.
Today was her enthronement ceremony.
According to the formal procedure, Wen Yanran first had to make a ceremonial circuit outside the city, then return to the capital to the Tianfu Palace to perform ancestral rites – offering incense before the imperial temple and issuing the proclamation of amnesty to the realm.
A female official stepped forward to help her don the imperial crown. The crown bore twelve strings of hanging beads, each strand strung with jade pearls, and it was exceedingly heavy. For that reason, emperors of Great Zhou, unless for an indispensable ritual, would never wear it lightly.
Feeling the weight of the crown, Wen Yanran decided it was a wise tradition – at the very least, it had spared her predecessors countless cases of migraines and neck pain.
When the Son of Heaven set out, the dukes and ministers led the procession ahead, followed by eighty-one imperial carriages. On both sides, ranks of imperial guards stood like walls of feathers. The grand procession wound within and around the city of Jianping, like a great dragon circling the land.
The enthronement ritual was exceedingly elaborate, yet every step was overseen by officials of the Ministry of Rites. Thus, for Wen Yanran, aside from walking, all she really had to do was bow to Heaven, pay homage to the ancestors of the Wen clan, and toss into the ritual cauldron a document of invocation prepared in advance by the ministry.
By tradition, the State Preceptor was to escort the new monarch to the very summit of the altar. However, when there were still five steps left to climb, Wen Yanran, resting her hand lightly on Wen Jingmei’s arm, pressed just enough for the latter to halt. The remaining distance, the Son of Heaven walked alone.
Upon the high platform, Wen Yanran slowly turned around and, through the strings of jade beads hanging from her crown, looked down upon the ministers standing below the steps.
She was not afraid of heights, yet at this moment she felt a faint, wine-like dizziness.
Just from the sight before her eyes, who could imagine that the Great Zhou was already a dynasty nearing its fated end? On the contrary, it gave one the illusion that the power of the entire realm lay firmly in her grasp.
The ceremony was drawing to a close. The master of rites was reading aloud the imperial edict of amnesty issued upon her accession – granting titles and rewards to the ministers – and then, in a solemn voice, proclaiming the reign title to be used in the new era beginning the following year.
As the final words echoed into silence, all the ministers prostrated themselves upon the ground to perform the great bow to the Son of Heaven. In that instant, Wen Yanran felt as though within this vast heaven and earth, she alone remained standing. She did not move; the strings of pearls before her forehead swayed gently amid the chorus of voices rising around her like mountains.
At that moment, no one dared lift their head to meet her gaze – nor would anyone notice that the Emperor’s eyes had shifted slightly aside.
On the translucent system interface visible only to her, the words “Ascended the Throne” slowly turned red, then slid upward by one line – and in their place appeared new characters: “Rebellion in Jianping.”
Along the palace pathway, several young eunuchs were sweeping the snow.
They were in charge of maintaining the grounds around Qiyan Palace, and in their idle chatter, they often gossiped about the imperial relatives whom the Emperor had kept within the palace.
After the period of national mourning ended, Wen Yanran had not immediately released those members of the imperial clan. Instead, she allowed them to remain in comfort for several more days, well fed and well housed. Finally, she personally assigned them new residences, giving the official explanation that since the Commander of the Central Guard had rebelled, Jianping was somewhat unstable – and it would be safer for them to live closer to the imperial city.
Had anyone other than the Emperor said such a thing, they would surely have been met with the sarcastic remark. “If the one who rebelled was the Commander of the Central Guard, wouldn’t that mean the farther away from the palace, the safer?”
The ordinary close-branch imperial relatives had been released, but the Eleventh Princess and the Thirteenth Prince, being still very young, were deliberately kept in the palace by Wen Yanran. Even Wen Jingmei – though he was the State Preceptor and of the same Wen clan – had no grounds on which to petition the Emperor to let the two young royals leave the palace and establish their own households.
Wen Yanran did not treat her younger sister and brother the same way she treated that “cheap seventh brother.” She even went to visit them personally and inquired about their food and clothing, making it clear that she had no intention of mistreating her half-siblings.
The rebellion had only just been put down a few days ago. Even if the Emperor appeared somewhat suspicious and imposed strict limits on the imperial clan, the ministers had no grounds for complaint. And besides, compared to the treatment of the close-branch princes and princesses, there were far more pressing matters requiring their attention.
Wen Yanran now had two main places where she conducted official business. One was the front hall of Western Yong Palace, which was connected to her private chambers and thus mainly used for discussing affairs of state with her most trusted ministers. The other was the Heqing Hall, the principal venue for Great Zhou’s regular court sessions.
Every morning, before dawn had even broken, Wen Yanran would be dragged out of bed by her female attendants. After washing and dressing, she would board her carriage to be taken to Heqing Hall.
Even though the working hours of the Great Zhou court were in severe conflict with the prospect of a good night’s sleep, the diligent ministers still had to rise punctually and arrive at their posts before their “boss” appeared. So, when Wen Yanran finally entered Heqing Hall, the sight that greeted her was always a crowd of industrious officials who had been waiting respectfully for quite some time.
Though it was early winter, the hall remained as warm as spring.
Wen Yanran was still young and had recently recovered from an illness, so the attentive palace attendants had draped a layer of fox-fur blanket over the dragon throne in advance, lest the Emperor catch a chill.
They had also planned to lower the beaded curtain before the throne and set up two mica screens in front of it – but Wen Yanran signaled for them to omit that.
From time to time, setting up such screens before the imperial seat was a long-standing custom of Great Zhou. It had little to do with shielding the Emperor from drafts; its real purpose was to keep ministers from seeing the Emperor’s expression clearly, thereby creating an aura of inscrutable majesty.
Wen Yanran had once read through the various ritual codes of Great Zhou in her leisure time and felt that a large portion of them served no real function – other than providing the Imperial Household Department staff with something to do.
Wen Yanran had once worried that she would become nothing more than a decorative figure on the throne – an ornament placed in court for show. But once she actually attended morning audience, she realized the situation was not that dire.
The previous emperors of Great Zhou, wary of young monarchs being completely controlled by their ministers, had made many precautions. One of them was this: whenever possible, the successor to the throne was to be no younger than twelve, ensuring that each new ruler possessed at least a basic capacity for judgment, so that the affairs of state would not fall entirely into ministerial hands.
Even with the late emperor’s deep trust in Yuan Yanshi, when appointing him as regent, he had still imposed limits on that great minister’s authority. Thus, although Wen Yanran had little practical experience in handling state affairs, she was nonetheless required to attend court sessions, listen to reports, and respond to ministers’ petitions – ensuring that the ultimate right of decision remained firmly in imperial hands.
Today’s audience was a continuation of earlier discussions. Before his death, the late emperor – despite his failing health – had ruthlessly dismissed a large number of officials, leaving vacancies throughout the ministries. Now, Yuan Yanshi and the other senior ministers were petitioning the Emperor to fill those posts as soon as possible, so that the central administration could resume normal operation.
As Wen Yanran listened to the ministers below debating, she was quietly thinking to herself.
Great Zhou had an imperial examination system, though it was still in its early stages. The timing of each examination was highly flexible, and given the current instability of the realm, even if a special grace examination were held, most of the candidates would likely come only from nearby Jianzhou.
Aside from the examinations, the Emperor could also recruit or appoint talents directly into government service. Those thus appointed varied in background – some were renowned scholars and great Confucian masters, others came from established official families, and still others, like Princess Qingyi, received official favor due to their special social standing.
Thinking of this, Wen Yanran shifted her gaze toward the senior ministers standing below.
The hierarchy of Great Zhou’s court was strictly ordered – the higher one’s rank, the closer one stood to the imperial throne. Wen Yanran had not been in this world long and had only just managed to memorize the faces of the senior officials.
Her gaze swept past Yuan Yanshi and the others, then came to rest on a woman standing to the right – an exotic-looking figure.
That was Princess Qingyi, Xiao Xichi, the very person Wen Yanran had just been thinking of.
If Zhong Zhiwei’s features carried only a hint of foreign blood, then Xiao Xichi’s appearance was that of a true foreigner. Her eyebrows were sharp as blades, her nose high and straight, her skin a healthy bronze wheat tone, and her eyes lighter in color than those of Central Plains folk. On her ears hung ornaments carved and polished from animal bone.
Qingyi was a large prefecture on the northern border of Great Zhou – a land inhabited mainly by foreign tribes. Its customs differed greatly from those of the Central Plains. Since the founding of Great Zhou, the region had alternated between surrender and rebellion time and again, a textbook case of instability.
Xiao Xichi was the current generation’s chieftain of the Qingyi tribes. Over ten years ago, she had been sent to Jianping as a hostage and was granted the title of Princess of Qingyi by the late emperor, along with the honorary rank of general. On paper, her treatment appeared generous. Yet now that the previous chieftain of Qingyi had passed away, Xiao Xichi herself remained confined in Jianping, forbidden to leave. She held no official post and ordinarily did not attend court; it was only because Wen Yanran had just ascended the throne that she had to appear each morning to “check in” at the palace and let the new ruler recognize her face.
Xiao Xichi was a warrior by nature, sharp in perception. Sensing the gaze directed toward her from above, she looked up toward the imperial throne.
Their eyes met – Wen Yanran smiled faintly at her.
As a transmigrator who already knew the plot, Wen Yanran was well aware that at this very moment, Xiao Xichi was already planning to flee back home and reclaim her tribal leadership. The court’s attitude toward Qingyi was one of open appeasement but covert suppression; once the latter found an opportunity, it was certain to break free from Great Zhou’s control – becoming a massive source of future turmoil.
In one of the branching storylines of that interactive novel, readers could choose to have Xiao Xichi eliminated early in Jianping. However, upon hearing of her death, the entire Qingyi prefecture went into mourning – and then rose in collective rebellion. Though the court eventually suppressed the uprising, it succeeded only in bringing the great chaos of the realm forward by more than five years.
