Housekeeper of the Hundred Blossom Palace

Chan Yui Mei lived alone in a remote village near the desert.
This young girl of sixteen had two secrets.

One was that she retained her memories from her past life.

Yui Mei lived in a country called Japan prior to her rebirth.

She had no recollection of her name, but she did remember that she was a former registered nurse.
After she retired, she spent her remaining years in the pursuit of her hobbies.
She passed away peacefully, surrounded by her children and grandchildren.

Her so-called hobbies were Chinese dramas.
South Korean dramas were not yet in trend, and Chinese dramas were all the rage at that time.
As a result, she was thoroughly obsessed.

She even went to China with her friends to attend fan events; not just once but multiple times at that.

After her reincarnation, she was perplexed as to why her memories of the past life remained.
She then noticed, amidst her confusion, that she was reborn into another world closely resembling Ancient China.

She arrived at several conclusions as to where she might be, such as being reborn into a Chinese drama, or maybe a time slip, or perhaps reincarnating into a fictional universe that is similar to Ancient China. 

Despite her speculations, it was also beyond her wildest dreams that she’ll be experiencing that fictional universe first hand.

Yui Mei was born in a remote region of an empire called Sai.
The empire’s capital was called Kyou.

By the way, her village was a nameless one, and people refer to it as the borderland village.

She lived in a dilapidated shack located at the outskirts of the village.
She relied on the crops of the barren field in front of her home, and in the blessings found in the mountains to fill her stomach and get her through the days.

Aside from her memories, she also possessed another secret – that she might be the illegitimate daughter of the emperor of Sai.

It was said that her late mother was a concubine in the imperial harem. 

Her mother became the emperor’s maid, and later on, she gave birth to his child.
However, because of her lowly status, she became the target of jealousy and envy. 

Hearsay about the father of her child spread like wildfire.
It was said that the child was not sired by the emperor, but by some other man that she brought into the palace.
Eventually, Yui Mei’s mother was driven out from the inner palace due to these rumors.

A woman did not have a choice but to spend her life in the nunnery after being ousted from the imperial harem.

She brought her child with her, but the poor mother succumbed to depression, and thus took her own life.

Yui Mei was raised in the nunnery until she turned seven; by then, she learned about her own story through the gossiping nuns. 

However, Yui Mei was skeptical about the credibility of those stories, seeing as there was no evidence to support them. 

The nuns gave Yui Mei a choice as soon as she turned seven.
Apparently, it was the standard age to choose a profession.
She was told that she can stay and become a nun, or else leave the nunnery and live on her own.
Yui Mei promptly chose the latter.

During this time, Yui Mei thought it would be a waste if she were to spend the rest of her life confined in such a small world.
Since she reincarnated into an Ancient China type of world, she might as well make the most of it.

Frankly speaking, the owner of the nunnery was surprised at the turn of events.
The possibility that children raised in the nunnery might yearn for the outside world never crossed his mind.

He assiduously tried to persuade Yui Mei that the world was such a horrendous place to live in, but Yui Mei stood her ground.

Despite her firm decision, she thought that the lord was a fair person, since he still gave her the choice.

It was then decided that Yui Mei would then live in her present dilapidated shack through the arrangements of the nunnery.
And so, with complicated feelings, Yui Mei came to live in this remote village, where everyone knew each other since birth, with betrothals decided early on.

In this kind of society, Yui Mei’s existence was such that nobody spared any effort in proposing marriage, not even as flattery.

It was no wonder, since she had never met her father since birth, her mother passed away, and she did not have a penny to her name.

Moreover, her appearance was not attractive enough.
Her beauty was mediocre at best, and her figure lacked womanly charm.
She only had her sky-blue eyes—a rarity in this region—as well as her gorgeous hair as her praiseworthy features.
Her black hair was tinged with a shade of midnight blue; it was a marvelous sight, indeed.

She was also secretly delighted with it, and it was her pride, but it was meaningless in the face of those feminine beauties.

And so, Yui Mei was living solitarily, while maidens her age were preoccupied with choosing their marriage partners.
Maybe it was for this reason that the vi