People Need Other People

In her fight to maintain her power and status, the Empress loses her sister, Purity, to suicide, her niece, Harmony, to poisoned wine from her cousins, mother to old age, and then her nephew, Intelligence, to suicide. She had once cherished her family in her days of innocence, but her greed for power and fear of losing it, inevitably changed her views of family. She selfishly used her sister as the Emperor’s personal slave in the bedroom, just to keep his “favor” in her direction. When she found out Harmony developed an affair with the Emperor, she allowed her to continue the affair, but refused to give her any title and forbade her to have children (if Harmony gave birth to a son, she would gain enough favor to oppose the Empress). The Empress used her family to her advantage but once they were gone, she figures out the importance of a family bond.

“My family had been built and dismantled to suit me. I had given everyone of them wealth and position, but Elder Sister's renunciation had been the first betrayal, which had invited others. Instead of following my rise, they had chosen to fall. My childhood was dead; there were no longer and faces around to remind me of the distant landscape of innocence. Father and Mother had slipped away and my sisters had followed them. i had to carry on, accompanied by my regrets. I called my nephews from my father's clan back from banishment to fill this void. I conferred the title of father's heir and head of the clan on Piety, the eldest. One family had been destroyed, and a new once would be built.” (155)


The Empress handled her family affairs very chaotically. It was bad enough that she arranged the incest relationship between the Emperor and her sister, but to allow her niece to take part in this sinful type of relationship just beats the bucket. Her mother was furious and heartbroken. But, all she did to try and console her was spoil her with wealth, which she did not desire. It was good that she was able to realize how important her family was to her, but it’s a little too late. Now she wants to build a new family with her cousins. This will probably lead to another bad ending. Her cousins were the ones who took all her father's fortune away from them. They were also the ones who poisoned her niece. She should be able to tell that their "loyalty" is only a facade. Shouldn't she realize that her cousins would have resentment for being banished?