From A Farmer's Daughter to Poet Empress and to an Educated Woman

Picked up 'The Poet Empress' (January 2026) by Shen Tao. This is the Chinese-Canadian author's debut novel. This book is not a translation. It's written in English. The language itself is okay. But the storyline...

It has been a while since I read a fantasy story set in Asia. Well, I suppose this is the English version of all those xian-xia things floating around. I was relieved to learn that this is a standalone series. I would be very annoyed if it's the start of a series that would take years to finish. 

Protagonist 16-year-old Yin Wei is desperate when her fifth sibling died, and her rice-farming family and the whole village in Lu’an is on the brink of starvation. This country is ruled by the Azalea Dynasty, that stands on the brink of civil war. She offers herself to the cruel and violent heir Prince Terren of Azalea House as a concubine. However, on Selection Night, he seemed to have been drunk and made her ‘Empress-in-Waiting’. 

Anyway, poetry-magic is lost to all except the powerful and rich. In Azalea House, poetry-magic is power. But women are forbidden from reading. Still, Wei learnt to read and in understanding how to write poems, she even wrote Blessings/spells, becoming a literomancer. 

What follows is pure xian-xia comedy, and a twist in the ending. The way the Prince tortures her nightly, yet heals her with sword magic so no one knows. Yet the only way to save herself and kill the sociopathic Prince is to write a heart-poem to strike at him. But how is she supposed to love her tormentor. So of course Prince Terren wasn't born a sadist; he used to be a kind and gentle boy. LOLOLOL This is when all of us roll eyes. It is soooooo C-drama. 

Let me just say that the ending is not quite C-drama short style, but it is more of a book-world. Wei gains the trust of Prince Terren, but she does not fall in love with him. He remains cruel. And just as he thought he would be Emperor, and might love Wei since she saved his life, she resolutely killed him at his Coronation. He had already killed his elder brother Prince Maro. The third brother Isan took the throne, restoring balance to the kingdom. Isan wasn't as gifted as his elder brothers in literomancy. But he could grow fruit trees, lend agricultural aid to the farmers and enrich the land. He was kinder, and gentler. 

Yin Wei held on to twenty-thousand Blessings made by Terren, and sought four boons from the new Emperor, of which he agreed — 1) Isan would open his treasury to ease the famine and feed his kingdom; 2) absolve Wei of all crimes and walk free back to her village, winning her freedom, along with an annual stipend for every household in her hometown of Lu'an, and free admission for her brother to the imperial academy; 3) a quiet burial for Terren, and for her aide Hesin to walk free; 4) she sought freedom for Terren's remaining concubines, for them to return home or to stay but learn to read or practice literomancy. 

Had they seen how the country lay bleeding in the famine, had they seen the rice paddies dried and the wheat fields blanched, had they seen the babies curled dead next to their mothers or buried a sister on a hill with their own hands, they would have known the truth. 

And it was not conquest, not glory, not blades.

Truth was simpler. It was warm bowls of rice on the dinner table, enough for everyone, not only young sons who were still growing. It was families sleeping in the same room. Villagers working together, staving away demons or something worse that plagued them. It was suffering. It was enduring. It was living.

Isan, I thought, you have no idea. No idea how hard it is, living.

It is not something you can learn from inside the palace walls. 

At the end, Yin Wei is permitted to go between her village and the Palace as she please. She is also allowed to stay in the Palace and review Isan's memorials. She isn't allowed to stamp them but she was allowed to annotate them and give her opinions. Her name Wei, in Tenshan language (of which I grinned... because....), isn't a reference to 'end' or tail' / 尾. She chose the character for 'greatness' / 威, and signed off all documents with that. 

The ending wrapped up the story nicely. This was a pretty decent ending. I wasn't expecting it. I'm kinda glad that it didn't end like the usual C-drama short, like ML turned kinder for FL, and they had to fight against a bigger villain, defeated them all, and everyone is happy. I like this part about fighting for equal reading rights and literacy for women and their servants. 

Dear Choya & Her Sensitive Tummy

Choya was stricken by a bout of diarrhea. I mean, dogs get the runs once in a bit. She has had a few of those in the past few years, but they weren't a big deal. (Not after those early laosai years.) This time, it was. The first runs weren't too concerning. But the second set of runs barely four hours later worried me. She hadn't been great for the past three weeks — she reacted badly to a root (bupleurum) in some TCM-cooked pack of food, and wolfberries in another pack of treatos. Those gave her gastroparesis. She has also been licking too much and sniffing too much, eating too many flies and weird things of the floor. 

On a hunch, I took her to the clinch for an expensive blood test, fecal float, and a Giardia test. Now, paying money for tests wouldn't give me conclusive answers, but the results help me eliminate reason and causes of this bout. The expensive clinic visit reassured me that she doesn't have Giardia, worms/parasites, leptospirosis, poisoning or pancreatitis. 

Choya hasn't had diarrhea this bad for almost 3.5 years. Her stomach couldn't fight the bug with probiotics and Direa alone. She was purging twice a day for three days — full torrents of brown foul-smelling liquid. She held steady through the night. However, she was still bright and chirpy, eating and drinking as per normal. 

The clinic issued antibiotics (metronidazole) on standby, to be given for 5 days if needed. I'm never inclined to use antibiotics, but one 6am purge convinced me otherwise. It was the worst of it, and likely with stomachache. The poor sweet girl refused to purge at home or in the estate, and insisted on being brought out. Woahhhh. That was PTSD. That purge had too much liquid, too much stomach sounds, and that terrible stench. I remember it well. It's reminiscent of a persistent bug that would be the start of purging every three hours if I don't administer antibiotics. If I insist on not using it, then we're looking at up to six purges a day for the next three days. I'm not putting Choya or myself through that. That made me crush the first table to feed her the first dose at 6.30am. 

I shifted my entire schedule and pushed away as many commitments as possible that took me away from Choya. She's been extra sticky too. I'm reluctant to leave her unless it's absolutely necessary. Watching her also gives me a clue to her pain levels or discomfort. That would help me loads because the doctor ain't going to know, and I need every detail to aid their diagnosis. 

Looking at how metronidazole worked after one tablet (½ in the day and ½ at night), I knew my PTSD is pretty much deja vu. After years of avoiding the assault of clostridium (dunno what strain), she kena again. WTF. The last episodes were from her daycare/school days. 

Clostridium is sooooo annoying. It could be some sort of amoeba too, or things that don't show up in the limited range of tests we have. Ugh. This isn't an issue with food per se.  Helloooo….. she has been eating the same base for years. Maybe the pack of toppers… It's also an issue with the environments she came into contact with, her constant licking and sniffing that's extra bad recently, and dunno-what-else lah. Dogs will be dogs. Arrrrrgh. 

I will have to rebuild her gut flora. To rebalance it. I accept that she will always have some level of clostridium in her gastrointestinal system. The trick is to prevent it from over-growing and going BOOM.

Durians from Pahang!

The neighbors stopped by with durians for us. They don't know that I hate them. But well, the husband loves them. They gave us two durians. They said that the durians just arrived from Pahang this morning. I was like...... okaaay, obvious fuel shortages and inflated prices don't affect durian trucks coming into Singapore. 

I placed the durians outdoors on the patio and closed the doors. DAMN STINKY SIAL. What on earth do I do with two durians? They're totally unopened! I wasn't going to throw it away lah, what a waste. Didn't bother asking who would want unopened durians. The husband was really keen to taste them. 

As much as I hate durians, I can tell when they're a good batch. The husband has never opened a durian in his life. He wanted to watch a youtube clip and then try to follow it to open the durians. I rolled my eyes. Obviously I had to be the one to open them. He was incredulous. He has never seen me open a durian or even gut a fish.

Well, I can open durians easily, and I can open one in five seconds. It's one of those things I just know how to do. Okaaay, I've had plenty of practice as a kid. Give me a day or two to practice now, and I can open durians matching the speed of the crew at durian stalls .  

Now, I don't have those thick leather gloves used to hold durians. Neither do I have a parang. All I have at home is a Chinese cleaver, old tees to be thrown out, newspapers and plastic sheets. These would do I guess. With these make-do tools, instead of five seconds to open a durian, I took 12 seconds. Yes, I put on the timer. I'm competitive this way. LOLOLOL Not bad lah. I still can open a durian without breaking a sweat. 

We placed a few seeds in a box to share with other neighbors. Kept a nice 10 seeds for the husband. The fridge would stink, but nothing that coffee beans can't resolve. The husband declared that the durians were really good. We don’t know what type pf durians they are, but most certainly not the drier Mao Shan Wang. These are rich, wet, creamy and bittersweet. He loved it.