At the Noble Consort's Feet Original Name: 贵妃裙下臣 By: Shān Jiān Rén / 山间人 NovelUpdates Raws Translator's Page Description Li Zhi was reborn as a curse, destined to bring ruin to an empire already in decline. At the age of fifteen, her ethereal beauty caught the attention of Prince Rui, who fell in love at first sight, and beseeched the Empress Dowager to arrange a union between them. At the age of sixteen, Li Zhi’s unparalleled allure captivated the heart of the reigning Emperor, who resorted to abominable tactics to abduct her as his own concubine and keep her hidden away in a gilded palace. With the Emperor’s favor, she rose to the position of a highly sought-after Noble Consort that was envied by all. Only she knew… In three years’ time, the Emperor and Prince Rui would turn against each other, and their once great empire would be ravaged by war. As they fled, a formidable army of one hundred thousand soldiers stood in their way, pleading with the Emperor to order the execution of the treacherous Noble Consort. The Emperor could not bear to see her suffer such a fate, yet in the end, he offered her a three-foot length of white silk. Without hesitation, Li Zhi turned to Pei Ji and flung herself into his protective embrace.
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Spoiler: Past Life In the previous life, Zhong Li Zhi became the enviable Zhong Guifei after her marriage with Rui Wang fell through. Young and naive, she had been moved by the affections of the Emperor after he forcible took her into the Palace and decided to resolutely reject her former husband's pleas to run away together as to not give him false hope and delay his matters. She and Rui Wang hardly knew each other and had yet to even enter the bridal chamber, whereas the Emperor had already shared her bed and was legally her husband and monarch. Unbeknownst to her, her rejection caused Rui Wang to hate her. Three years later, he would return to the capital with an army, intending to usurp his brother's throne. The Emperor and his court had to move to Fufeng for refuge, and in the chaos, the people began to blame Zhong Guifei for her role in the brothers' rift and the ensuing war. At the critical juncture when Rui Wang was about to break into the temporary capital's defenses, the Emperor sent his beloved Zhong Guifei into the rebel army camp where she was raped by Rui Wang for days on end. Eventually, General Pei Ji would arrive to the rescue and repel the rebel army effectively. Despite his long standing hatred for FL, he braved the protests of his men and insisted on retrieving her and returning her to the Emperor. His actions at this time left a deep impression on FL and would later cause her to choose him to rely on when her reincarnated self plans her escape. In the end, FL was still bestowed death by the Emperor who no longer had the heart to contradict the people's will. Spoiler: FL Zhong Li Zhi was born the second daughter to a small branch of the Zhong Family. Both her parents died early, leaving her and her eldest sister Zhong Lan Ying orphaned and at the mercy of the Zhong Clan. The branch in the capital ended up taking the girls in and seized their family's land and fortunes but didn't use it to further the girls' upbringing. Instead, they raised them like shouma's (Literally translates thin horse. The term is used to refer to young women reared specifically to supply wealthy patrons with concubines and... entertainers) by training them in seduction skills and arts. If the girls refused, they would be heavily punished in retaliation. The Zhong family hoped that the girls could one day be used to pave the path for their wastrel, becoming the concubines of the rich and powerful and what not. At least one of them had a fiancé pre-arranged for them by their parents, but Uncle Zhong Cheng Ping and his wife Yang shi broke the betrothal off to further their own interests. When Lan Ying's fiancé (Wei Peng) traveled to the capital to marry her, he was chased away by the elders and was never heard from again. In her grief, Lan Ying got into a horrific accident that left her physically handicapped, derailing the Zhongs' plans to send her away as a concubine. Lan Ying would've probably gotten thrown out because of her loss of value but by chance, FL (Li Zhi) ended up attracting the attention of Rui Wang (Li Jing Hui) when he caught an accidental glimpse of her. His ensuing infatuation with her was so strong that he winded up begging the Empress Dowager to bestow a marriage between them as husband and legitimate wife, an honor that many bystanders felt was far above FL's station. On the day of the wedding, the Emperor (Li Jing Ye) who came to attend his full-blooded brother's big life event became enamored with his new sister-in-law's looks too and immediately sent her to the temple within the Imperial Palace to pray for blessings for the clan. Just like that, a marriage was rendered null and void because the Emperor took a fancy to a woman and wanted to change her identity. FL was given the name Lian Zhen and had to live in Wangxian Temple without a clear title or identity. The months passed and she eventually became the Emperor's woman after his patience wore out. In this life, FL had grown disillusioned with the Emperor and his "love" and hatched a plan to eventually leave the palace. Somehow, this ended up involving recruiting the help of the Emperor's biao cousin and General of his Imperial Guards, Pei Ji. Pei Ji was the one man whose reach and integrity appeared sufficient enough to help her achieve her goal, so FL decided to seduce him. She would later (very much later…) develop genuine affection and longing for him, especially so after she became free from the confines of the Imperial Harem. Spoiler: ML Spoiler: Title (not important just skip) haHA OUR TITULAR CHARACTER!! The translator's version of the title is very good and summarizes the meaning very well but I wanna try and explain the literal (and awkward sounding) meaning anyway. The title is 贵妃裙下臣 which literally translates to "the subject/minister under the Noble Consort's skirt". There's a saying in Chinese - 拜倒石榴裙下 (to bow down under the pomegranate skirt). The idiom was used to describe how a man grovels at the feet of a beautiful woman, infatuated and willing to do whatever she bides. I just thought it's really cute hdfsjdfh ml is such a simp Pei Ji was born the honorable son of a Princess and her Deputy Prime Minister husband (I think he even used to be a military commander). As his parent's only child, he grew up well-loved and revered. He also had a good relationship with the ones in the Palace because of his history with them and his parents' contribution to the consolidation of the Emperor's power. When his father left for war in his youth, his mother accompanied him and left Pei Ji under the care of the then-Empress and former Emperor. For a few years, he grew up by the now-Empress Dowager's side and developed a close friendship with the di princes, fostering relations that would last well into his adult life. His prestige was so good that he would later be gain almost-unrestrained access to the deep palace/Imperial Harem so he could pay his respects to the Empress Dowager and oversee security for his liege. In the first stages of the novel, he was very cold and stand-offish to FL because he saw her as fickle and scheming. He was upset that his cousins' years of brotherhood were shattered because they both wanted the same woman. Although he didn't like her, he did his best to help her when she called for aid out of principle. At every encounter, she would tease and charm him with her... feminine wiles (this book is silly...). He tried to resist but eventually came to long for her attention and interest. In his previous life, Pei Ji was schemed against by the Emperor's younger sister (Li Ling Yue) and ingesting an aphrodisiac that put him in a compromising position with the Princess. Although he claimed he never touched her, he still married her to preserve her 'innocence' anyway. The marriage ended up being an unhappy one. On the day of the wedding, he moved out of the Princess fu back to his parents' estate where he would remain for the rest of his life. The Princess was distraught and eventually sought male companionship elsewhere, but Pei Ji was steadfast and didn't react. The Emperor offered to void their marriage but out of principle (smh what is UP with this guy), he refused and remained her husband despite never doing any of the duties involved. In this current life, Pei Ji fell for the trap again but sought FL out to help him this time. He eventually came to his senses and tried to beg her to leave, but upon getting her word that she was 'willing' to lay with him, he succumbed and consummated their affair. In the aftermath, he promised to help her with whatever she needed while she promised to 'pay him back' accordingly. The rest of the story follows along as he b balances carrying out her plans while harboring budding love for her, navigating his family's probing on who his mysterious beloved woman is, and hiding that fact that he's literally screwing his cousin's wife to his face.
I’ll try to summarize the main events of the story. Spoiler: Plot Great Wei’s Zhong guifei is sent to the rebel prince’s camp to temporarily pause the army’s march and buy time for reinforcements to arrive. The prince, Rui wang once loved her but because of her clear cut rejection, grew to hate and resent her for not forsaking her life and everyone else around her to be with him, her wedded husband. After three days and three nights of Rui wang forcing himself on her, General Pei Ji arrives at the enemy camp and rescues the guifei instead of leaving her to die with the rest of the rebel. When then return to the temporary Palace, the Emperor orders her to die because the pressure to rid them of her from his court has become unavoidable and also because she has lost her chastity. Zhong guifei accepts the order without complaints and only asks that General Pei is thanked on her behalf before she goes on her way. After Zhong guifei breathes her last, she is somehow reborn again as her 16 year old self, the niece of a minor official Zhong Li Zhi. She retains the memories of her old life and becomes determined to escape her tragic fate despite being unable to stop the beginning of the end. She has already become the Emperor’s woman but this time, doesn’t dare reject Rui wang so resolutely as she fears he would be incensed to pursue war again. But even without her upsetting him, he still decides to feud with his brother over power and entitlement. To plan for her future, she decides to enlist the help of the only person who ever showed her honor and integrity in her last life, General Pei Ji. She does this by seducing him little by little until he succumbs and consummates their affair one night. The reason why he gave in was partially because he was drugged by his biao cousin, Princess Li Lingyue, who'd hoped that he'd be caught in a compromising position with her and marry her to protect her reputation. Unfortunately for her, he didn't go to her after being drugged and the person who turned up in her room ended up being Li Zhi's cousin. The Princess gets pregnant from this encounter and has no choice but to marry the cousin after her brother and mother find out. After getting married, she is at odds with her in-laws because she refuses to move into their estate or let them move into hers. She forbids the Zhong cousin from sleeping with her ever again but also refuses to let him take concubines. Later on, she has a miscarriage and uses it as an excuse to frequently go back to the Imperial Palace to visit her mother and evade her in-laws. Meanwhile, Li Zhi's relationship with General Pei Ji becomes more ambiguous when he begins developing feelings other than guilt towards her and his cousin. She also comes to look forward to seeing him because of his sincere treatment of her and his careful considerations when carrying out her requests. Against her and her sisters' better judgement, she falls in love with him but knows she will never be with him properly because of their identities. On the other hand, Pei Ji sinks deeper and deeper into his feelings and dreams of eloping with her, but cannot bear to leave his family and responsibilities behind. Because of his love for her, he also begins to lose the guilt he feels towards his cousin when he sees how ill he treats her (making her the target of criticism, sterilizing her and subjecting her to pain and humiliation, forcing her into "bad" situations when she doesn't produce the reaction he wants, all while expecting her to love and be grateful to him). He listens to her grievances and does his best to remedy what he can, taking her to doctors to treat her infertility, inquiring about her sister's fiancé on her behalf, buying her a house in Yanzhou for her future escape, etc... When his parents pressure him to marry, he keeps shirking their questions but secretly laments his situation, wondering how unfair it would be to his future wife since she'd have to marry a man who was already in love and involved with another. In the Palace, Li Zhi spends her days with minimal interactions with other people. She is exempt from paying respects to the Empress Dowager because the latter hates her, and as the highest ranking member of the harem, she doesn't need to curry favor with others either. However, she's still the subject of intense scrutiny and jealousy because she is the Emperor's current favorite. One of the Emperor's consorts, Xu xianfei, ends up discovering Li Zhi's affair and is disgusted. Although she doesn't reveal the secret to the Emperor, the incident makes her shed her former attitude of not paying attention to the harem and begin to compete. She allies herself with the Empress Dowager and by proxy, the Du family (wait i actually can't remember. it's the dowager's natal clan) and other old officials. The Emperor accepts her initiative because he has plans of his own to use her to balance his court after he noticed his right hand, the Xiao family, had become arrogant and too powerful. The Xiao family has a shufei that is currently pregnant with the Emperor's first child, and because of this, the Emperor fears that they might want to use the child to climb over his head and begins to control them. However, not long after, he begins to grow wary of his old officials who helped him in the past again because of their constant counsel and refusal to bend to his will. The Xiao clan head eventually comes to admit fault to the Emperor, who quickly forgives him and then uses him to teach the Du family a lesson for trying to oppose his will. He lets the Xiao clan arrange people to accuse Minister Xu of corruption and unlawful conduct. Minister Xu is the Du family's subordinate and Xu xianfei's father; by suppressing him, he is suppressing all the people affiliated with him. Xu xianfei tries to remedy the situation by begging the Emperor to allow her father to go home first on account of his old age and past merit. Although the Emperor finally agrees, he ends up forgetting to arrange the matter because the Princess fell ill and the Empress Dowager called for his presence. The timing couldn't come worse: Minister Xu had gone on a hunger strike while in prison and was too weak to hold on. By the time the Emperor had the heart to remember him, he was already gone. Xu xianfei is enraged by the incident and comes to hate him. She finds out she's pregnant and sees a good opportunity to hurt him and get away with it. During a festival (i think) one day, she secretly pushes the heavily pregnant Xiao shufei into the water and then falls with her. Xiao shufei ends up giving birth prematurely while Xu xianfei miscarries. No one saw how they fell, but Xiao shufei insists that she was pushed and one of the maids present pipe up to say she saw that Li Zhi did it. Because Li Zhi was the only other person close by when the incident happen, she became the prime suspect. However, the maid that convicted her had a personal grudge with her stemming from the time when she was still living in the Temple as a nun so her testimony was held suspect. However, in the eyes of everyone else, this was just an excuse and the Emperor was blatantly taking her side again. To try and win the people's hearts, the Emperor puts Li Zhi under house arrest despite knowing full well she had no reason to target other people's children since she couldn't even produce a child to compete with them. Eventually, the case is concluded as an accident and maid's testimony was dismissed. The Emperor uses the banquet hailing the successful return of General Pei's army as an opportunity to release Li Zhi. During the banquet, he rewards various meritorious soldiers in the recent battle. Among them was Wei Peng, a fellow local of Li Zhi and her elder sister's hometown. Wei Peng was once engaged to Li Zhi's sister Lan Ying but because their uncle wanted to use her to build connections with a bigshot in the capital, he didn't allow the couple to marry. Lan Ying refused to be someone else's concubine and purposefully crippled herself to avoid her fate. Fortunately for her, Wei Peng still cares about her and comes to propose marriage shortly after returning to the capital. The matter should've been easily concluded but then the Xiao family also came to the Zhong estate to ask to marry Lan Ying as their young master's concubine. The Zhong family would rather make Lan Ying a concubine to a powerful clan but because of Li Zhi's status in the palace, they didn't dare to act arbitrarily. Back in the Palace, Li Zhi discusses her recent house arrest and false conviction with the Emperor and his lack of defense for her. The Emperor feels guilty and agrees to grant her a wish. She asks him to marry her sister to her childhood fiancé and the Emperor interprets their situation as a parallel to his. He asks why Lan Ying refuses to marry into the Xiao family; although she would only be a concubine, the family was still far more powerful and wealthy. Li Zhi insists that this is her sister's original path and is adamant that nothing else continues to hinder it. The Emperor is shaken by her response and takes it as an indirect complaint to him for making her his concubine instead of letting her be Rui Wang's wife. He is upset that she does not give in and tells her to go back to her natal family to prepare for her sister's wedding. Since he did not mention a return date, everyone assumes that he had grown tired of her and wanted to send her away. Li Zhi accepts his orders gracefully and begins to prepare for her sister's marriage. During this time, she and General Pei grow closer and even spend whole nights together. The day before the wedding, the Emperor crumbles and personally goes to the Zhong family mansion to invite her back. He emotionally embraces her and promises to always protect her and treat her better from then on, but Li Zhi is not moved and begs for him to let her stay just another day. He acquiesces, but is visibly hurt. Meanwhile, Pei Ji has witnessed everything in secret and becomes aware of how possessive and jealous he's grown. He increasingly feels less guilt when he sees the cousin he's betraying, only contempt and bitterness. While Li Zhi and her sister as busy with the wedding, her younger cousin, Zhong Miao Yun, takes the ruckus as an opportunity to secretly meet the Emperor and report his sister to him. She reveals to him that the Princess has been frequenting a monk and accuses her of committing adultery with him. The Emperor is furious and questions her motives, but she tells him to verify her claims and he does. His subordinates finds an article of the Princess's clothes in the monk's room and the Emperor concludes this as damning evidence. Around this time, he'd grown paranoid and easily weary because of his anxiety disorder and has developed an interest in powerful stimulants like deer blood wine or mysterious alchemy pills for energy revitalization. The Xiao family is aware of this and uses this to further his dependance on them by introducing him to an alchemist that makes powerful pills that seem to strengthen him (but come with extreme withdrawal that forces him to take more pills to offset the energy loss). The discovery of the alleged affair shocks and angers him, and in a fit of emotion, he orders the death of the monk and sends his decapitated head to his sister. As for Miao Yun, he tells her to leave and does not develop and interest in her like she'd hoped. She continues to insist on 'serving' him so he allows her to. He sleeps with her but treats her roughly as an outlet to vent his frustrations. When morning comes, he ignores Miao Yun and only acknowledges her when he returns to his bedroom and finds that no one has sent her back yet, Miao Yun is horrified that he doesn't intend to legitimize their union in any way. Her situation is exacerbated when the Princess arrives and tearfully demands to know why her brother killed a close confidant over 'nothing'. She insists that nothing happens between them because although she had the heart, the monk was a true man of faith and rejected her advances. His kindness and patience allowed her to find peace for the first time in a while by praying in his temple, but now, he was dead. The Princess discovers Miao Yun's presence and deduces her involvement, inciting her to spew hateful words and mockery about her family and virtues. She also denounces the Emperor for being a hypocrite who would steal his brother's wife and then kill his sister's confidante for being suspected of having an affair with her. The Emperor is enraged at her for bringing the matter up, having deluded himself into thinking that everybody had forgotten his blunder. The encounter ends in a fallout. The Princess would later join hands with Rui wang to plot a rebellion, only to be found out and arrested by the Emperor. Miao Yun is thoroughly humiliated by both the Emperor and his sister but sees her last hope when Li Zhi arrives back to the Palace. She begs her to help her become a concubine by trying to guilt her with her parents' 'grace of nurturing' and Li Zhi agrees. She has another harrowing conversation with the Emperor that ends with him agreeing to accept Miao Yun (but on his own terms. he gives her the unconventional title of Madam, making her sound like an outside mistress rather than a proper member of the Imperial Harem), giving her space as to not incite rumours saying she's jealous and covetous, and him taking more concubines in an attempt to produce more children to solve the issue of having few heirs. The months pass with him never visiting Li Zhi again despite constantly thinking of her. In the meantime, Li Zhi spends her free time teaching her maids to read and write while pondering when her lover will come see her again. She and Pei Ji begin to discuss their future, uncovering her desire to be free and his long-buried ambition to be someone great. They frequently find opportunities to meet despite Pei Ji's busy schedule. Once, during a Palace event, Pei Ji enters a cuju match after learning Li Zhi would be watching. He plays beautifully for a while, but when he notices her departure, he stops striving for the goals and lets a fellow teammate make the score. The games at the event were meant to be a sort of a show for all the noble young ladies and masters to scout out all the eligible candidates they might want to marry and Pei Ji's mother intended to make use of that. She had already gifted a young lady who'd won a prior game a jade pendant and hope that Pei Ji would win the current game so she could righteously give him the matching half of the pendant, effectively creating a chance encounter. Pei refuses her prize and cites the fact that it was someone else who made the winning goal. He excuses himself with work as his reason and runs to find Li Zhi. He finds her talking to the Emperor who is then called away because of an urgent report. The report would turn out to be news that the Princess was colluding with Rui wang. The Emperor is furious and strips her of her imperial status and imprisons her, but it's too late. Rui wang is returning to the capital with an army and the Emperor and his family must make haste. The Emperor and his court moves from Chang'an to Fufeng. Along the way, the people and court condemn Li Zhi and blame her for Rui wang's rebellion and the Emperor's muddleheadedness. Pei Ji's visits to her become spotty as he becomes busy with military affairs, trying to halt the rebellion and defeat the opportunistic invaders at the borders. At last, he gets caught exiting her Palace by either the Xiao family or their lackey and gets reported to the Emperor. The Emperor summons Li Zhi and asks her to choose whether she wants to die by poison or by hanging. He tells her her death is the condition given to him by a military leader who had promised to lend him his troops if he got rid of the 'calamity' causing all this. Li Zhi knows that he only hardened his heart and personally ordered her to die and sarcastically confronts him about it. She asks if he didn't find out about what she'd done, would he send her to Ruin wang in hopes he'd act as the bad guy and kill? The Emperor insists he wouldn't but she refuses to hear it. He then inquires and learns that she never loved him or Rui wang at all, but then ponders who it is she kept in her heart then. Quickly after, he tells her he'd rather not know. He would pretend he never found out about it as long as she dies now, even promising to posthumously name her Empress and let her be buried with him once this period of strife was over. As he prepares to send her off, he's interrupted by Pei Ji who'd returned to the Palace because of a bad premonition he had before he set out for his next battle. He sheds all pretenses with the Emperor and reveal the affair. The Emperor is furious at both of them but can do nothing because most of the Imperial Guards still followed Pei Ji and regarded him as their true leader. Pei Ji promises to defend the borders but severs his relations to the Emperor as a cousin and as his minister, refusing to fighting Rui wang for him. The Emperor is in disbelief that he would fall out with him over a woman, but Pei Ji points out that if that was really how low he thought Li Zhi, why did he make a fuss and disrespect his own brother just to have her? Pei Ji and Li Zhi leave together and take his mother along with them. Pei Ji tries to assure her that his break away from his cousin had a long time coming because of all the recent blunders that were glaring him right in the face. The Emperor was indecisive, paranoid, and ungrateful to the loyalty of the ministers who'd fought for him in court and on the battlefield while favoring treacherous bootlickers like the Xiao family. He attacked his own mother's clan and had even begun targeting Pei Ji's father. The day they confronted the Emperor, Pei Ji had just learned that his father's situation on the battlefield had become uncertain, and that he had likely perished. He puts on a brave face and escorts the entourage to the Pei family's ancestral land to bury his father. I'm not sure the order of when things happened but he also drops Li Zhi and his mother off in Yangzhou where she already had a house prepared while he's at war. Her sister had already established herself there after getting married and kept the group company. Pei Ji's mother comes to see Li Zhi in a good light after seeing her genuine love and devotion to her son. She also feels guilty because Pei Ji told her that he'd forced himself on Li Zhi(a lie) the day he was drugged, hoping that it would make his mother treat her better. Meanwhile, the Emperor is growing ill from being so dependent on the alchemy pills. He eventually dies from overdose as the Xiao family plots to install his only son by Xiao shufei as the new Emperor with the Xiao father-and-son duo acting as regents. Rui wang also dies, I think because of a mutiny or betrayal from his close aid. Eventually, Pei Ji uses the chaos to drive away the invaders and execute traitors, confronting the Xiao family's treachery and ousting them from power before seizing the throne for himself. He also marries Li Zhi as his legitimate wife with his mother's support, going on to have their own children as Li Zhi was able to recover from the forced infertility through years of antidote usage.
OMG !! You are such a great person!! I never thought you'd summarize the whole story. Now I'd love to read it even if I have to mtl it. Did you also mtl it? Or is there any sites where it is translated? If there is any sites where it's translated can you please share it with me. Anyways thank you so much. I really really appreciate it
Hi I MTL'ed this manually through the raws website I linked in the first post of this page. I'll post the raws again here. You can just use the google translate option built into your browser to see it all in English. It's a bit hard to read on a computer because the translated English text is very spaced out but on phone it should be easier to see. There's no published MTL page yet that I know of but the translator is pretty fast with this novel so if you can wait a few weeks, you can read it post-editing too.
This is so Yang guifei code if Yang guifei get reborn again lol. But there is not General Pei though.