“Life is often stranger than Fiction.” - Old words of wisdom.

At times, Ying Xiao could hardly believe the trajectory her life had taken.

When she was young, a little child growing up under harsh conditions in the brothel her mother worked in, she never dared to dream. All she knew was the bleak life there, where both men and women sold their bodies for money to survive, and where children like her were often seen as little more than dead weight. Back then, she had thought that her own future would be little different.

Fate conspired to prove her wrong however, and showed her in the worst possible way how things could always get worse.

When she was older, just a bit before the brothel would have pushed her to take customers as well, she and her mother were bought by a rich man, the son of the local magistrate. Life was better for the first year or so, as while working as maid servants for the lord was tiring, they were still better fed and provided for compared to their life in the brothel.

Until the night her mother was called to serve the lord and never returned.

She had seen many others disappear under similar circumstances, and how the number of maidservants in the household kept decreasing as the year went by, only for a fresh batch to be purchased from brothels and the likes, with some younger like her while the oldest ones were around her mother’s age.

Ying Xiao herself soon learned first hand why those maidservants kept disappearing.

The years that followed were a blur in her memory, with only the pain, humiliation, and degradation almost as if it was branded into her soul. Even so, there remained a silver lining as well, as those years of humiliation and torture had sparked the nascent affinity in her soul, and her magic had subconsciously preserved her life even through the worst of the torment, and grew vigorously in the meantime.

When rescue came in the most unexpected way - none of them in the lord’s mansions ever expected to see imperial guards breaking down the gates and barging in after all - the fearsome general who seemed in charge noted her affinity and had singled her out.

Singled her out for a meeting with the Imperial Couple themselves, that was.

She had never expected the Emperor of all people, so lofty and high a personage, to show sympathy and concern for an impure, lowly whore’s child like her. Nor had she expected the vicious punishment he had handed down to the lord magistrate’s son, a most humiliating and gruesome execution before the public eye.

The stories she had heard, even in the few books she had read, had her expecting the lord magistrate’s son to have escaped with a mere slap on the wrist, for after all, those he preyed on were merely lowly peasants or worse. Whores were considered a step even below peasants by most, the same for those born of them like her.

It turned out that her affinity which had awakened during the worst times of her life, which she had cursed at times for not just letting her die, was part of what caught the Emperor’s eye. The next thing she knew, she was sequestered in the Imperial Palace, with some members of the Imperial Guard - including the fearsome general from back then - placed in charge of her training.

The Emperor and Empress treated her far more kindly than she had ever expected - or thought she had any right to - and even allowed her to choose her own future, rather than simply command and expect it to be followed. The kind treatment had moved her heart and she chose to serve their will, come hell or high water, a choice that seemed to both please and yet sadden the Emperor at the same time.

He had bestowed her the name she now had, the name she was proud to bear. Then after a few months, the Empress brought her to a different land, one unlike any place she had read about, and placed her under the tutelage of a teacher.

The Blood Demon of Al-Shan herself, the legendary general from the civil war that even lowly whores had heard of aplenty.

Where the Emperor had given her a name to bear, and a new lease on life, as well as the freedom to make her own choice, her master had given her something more tangible. She had taught and given Ying Xiao strength of her own, strength with which she could carve her own path in life.

The year she spent in Paradise was one where Ying Xiao spent her time under many tutors, as her Master periodically left on a journey from spring to autumn. Even so, those she was left to study under were by no means inferior, most of them living legends in their own right.

She also made friends with other students of her Master's, who occasionally came to visit as well. It was a blissful life, even if she spent most of it in harsh training that would have probably made veteran soldiers cry for their mother.

The year after, her Master took her along for her travels, and the girl learnt more of what she lacked, as well as what she could do. She faced the nightmare of her past, and fought it head-on, in some ways resolving a mental demon that had long plagued her mind.

When they returned back to the city, her Master had put her under even harsher training, until she was satisfied with Ying Xiao’s progress. She found out why in the late winter, when the Emperor and Empress came to personally fetch her back to Al-Shan.

Back in her homeland, Ying Xiao returned as a changed person. The timid waif that the Emperor sent to the Blood Demon’s tutelage returned a confident young woman with strength she could call her own. When the Emperor asked for her participation in a plan of his to deal with those who were against him, she had agreed wholeheartedly.

She entered the tournament the Emperor held as someone unaffiliated, without background, just another of the upstart peasants, as many nobles would have said. All the doubtful and mocking words, she shut up by a demonstration of her martial prowess on stage, where she proved to have no equal, at least amongst the participants.

After her induction into the military she worked the way the Emperor instructed her to, to allow her prowess to shine such that none could deny it, but without showing overt ambition herself. He had also instructed her not to hold back should anyone try to find fault or insult her, which was a directive she followed with glee.

When the incident she sparked inadvertently hastened the Emperor’s plans, she had expected reprimands or punishments, but was instead congratulated on a job well done. The Emperor even asked her if she wanted the chance to prove her mettle for real this time, a chance that Ying Xiao had accepted gratefully.

Most of the ministers and generals - those who were not privy to the Emperor’s plans - had thought the mission she was given a punishment. Twenty thousand troops to assail the impenetrable island bastion that was Tian-Mao sounded like a suicidal task at best.

Instead, Ying Xiao proved her mettle, using tactics her Master often used during the civil war, and breached the impenetrable bastion in so short a time it beggared belief. Within two months she had returned to the royal capital with prisoners and news of victory, to the disbelief and surprise of many.

At the time, the Emperor had granted her a high rank, and kept her close to him and the Empress, which proved to be a wise decision. Over the next year more than a couple assassination attempts were made on the Imperial Couple, with Ying Xiao herself thwarting the few that managed to actually reach them.

What she had not expected was for the Imperial Couple to grow fond and affectionate of her, which was how she found herself in her current predicament, seated across from the pregnant Empress while learning a few things about etiquette and rituals. Marriage rituals, to be specific.

That the Emperor had wanted to take her in not as a concubine, but as a second Empress had more than surprised her, who deep in her heart still felt that an impure whore’s child like her was undeserving of such a thing, yet when even the Empress pushed for it, she found herself carried along with the current.

Their fondness and affection for her was genuine, she could tell that much, while from her own side she had long decided to serve the Imperial Couple for her entire life, whatever they asked for. She had never expected that they wanted her to join them as an equal however, as it was something beyond even her wildest dreams.

As she was seated while learning from the Empress about the tidbits she would need to know for her own wedding to come, in the deepest reaches of the Imperial Palace mostly exclusive for the Imperial Couple’s use, Ying Xiao couldn’t help but think on her life so far, and how many people would have called her overimaginative had she written it down as a story.

Life was at times stranger than fiction indeed.