Li Rong's last words before her death were about Pei Wenxuan, the man who had lived as her husband for thirty years.

After she finished speaking, she lost consciousness. She thought she was doomed. The poison was so strong that how could Xiang Meiren endure it with her long-ill body?

But unexpectedly, after some time, she woke up again!

When she woke up, she was sleeping on a soft bed, with the warm sunlight shining into her bedroom and the fragrance of orchid incense that she loved most in her youth burning around her.

She opened her eyes half asleep, and heard a familiar yet distant voice calling softly, "Your Highness, are you awake?"

Li Rong heard the voice and turned around, revealing a gentle and quiet smiling face in front of her. The face was not beautiful, but pretty. She looked to be about twenty-five or twenty-six, dignified and steady, which reflected the person in her memory.

She called out in disbelief: "Jinglan?"

The other person smiled and held out his hand, helping her up, and said softly, "It is now the 9th hour, and His Majesty has just left the court. He sent someone to tell you to summon the princess to have lunch with him. I wanted to wake the princess up, but she woke up."

Li Rong listened to Jinglan's words and looked around, feeling quite shocked.

She stood up following Jinglan's movements, and looked around while washing her face. After she finished washing her face, she finally confirmed that this was Changle Palace.

Changle Palace was where she lived before she got married, and Jinglan was her personal attendant at that time. Jinglan accompanied her from Changle Palace until she got married, and later became the head of the Princess's Mansion.

When she was young, she didn't like Jinglan very much. She thought she was too rigid and her words were not pleasant to the ear. Instead, she preferred the pleasing Jingmei. However, her mother liked Jinglan, so after the princess's mansion was built, Jinglan was still the head of the princess's mansion.

It was not until she was 30 years old and was assassinated, and Jinglan died in front of her after blocking the sword for her, that she realized that some people do things without words, not because she had no achievements to speak of.

Looking at the living Jinglan and the old palace of her youth, Li Rong calmed down and finally admitted that she seemed to be alive again.

Moreover, she returned to her youth.

She needed to find out what time it was as soon as possible, but she didn't want anyone to notice. She washed her hands, recalled what Jinglan had said before, and asked tentatively: "Father summoned me to dinner, can you tell me why?"

Although her father, the emperor, seemed to be very fond of her, he seldom summoned her to meals. Every time she went, it was always a grand banquet. For example, when they arranged her marriage, she was also invited to have a meal first.

"I don't know," Jinglan said, but after thinking for a moment, she added, "But I heard that some time ago, His Majesty asked all families to submit portraits of young people of marriageable age."

Oh, that is indeed the arranged marriage.

Li Rong took the handkerchief from Jinglan, wiped her hands, and raised her hand to ask the servant to change her clothes. After she was dressed, she took a small golden fan from the side, stepped forward and sat on the sedan chair, and hurried towards the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

It is difficult to recall the past, but it slowly becomes clearer with the creaking sound of the carriage.

She remembered that before she was eighteen, she had a good relationship with her father, Emperor Li Ming.

She is the eldest princess born to the empress and the first child of Li Ming. Li Ming has been very good to her since she was a child, even better than her younger brother Li Chuan, the crown prince.

She cherished Li Ming's kindness to her because she had understood from nowhere when she was young that it was extremely rare and precious for an emperor to be kind to you. So she tried her best to please Li Ming.

In fact, she was mean by nature, but because Li Ming often told her that women should be gentle, quiet and virtuous, she always suppressed her temper and pretended to be a "gentle, quiet and virtuous" princess.

The better she pretended, the more Li Ming loved to praise her, often saying that she was the best among his many sons and that if she were not a girl, she would have been worthy of the country.

Whenever Li Ming praised her, she worked harder. It was not until later that she understood what "overpraise" meant.

She has unconditional trust in Li Ming.

Generally, a princess should have a marriage at the age of fifteen, and then she would get married, leave the palace, have a fiefdom, and build a princess's palace.

But when she was fifteen, Li Ming said that he was reluctant to let his daughter get married, so he let her stay for a few more years, and she believed him.

When Yiliu was eighteen, her mother became ill, and Li Ming finally decided to arrange a marriage for her. He brought portraits of four young men for her to choose from. These young men were all of noble status and handsome. After careful selection, she chose Pei Wenxuan, who looked the most handsome.

When she came back and checked, she was shocked by Pei Wenxuan's background.

Pei Wenxuan seems to be a good person.

He is handsome and gentle in nature. He is the eldest son of the noble Pei family. He can even be compared with Su Rongqing, the most noble son in Huajing.

The problem is, he has no father.

I heard that he had won the top spot in the imperial examination when he was seventeen years old. However, his father Pei Lizhi died suddenly of illness, so he was driven back to his hometown in Jinling by his second uncle Pei Lixian in the name of mourning. Three years was not a long time, and when he came back from mourning, everyone in the Pei family was his second uncle's people. He was arbitrarily assigned a small official position of eighth rank to watch over the prison in the Ministry of Justice. Anyone with eyes could see that Pei Wenxuan's life was not easy.

In fact, his status as a legitimate son would allow him to live longer.

This was equivalent to a poor man among the nobles, and she naturally refused to marry such a man.

So she quickly asked about the other three candidates.

The three candidates were Ningguo Marquis's son Lu Yu, Yang Yuanshuai's second son Yang Quan, and the newly crowned No. 1 scholar Cui Yulang.

You don't know until you ask, and you'll be shocked when you do.

As for Lu Yu, it was rumored that he was born stupid, but his mother had been hiding the fact from outsiders. Once the Marquis of Ningguo passed away, the position of Crown Prince would be lost sooner or later.

That Yang Quan was a madman, he had been in the military camp since he was a child, he killed someone with a knife at the age of seven, he was violent, none of the maids around him survived.

Cui Yulang, who came from a poor family, logically did not have any major shortcomings, but the problem was that one of his great hobbies in life was to go to brothels and write poems for the girls there. He was not a bad person and was quite unrestrained, but what future did this have in officialdom?

Among the four candidates for husbands on her list, not a single one was not all show and no substance. I wonder how much effort her father must have put into coming up with such a rotten list of husband candidates.

After finding out the identities of the four people, she felt cold in her heart. That night, she went to see her mother. She wanted to regret her marriage with Pei Wenxuan, but the first thing her mother heard was to tell her: "You have to live with him."

Li Rong was stunned at the time, and then she listened to her mother calmly say: "Now the crown prince is too powerful in the court, your father is jealous, and your maternal relatives are too powerful. If you marry someone powerful again, your father will probably not be able to bear it."

"So you have to marry him and live with him. When your brother ascends the throne, you will be the eldest princess. At that time, you can divorce him if you want. If you don't want to divorce him, and you don't like him, it's okay to keep a few concubines."

The queen mother's words shocked Li Rong, and it was the first time she had heard someone tell her that it was okay to have a few concubines. The queen mother reached out her hand, gently placed it on her face, and said gently, "My son, all women in this world suffer. The only way to avoid suffering is not to learn to be virtuous, but to gain power."

"You have to fight, fight, and hold power in your hands. You can't expect destiny to be given to you by others, whether it's your father, husband, or brother. You can't count on it."

"You are not young anymore," the mother's eyes were calm and cold, "I don't have much time left. I can't protect you. You have been smart since childhood. If you marry Pei Wenxuan, what if he can't do it? You can do it. You don't want him as a person. You just want this marriage to avoid disaster for you."

"If you don't marry, I'm afraid your father won't be able to tolerate you."

So she got married.

After marrying Pei Wenxuan, she had already made up her mind to abandon Pei Wenxuan, a good-for-nothing, and become the eldest princess herself. However, after getting married, she saw this man who was said to be gentle, weak, and could be killed by his family at any time. Only then did she realize what a smiling tiger was.

She had gained a good ally. They used each other, assisted each other, and were suspicious of each other. She became the eldest princess and he became the prime minister. Their marriage was the strongest contract and the oath of alliance they made in the court.

They were working together as best as possible, and this cooperation made her happy. In the early days, she even thought that maybe they could really be a couple, live together, have children, and grow old together.

Until one day, she suddenly discovered that this person had another person in his heart.

In fact, it’s not Pei Wenxuan’s fault. Their marriage was beyond their control, so how could they force their heart to belong to each other?

She didn't really like Pei Wenxuan, she just had hope for him, and when she found out, she felt a little disappointed.

She is a proud person and cannot tolerate any impurity in her marriage. If this is a marriage, then both of them must abide by their vows of single-mindedness and neither of them can have any other thoughts.

If there are other thoughts, this marriage should not be a marriage, it should just be a covenant.

So from that moment on, she became the eldest princess Li Rong, and Pei Wenxuan, in her heart, became Lord Pei forever.

Lord Pei has his own white moonlight, and he carefully protects her throughout her life.

She also found her own entertainment, such as watching operas and listening to music, and having fun in the world. Later, when the Su family fell into trouble, she risked her life to rescue Su Rongqing, whom she had admired in her youth, from prison and settled him in the princess's mansion. She also became the first and only "guest official" in the eyes of the people.

They each have their own lives. This marriage has nothing to do with romance, only the sharp and decisive fighting in the court.

It started like this in the court and ended in the court.

Li Rong was lost in thought as the sedan chair landed on the ground. She heard Jinglan's voice coming from outside: "Your Highness, we're here."

She held the golden fan and looked up at the plaque of Taiqing Palace.

Now it all starts over again...

She wondered, should she choose Pei Wenxuan this time?