On the Day He Ascended the Throne, He Kneeled and Called Me Mother Empress - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My name is Haya.

In the Chiyuan Royal Court, many people call me a half-breed behind my back.

My father was the sharpest general of the Wolf Court, but my mother was a physician captured from the Southern Lands. The year she gave birth to me, the Northern Frontier had just finished a great war. Everyone in the Royal Court feared the people of the Southern Lands and looked down on them. Yet, my father protected my mother as if she were his own life, even daring to refuse the secondary consort bestowed upon him by the King.

Later, my father died at the border.

My mother also passed away when I was thirteen.

Before she died, she gripped my hand and left me with only one sentence.

“Never believe a man’s promise of protection. The one who truly protects you will reach out his hand before he speaks.”

I didn’t understand it then.

At sixteen, I was brought back to the Royal City. Nominally, I was the orphaned daughter of General Gale, but in reality, everyone knew I was brought back to serve as a touchstone for the Crown Prince, Ah Qin.

He was two years older than me.

In his youth, he rode the fastest horses and shot the furthest arrows. He would also climb over the wall into my small courtyard to toss me candied fruits he had brought from outside. He said, “Haya, don’t listen to those people’s nonsense. When I ascend the throne, I will make them all shut up.”

When he said those words, his eyes were bright.

I believed him for many years.

I even thought he would be the one who reached out his hand first.

That was until the King fell gravely ill, and the old nobles in the Royal Court suddenly began to exalt the concept of “bloodline” to the heavens again.

They claimed that the continuous natural disasters in the Northern Frontier in recent years were because impure blood had infiltrated the Royal Court.

They wanted to hold a Blood Purification Ritual.

To put it bluntly, they were looking for a sacrificial lamb to give everyone an outlet for their madness.

And I was the most suitable candidate.

On the day of the Blood Purification Ritual, the snow fell heavily.

I was held at the center of the altar, kneeling with my hair disheveled. Beside my feet was a basin of glowing red branding irons. Upon the high platform, the King sat in the center, his face ashen, coughing like a broken set of bellows. Ah Qin stood at his right hand, dressed in the ceremonial robes of the Crown Prince, a white wolf skin draped over his shoulders, looking like a blade just drawn from its sheath.

The High Priest questioned him in front of the assembly.

“Your Highness, you once shared an old friendship with this woman. Do you have any objections to today’s purification?”

I looked up at him.

In that moment, I didn’t even expect him to save me.

I just wanted to know if he would say a single word on my behalf.

Even just one.

Ah Qin and I locked eyes for a long time.

Long enough for the snow to fall onto my eyelashes and melt into water.

Then he looked away, his voice as flat as a frozen lake.

“The law of the land comes first. I have no objection.”

A chorus of cheers erupted around us.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel the cold anymore.

Because once a person’s heart turns completely cold, even the snow is nothing by comparison.

When the branding iron was pressed against me, I didn’t cry.

I only asked him one thing before I was dragged away.

“Ah Qin, you said you would make them shut up.”

“It turns out you’re sending me out just to make them shut up.”

His fingers suddenly clenched, his knuckles turning white.

But in the end, he said nothing.

I was driven away to the Exile Grounds at the northernmost edge of the Royal City.

It was a place inhabited by veterans, widows, mixed-bloods, and madmen. When the wind blew, the entire street sounded like it was wailing. The soldiers who escorted me out of the city didn’t even bother to give me a second glance. They all believed that a woman cast out of the Royal Court by the Blood Purification Ritual wouldn’t survive half a month.

I also thought I wouldn’t survive.

But I lived anyway.

When my wounds festered, I wiped them over and over with melted snow.

When there was no food, I went to the old hunting grounds to set traps.

During the most difficult nights, I huddled in a drafty little wooden shack, my teeth chattering from the pain, yet I always remembered my mother’s words.

“The one who truly protects you will reach out his hand before he speaks.”

Ah Qin didn’t.

So, from that day on, I didn’t want him anymore either.