I don't remember much of the story except a side character, the young Empress. Set in ancient China with fight for the throne plot. Most probably a female MC based story. Story of side character. The current Emperor was a young boy with the Empress few years older than him and they grew up together, maybe cousins but the Emperor couldn't treat her as a woman since he himself was not emotionally matured enough and likes to play more. At the end, the young Emperor died and the Empress became a virgin widow Dowager Empress with no power. MC/ML asked themselves whether their enemy, young Emperor/Empress's family, had ever regretted pushing such a good girl to such ending (virgin widow with no freedom to leave the palace forever).
Unfortunately not this one. Nor To Be A Virtuous Wife. I think the young Emperor was already enthroned when the story started. And the Empress was either also already enthroned or just enthroned when MC got married to ML because there might have been a scene of awkwardness for MC receiving wedding blessings from the Empress because the Empress was much younger than her.
I don't think so, the emperor (already enthroned at the start of the story, probably when he was 3-5 yo) was just a teenage boy (12yo maybe) who really likes doing teenage boy things like dogfighting, horsing around with minimal interest towards strict court matters where his mother, the empress dowager, and his maternal family controlled using his name. Even the empress was from empress dowager's clan member. ML is from the royal clan, have a prince title and can be emperor, which was why the empress dowager and her natal family were on guards with him. Later (either middle or end of the story), the young emperor died of cold/fever after falling into a pond. Not sure if the death was accidental or not but empress dowager thought it was ML's doing. When ML was enthroned as the new emperor, and MC new empress, the 13-16 yo empress was upgraded into empress dowager and essentially doomed to be stuck in the palace with no power and no use.
Yes, this one! Thanks! I keep skipping over this one because I thought MC and ML was supposed to live near the palace and I already knew this one most of the scenes were somewhere far north as the ML is the Lord of the North or something.