The Consort Thought Me Mute, But I Practiced Silent Meditation

I could speak three days after I was born. The Old Sage said prodigies were fated for short lives, that early brilliance invited an early death. If I opened my mouth before I turned five, heaven would grow jealous and take me. The only way to survive it was to keep a sacred vow of silence. Only the Emperor and the Old Sage knew this secret. Everyone else believed I was born a little mute. My mother died giving birth to me, bleeding out in a labor she could not survive. The seat of Empress had stood empty ever since.