Farewell to You Between the Future and the Past - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Xiao Zhao’s voice pulled me back to the present.

“A beauty who brought disaster? Maybe. But what I’m talking about is only a rumor. There aren’t any real historical records to back it up. I’m just sharing it with the darlings in the livestream for fun.

“That said, Great Yin really did hate this Demon Empress. Every official historical record about her was erased.

“Only the unofficial chronicle Secret History of Great Yin has a line or two about her. According to that, the Demon Empress’s surname was Lu and her given name was Zhao. She was once Emperor Li of Yin’s second empress.

“Before this underground palace was discovered, we always thought the Demon Empress was a fictional character invented in later novels.”

Xiao Zhao crouched on the ground with the camera, digging as she explained.

I crouched beside her and saw the comments scrolling by.

[I’m dying to know how the Demon Empress actually died. Romance of Great Yin says she died selling her body. No idea if that’s true.]

[They already said it’s a novel. How could it be true? I’m more curious about the relationship between the Demon Empress and Emperor Li of Yin’s first empress. Haven’t a lot of historians speculated that the empress was strangled to death by the Demon Empress?]

[The three great unsolved mysteries of Great Yin: the death of Emperor Li of Yin’s first empress, what crime the First Demon Empress Lu Zhao committed to have her existence erased from history, and why Emperor Li of Yin had no heirs. Don’t forget, no matter how later generations condemned Lu Zhao, she was also ruthless enough to extend the Yin Dynasty’s life by another two hundred years.]

[But Lu Zhao was a disaster-bringing beauty too, wasn’t she? Otherwise, why would Emperor Li of Yin marry a woman fifteen years older than him? And if not for her, so many loyal ministers wouldn’t have died, and Great Yin wouldn’t have spent the next two centuries with almost no capable people left to use.]

[Not only that, some historians also speculate that Emperor Li of Yin had no children because of Lu Zhao. Apparently, Lu Zhao was barren, and to secure her own position, she drugged Emperor Li of Yin so he could never have heirs!]

The rapidly scrolling comments yanked my thoughts back more than three thousand years.

At that time, Emperor Li of Yin was still a newborn infant.

Great Yin was in turmoil. The previous emperor had suddenly passed away without leaving any heirs, and all hope rested in the empress’s womb.

She placed the newborn baby in my arms.

Her eyes were filled with tears. “Ah Zhao, the future of Great Yin is in your hands now.”

My hands trembled as I took the baby girl into my arms.

Outside the palace hall, cold rain fell without end. The ministers, dressed in vermilion court robes, knelt on the stone tiles.

I walked out of the blood-soaked hall and raised the baby girl high, declaring in a clear voice,

“Her Majesty the Empress has given birth to a little prince! Great Yin has an heir!”

Nine tolls of the bell rang out. And amid that endless curtain of rain, the frail empress passed away with a thunderous finality.