I am the Crown Princess, but the Crown Prince does not love me. I can't really blame him for that. The Crown Prince is notorious for his obsession with beauty, while I am famous as the ugliest woman in the capital. People even gave me the moniker: "Number One Ugliest in the Capital!" Because of this, he sulked through our wedding day and marked his displeasure by taking in two beautiful Consorts before our bridal candles had burned down.
Honestly, I think his father is mostly to blame. The old Emperor has no other hobbies besides gossiping about the capital. Hearing that I was the ugliest, he immediately dispatched the most talented poet of our time to my residence. That Su Lige even wrote a poem that spread far and wide: "The daughter of the Zhao family has just grown up, surrounded by beauties whose faces blend together. Yet they say these exquisite faces belong only to the maids, while the shy girl hides her face to go light the lamps." In other words, the scholar looked for a long time but saw only beautiful maids, unable to tell which one was me. When he finally realized they were all servants, I supposedly fled in shame to light the lamps.
The poem was subtle, but it broadcast one clear message to everyone — I wasn't even as pretty as the maids in my own home. My reputation as a horribly ugly woman was firmly established overnight. As the Emperor, openly smearing an unmarried girl's name made my father furious. Fuming, he flicked his sleeves and marched off to confront the old Emperor for an explanation.
I was already sixteen and had not received a single marriage proposal. I suspect my father was terrified I really wouldn't be able to marry anyone, which is why he raged so hard. The old Emperor had enjoyed his novelty and watched the drama unfold. Confronted by my father's fuss, he simply waved his hand and sold out his own son. A month later, I was married into the Crown Prince's estate.
But the thing is, even after becoming the honorable Crown Princess, I couldn't bring myself to be happy. It wasn't because the Crown Prince didn't love me. This was a secret no one else knew — the rumor about my ugliness was spread by me, on purpose. To deepen this impression among the people, ever since I was young, I chose only the prettiest girls to be my personal maids.
Every time I attended a banquet, I would deliberately dress myself plain. Next to my stunning maids, my reputation for being ugly took hold. My reasoning was simple: most of those banquets were matchmaking events, and I had zero desire to become any man's wife. I had worked hard at this facade for seven or eight long years, only to have it ruined by the old Emperor's sudden whim.
* * *
What no one knew was that ever since I was small, I had been set on becoming an Abbot. Because I was constantly sick as a child, my father sent me to live in a temple for a while, hoping the environment would make me easier to raise. The temple's Abbot had a shiny, glowing bald head, which I envied deeply. I would snatch his wooden fish, grab his prayer beads, and tear at his scriptures. Yet he never once lost his temper; even when I tugged at his snow-white beard, he would only smile gently at me.
The believers all claimed he was a living Buddha, a highly enlightened monk. When I asked him what it meant to be a Buddha, or what enlightenment was, he simply patted my head, his smile as benevolent as the Maitreya Buddha's. "Inexpressible, inexpressible," he murmured. However, I figured I would definitely understand once I managed to become an Abbot myself. When I declared this ambition to him, his laughter made his beard tilt upwards, revealing his missing teeth. "Could it be that you're just too stingy to hand over your position as Abbot to me?" I challenged him, hands on my hips.
"Ni'er is a girl," he chuckled. "You cannot be a monk, much less an Abbot." I simply thought he was being petty. As long as I put my mind to it, how could anything be impossible?
It wasn't until I turned eight that I finally understood the old monk had been right all along. By then, he had already passed away, leaving behind only a few relics. His position as Abbot was taken over by his junior, a scrawny, middle-aged monk. Since my health had vastly improved, my father brought me back to our estate. That was when I realized the hard truth: as the daughter of the Prime Minister, I could never become a monk, let alone an Abbot.
I cried for days. Fearing I would be lonely, my father found me many playmates. However, my resolve remained unshaken — I made up my mind that I would never marry; I would become a nun instead. My beautiful maids were supportive enough to cry as if stepping up to the execution block, swearing they would shave their heads and become nuns alongside me. "Don't worry," I assured them kindly. "Bald heads don't catch lice. It'll be so convenient!" With such a devoted entourage, becoming the master of a nunnery seemed much the same as being an Abbot. But now, all my plans were ruined — I had become the Crown Princess.
Seeing me sitting dejectedly in front of the giant red wedding candles, my most loyal maid, Fanyin, couldn't help but offer her strategic advice. "Miss," she whispered eagerly, "usually, royal women who are cast aside are sent to a temple! We can work hard to make the Crown Prince divorce you. The fact that he already despises you is a fantastic head start!"
I shook my head, looking at her with pity. The only reason she became my most loyal maid was because she was devastatingly gorgeous — far prettier than me. Standing next to me, the contrast was like a gemstone beside a grain of rice, a radiant pearl next to a fish eye; she could draw everyone's attention in an instant. Her only flaw was that she wasn't particularly bright. Fortunately, her best traits were her extreme loyalty and obedience. She was dedicated to becoming the temple caretaker in my future nunnery.
She insisted that incense donations were the most vital part of running a temple, and she wanted to manage them properly for me. I appreciated her foresight. After all, beautiful women who were also this wonderfully oblivious were quite rare. I didn't have the heart to tell her that, given my status, there were only two scenarios where I would be cast aside. The first involved me committing a heinous crime that implicated my father; the second involved my father committing treason, leading to our entire clan's execution. Naturally, I wanted neither.
"Nunneries for divorced women are considered bad luck," I explained patiently. "The incense donations would be significantly lower." Fanyin didn't understand much, but the moment she heard 'incense donations,' she got the point at once.
Not long after, the Crown Prince sent an attendant to inform me that he would be resting at the two Consorts' quarters tonight, ordering me not to wait up for him. This was exactly what I had been hoping for! I could finally get a good night's sleep.
* * *
Even though the Crown Prince didn't love me, he still had to courteously invite me to accompany him early this morning to the palace to pay our respects to the Emperor and Empress. I washed and dressed early, waiting for him with my face half-covered by a veil. The Crown Prince was a pale, noble-looking young man. To borrow the old monk's words: he had the face of an emperor.
The Crown Prince stared at the flowers, the grass, and then at Fanyin, but he didn't dare look at me. Predictably, he was stunned by Fanyin's beauty, staring at her blankly without a word. When he finally turned to look at me, his gaze brimmed with pity. I had witnessed this exact scene too many times; everyone pitied my hideous appearance, wishing I possessed even half of Fanyin's beauty.
I laughed inside at how easily people in this world are deceived by superficial appearances. A beautiful face is merely a pink skull, all is but illusion, I thought to myself. The old monk was right: form is emptiness, and emptiness is form; sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness are also like this. Hidden within my wide sleeves, I gripped the prayer beads the old monk had given me, while resting my other hand on the Crown Prince's arm. No matter what, I was now the Crown Princess; every movement had to be measured, unlike the carefree days of my past.
The old Emperor and Empress sat side by side, watching me with eager interest. The old Emperor wasn't actually that old — only in his early forties, slightly younger than my father. The Empress was in her early thirties, still a stunning beauty with her lingering charm. Our dynasty suffered from a terrible societal flaw: the people loved beauties, rare treasures, poetry, music, and all things flawless. In such an environment, it seemed there was increasingly less tolerance for anything deemed ugly or crude.
Once, there had been an exceptionally talented but plain-looking girl whose sweetheart refused to marry her, terrified of public ridicule. Heartbroken, the talented girl burned her poems, left home, and became a Daoist nun. I didn't have any particular talents, nor did I want to be a Daoist nun. I just wanted to be the master of a nunnery.
After the Crown Prince and I finished bowing to his parents, the old Emperor couldn't resist. "Take off your veil," he ordered eagerly, clearly dying to see just how ugly I truly was. The Empress shot him a fierce glare, gently taking my hand with a warm smile. "Don't mind him," she reassured me softly.
I had come prepared. Taking off my veil, I curtsied gracefully and kept my head bowed in silence. The Emperor seemed to be analyzing my face to pinpoint exactly what made me so uniquely ugly, but after staring for a long time, he couldn't articulate a single flaw. The Empress, however, burst into a bright smile. "Ni'er is truly an elegant and delicate beauty," she praised sincerely.
The Crown Prince looked floored, unable to believe those words had just come from his mother's mouth. He stared at my face, looking conflicted and gloomy. Naturally, I wasn't actually ugly. I couldn't deliberately put on ugly makeup to meet my parents-in-law either. It was simply that anyone who had just looked at Fanyin would find it hard to come up with words to compliment my appearance instead.
I had always used Fanyin's beauty as a protective umbrella, but now, I realized her beauty was a double-edged sword. If not handled carefully, it could backfire on us badly.