Mrs. Lei also became somewhat frantic, taking her daughter out to social events and house calls, doing her best to find her child a proper match with someone from a good family who would treat her well.
It was a last ditch attempt to avoid the 'favour' of the royal family, hoping that by securing an engagement, the Crown Prince would restrain himself for propriety's sake and the whole matter could blow over once and for all.
But her dreams had still fallen short of reality.
The Crown Prince had already declared his stance regarding Lei Junnan. Who had the guts to go against that?
All of the families Mrs. Lei was looking to match her daughter with were of high standing, but they couldn't compare to the century old noble houses who could put pressure on the Emperor.
From beginning to end, Mrs. Lei didn't want her daughter to marry into a family that was too prominent, fearing mistreatment for her child.
It was a perfectly logical fear to have, which stemmed from the love she had for her daughter. But without any takers, the line had to be reeled back in, and they resorted to plan B: sending Lei Junnan away to a sect.
However, just when they had packed her up to send her out of the capital, the imperial family swooped in to intervene.
The Grand Empress Dowager's imperial decree had arrived, not even a month after her birthday.
Initially, the Lei family despaired, but they still held out some hope. Marrying into the imperial family was never a good thing for people like them, and much less when it was a marriage to the first in line for the throne.
They were originally a family of humble birth. Even though they came from a scholarly ancestry, that scholarly ancestry had not been prominent in a very long time— so long, in fact, that they had completely faded from relevance.
It could be said that the Lei family was now regaining its former glory through military endeavours, so they were nowhere near being compatible enough to marry the Crown Prince.
The Lei family was self-aware and did not have this ambition, so they were definitely not happy about these turn of events. However, there was nothing they could do. All roads of escape seemed cut off, and their only option was to accept the marriage docilely and pretend to be grateful.
They were worried for their daughter, but, if she were to only marry in as a concubine, even though Lei Junnan would be wronged, at least she could find a way to survive.
However, their hope was dismally shattered in front of their eyes as the palace eunuch read the marriage decree with exceptional clarity. His shrill voice echoed through the lane for all to hear, imbued with spiritual power, as if it was done on purpose. Everyone found out a shocking truth that day.
The Crown Prince didn't want Lei Junnan as his shufei, or even his cefei. He wanted her directly as his Princess Consort! The future Empress!
The streets had been abuzz with gossip and shock that day. Everyone was wondering what in the world Lei Junnan had done to convince the Crown Prince to let her be his legal wife.
They all thought, she must be very capable. After all, he had disregarded yet another marriage alliance with the Yue family for her.
Some thought it was the result of meticulous scheming, while others thought it was a great honour, but to some people, it felt like a death sentence, especially to Lei Junnan's mother, Jiang Yue.
Unable to express her distress that her daughter was being sent into a fire pit, she fell ill and remained in poor health ever since.
The Lei family couldn't block the news to remain low-key even if they'd wanted to, and the Yue family, feeling slighted, became hostile.
By that point, if they couldn't see that their Lei family was being deliberately targeted by the imperial family, they would be fools. And yet, they could do nothing about it. When Lei Nanfeng requested to be stationed at the border, the Emperor refused.
So, everyone in the country grew to know that the Lei family's third daughter was so beautiful that she could make the Crown Prince overlook even the prestigious Left Prime Minister Yue's daughter just to make her his official wife.
He loved her so much, that he went to the Lei family with one hundred and eighty chests of betrothal gifts. Oh my!
No matter how calm Lei Junnan was, she was still a young and impressionable girl. Even if she wasn't naive, she was no match for the Crown Prince, who was several years older than her and possessed a type of scheming that was rare even in ghosts and goblins.
He spent the two years after their betrothal courting her fiercely, and her heart inevitably fell into his hands. Their love became famous in the capital, and even people in neighbouring kingdoms knew that His Highness Taizi of DaJin loved his little wife-to-be very much.
Shortly after Lei Junnan turned fifteen, she married the Crown Prince as his Crown Princess Consort with great fanfare and a dowry of nearly two hundred chests, filled with all manner of jewellery, gold, silver, precious stones, and rare objects sourced from foreign merchant caravans.
Jiang Yue's natal family was a wealthy merchant family, and she was their only child. After her parents died, all of their businesses were left to her, and she was very good at managing them, so their family was never wanting. That was also why Lei Junnan's dowry was so great.
Everyone witnessed the spectacle of Lei Junnan's marriage, and they couldn't help but sigh at the Marquess Guozhu's household's blessing. They had really climbed up. Even the Emperor and Empress had sent their blessings to Lei Junnan's wedding.
It was unknown what the Empress had been promised to do such a thing.
Six months after she became Taizifei, the number one beauty of the capital, surnamed Yue, married into the Crown Prince's household as his side consort.
It was like a cold slap in the face.
The days of sweet doting and naively falling in love with the Crown Prince came to an abrupt end. Lei Junnan didn't have a single good day since.
She had lived in seclusion for most of her life, and her daily interactions were, at most, limited to her immediate family members. She was loved by her parents and siblings, taken care of by her servants, and possessed a kind and pure nature. Yue cefei was a pretentious woman with a lot of complex thoughts, so they were no match for each other at all.
Her family was newly minted in the upper echelons of the capital, and had no possibility of putting any pressure on imperial power to keep her in good graces.
Without any kind of support, she struggled alone in the mire, constantly falling from favour and struggling to survive the mockery of becoming an abandoned woman after standing at the heights of love.
The humiliation brought on by Yue cefei and the dejection of no longer being her husband's beloved struck a blow deep into her soul that she didn't know how to deal with. Lei Junnan had loved her husband so much, she didn't understand what went wrong.
She finally realised that he had been using her all along. However, by then, it was too late.
Eight months after getting married, Lei Junnan was sent out of the capital to a quiet temple under the very cheap and obvious guise of illness. Everyone would have believed it if Yue cefei hadn't been in the early stages of pregnancy at that time.
Lei Junnan's reputation, already hanging by a thread, took a turn for the worst.
The concubine was pregnant and the main wife had to be sent out of the city. What did that tell them? Was she trying to make the royal family's linear branch have no descendants?
As well praised as Lei Junnan was in the past, she was equally scorned then. No one took into consideration that she was also pregnant, heavily so, and shouldn't be travelling long distances to avoid any complications.
From then on, the name Lei Junnan was drowned in spit, and then phased out of the Capital. What was once the sweet love story of the Crown Prince and his legal wife became the sweet love story of the Crown Prince and his second wife, who was also his childhood sweetheart.
Everyone's goodwill focused on those two, with countless blessings.
She didn't return to the capital until the late Emperor died and the Crown Prince ascended to the throne, where she was crowned Empress. She was seventeen at that time, and she had returned alone.
Not even one year after entering the harem, news of her cultivation going wrong spread, and her spiritual energy dissipated.
Already lacking favour, she found herself at the mercy of the schemes cooked up by her husband's many concubines, falling into them again and again until, ultimately, she was sent to the Cold Palace.