Characters / Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace

Main Characters

Ruyi

Ula Nara Qingying/Ula Nara Ruyi/Lady Qing/Imperial Noble Consort Xian/the Step-Empress

Played by: Zhou Xun, Huangyang Tian Tian (child)

Hongli's childhood friend who later becomes one of his wives. She would later become the second empress after Langhua's death.

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• 100% Heroism Rating: Everyone who gets to know Ruyi loves her kindness and empathy towards others. Many people are loyal to her because of this like Hailan, Xiangjian, Meiruo, Rongpei, Sanbao, and Suoxin are shown to be Undying Loyalty to her. Even Hongli's servants Yuhu and Li Yu see how good she is (Ruyi is cordial to Yuhu and Ruyi treated Li Yu's wounds leading him to be Undying Loyalty to her). Of course, there are people who don't like Ruyi but there are mostly the antagonists who want power and want to ruin Ruyi because she is Hongli's favorite.
• Awful Wedded Life: While in the beginning, Ruyi and Hongli deeply loved each other even with some framing on Ruyi's end because of how much he favors her. It's only until a few timeskips later and especially the moment where Hongli decides to castrate her long-time friend Ling Yunche is the moment her marriage with the person she loved since childhood deteoriates fast.
• All-Loving Hero: From the beginning to the end, she remained a truly sincere, good woman in a place where power conflicts and corruption boils. When she dies unlike the funeral for Empress Fuca, where a lot of people pretended to mourn her, people who knew Ruyi mourns her death deeply with consorts and servants who knew her being there crying at her funeral.
• Batman Gambit: Ruyi pretends that A Ruo has come back as a ghost to haunt her, banking on the fact that Xiyue will hear the rumors and will suffer from hallucinations caused by her guilt over forcing A Ruo to take over her crimes and amplified by drinking mugwort wine and bathing in it. In the end, Xiyue ends up getting sick to the point that even Langhua abandons her, and she confines herself to her palace out of fear of seeing A Ruo again.
  • Later, she convinces Zhenhuan to pretend to concede and tell Hongli to marry off Hengti, knowing that Langhua’s clan will hear of the benefits and force her to marry off Jingse instead, keeping Hengti by Zhenhuan’s side.
• Broken Bird: She becomes this through Hongli's abuse and seeing the deaths of the people close to her. Her expression shows it all through the final episodes losing her radiant smile.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Her marriage to Hongli is a deconstruction. They meet as children, fall in love, get married... and their marriage is a disaster.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Despite sharing many similarities, Ruyi and Zhen Huan differ in several ways. Zhen Huan originally comes from a middle-class family whereas Ruyi is noble not just because she is from the Nara clan but also because of her familial connection with Empress Xiaojingxian. While Zhen Huan never ascends to the rank of Empress but becomes the Empress Dowager, Ruyi eventually gets promoted to the position of Empress. Zhen Huan becomes crueler after she reaches her breaking point but Ruyi remains incorruptible no matter what cruel events are thrown at her. Zhen Huan does find true love with the Emperor's brother Prince Guo who dies at the very end of her series while Ruyi ends up losing her true love as he starts to become more paranoid and distrustworthy.
• Death Seeker: Slightly implied when she gets tired of Hongli's abuse and when Jiang Yubin diagnoses her with tuberculosis she only smiles, accepting she'll die soon but plans Yanwan's downfall with the amount of time she has. When she dies, she leaves a letter for Yongji telling him she's finally free and wishes for him to be free of burdens.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the novel Ruyi commits suicide to make Qianlong suspicious of Yanwan, because as far as anyone knows, Yanwan was the last person to visit Ruyi’s palace, and right after she left, Ruyi died. In the series Ruyi is terminally ill, but she lives to see Yanwan's downfall.
• Face Death with Dignity: When Jiang Yubin diagnoses her with tuberculosis, she accepts it with a smile but not before exposing Yanwan's crimes to the world. She dies from her tuberculosis peacefully after spending a quiet day with Rongpei, exploring the palace grounds after Hongli left to go on the Mulan Hunt and dies in a way that makes it look like she fell asleep on her chair.
• Fatal Flaw: Loving too much. Even Hailan says this to her after hearing Yonghuang is using her to get power and that men would readily abandon women for others. This does prove to be her downfall as she thinks Hongli is still the same even as the emperor until she sees how much he's infatuated with Xiangjian, that she seems replaceable and finally gets fed up with him with his horrible, abusive behavior cutting a piece of hair to tell him she's divorcing him.
• Gracefully Demoted: After she finally gets tired of Hongli being horrible to her, she doesn't go crazy or mad at him. Instead, after he slaps her when she makes her speech to him, which leads to the final string being cut, she tells him she decides she doesn't want to be his Empress anymore and silently pulls her hair down, taking out a knife to cut a piece of her hair despite knowing what will happen next. In other words, she's telling him "we are divorced" and cursing him (although it's implied in Ruyi's case, she's actually mourning the young Hongli she once loved as haircutting also symbolizes funerals and not actually cursing him). This immediately leads to her deposement since hair cutting was very serious at the time.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Empress Nara.
• Incurable Cough of Death: While in her deposed palace after cutting her hair, she starts coughing a lot and when Jiang Yubin checks her pulse, he diagnoses her with tuberculosis and sadly states she only has a few months to live.
• Named by the Adaptation: Empress Nara's personal name has been lost and her surname is up for debate. The series names her Ula Nara Qingying/Ruyi.
• One True Love: Hongli is this to Ruyi. Too bad, as the timeskips shows towards the end of their deconstructed marriage. In the end, she still loves Hongli but only the young one who earnestly loved and devoted himself to her. The Jerkass Hongli at the end is the one who she lost her love for.
• Proper Lady: Everything she does is quite proper and dignified even if she is being badmouthed. Even as she commits the hair-cutting in front of Qianlong she does it in a graceful manner.
• Related in the Adaptation: The real Empress Nara probably wasn't related to Empress Xiaojingxian, but in the series they're aunt and niece.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Most of the time, she’s shown as a playful, quiet and kind person. But when push comes to shove, the claws come out and she does everything to avenge her loved ones.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: As much as she hated Langhua and people who would try to harm her, she would never target children as she finds them innocent of their parent's sins.

Hongli

Aisin Gioro Hongli/Prince Bao of the First Rank/Qianlong Emperor

Played by: Wallace Huo, Xu Wang Zi (child)

^{Click here to see him as the Qianlong Emperor} 

Fifth emperor of the Qing Dynasty. One of the eventual main antagonist of the series.

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• All Love Is Unrequited: With Xiangjian. Although it's obvious he only likes her for her appearance rather than herself, Hongli delusionally believes he and she are passionately in love as he points out he has never felt this kind of feeling with any woman since meeting her.
• Ambiguous Situation: At the very end, when he dies holding to a box containing his hair and Ruyi's, it's ambiguous to why he cuts a piece of his hair (which is stark white) and mixes it with Ruyi's hair (the piece that she cut that lead to her deposement). Either in his final moments, he finally knows the pain he caused and wanted Ruyi's forgiveness, or he also decides to finally cut his ties to her so she can be free, or it's possible to think how they would have had a life without him being an emperor, or he still hasn't learned his lesson and wants to be with Ruyi regardless, or it's possible it's a mix or all of those assumptions since in the final scene of the show we see the scene where Ruyi enters in the wife picking for Hongli in the very first episode. We'll never know.
• Awful Wedded Life: What's bound for most women who marry him, whether for love or power.
• Broken Bird: He's this after Ruyi's death, becoming a melancholic semi-recluse in the palace that commerorates Ruyi and her favorite flowers. It's to the point he doesn't even visit any of his women that Li Yu informs him that they miss him. Even after making Yongyan the new emperor and seeing he is a competent person to become his heir, he isn't excited even though he pretty much desired a great heir to succeed him.
• Childhood Friend Romance: His marriage to Ruyi is a deconstruction. They meet as children, fall in love, get married... and their marriage is a disaster.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: He's pretty possessive of his women, especially Ruyi. This leads to multiple women taking advantage of his feelings for her to sabotage Ruyi.
• Domestic Abuse: One of the significant reasons why he is considered a villain in this series:
  • He emotionally abuses all of his wives. Physically abuses a few of them when sufficiently infuriated and has at the very least raped Hailan (although he was drunk but the point remains). He kicks Yuyan several times and slaps Ruyi at least twice, once after she reveals that she gave Xiangjian contraceptive medicine which made her infertile (at Xiangjian’s request), and once after she calls him out for acting like he’s the victim of the harem’s schemes. Also his sexual relationship with Xiangjian was coerced and he has touched her sometimes that she doesn't appreciate at all.
  • He's also hit some of his sons for being rude and having an outward desire to become Crown Price like with Yonghuang, Yongcheng, and Yongzhang, all who became unfavored permanently. At least with Yongqi, he only subjected him to being on his knees for an hour because he talked about Hengchuo's situation when he shouldn't. (Li Yu implies he's not really mad, and he hates it when his children tell on a sibling, he's just disciplining him to keep his mouth shut.)
• Doting Parent: Somewhat downplayed, but he is more good and spoiling towards his daughters than his sons. They are one of the only female family members he doesn't try to hurt. It does help that they don't have any motives in trying to become emperor after all. When his sons are young, he is somewhat easy with them before putting his expectations on them.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He wasn't a Jerkass at first but he truly loved Ruyi and vice versa. Some of his children love him and want his attention and praise. Plus, he does legimately care about his sister Hengchuo and his meeting with her is one of the moments he felt genuinely bad she had to come home pregnant from the man she was forced to marry after he murdered her husband and didn't come to her rescue right away.
• Foreshadowing: When he subjected Aruo to three years of humiliation for framing Ruyi, this would later foreshadow his sadism as later on he subjects many people to horrible, humiliating moments, especially Ruyi and Ling Yunche, that causes us to lose all sympathy for him.
• The Good King: What he wants to show himself throughout the series which is a flaw of his that destroys his relationship with Ruyi since he cares about the people's opinions of him than thinking of the consequences for his loved ones.
• Hate Sink: Progressively becomes this throughout the series. Started out as an earnest man who deeply loved Ruyi, he ends up becoming an awful, immoral person who becomes sadistic and paronoid who readily abuses his family and people when sufficiently mad.
• Heel Realization: It took all the way to the end but it's only through Zhen Huan's talk, the artist who drew the portrait of him and Ruyi, and remembering the memories when he loved Ruyi without thinking the worst of her, he finally, finally realizes what immeasurable pain he brought to Ruyi and possibly his heinous actions that led to things that were lost. It's already too late as she dies before they could possibly reconcile and he's left a broken, lonely man who realized he pretty much lost so much because of his actions.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of the Qianlong Emperor.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Refuses to believe that Langhua and Yanwan are Bitch in Sheep's Clothing until he can no longer deny it.
  • Several reasons to why he didn't publicly punish Langhua is because she comes from a powerful, noble clan, and more importantly she's his first Empress. It would cause controversy and rumors if people heard that the Emperor's wife was an evil woman the entire time. On her deathbed, when she sees he never loved her and only kept her for image and giving birth to legitimate heirs, it leads to her despair that causes her death early. For Yanwan, it's implied because he brought her into his harem, and if it turns out, she was found to be an evil woman then it would be his fault for bringing her in. He only finally severely punishes her at last when her crimes are exposed to him and everybody else. Very implied he keeps her because she was pretty and gave birth to many children so he didn't want to get rid of her and the fact he was manipulated multiple times that led him to not kill or banish her on the spot.
  • It reaches to the point he even begins distrusting Ruyi of all people and thinking the worst of her. It reaches to the peak where he believes she was cheating on him with Ling Yunche and terribly humiliates her for trying to cheat on him when it wasn't even true.
• Hypocrite: He's disgusted when he hears Prince Yu drove his wife to suicide and says a man who can't treat his wife well is heartless and dishonourable. At this point Hongli has emotionally and physically abused all of his wives, two of whom are already dead because of him. He remains completely oblivious to his utter hypocrisy.
• Irony: The women who genuinely love him (Yihuan and Ruyi) are the ones who end up suffering the most by his hands and/or by other(s), while women who don't love him (Hailan, Yanwan, and Yuyan) are people he treats with more respect and a bit more genuine affection.
  • He used to stick up for Ruyi all the time and told her he would always protect her but since becoming Emperor he never sticks up for her again.
• It's All About Me: One of the traits that eventually leads to Ruyi losing her love for him. Having a Never My Fault personality and never personally taking responsiblity for his actions that hurt and/or killed people, Hongli becomes this as he gets older. Plus, wanting to have an excellent reign without any corruptions and damages to his reputation is one considering how he never publicly reveals Langhua's crimes and never sticking up for Ruyi.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When he vehemently scolds Yonghuang and Yongzhang during Langhua's funeral for having an outward ambitious of being the Crown Prince and not showing enough sorrow, Ruyi tries to reason that they didn't mean it. He yells how they are doing unintentionally and imagines if they were actually. He says how he regrets not letting Ruyi raise Yonghuang which he does make a point since Ruyi did a good job of raising him and considering how Luyun focused on Yongzhang than him after she was sent to the Cold Palace, he's not wrong.
• Laser-Guided Karma: It's right that he suffers from loneliness until his death, the one thing he hated, after all the abuse and pain he inflicted on people he sadistically hurt and especially Ruyi who decides to die from her tuberculosis without taking medicine so she can be freed from the Empress role and Hongli.
• Like Father, Like Son: Looking at the Yongzheng Emperor from the prequel, he ends up exactly like his father but worse, particularly having a small ego, cares about himself more, and hates being talked back to. While having the political and intelligent aptitude, he also treats his wives just as horribly as his father did and being possessive of them like how he was with his adoptive mother, Zhen Huan.
  • Hongli never shows taking personal responsibilities and regrets for his actions that he has hurt and killed people, although he did feel genuinely bad when his sister came back pregnant with her husband's killer. His father showed one moment of regret for causing Lingrong's miscarriage.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: The Yongzheng Emperor at least had a one true love of the Empress Chunyuan and deeply missed her to the point he sees Zhen Huan and even her younger sister Yurao as replacments to Chunyuan while his son Hongli had Ruyi as his supposed true love but is then shown to love himself more than her and saw his "true love" to be Xiangjian.
  • Just like his father, he dies with no one by his side who truly misses him. However, the Yongzheng Emperor did die with Zhenhuan by his side, but she was spiting him for what he did to her and she told the guards to leave.
  • In the end Hongli at least seemingly realizes the pain he caused to Ruyi and possibly others (but only because Ruyi dies abruptly due to her tuberculosis) while the Yongzheng Emperor isn't ever shown to regret his actions like hurting Zhen Huan and killing his brother.
• Lonely at the Top: Ruyi remembers the thing Hongli hated the most was being alone because he was the emperor and how he wanted Ruyi by his side. Deservingly, he ends up being alone and miserable for the rest of his life after she dies, with no woman replacing her. It's to the point despite having a harem, he states he is a lonely, widowed man since he finally realizes just how much he lost (Ruyi, his children, sincerity, love, etc.) after her death.
• Maintain the Lie: He wants to keep an excellent look on his reign and himself, wanting to be seen as devoted, family person. Of course this is not true as he is anything but that. This is one of the reasons why he never publicly punishes Langhua is because she's the Empress and if he exposes how his wife is an evil person, it would bring rumors and be a blemish in his reign.
• Missing Mum: His mother Li Jingui died before the series starts.
• Never My Fault: Not once does he ever consider that his own pride, jealousy and paranoia have played a role in the numerous misfortunates that occur throughout the series.
  • One of the explicit scenes showing this is when he pushed Ruyi and ordered her to kneel in Yanwan's palace. Then he finds out she's pregnant to his joy and lays the blame of what happened to her and him on Yanwan despite it obviously being his own fault.
  • One of the biggest examples is when he asks Ruyi to forgive him and let go of any resentment brewed between them due to Yanwan's machinations. He has the gall to say this to her after humiliating her, physically, emotionally, and verbally abusing her and castrating one of her closest friends into an eunuch as punishment under a false belief that she cheated on him.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Very downplayed on the hero part, but he meant well when he didn’t want to go to war with Dzungaria since many men will die fighting to get his sister back and she might end up raped and/or killed before they could rescue her. In the end, he wins the battle anyway but finds out that his sister is 5 months pregnant, so she will never be unable to get a divorce from her rapist.
• Outliving One's Offspring: He has over fifteen children (historically the Qianlong Emperor had twenty-five children, but some are Adapted Out) and outlives many of them such as Yonghuang, Jingsi, Yongzhang, and Yongqi.
• Parental Favoritism: As the Emperor, he has to choose an heir to succeed him, leading to many ladies trying for sons and making them Crown Prince or at least have an excellent standing in the empire. Yuyan tries to make her sons get their father's attention, especially trying to make Yongcheng the Crown Prince and get Hongli's favor. Later, Hongli pulls Yongcheng out of the imperial genealogy as punishment of Yuyan's crimes leading him to never have a chance to become the emperor. Eventually, Yongqi and Yongyan are this to their father seeing how intelligent and filial they are as they get older.
  • Qianlong's favorite daughters were Jingse and Jingsi, Langhua and Ruyi's daughters. Hongli loved Jingsi so much that when she died from heart failure due to being traumatized by Jia's dog, with Hailan's advice, he immediately punishes her to be a Second Class Attendant and had her whipped daily without caring about her clan's thoughts for once. He also made her a western gold watch for her as a charm so she could have grown up healthy and safe.
• Pet the Dog: Even after the timeskips where he became more awful, he still has some of these moments.
  • Zig-zagged. After locking up Ruyi, he begins showing less of a horrible behavior that he previously showed with her. It's likely due to the fact he was so shocked she cut her hair in front of him that he never believed Ruyi would do such a thing.
  • When Ruyi dies and Zhen Huan tells him how she realizes if Ruyi should've been in the palace or not, and visiting the painter who painted him and Ruyi as Emperor and Empress the first time, he tells Li Yu to burn everything that has Ruyi in it. While many others see this as another kicking the dog moment, this is Qianlong finally doing something for her and not for him for once since it brought controversy to why he did that. To add, instead of making Yongji, his only legitimate son that he so wanted to be his heir, he makes Yanwan's son Yongyan the emperor to spare him the pain and tragedies of being the Emperor and following Ruyi's wish.
  • During Ruyi's funeral, when Yongji gives him Ruyi's letter to him, he tells his son to keep it because it's the only reminder of his mother.
  • Ironically enough, the only consort who he seemed to be the best towards in some ways than even Ruyi was Hailan. Even if he didn't want her as his concubine (because of his "accident" with her) at first, he did grow to be affectionate with her after seeing her intelligence and softness. We never actually see moments where he has physically, verbally, and emotionally abused her.
    • When Gao tries to blame Hailan for stealing stuff in her palace, instead of Hongli punishing Hailan, he punishes Gao for trying to blame Hailan by telling her to not service him for 3 months by doctor's orders and moves her to where Ruyi lives. He usually lets Gao do her stuff but this rare moment of punishing her does highlight him being soft to Hailan.
    • It's to the point that even if she isn't favored anymore because of having stretch marks after giving birth to Yongqi no thanks to Jia, when she does talk to him, he actually listens to her aside Yanwan whose basically kissing his ass.
    • When Yuyan was finally being accused of all her crimes in front of Hongli and the harem, Hailan told her to swear not only herself but for her clan's demise, which was the final trigger for Jia to attack Hailan in front of Qianlong. This act makes Hongli angry enough that he stands up and goes to kick her for attacking Hailan. Even when she was holding his clothes and got dragged off to her palace to be locked up, Qianlong didn't attack her until she hit Hailan.
    • Plus, the moment of when the voodoo cursing was linked to her, she was sent to the Punishment Chamber but Hongli forbade them from hurting her when he had no problem doing that with Suoxin.
    • Probably helped how he saw Hailan as never being ambitious, is intelligent, docile, beautiful, and a good parent to Yongqi. He yells at Chun for not acting like her who was bowing for forgiveness for Yongzhang's outspokeness about Xiangjian and saying how the other consorts should be like Hailan.
• The Emperor: He is the trope and the plot centers around him as the woman in his harem want his power through their children.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He gets this from several people who call him out on his awful behavior and deeds.
  • When Zhenhuan sees Hongli slapped Ruyi for causing Xiangjian to be infertile (at her request), she scolds and berates him openly for being so pampering of Xiangjian and hitting his own wife in front of others. He makes such awful excuses one could make their eyes roll if he wasn't the Emperor such as saying he isn't that pampering of her being hypocritical and doesn't focus on the pain he inflicted on Ruyi. He can't even see why Xiangjian wanted to be infertile in the first place.
  • Xiangjian loves to give these to him. For one, the only reason Xiangjian bothered to finally visit Hongli at his palace without him visiting her was to tell him on how he's being extremely cruel to Ruyi and Ling Yunche especially for making him a eunuch and humiliating him for sadistic pleasure and doesn't hesitate to call him out on his behavior bluntly. Of course, this doesn't change his mind on still being horrible to them because obviously and he's the Emperor so he can do what he wants.
  • Perhaps one of the greatest, cathartic moments was a dying Yanwan laying down on Hongli's extremely awful behavior and deeds. A stoic Hongli retorts on how he's the Emperor and who wouldn't show any obeying towards him, she laughs commenting how sure, people would of course obey him but have no sincerity behind it. She points out if there was anyone in his harem who was actually true to him, or anyone else for that matter. Not to mention, she sees how he brought a great amount of pain to Ruyi, that even she realized was the only one who was true and sincere to him and he absolutely took it for granted as he deposed her and locked her up.
  • Without realizing it, Muping indirectly states it was Hongli's fault that Ruyi died because she refused to take the medicine and become Empress again because of him. Of course this makes him yell at her to get out and not talk about something she shouldn't talk about.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Over the timeskip, big time. He becomes more paranoid, untrusting, angry, and begins to fall into vices (lust, greed, jealousy, sadism, pleasure). It's to the point he starts distrusting Ruyi, taking other people's side over hers, and becoming extremely horrible to her, a stark contrast to who he was in the beginning. It's to the point that Ruyi finally sees this Hongli isn't the one she loved before he became the emperor losing her love for him and cutting her hair, refusing to become his empress anymore.
  • Making Ling Yunche a eunuch, a man who has saved him and Ruyi many times, cemented the viewer's view of him becoming a full-on asshole of a monster who threw his morals away. Not to mention because Ruyi was involved, he also subjected her to many humiliating moments just for a bunch of baseless rumors that had no evidence to them.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Ruyi gave him nothing but sincere devotion and love. And he ends up taking it for granted. His treatment towards her also gets progressively worse throughout the series until Ruyi truly becomes fed up with him. Even Wei Yanwan calls him out as this.
  • The moment where everyone agreed Hongli was an absolute ungrateful bastard was when he castrated Ling Yunche who has saved him many times and subjected to many humiliating moments.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: An odd example. In the series Hongli is Zhen Huan's adopted son, and the fact he isn't her biological son is specifically mentioned as the reason for tensions between them. Historically, though, he was her biological son.
• Xanatos Gambit: Sends Niohuru Naquin, who is Zhenhuan's valuable ally on the court, to Jinchuan to handle military logistics and strategies. If he succeeded in conquering Jinchuan, Qianlong would simply gain more territories as part of his territorial expansion. If he failed, Qianlong had an excuse to punish him as a means to suppress his mother's influence on the court's affairs. The latter scenario happens and Hongli has Naquin executed.

The Harem

Hailan

Keliyete Hailan/Noble Lady Hai/Consort Yu/Noble Consort Yu (posthumous title)

Played by: Janine Chang

Ruyi's friend and confidante. Another of Hongli's wives and the mother of his favorite son.

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• Blue Is Heroic: She tends to wear blue clothing and is a steadfast friend to Ruyi.
• Color Motif: Blue. Blue symbolizes loyalty and trust, tying in to her complete devotion to Ruyi’s cause, come hell or high water. It also symbolizes loneliness, and at the beginning of the series, Ruyi is her only friend and sister figure in the palace, as the other women dislike her meekness and she doesn’t want Hongli’s “attention” ever again. And by the last arc of the show, she is lonely again when Yongqi dies and Ruyi is confined to her palace for what seems like forever. She starts wearing dark blue and black out of grief.
• Good Parents: She's a good mother to Yongqi and truly loves him even if she doesn't love his father. She encourages him to focus on being a good subject instead of vying for the throne.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Noble Consort Yu.
• Named by the Adaptation: Noble Consort Yu's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Took a Level in Badass: In her first appearances Hailan is timid and nervous (with good reason). After Ruyi's imprisonment, she gains courage and goes as far as to poison herself to prove Ruyi's innocence.
• Foreshadowing: After foiling Chun's plan with Yongzhang and Yonghuang, she tells Ruyi if she keeps treasuring love, it'll eventually be her undoing and it does lead to her downfall as Hongli begins to focus on other women than her and becomes abusive towards her.
• Undying Loyalty: Her bond with Ruyi is genuine. Not once does she betray Ruyi and remains staunchly loyal to her throughout the series. It's to the point that with Chun who she was close patronized Ruyi during Langhua's funeral preparations for not having any children because the idea of being Empress or Yongzhang being the Crown Prince stuck to her leading her to become a slight jerkass (due to Yuyan's influence and a bit of the Empress Dowager's), she immediately made a plan to get Chun out of the run and it worked without anyone suspecting, not even Zhen Huan, it was Hailan and her son Yongqi that caused Hongli to be angry at her and her two sons leading them to be unfavored in the long run. Although Zhen Huan does find out, it just never occurs to her that Hailan helps Ruyi out of love and devotion than being a lackey and wanting power.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Poisons herself to prove Ruyi isn't guilty of the other poisonings.
• Would Hurt a Child: The series hints that she exposed the asthmatic Yonglian to dried reed pollen as a means of revenge towards Hongli for raping her and Langhua for viciously abusing her and framing Ruyi. Later Ruyi makes her swear to never target children.

Langhua

Fuca Langhua/Empress Xiaoxianchun (posthumous title)

Played by: Dong Jie

Hongli's first empress.

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• Abusive Parents: She forces Yonglian to stand in the cold, because she makes him study 24/7, which leads to his illness and death.
  • When Jingse tries to cheer her up after Yongcong's death and says how she'll try to give her success, she blankly says how a daughter is useless compared to a son. While she isn't wrong, the way she said it was cruel.
  • Considering her own mother, the woman doesn't even shown to care for her daughter's health and only cares that she gives birth to a son for the Fuca clan's glory. Even as the doctor informs her it would be very hard for Langhua to give birth again, her mother only states he needs to do anything so she can give birth again.
• Ambiguous Situation: Xiyue revealed that when Zhuying (Consort Zhe) died, Xiyue’s father investigated Zhuying’s death and implied that Langhua killed her through giving her food that was harmful if eaten together, because she was ashamed by the fact that Hongli’s first son was from a concubine and not from his main wife. But when Langhua was talking to Hongli on her deathbed, she told him (while swearing on her clan’s glory) that she never intended to kill Zhuying and she doesn’t know who started the rumors. It’s less of an ambiguous situation in the novels. Yuyan, on her death bed, revealed that she was the one who did it and pinned the blame on Langhua.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Pretends to be kind while secretly plotting against the other women in the harem. Most notably, she “gifts” Xiyue and Ruyi bracelets filled with basil seeds to prevent them from bearing children, and disguises this as “A token to increase their sisterly bond without regarding their status”. When Xiyue discovers the truth, she breaks down and tearfully asks why Langhua would do this to someone who was devoted to her and helped with her schemes and was so desperate to have a child that she poisoned the other pregnant women out of jealousy.
• Delicate and Sickly: Has never been very healthy and spends a lot of time coughing.
• Dying Declaration of Hate: While she doesn't outright say it but when she realizes Hongli never loved her and kept her to produce legitimate heirs despite knowing she committed evil crimes that he can't expose because it'll make a dirty part in his reign, she curses the next person who'll take her Empress spot, which she likely realizes is Ruyi.
• Fatal Flaw: Jealousy, paranoia, and being unable to see her mistakes leads to karma attribution. Most of these mainly pertain to only Ruyi. Ironically very much like her husband Hongli later on.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Langhua despised Ruyi the most ever since both of them married Hongli, due to the fact that Ruyi was about to be chosen over her for the position of main wife, and that Ruyi always seems to do better than her at everything. She even sends Yanwan to serve Yuyan in her palace out of anger over her praising Ruyi, and looking similar to her, something Yanwan couldn’t control. This hatred reaches a tipping point when she finds out that Hongli hasn’t informed Ruyi immediately of her father’s death. She has a mild breakdown over Hongli’s love for Ruyi and says that if Langhua had to know her uncle died, then Ruyi has to know her father died as soon as possible, so she will “get a taste of the pain I feel”.
• Hate Sink: This woman is just outright despicable that makes you wonder why did Zhen Huan choose her as Hongli's main wife. Somewhat implies later she does regret it when her daughter-in-law refuses to send her only child to the Khorchin as she snarks if Ruyi was her in-law, she would have probably treated her and her daughter better. She hates Ruyi simply because she knows Hongli loves her and not her, and that she would have been chosen as his main wife instead of a concubine.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Empress Xiaoxianchun.
• Improperly Paranoid: Langhua has never trusted Ruyi, even after 19 years, and mistakes every praise Ruyi gets or any action she does as an attempt to usurp her position as Empress. When the latter has her name changed from Qingying to Ruyi (meaning “beautiful and quiet”, an advice given to her by Zhenhuan to keep herself out of trouble if she wants peace of mind), Langhua immediately thinks that it’s the same character as the ruyi sceptre given to the di’fujin (First Wife) which she suspects is a sign that Ruyi wants to steal her position. This paranoia caused her health to decline drastically to the point she wears layers of makeup to hide her haggard look to, again, not be compared unfavorably to Ruyi. Even on her death bed, she literally swears that Ruyi was the one who poisoned Ruiji and Qiying, and begs Hongli to not take Ruyi as her successor because she is supposedly so evil she will bring ruin.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When talking to Hongli in her final moments and finding out she never truly had his love and respect, she sees while he is a wise, he is cruel and heartless which foreshadows later that he does hurt the people he loves around him and became more cruel and heartless.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Forces Lianxin to marry Wang Qin so that he will pay back the favour by spying on the emperor, and Lianxin ends up being abused by him every night, and becomes afraid of what he will do to her siblings if she tells the Empress. Lianxin was the one that Hailan gave the reed pollen that ultimately killed Yonglian. Langhua sacrificed Lianxin for the sake of Yonglian's future and Lianxin took revenge by ensuring that Yonglian would not have a future.
  • Later on, Langhua finds out that to strengthen the Empire and her clan’s relationship with the Mongolian Khorchin tribe, she has to marry off her daughter, Jingse, to a Khorchin Prince. Langhua is clearly heartbroken over not only losing her two sons to illness, but also losing her only daughter by marrying her off to a far away tribe.
  • She gave Xiyue a bracelet filled with basil seeds and tricked her into wearing it day and night ever since she married Hongli, which caused Xiyue to never be able to bear children, and furthered her declining health. She even puts on a facade of being sympathetic and telling Xiyue to keep her hopes up. This comes back to bite her when Xiyue dies and her maid, out of despair and desire for revenge, spreads pox to Langhua’s second son Yongcong, who doesn’t survive.
• Modest Royalty: She is extremely frugal, eschewing expensive fabrics and jewels.
• Named by the Adaptation: Empress Xiaoxianchun's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Outlives three of her four children.

Yuyan

Kim Ok-yeon/Jin Yuyan/Lady Jin/Noble Lady Jia/Noble Consort Jia/Imperial Noble Consort Shujia (posthumous title)

Played by: Xin Zhi Lei

One of Hongli's wives, originally from Joseon (Korea). The main culprit behind many of the concubines' deaths.

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• Adopted into Royalty: If the King of Joseon's letter to Hongli after Yuyan is disgraced without option of ever making a comeback is true, she was a foundling of unknown origin that was adopted by a kinswoman of the Joseon dynasty.
  • The Joseon Dynasty did in history promote a very minor kinswoman as Princess Uisun so they could marry her of to the Regent Prince Dorgon and the moment he died and she was no longer useful to them they immediately rescinded her royal title and privileges. This spared them from having to send an actual female scion of the Joseon Royal house to their invaders.
• Alpha Bitch: A harem version, but downplayed due to never achieving Top Wife status.
• All for Nothing: Everything she did was because she was in love with the Crown Prince, and later King, of Joseon. but because she is a foundling of unknown origin, the elitist royal would never return her feelings and he promptly discarded her the moment she is no longer useful to the Joseon Dynasty. Discovering this contributes to Yuyan's Death by Despair.
• The Chessmaster: She is a master at manipulating the other women’s interests, fears, doubts and anger and using it to benefit herself and get rid of competition, without having to lift a finger or do anything that would link conflicts back to her.
  • Throughout the first quarter of the series, she constantly reminds Langhua of how Ruyi was almost chosen as the First Wife, and encourages her to be more aggressive to Ruyi to quell her alleged “arrogance”. This unfortunately causes Langhua’s health to deteriorate from the extreme stress she puts herself under to be better than Ruyi.
  • She tells Xiyue that Hailan would steal coal even after “everything you did for her, because she would be that kind of person”. Xiyue then falsely accuses Hailan of stealing the coal, and is subtly punished by being forbidden from meeting the emperor for 3 months to recuperate. To Yuyan, Xiyue being barred from service and Hailan being punished severely and traumatized to the point of having nightmares is a win.
  • She tells Luyun that eating seafood helps to give birth to a healthy son, who spreads the talk to Ruiji, who starts eating more seafood. The seafood was poisoned with cinnabar by a eunuch she bribed, and Ruiji loses her baby due to cinnabar poisoning.
  • When Qiying announces her pregnancy, Yuyan suggests that she burns more coal to combat the weather. The burning coals and the snake-oil mixed paint they were using for Qiying’s palace causes a snake to fall in from the roof onto Qiying’s room. Yuyan then suggests Qiying lives with Ruyi until they figure it out, and later on, playfully chides Chun for not telling Qiying about the benefits of seafood. [[spoiler:As a result, Qiying’s baby dies inside her womb and she is forced to have an induced labor to get it out of her body before she dies.
  • As she reveals later on, she was the one who rescued A Ruo from being punished to kneel in the rain by allowing her to leave early. It was all part of a plot to cause her to hate Ruyi and to believe that she has a chance to become a concubine just like Qiying did, with Yuyan remarking, “You’re even prettier than Noble Lady Yi. Maybe you have a chance, too.” She had done it to give A Ruo more of a reason to betray Ruyi.
  • When she becomes pregnant, she “accidentally” reveals it to Qiying while talking about her dead baby, causing her to become even more despaired, and subtly tells her that Ruyi is probably the cause of her miscarriage, because her cinnabar poisoning symptoms only appeared when she started living with Ruyi in her palace. Qiying then attacks Ruyi and attempts to kill her to avenge her baby, giving Zhenhuan and Langhua more ammo for the “Ruyi is a baby-killer” accusation, since Ruyi is causing more chaos by staying in the harem without punishment. With Qiying dead the same night and Ruyi being sent to the Cold Palace, Yuyan gets rid of two rivals and gives birth to Hongli’s first son after his ascension, raising her status.
  • She’s the first one to point out that A Ruo got a different gift in her box than the others, which Ruiji discovers to be cinnabar, and when Hongli demands to hear A Ruo retell the story of when she discovered that Ruyi allegedly poisoned Ruiji and Qiying, Yuyan loudly points out that A Ruo was so sure of herself three years ago, but is now a stammering mess, then “ponders” if A Ruo was the one who kept harming Ruyi in the Cold Palace. A Ruo obviously is unable to reveal who truly did it, because all three rank higher than her, so she falsely claims that she did everything out of jealousy and Hongli never finds out that Yuyan did it with Xiyue’s help until many years later.
  • When Hailan is pregnant, Yuyan bribes the imperial physicians to mess with Hailan’s pre-natal medicines to give her a humongous appetite, which causes her to get stretch-marks and she almost dies while giving birth to Yongqi, due to his large size causing her lower area to get ripped. It kind of backfired on her, since Hailan is absolutely content with having one child and never having to serve Hongli in bed again since he’s turned off by her stretch-marks, and since Hailan’s status is raised to Concubine, she becomes the mistress of Yanxi Palace, which is a lot farther away from the other palaces which gives her peace of mind.
  • When Langhua dies, Yuyan inflates Luyun’s ego and makes her think she has a chance of becoming empress, since she has three sons (Yongzhang and Yongrong, plus an adopted Yonghuang), and Ruyi has none. The rumors, added to Sulian being killed by Zhenshu, Luyun’s hydrogena pin being dropped next to her corpse, Yonghuang murmuring to himself about being like the disgraced son of a former emperor and refusing to cry at Langhua’s funeral, makes Hongli think that Luyun is coveting the position of empress and forgetting to raise her sons right, and he starts mistrusting her, giving the position of Imperial Noble Consort to Ruyi.
  • Yuyan manipulates Hongli’s love for Ruyi and turns it into jealousy when he thinks Ruyi is cheating on him with the Grand Master Monk, and she gleefully starts taking the reigns of the harem when Ruyi is confined to her palace as punishment. Although, this plan ultimately fails. Through an elaborate chain of events, Ruyi manages to push her into a corner when she says that she knows the difference between carnelian and agate, so the second bracelet appeared from nowhere. Ruyi says that there was no way Yuyan could have known the second bracelet was a fake unless she deliberately opened the box the bracelet was in when she swore she didn’t, which means she lied to the Emperor, or she made the bracelet herself, which implicates her. Yuyan is left stunned and can only mumur that she’s pregnant with a royal child, so Hongli can’t demote her.
• Color Motif: Reds and purples. In the past, purple was seen as a color of luxury due to how expensive it was to produce, symbolizing her growing power as mother of 3 sons with a powerful backing. After Langhua dies, she starts wearing more shades of red as she becomes obsessed with succeeding her as Empress and putting her sons on the the throne (deep red being the color the main wife wears on her wedding). The others don’t miss this and call her out for wearing a bright red dress to Ruyi’s first morning meeting as empress, clearly spelling out that she should be the one sitting in Ruyi’s place.
• Despair Event Horizon: After her crimes are revealed, her best son is disowned from the royal heirdom and she is deposed to commoner. The last straw from her was the revelation that she's not a Yu clanswoman but a bastard who was abandoned as a baby. And the one who wrote this revealation is none other than her beloved king.
• Fatal Flaw: Her pride and need to have the last word. It causes her no end of trouble because she keeps publically challenging, insulting and offending Ruyi, even After Ruyi becomes Empress, which is a very unwise move.
  • Also her awful temperament. When her second born son Yongxuan is thrown off the horse, Ling Yunche and Li Yu find evidence that the saddle was tampered with, which would implicate Yongqi, Hailan and Ruyi, but the two men mutually decide to keep it quiet because Yuyan has framed Ling Yunche before and was not very gracious to Li Yu before he was promoted.
• Frame-Up: Her favorite tactic.
  • She pins the blame of Ruiji and Qiying’s miscarriages on Ruyi.
  • She instructs a pox-ridden Moxin to lie to Ruiji and tell her that Langhua killed her son out of jealousy, so that Ruiji will lose her mind out of grief and spread the pox to Yongcong.
  • She, again, frames Ruyi by making it look like she got bored of Hongli and started a relationship with the visitng Grandmaster, and even blackmails an imprisoned icehouse maid to yell out loud that what she did can’t be compared to Ruyi’s crimes to further suspicion.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Imperial Noble Consort Shujia.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: She slaps A Ruo. A Ruo has done plenty of things to deserve a slap, but Yuyan either doesn't know or doesn't care about them and slapped her only for walking in front of her.
• Laser-Guided Karma: After everything she’s done, she gets a fitting end that resonates with her crimes. To wit:
  • She causes two women to miscarry, and (by proxy) spreads the pox to Yongcong (who was born weak). She miscarries the 9th prince after she learns that Prince Yu is being prosecuted for causing his wife to die.
  • She frames Ruyi for cheating on the emperor with the Grand Master Monk, and causes Suoxin to be permanently crippled in one leg. She is framed for Jingsi’s death and her own son becomes crippled in one leg.
  • After killing Ruiji’s and Qiying’s babies so that her first son will become the first prince after Hongli becomes emperor, she is deposed to commoner, has her children taken away to be raised by the dowager consorts, and her son refuses to pay greetings after he gets married, all because she gloated that since her sons are the 4th and 8th (lucky numbers), they are prosperous children.
  • She’s done all of this so that so her Prince can notice her efforts, but in the end he doesn’t even want to be associated with her and reveals that she is an adopted Yu woman, so there was no chance she could marry him. (Although, Hongli thinks that Prince Yu only revealed this to save face in the light of Yuyan’s actions being revealed).
• Mama Bear: Despite the many evil things she’s done to other children, Yuyan is very protective of her own children. When Yongxuan’s leg was broken after he fell off his horse, she nearly kills Yongqi from grief and when confronted by Ruyi, yells, “If you’ve got business, come to me! Don’t take it out on my son! That’s no win!”
• Named by the Adaptation: Imperial Noble Consort Shujia's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Agrees to take Yanwan in as her maid so she could abuse her, thus giving Yanwan an opportunity to become Hongli's concubine, which in turn allows her to wreak havoc on the harem
• Walking Spoiler: It’s a given, considering the amount of schemes she does that change the course of the show drastically.

Xiyue

Gao Xiyue/Lady Gao/Imperial Noble Consort Hui/Imperial Noble Consort Huixian (posthumous title)

Played by: Tong Yao

One of Ruyi's enemies. A naive woman, and a master of the four arts, she begins the series as the highest ranked concubine and one of Ruyi’s enemies. Her only wish is to give birth to a child she can raise by her side, but her delicate foundation prevents her from fulfilling it.

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• Berserk Button: Do NOT mention anything related to having children around her. Concurrently, do not mention that she’s getting older. Ruiji loves to press these buttons.
• Color Motifs: Bright pink. Pink symbolizes innocence, and out of all the main female characters she’s the most naive and childish, throwing tantrums whenever she doesn’t get what she wants. Zigzagged In that, while she does murder children and frame other people for her misdeeds, she becomes horrified at herself for wanting to cause Yuyan to miscarry, and wonders when she became ruthless. Plus, she still considers Langhua her ally and begs her not to abandon her after A’Ruo dies and she goes insane out of guilt.
• Delicate and Sickly: She was born with weak blood circulation and continues to take medicine well into her late adulthood. In reality, Physician Qi was bribed by the Empress Dowager to mess with her medicine dosage to cause her rapidly declining health as revenge for Gao Bin sending Hengchou away to Dzungaria.
• Forced Miscarriage: She causes two women to miscarry out of jealousy and nearly plans to cause Yuyan to miscarry too until she has a brief moment of horror at how much she’s changed.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Imperial Noble Consort Huixian.
• Ironic Name: More like ironic honorary name but the character 慧 in her title means "wisdom" or "knowledge", which is rather ironic given she is rendered sterile without her knowledge due to the bracelet given to her by Langhua and the medicine that caused her to slowly die by Zhen Huan. Even Zhen Huan lampshades this.
• Jerkass: Overall, an unpleasant, bratty, and spoiled woman. The only reasons to why she isn't punished so easily is because she comes from a very well-known, noble family and her father is an important figure in the government. Hongli was forced to marry her as a concubine and it's obvious after a decade he really isn't that interested in her.
  • She couldn't care less about Yonghuang himself and wants to adopt him solely so she can raise the emperor's oldest son, which is ironic considering she wanted a child to raise, but maybe her child.
  • When Hailan is living in her palace, Xiyue abuses and tortures Hailan cruelly. Which would have likely resulted in Hailan's death had Ruyi not stepped in and conviced the Emperor to place Hailan in Ruyi's care.
• Named by the Adaptation: Imperial Noble Consort Huixian's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Pet the Dog: During her final moments, she assigns her maid Moxin to a building in the palace to work in when she's gone.
• Tantrum Throwing: Similar to A Ruo. Except being crazy, she's just throwing a childish tantrum.
• The Dog Bites Back: In her final days, Xiyue learns the extent of how much Hongli and Langhua have manipulated her. She summons the Emperor to confess the sins of the Empress while ensuring he sits on a cushion infected with scabies. Her maid Moxin gets revenge for her by using a cloth tainted by the pox to kill Langhua's son, Yongcong, with the help of concubine Mei.
• Would Hurt a Child: Deliberately causes the death of other concubines' children.

Yanwan

Wei Yanwan/Imperial Noble Consort Ling/Imperial Noble Consort Lingyi (posthumous title)/Empress Xiaoyichun (posthumous title)

Played by: Li Chun

One of Hongli's wives. Mother of his successor Yongyan, the Jiaqing Emperor.

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• Adaptational Name Change: Her real life surname and her last name from the novel is 魏 but is changed to 卫 in the TV series. Both are pronounced the same as "Wei". The same thing happens to her honorary title. 令 is changed to 炩. Both characters are homophones.
• Asshole Victim: After all the innocent people she's killed and the ploys she committed to ruin so many lives, it's hard to feel sorry for her when she gets her comeuppance.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed, her son does eventually become the Emperor but she never gets to see it because she is killed by the last dose of poison given to her.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Appears a kind, meek and gentle maid and later a concubine who is an extremely power-hungry and ambition woman who wants to have status.
• Color Motif: At first, she starts wearing pink as she uses her charms and perceived meekness to seduce Hongli, pink symbolizing innocence. But as she becomes the Noble Consort and co-manager of the harem, she wears a deep orange dress with gold ornaments, emulating the yellow worn by the Empress. She starts wearing the official yellow hue when she becomes an Imperial Noble Consort and becomes the de-facto manager of the harem.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: A furious Hongli feeds her poisons and then gives her the antidote, making her suffer for years before finally giving her a final and fatal dose of poison so she never finds out her son does become the emperor.
• The Dog Bites Back: Yuyan mistreated her when she was a servant for three years straight. After her status is elevated, she has no qualms crippling Yongxuan and framing Yuyan for the murder of Ruyi's daughter.
• Entitled to Have You: Has this sort of attitude with Ling Yunche. No matter how much he tries keeping a distance between them, she keeps doing things to get him jealous and even somehow deduces that the reason Yunche dislikes his new wife isn’t because he just doesn’t want to get married, but because he’s still in love with her.
• Evil Counterpart: Yanwan is essentially Zhenhuan if Zhenhuan has foregone her love and honor in pursuit of wealth and power. It's no coincidence that they both have resided at the Yongshou Palace at some points. They both are women who do not love their Emperors but someone else instead. Though Zhenhuan does genuinely love the Yongzheng Emperor at first. They both rise from being low-ranking concubines to the highest position bar the Empress. Yanwan and Zhenhuan are very shrewd and cunning in their own ways. Though what ultimately sets them apart is that Zhenhuan even at her worst still retains some degrees of sympathy whereas Yanwan willingly commits many atrocities just to advance her status. Zhenhuan still cares deeply for her loved ones including her servants even after suffering heavily. Even when she is ordered to kill her true love, she cannot bring herself to do it. On the other hand, Yanwan is more than happy to get rid of those close to her if she finds them no longer useful or posing a threat to her. Zhenhuan is a Good is Not Nice Naïve Newcomer when she first enters the harem but Yanwan has already displayed some of her worst traits such as greed and the willingness to throw away the love of her life before she even becomes a concubine. Yanwan is often scoffed and sneered at for employing "lowly" tricks and ruses such as using her body to captivate the Emperor whereas Zhenhuan is averse to the idea and even states at one point that she dislikes it.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Who would have thought that this little maid would end up causing so much damage and suffering?
• Foil: to A Ruo. Both were palace maids who entered the harem in pursuit of luxuries and ended up exposed for their crimes and fed poison, but Yanwan’s stay in the harem lasted far longer than A Ruo’s, becoming an Imperial Noble Consort by the end of her life. Yanwan also keeps up a facade of being kind and innocent, while A Ruo spends her every waking moment being haughty and bullying everyone she sets her eyes on, including women in the palace who rank higher than her. Qianlong’s treatment of both women contrasts: He genuinely loves Yanwan (as much as an emperor loving a concubine can be), and sired many children from her with one becoming the emperor, and he takes her side against Ruyi. Meanwhile, he only let A Ruo enter the harem because he wanted to punish her for framing Ruyi by making her kneel next to his bed every night, making the other women jealous of her (thinking that she keeps taking their chances to serve the emperor) while leaving her a virgin and childless.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Empress Xiaoyichun.
• Insane Troll Logic: She copies Yihuan’s pregnancy medicine (actually contraceptives) and spends years trying to get pregnant and unknowingly sabotaging herself. After Yihuan miraculously becomes pregnant, she tells Ruyi (for the first time) that she copied Yihuan’s medicine and Ruyi merely tells her to do like Yihuan and stop taking it. She later finds out the truth and somehow deduces that Ruyi knew and didn’t tell her because she felt threatened by her and didn’t want her to get pregnant.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Like Yuyan before her, she suffers the consequences of her actions after escaping unpunished for so long:
  • She (accidentally) causes Jingsi and the 6th princess to die because of Fu Gui’er, while trying to kill Yongji to eradicate the legitimate heir and cause Ruyi grief for “taking” Ling Yunche from her. She loses the 14th and 16th princes because of a fever.
  • She causes Yongjing to die from a breech position and tells her mother to take on her crime for her. She loses her daughter Jingyuan right after giving birth to her as she is adopted by Meiruo, and when Jingyuan grows up she refuses to acknowledge Yanwan as her birth mother and outright calls her evil, with Yanwan obliviously asking her why she is like this to her mother.
  • She tries to kidnap Jingyuan while Meiruo is away because she couldn’t wait for Hongli to officially bring her back into her custody, pinches her harshly on her cheek when she calls her evil, and futilely tries to use her status as Imperial Noble Consort to force her servants to slap Meiruo for insulting her. In the process, she accidentally insults Zhenhuan’s status as Hongli’s foster mother, Jingyuan stays with Meiruo, and she loses the respect of the mongolian consorts and they don’t have to pay her greetings anymore.
  • She (by proxy of manipulating Nanny Tian’s daughter into thinking her mother died because of Ruyi and faking her identity to get married to him) causes Yongqi’s death and frames it so that he died because he refused to get treated by Ruyi’s physicians, thinking that Ruyi was mad at his mother for executing Ling Yunche. Hailan, out of grief, puts magnificent effort into investigating Yongqi’s death and everyone that suspiciously died, and in the end reveals Yanwan’s true nature and every crime that she committed.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: When she first became a concubine she was desperate to conceive and give birth to a child to secure her position. Because Hongli did not favour her often enough she did attempt to seduce Ling Yunche in order to increase her chances of a pregnancy, but he firmly refused her. It is hinted that she might have seduced a differed imperial guard at some point which would make the paternity of her children somewhat questionable.
• Named by the Adaptation: Empress Xiaoyichun's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Never My Fault:
  • She leaves Ling Yunche to pursue becoming a concubine in the palace, telling him to forget about her and their past, because she has no future with him. When Ling Yunche treats her coldly after her status rises, she refuses to believe it’s her fault and blames Ruyi for it because she thinks Ling Yunche is in love with her.
  • She starts rumors that Ling Yunche and Ruyi are in love and having an affair, and coaches Eyinzhu on what to say (even on bringing Yunche’s wife as a witness). As a result, Yunche becomes a eunuch because of Hongli’s fury. However, when she hears the news she walks to Ruyi’s palace and blames her for it, saying that if Yunche hadn’t fallen for Ruyi’s “seduction”, he wouldn’t have become a eunuch. She washes her hands clean of the incident and says she would rather see Yunche dead than be a eunuch, even calling him a disgusting monster.
    • Yunche is sent to the punishment department after Yanwan feeds Yongji hallucinogenic mushrooms and causes him to think that his mother and Yunche are embracing. She visits him (disguised as a maid), and acts absolutely shocked when he rightfully blames her for everything that happened to him over the years because she couldn’t get over the fact their relationship is over and he doesn’t love her like he used to.
  • Yuhu comes to her palace to take all of her children away (Jingyun to be raised by Ke, Yonglin to be raised by Meiruo, and Yongyan to be raised by the dowagers) and tell her that the Mongolian consorts no longer have to mandatorily greet her, as a result of her being caught teaching Yongyan to prioritize his mother over his father and the subjects (a very dangerous attitude for a possible Emperor). The person she blames for this? Chunchan, for being missing on Yongqi’s 100th day memorial and possibly confessing everything Yanwan did.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Yuyan viciously abused her as a maid, forcing her do all kinds of labor, and letting her other servants bully Yanwan as “punishment” for resembling Ruyi, which made Yuyan fear that Hongli might fall in love with her for it. In return, She informs Yuyan of the Crown Prince's of Joseon's disgrace so Yuyan will have a difficult childbirth. While Yuyan survives, her baby does not. Then, Yanwan frames her for Jingsi's death and causes her mental health to deteriorate after she instructs her servants to put a needle in Yongxuan’s saddle so he will cause the horse he’s riding on to kick him off and break his leg.
• Pet the Dog: For Ling Yunche. It's a miniscule one in a way. While she apparently had no hesitation in taking him out for power, seeing how he become a eunuch made her feel pity for him and unlike how she would usually taunt the people who get in her way, Yanwan is shown a sad expression for him. While Jin Zhong didn't hesitate to taunt Ling Yunche for becoming a eunuch, Yanwan didn't. It's to the point she rather see him dead than make him suffer humiliation. It goes to show that she still has genuine feelings for him even if it is a very twisted one.
• Rags to Royalty: Starts as an abused maid, and steadily rises in the ranks until she is Imperial Noble Consort. Her son becomes the next emperor and posthumously she is granted the title of Empress.
• Villain Has a Point: She wasn't wrong when she pointed out to Hongli that in the palace, scheming and manipulation is inevitable. And although she's guilty of a lot of crimes, he too is to blame for choosing to believe the worst in Ruyi, the only person who was ever sincere and devoted to him since the beginning.
• Would Hurt a Child: When Jingyuan is defiant towards her, Yanwan harshly pinches her cheek. It's actually worse in the novel to the point she actually hits her repeatedly that even her other children tried to stop her.
  • She sets Jia's dog on Jingsi, causing the toddler to die.
  • She pays Nanny Tian to force Ruyi’s second son into a breech position, so that the baby will die during labor.

Luyun

Su Lüyun/Lady Su/Imperial Noble Consort Chun/Imperial Noble Consort Chunhui (posthumous title)

Played by: Hu Ke

One of Hongli's wives.

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• Blood from the Mouth: She bleeds heavily from her mouth when begging Hongli for forgiveness after Yongzhang speaks out against Xiangjian and he got kicked for his outburst, and when Hongli accuses her of coveting the empress seat since Langhua died, she vomits up blood and has to be taken away to recover in her palace.
• Incurable Cough of Death: After Xiangjian’s arrival to the palace, Luyun starts coughing more and more as the days go by, due to dysentery, but Hongli doesn’t visit her once, and only has the excuse that he’s focusing more on state affairs. The entire situation angers Yongzhang who unwittingly makes his mother’s condition worse by pointing out the obvious and saying it’s because of Hongli’s infatuation with Xiangjian, causing her to cough even more than she can handle.
• Face–Heel Turn: A brief and downplayed example. When she is stirred up by Yuyan's manipulation to believe she has a chance to succeed Empress Xiaoxianchun, she becomes haughty and looks down on Ruyi. She renews her friendship with Ruyi once she is put back in place.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Imperial Noble Consort Chunhui.
• Mama Bear: Is extremely unhappy and fearful when she realises that Langhua is ensuring that Luyun's son does not get the care and education he needs. She cooperates with Hailan to smuggle reed pollen in Yonglian's sickroom. For one moment, during Yonghuang's final moments she hits his wife for talking omniously and excuses herself and everybody else when he calls for Ruyi. Even if Luyun probably didn't love Yonghuang she cared for him.
• Named by the Adaptation: Imperial Noble Consort Chunhui's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Hongli doesn't hesitate to bring up the time where Luyun was vying for the empress position during Langhua's funeral to her face when she's trying to apologize for Yongzhang's outspokeness of Xiangjian.
• Parental Favoritism: Constantly undermines Yonghuang in order to advance her biological sons.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: For a brief period of time during Langhua’s mourning period, she believed she would be able to achieve becoming Empress and/or having one of her biological sons become a Crown Prince and having Zhen Huan's blessing (althought it's implied Zhen Huan intends to control her if she became Empress considering how easy it is to sway Luyun). She makes fun of Ruyi (who has no children), saying that Yonghuang’s filiality must be so precious to her because he’s the only child she ever raised. This behavior hits her back hard as Hailan and her son Yongqi subtly tell Hongli details of Luyun's and her sons' ambition leading her, Yongzhang, and Yonghuang to be unfavored permanently.
• Would Hurt a Child: Was complicit in Hailan's scheme to expose Yonglian to reed pollen.

Ruiji

Bai Ruiji/Concubine Mei

Played by: He Hong Shan

A pipa player from the South Office, who manages to charm Qianlong with her young looks and personality. She quickly makes Xiyue her archenemy, due to her pipa skills and the fact that she managed to get pregnant while Xiyue couldn’t. In reality, she was a spy (among others) sent by Zhenhuan to spy on Qianlong and influence his decisions.

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• Elegant Classical Musician: Is an expert pippa player, which is how she attracts Hongli.
• Hidden Depths: Initially she looks like a bratty pretty girl that just happened to have the luck to catch the emperor's eye. She is actually one of Zhen Huan's spies and helps convince Hongli to send Jingse in Mongolia instead of Hengti.
• Outliving One's Offspring / Tragic Stillbirth: Her baby is born deformed, and barely lives for a few minutes before Qianlong orders that he be buried in the gardens.
• Smug Snake: In the beginning, she acted in a haughty way, subtly bragging to Xiyue about her young looks and the fact that she managed to get pregnant 6 months after entering the harem, while Xiyue spent 6 years without a single child to her name. After she loses her child, her mental health deteriorates and she loses the smug attitude.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Deliberately injures her own face to frame Ruyi.

Yihuan

Yehe Nara Yihuan/Consort Shu

Played by: Chen Hao Yu

One of Ruyi's friends, she entered the harem during Ruyi’s stay at the Cold Palace. She, alongside Muping and Ruiji, were spies sent by Zhenhuan to enter Qianlong’s harem and influence his decisions. Unfortunately, Yihuan had already fallen in love with Qianlong years earlier, and she didn’t have the heart to manipulate him like Zhenhuan wanted her to.

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• Driven to Suicide: After she learns that the reason she couldn’t have kids was because Qianlong gave her contraceptives without her knowledge, she returns to her palace, dismisses everyone so she can be alone, and sets it on fire while locking herself inside. By the time her servants see the fire, they can’t reach her and can only try to put the fire out.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Consort Shu.
• Named by the Adaptation: Consort Shu's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Her son is born weak due to her liver problems while pregnant and he dies a year later before she can see him again.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: She was one of Ruyi's friends who never backstabbed her and was downright one of the only morally good people, she devoted her life and love to a man who never even loved her all because Hongli knew she was one of Zhen Huan's spies, loses her child because of her modified pregnancy medicine that causes liver failure. After finding out about everything, she orders everyone from her palace to leave for a bit so she can set her palace on fire without killing anyone but herself. Even as a pregnant Ruyi tries to save her, the doors are locked so Yihuan dies in the fire.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Not her fault, but Ruyi trying to save her leads to the premature pregnancy of Jingsi, in which the doctor tells Hongli and her that Jingsi needs to be careful not to be startled or do straining activities or she'll die at a young age.

A Ruo

Soco Lun A Ruo/Concubine Shen

Played by: Zeng Yi Xuan

One of Langhua's allies. Originally Ruyi's servant before she entered the palace. She has a bad habit of feeling entitled, making wild assumptions and bullying those she sees beneath her.

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• All for Nothing: She betrays Ruyi and frames her so she could gain favor and luxuries as a concubine. However, not once does Hongli touch her and due to the assumption that she has his favour, most of the other harem members look down on her. As a result, she's subjugated to bullying and humiliation from them.
• False Friend: While working as Ruyi's servant she pretended to be her friend while secretly plotting against her.
• Fatal Flaw: She was greedy for more luxuries and betrayed Ruyi in order to achieve a higher rank. She's also envious that Ruyi has Hongli's favour. She's prideful and constantly sees herself as an equal amongst the other harem members despite her prior rank and the means in which she used to achieve her current status. She also has an awful temper as shown with her Tantrum Throwing and constant need to argue with others.
• Foil: to Yanwan. Both were palace maids who entered the harem in pursuit of luxuries and ended up exposed for their crimes and fed poison, but Yanwan’s stay in the harem lasted far longer than A Ruo’s, becoming an Imperial Noble Consort by the end of her life. Yanwan also keeps up a facade of being kind and innocent, while A Ruo spends her every waking moment being haughty and bullying everyone she sets her eyes on, including women in the palace who rank higher than her. Qianlong’s treatment of both women contrasts: He genuinely loves Yanwan (as much as an emperor loving a concubine can be), and sired many children from her with one becoming the emperor, and he takes her side against Ruyi. Meanwhile, he only let A Ruo enter the harem because he wanted to punish her for framing Ruyi by making her kneel next to his bed every night, making the other women jealous of her (thinking that she keeps taking their chances to serve the emperor) while leaving her a virgin and childless.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Her jealousy toward Ruyi drives a lot of her actions.
• Humiliation Conga: Hongli subjects her to a three year long series of humiliations.
• Never My Fault: Has the habit of whining over punishments that she brought over herself and claiming that she did nothing to deserve it.
  • When she’s punished by Xiyue for mocking Lianxin’s marriage to a eunuch and Ruyi leaves her there (as Ruyi doesn’t have the power to contest Xiyue’s punishment), she cries to Ruyi that she doesn’t deserve it because she was giving Ruyi justice for the Empress’ mistreatment of her.
  • In one episode, she wears extravagant clothes to catch the emperor’s eye, and Ruyi tells her to never wear that again because the Empress could punish her for wearing extravagant clothes during non-holiday days. A Ruo takes this as Ruyi being jealous of her, and thinks Ruyi telling A Ruo to never wear that again is Ruyi doing that to prevent A Ruo from taking her place.
  • She blames Ruyi for everything that she did, saying that Ruyi knew the Emperor “liked” her and planned to marry her off to get her away from him and out of the palace. Qianlong is obviously confused by this giant leap in logic.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Everything that happens to her after she framed Ruyi. Hongli knows what she did, so every time he sends for A Ruo he forces her to kneel beside his bed all night. Eventually he reveals her crime in front of all the other concubines, has her poisoned so she'll never be able to speak again, and kicks her out of the palace.
• Rags to Royalty: A deconstruction. She goes from being a maid to being one of Hongli's concubines, but she got there by framing Ruyi for murder. When her crimes are revealed she loses everything and ends up worse off than she was as a servant.
• Smug Snake: After her ascension to First-Class Attendant, she gets more daring in her conversations with the other women in the harem. She even slaps Hailan just to prove that she can, even though by that point Hailan was higher than her in rank.
  • When she was a servant, she constantly mocked Lianxin for marrying Eunuch Wang and gleefully reminded her of the fact that she’ll never be able to have kids.
• Tantrum Throwing: Is prone to do this.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Ruyi treated her well when she was a servant, but A Ruo becomes increasingly jealous of Ruyi and conspires with Xiyue to frame her.

Wanyin

Chen Wanyin/Consort Wan/Noble Consort Wan (posthumous title)

Played by: Cao Xi Wen

One of Ruyi's friends. A concubine from Hongli’s time as Prince Bao, she is left unnoticed by most of the harem, including Hongli himself, but is largely okay with it and keeps to herself, never causing trouble.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Dowager Noble Consort Wan.
• Named by the Adaptation: Dowager Noble Consort Wan's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Out of Focus: Out of all the imperial women seen in the series, she is the least focused upon. She keeps herself out of trouble, isn’t targeted by anyone for malicious scheming, and the only reason she gets promoted is due to her status as a wife from the old prince manor.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: In the novel version where Hongli finally sees her drawings of him, when he was young and now, he is impressed to the point he finally treats her like a good wife and gives her attention, becoming one of his closest consorts after Ruyi's death.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: She is convinced by Yanwan to compile a series of poems Hongli wrote for Langhua after the latter’s death, making her think that doing so will get Hongli to finally notice her. He does, but in doing so he makes Ruyi mad because she feels like he glossed over what Langhua did to her and is comparing the two women in favor of Langhua, and in the process, Hongli removes Yongji from Ruyi’s custody and gives him to Hailan. Wanyin horribly regrets this and asks Ruyi to forgive her, because she never intended for any of that to happen.

Meiruo

Barin Meiruo/Noble Consort Ying

Played by: Zhang Jia Ning

A Mongolian princess.

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• Composite Character: She is a composite character of Noble Consort Ying and Noble Consort Xin, the latter of whom is omitted from the TV series. She takes on the clan name and title of the former character but assumes several details of the latter character including the given name of Noble Consort Xin from the novel.
• Good Parents: Despite her dislike towards Wei Yanwan, she raised her daughter Jingyuan with unconditional love. What's more, unlike most concubines, she never once considered using her as leverage for political favour.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Noble Consort Ying.
• Mama Bear: She's enraged when Wei Yanwan tries to take Jingyuan out of her custody by force and goes as far as to physically hurt her when she's defiant.
• Named by the Adaptation: Noble Consort Ying's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Politeness Judo: Always manages to insult Yuyan while remaining perfectly polite and composed.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: As a Mongolian princess, her status within her natal clan grants her protection from Wei Yanwan, whom despite her title as Imperial Consort, has nothing but the emperor's favor to fall back on.
• Undying Loyalty: Towards Ruyi. She befriends Ruyi and remains loyal to her even after the emperor deposes her.

Bai'erguosishe

Lady Bai'erguosishe/Concubine Ke

Played by: Liu Mei Tong

A Mongolian princess.

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• Good Is Not Soft: As a late arrival, she enters the harem on the tailend of Yanwan’s controversial deer blood move and isn’t amused when Yanwan barges in on her time with the Emperor and tries to “join in on the fun”. She merely reminds her of her idiotic move and closes her door in Yanwan’s face.
  • Later, she pays back Yanwan for sneaking in on a trip she wasn’t invited to by deliberately setting her up to fail launching an arrow, knowing she wasn’t raised for archery.
• Through His Stomach: Cooks barbecue for Hongli to get his favour.
• Tomboy: Downplayed. Although she still wears dresses and acts like a proper concubine, she is fond of horse riding and bow-shooting, and Hongli compliments her talents.
• Trademark Favourite Food: Loves Mongolian style milk tea. Is not impressed when Yanwan tries to win her over with Han style tea.

Xiangjian

Han Xiangjian/Consort Rong

Played by: Li Qin

A princess from East Turkestan.

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• Adaptational Nationality: Her historical counterpart was an Uyghur. The Uyghurs are currently being horrifically abused by the CCP, so to be politically correct the series-makers made Xiangjian a member of a fictional ethnicity.
• Brutal Honesty: She doesn't hesitate to call the Emperor out on his frankly rotten attitude towards Ruyi.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Consort Rong.
• Morality Pet: Downaplayed hard, it's hard to say but despite Xiangjian's obvious dislike to Hongli, he still likes her enough that he never tries to physically abuse her aside the coerced sexual relationship and her blunt remarks to him. In the novel when Xiangjian is passive-aggressive with Yanwan, who is in higher status than her, Hongli ignores it.
• Named by the Adaptation: Consort Rong's personal name wasn't recorded, though legends name her either Iparhan or Nur Ela Nurhan.
• One True Love: Han Qi. He's the only man Xiangjian ever loved and will always be her only love which is the primary reason why she tries many ways to kill herself to be with him again until Ruyi manages to convince to live on for his sake. It's also why she refuses to have any children with Hongli even if it could give her a power leverage since she believes one should have a child if two people love each other and she does not love Hongli at all.
• Passive Aggressive Combat: When the emperor chides her for her Brutal Honesty, she coolly points out that if he wishes for a subservient woman, he can call for Yanwan.
• Questionable Consent: She refused to have sex with Hongli for a long time, and did not relent until Ruyi persuaded her to give him a chance. This was a bad idea considering he did not stop flipping her tag to the point Zhen Huan ordered a soup that would make her infertile so he would stop focusing on her but this would unforunately sour his relationship with Ruyi even further.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Has an unbending core of strength, despite looking like a fragile flower.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Is famously beautiful, to the point where Hongli hears about it and requests that she given to him as tribute. This causes her tribe to separate her from her beloved fiance, who dies in an avalanche trying to get her back. Xiangjian then spends the rest of her life mourning for him, enduring Hongli's unwanted favour and having to deal with harem jealousy.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Ironic considering how she was actually betrothed to Han Qi and would have been very happy to be with him, but since Hongli heard of her beauty, he wanted her as a tribute and the betrothal between her and Han Qi was canceled. Han Qi died from an avalanche trying to save her from getting married to Hongli.
• You Make Me Sick: Novel version goes more into Xiangjian's feelings towards Yongzhang and Chun's deaths that results her in being very disgusted with Hongli for not caring about his son and one of his wives he's been with for a long time are dead and not mourning them. Instead he is still trying to make her accept him as her husband. Hongli's response is to say everyone dies at some point, clearly not caring about his oldest son and Chun, showing no remorse for his abhorrent actions.

Muping

Lu Muping/Noble Consort Qing/Imperial Noble Consort Qinggong (posthumous title)

Played by: Yu Yang

A court minister's daughter.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Imperial Noble Consort Qinggong.
• Jerkass: Most of the scenes she is in show her as a person with a sour attitude, always on the side of the most successful person in the harem, once Yuyan and later Yanwan, while never giving more than the minimum amount of respect to everyone else.
  • She congratulates Yuyan on having her son be in the spotlight, but doesn’t seem to care about the fact that Yongqi was punished to kneel, and is in fact glad that it happened because it means that Yongcheng looks good in retrospect.
  • When Hongli praises Wanyin’s book that comprised his poems for Langhua, Muping takes that as a sign that Ruyi’s reign as empress is nearly over, because other than her originally being the ce’fujin (Second Wife) in the old Prince manor and having a son, she has nothing of merit about her, and he clearly misses Langhua.
  • When Yongzhang is yelled at by Hongli for wanting Xiangjian to leave the palace to quell the harem women’s anger at her presence, and Luyun is kneeling in front of Hongli’s palace pleading for mercy, Muping leads the other women in the harem to kneel in front of Yikun Palace in protest of Xiangjian’s stay, under the guise of protesting for Luyun and Yongzhang’s honor. But as soon as Ruyi tells her she is promoted to Imperial Concubine, she drops everything and happily goes back to her palace to “reflect on her actions”.
  • When Hongli becomes obsessed with Xiangjian and visits her every night, Muping becomes jealous and “wonders” if Xiangjian is pulling some tricks to get Hongli to like her so much. Mind you, the relationship between the two is everything but consensual and Xiangjian almost killed herself to avoid being Hongli’s wife, but since protesting the relationship caused two deaths the last time, Ruyi can only reprimand Muping by saying that Hongli has the right to visit whoever he wants. And when Xiangjian asks to speak to Ruyi privately, Muping scoffs as she leaves and sarcastically comments on how Xiangjian is charming Ruyi.
  • When Yanwan gives birth to Yonglin, Muping fawns over the fact that she gets to keep her son by her side and then cattily remarks that Ruyi might as well be deposed soon since she had her treasure and scroll taken away, and says that Yongji’s status as a legitimate son won’t hinder any of Yanwan’s children from becoming Crown Prince.
  • When Hongli gets the news that Ruyi died, Muping blames her for it and says she was just doing it to piss Hongli off because she didn’t want to become empress again. Hongli yells at her that she has nothing to do with his relationship with Ruyi and yells at her to get out, and later she is not seen at Ruyi’s funeral.
• Named by the Adaptation: Imperial Noble Consort Qinggong's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Old Man Marrying a Child: She is about 15-16 when she becomes Hongli's concubine. He is about twenty years older than her and has sons older than her.
• Squick: Before becoming Hongli's concubine she was not even explained what sex is. Hongli is also old enough to be her father.

Qiying

Huang Qiying/Noble Lady Yi/Concubine Yi (posthumous)

Played by: Han Dan Tong

Langhua's former maid.

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• Heel–Face Turn: A minor example, but she treats Hailan rather kindly while living in Ruyi’s palace, a contrast to her dismissive attitude while Xiyue berates and blames Hailan for how she got her position as a concubine. Subverted, when she attempts to stab Ruyi with her hairpin and she accidentally nails Hailan in the wrist, since she doesn’t seem to notice or care.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Concubine Yi.
• Named by the Adaptation: Concubine Yi's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Outliving One's Offspring / Tragic Stillbirth: Her baby is born dead, and she has an induced labor to remove the baby from her womb before she dies.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: The first concubine to perish. She dies shortly after her baby’s death.

Eyinzhu

Borjigit Eyinzhu/Consort Yu

Played by: Zhao Ke

A Mongolian princess.

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• Frame-Up: Tries to assassinate Yongji and frame Xiangjian for it.
• Malicious Slander: Tries to accuse Ruyi of having an affair with Ling Yunche.
• Humiliation Conga: First, she gets confined for two years after it’s revealed she was stealing info to send to her tribe, and was planning to get Hongli addicted to aphrodisiacs. On her promotion day, no less! Then, she’s confined again when Yongji is almost assassinated and the assassin is linked back to her. Then, she is sent to the department of punishment to her likely death after she accuses Ruyi of cheating on Hongli with Ling Yunche.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Constantly brags that her tribe specializes in producing the Qing Dynasty's empresses, and indeed three Khorchin women have been empresses but she herself is nowhere close in the running.
• Smug Snake: She prides herself on the fact she’s from a tribe from whom several empresses have been crowned, but several of her schemes backfire on her.
• Would Hurt a Child: Attempts to assassinate Yongji, who is twelve at the time. Only Ling Yunche's quick thinking saves the prince.

Zhuying

Fuca Zhuying/Lady Zhe/Consort Zhe (posthumous title)/Imperial Noble Consort Zhemin (posthumous title)

Played By: No One

A close cousin of Langhua and the mother of Yonghuang and the dead Second Princess. The mystery of her death is the main conflict that divides between Langhua and Yonghuang.

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• Deceased Parents Are the Best: In contrast to the alive Langhua who tried bullying him into being lesser than her son, Yonghuang speaks fondly of Zhuying and is still not over her death even when he gets married. Even while sick, he dreams of her eating food that shouldn’t be eaten together and bleeding from her ears, eyes, nose and mouth while crying and telling him to come with her, and he cries out to her out of fear.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalized version of Imperial Noble Consort Zhemin.
• Named by the Adaptation: Imperial Noble Consort Zhemin’s personal name wasn’t recorded.
• Posthumous Character: She died between Hongli marrying Ruyi and getting coronated, but has never appeared on screen.

The Imperial Family

Yongzheng Emperor

Aisin Gioro Yinzhen/Yongzheng Emperor

Played by: Zhang Feng Yi

Hongli's father.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of the Yongzheng Emperor.
• I Have No Son!: Removes Hongshi from the imperial genealogy and proclaims that he no longer has a son named Hongshi.
• Parental Marriage Veto: Attempts to invoke this. Hongli chooses Ruyi as his official wife. Yongzheng tells him he can't marry her because she's related to Yixiu, who is now in disgrace. Hongli marries her anyway, though as a concubine rather than his official wife.
• Pet the Dog: When informing Hongli and Qingying that the Empress is in house arrest and that Hongli cannot have Qingying as his first wife, he allows her to speak her mind on giving her aunt leniency. Later, when Hongli begs his father to allow him to marry Qingying despite the chance of being removed like his 3rd brother, his father finally grants it but only allows her to be his concubine and giving her the eponymous name "Ruyi" to hide her relationship with Yixiu.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Telling Hongli that you must decide the best decisions with sacrifices makes him unable to stick up for Ruyi ever again as the Emperor.

Yixiu

Ula Nara Yixiu/Empress Jingren

Played by: Joan Chen

Ruyi's aunt, married to the Yongzheng Emperor.

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• Adaptational Name Change: Her historical counterpart was named Duoqimuli.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: The real Empress Xiaojingxian predeceased the Yongzheng Emperor. Here she outlives him and is forced to commit suicide to save Ruyi.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Empress Xiaojingxian.
• Related in the Adaptation: Records are scarce, but it's unlikely the real Empress Xiaojingxian was closely related to Ruyi's historical counterpart.

Zhen Huan

Nio Huru Zhenhuan/Empress Dowager Chongqing

Played by: Vivian Wu

The Empress Dowager and Hongli's foster mother. Hengchuo and Hengti's biological mother.

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• Batman Gambit: Based on Ruyi’s advice, she goes to Hongli and (fake-)pleads with him to marry her daughter Hengti off to the Khorchin tribe, listing all the benefits she would get from the marriage, because she knows that once Fuca Clan hears of the benefits, they will pressure Langhua to marry Jingse off instead and Zhenhuan will get to keep Hengti with her.
• Commonality Connection: She has this with Ruyi as she loses Yongjing and the treatment by their husband, the Emperor. Considering in her series where she loses her child, she empathizes with Ruyi in losing her child and also knowing how it's like to be treated like trash by the Emperor.
• Demoted to Extra: She was the protagonist in The Legend of Zhen Huan, but is only a supporting character here.
• Doting Grandparent: She does like her grandchildren but the ones who spend the most with her is the one she likely loves the most. From what it's seen, it's Yongqi and Yongji so far. The only grandchild she probably doesn't like is Jingse, not helped that Langhua doesn't curb her arrogant behavior as the legitimate princess and the first moments between them is that she didn't go to her unlike the other grandchildren which in later timeskips, why she doesn't care if Jingse gets sent to the Khorchin trible to be married rather send her only other daughter.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: She's not exactly evil despite her antagonistic side towards Ruyi at first, because she's the niece of the empress who was her arch-enemy but when she finds out the reason Yonghuang and Yongzhang acted out in Langhua's funeral was because of her, she thought it was because Hailan was Ruyi's lackey similar to the relationship between Langhua and Xiyue. However, she doesn't even realize Hailan did it so she can protect Ruyi which the latter understood.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Empress Xiaoshengxian.
• Named by the Adaptation: Empress Xiaoshengxian's personal name wasn't recorded.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Demands that Ruyi either kill herself or kill her aunt. Berates Langhua for dressing shabbily and not being filial enough.
• Taught by Experience: When Ruyi and Zhen Huan talk about becoming empress, Ruyi admits even though she doesn't want to, it's because she still loves Hongli and wants to be by his side. However, Zhen Huan being in the palace for so long tells her love won't matter, especially if you're married to the emperor. She knows this well due to how she was treated with love but later treated like trash by the Yongzheng Emperor in her series after finding out she was just a replacement for the woman he loved. She's right as Ruyi begins to slowly lose her love for Hongli due to his personality and actions taking a change for worse.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: An odd example. In the series Hongli is Zhen Huan's adopted son, and the fact he isn't her biological son is specifically mentioned as the reason for tensions between them. Historically, though, he was her biological son.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: If she did not rush on pushing Ruyi to give Xiangjian the infertile soup, Hongli would not have slapped Ruyi and have their deteroriating relationship take another hit. Although she genuinely did not expect this to happen so she scolded him harshly out in the open. Not that it changed his mind.
  • If she had decided to kill Yanwan on the spot for causing Yihuan to die instead of being tempted to use her as a spy in the harem, she would've saved a whole bunch of people from dying.

Hongshi

Aisin Gioro Hongshi

Played by: Li Jie, Ma Qi Yue (young)

The Yongzheng Emperor's third son.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Hongshi.

Hongzhou

Aisin Gioro Hongzhou/Prince He of the First Rank

Played by: Wang Xiao

The Yongzheng Emperor's fifth son.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Hongzhou.

Hengchuo

Aisin Gioro Hengchuo/Grand Princess Duanshu

Played by: Xuan Lu

Zhen Huan and the Yongzheng Emperor's daughter. She comes back to the palace after 20 years, 5 months pregnant and forcibly remarried to Dawachi, the man who killed her first husband. Due to her current situation, Hongli is unable to annul their marriage and she is mad at him for taking so long to bring her back.

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• Big Damn Reunion: Reunites with her mother and brother after 20 years of being apart. When she and Zhenhuan meet, they take a moment to greet each other formally, but then, the waterworks start and they hug each other while crying. But when she meets Hongli, she rebuffs his attempts to remember their childhoods and subtly talks about the pain of being “inside a cage” after he spent too long contemplating on what to do with Dawachi and ended up only rescuing her after she became pregnant and thus couldn’t separate from her first husband’s killer.

Hengti

Aisin Gioro Hengti/Grand Princess Roushu

Played by: Wang He Run

Hengchuo's sister.

Qianlong's children

Yonghuang

Aisin Gioro Yonghuang/Prince Ding'an of the First Rank

Played by: Ding Qiao, Ye Kai Wan (child), Wang Dong He (teen)

Hongli's first son and his eldest prince. Consort Zhe's son and Ruyi's foster son, later Chun's foster son after Ruyi gets sent to the Cold Palace.

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• Death of a Child: Technically he wasn't a child when he died but he died pretty young as an adult. Hongli mourns his death because he did love Yonghuang who was his first child and showed coldness to him as he didn't want to show his worry for his sickness since he was severe with him during Langhua's funeral. He also keeps a keepsake from Yonghuang's mother showing he had some affection for her before her death.
• Dying Declaration of Hate: Not to Ruyi, but he spends his last minutes and words towards Ruyi, cursing Langhua for killing his mother. In reality, it was Yuyan who killed his mother, never realizing the person who divulged to him it was Langhua who killed her was his mother's murderer.
• Happily Adopted: He's very happy with Ruyi. This happiness is short-lived when Ruyi gets sent to the Cold Palace and he gets adopted by Luyun, and when he grows up, he suspects that Ruyi only adopted him and treated him nicely because she didn’t have any children and she wanted to use his status as the eldest prince to get the Empress seat. He eventually regrets what he's done to use Ruyi and sees her as his mother again before he dies.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Yonghuang.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In his adulthood, he began wanting to seek power and even began to see Ruyi, the adoptive mother who gave him so love, as a tool. Hongli at least had a point that he should have given Yonghuang back to Ruyi since Chun made him like this. Luckily, this trope gets subverted as he sees Ruyi as his mother again but still dies from his disease.

Yonglian

Aisin Gioro Yonglian/Crown Prince Duanhai

Played by: Yu Yao

Second prince. Langhua's eldest son.

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• Death of a Child: He dies young, partially because of his mother who forced him to study night and day without rest and cut the expenses of his residence, causing him to develop a lung condition due to the cold. It is implied that Hailan exposed him to reeds while he was in the midst of an asthma flare up, causing him to stop breathing.

Jingse

Aisin Gioro Jingse/Princess Hejing of the First Rank

Played by: Guan Xue Ying, Liu Si Tong (child), Wu Yu Yu (teen)

Third princess. Langhua's daughter.

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• Altar Diplomacy: She is married into the Khorchin Khanatte to solidify it's alliance with the Qing Dynasty.
• Awful Wedded Life: She and her Khorchin husband are very unhappy with one another. He started ignoring her for his concubines when she almost died giving birth to her son and she gladly comes back to live in the palace when he is demoted.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Is very haughty about being the sole legitimate princess. It's not helped that Langhua does nothing to humble her daughter's behavior and even seems proud to see Jingse arrogantly show off.
• Daddy's Girl: Is extremely doted on by Hongli because she is the first princess who hadn't died and lived long to the point he initially doesn't want to marry her off.
• Even Evil Has Standards: As much as she dislikes Ruyi, she eventually sees Yanwan is truly evil and power-hungry, she decides to do one good thing by sending an eunuch to spy on her (on Meiruo's advice) that leads her children being taken away.
  • While she didn't really see her half-siblings to be her actual siblings, she didn't want them to die at least such as crying in Yongqi's funeral.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Princess Hejing.
• Foreshadowing: First scene with her doesn't make her go to Zhen Huan unlike the other grandchildren. This eventually shows the latter doesn't come to really like her granddaughter and is happy to send her off to the Khorchin tribe when the tribe demands a legitimate princess to be married into their clan, as she would rather not send her daughter Hengti.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Conspires with Wei Yanwan to bring down Ruyi, but comes to regret when she realizes that Yanwan is evil and wants the Empress position and sees Ruyi is a decent person. The latter maybe.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Had she not begged her father to release Yanwan from the punishment bureau after Yongjing’s death, Yanwan wouldn’t have gotten a power boost from her support and conspired to kill Yongqi to remove him as an heir.

Yongzhang

Aisin Gioro Yongzhang/Prince Xun of the Second Rank

Played by: Cheng Xing Yuan, He Luan Hui (child), Liu Ze Yu (teen)

Third prince. Luyun's eldest son.

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• Butt-Monkey: Played for Drama, as he becomes the The Un-Favourite out of all the children. After the scene in Langhua's funeral, Hongli starts to berate him a lot more aside ignoring him.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Calls out Hongli for overly favoring Xiangjian and causing chaos in the palace by making his women jealous for someone who doesn’t even like him. Hongli's apt response to that is to Bitch Slap him for his outspokeness.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Yongzhang.
• Like Father, Like Son: More like 3rd uncle, like 3rd nephew. One, both are quite dumb and outspoken that resulted in horrible outcomes for them, Hongshi is thrown out of the imperial genealogy for his outspokeness and Yongzhang dies from stress, exaseperated by his mother's death and trying to be in good graces with his father. Second, they are less talented than their younger siblings (Hongshi with Hongli and Yongzhang with Yongcheng and Yongqi). Third, both were the oldest children of their respective fathers but never become the emperor.
• The Un-Favourite: After the blunder at Langhua’s funeral, Hongli starts ignoring him and focusing more on his younger brothers, even asking for their input on the war with Dzungaria. Hongli unreasonably gets mad at him for not stopping the (nonexistent) assassin at the Mulan Hunting Grounds when he was clearly ordered to not follow his father into the forest, so he couldn’t have known. Even when his son dies from the heavy stress he was under trying to get into his father’s good graces while simultaneously fighting for his mother to not be ignored when she’s sick, who ultimately dies from her disease, Hongli doesn’t mourn his son at all and focuses more on Xiangjian’s refusal to accept him as her husband. This really shows how much Hongli has fallen as man, father, and husband all together, considering he's mourned all of his children, but Yongzhang doesn't get that privilege.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: There are some moments where Hongli returns to being mean towards his oldest son even as he is finally giving his son attention for once.

Yongcheng

Aisin Gioro Yongcheng/Prince Lü of the First Rank

Played by: An Jie, Rong Zi Shan (child), Hu Xian Xu (teen)

Fourth prince. Yuyan's eldest son.

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• The Ace: Alongside Yongqi, Yongcheng has proved to be as talented as his brother. It's to the point that Yongqi points out their teacher only advances their lessons if Yongcheng is there.
• Big Brother Instinct: When Yuyan dies, he promises his brothers that he'll protect them after they are sent to their grandfather's concubines to be raised.
• Broken Ace: He becomes this as his mother is demoted to a commoner who later dies and himself being adopted out of the imperial lineage, becoming the Duke of Lu, making him never having the chance to become a crown prince. Even his wife says he had an extremely bright future ahead of him.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Yongcheng.
• Calling the Old Woman Out: When Yuyan is deposed, he is originally scared for her and calling for her, but when she tells him Prince Yu expects her to put one of her children as Crown Prince and that she can’t disappoint him, he gets angry and calls her out for always caring about the Prince but never caring about him and forcing him to do things for her own benefits.

Yongqi

Aisin Gioro Yongqi/Prince Rong of the First Rank

Played by: Qu Chu Xiao, Wuze Jin Xi (child), Bian Cheng (teen)

Fifth prince. Hailan's son.

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• The Ace: He is an extremely talented child that Hongli's decided to choose him as his heir than his legitimate son.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Yongqi.
• Like Father, Like Son: The most significant trait that Yongqi probably got from his father was being infatuated with a woman he loved. Too bad the woman who he fell in love was someone who wanted to kill him and get rid of Ruyi because she thought she killed Nanny Tian, her mother. It was all Yanwan's plot to put her son as the heir.

Yongrong

Aisin Gioro Yongrong/Prince Shen of the Second Rank

Played by: Zhang Jin Ze, Chixu Xuan Zhe (child), Zhou Jin Shi (teen)

Sixth prince. Luyun's son.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Yongrong.

Jingyan

Aisin Gioro Jingyan/Princess Hejia of the Second Rank

Played by: He Xin Rui

Fourth princess. Luyun's daughter.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Princess Hejia.

Yongxuan

Aisin Gioro Yongxuan/Prince Yi of the First Rank

Played by: Ma Bo Quan, Ha Lin (child)

Eighth prince. Yuyan's son.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Yongxuan.
• Career-Ending Injury: After he is thrown off of an agitated horse, he breaks his leg and the Physicians tell Yuyan that he will be unable walk normally again for the rest of his life, so his prospects of being an heir plummet down.

Yongxing

Aisin Gioro Yongxing/Prince Cheng of the First Rank

Played by: Dongli Wu You, Zhang Yao Yang (child)

Eleventh prince. Yuyan's son.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Yongxing.

Yongji

Aisin Gioro Yongji

Played by: Xu Ling Chen, Lin Jing Jie (child), Ye Sheng Tong (teen)

Twelfth prince. Ruyi's eldest son.

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• Assassination Attempt: Almost became a victim of this due to Eyinzhu's schemes. Fortunately, he is saved by Ling Yunche's quick thinking, but without a small scar on his throat.

Jingsi

Aisin Gioro Jingsi/Princess Heyi of the First Rank

Played by: Lin Jing Yi

Fifth princess. Ruyi's daughter.

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• Death of a Child: Died because of Yanwan’s scheme to frame Jia by releasing the latter’s pet dog near the garden Jingsi was playing in. The dog smelled Jingsi’s red dress and rushed to bite her, and because of Jingsi’s weak heart, Jingsi died at the age of 3.
• Daddy's Girl: While we don't see scenes with her and her father, it is implied Hongli doted on her a lot and her death was one of the only times he mourned for his children. He made her a gold western watch for good luck so that she would continue to keep living on due to her weak heart. He even immediately punishes Yuyan but it was actually Yanwan's doing for her apparent hand on Jingsi's death on Hailan's request.

Jingyuan

Aisin Gioro Jingyuan/Princess Hejing of the First Rank

Played by: Jin Zi Qi

Seventh princess. Yanwan's daughter.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Princess Hejing.
• Happily Adopted: Concubine Ying raised her and both genuinely love each other. Jingyuan even proclaims that Concubine Ying is who she views as her true mother in front of her biological one and the empress dowager.
• You're Not My Father: It's her mother in this case. Although she is a child, she recognizes Wei Yanwan's true nature and refuses to acknowledge her as her mother.

Jingyun

Aisin Gioro Jingyun/Princess Heke of the Second Rank

Played by: Chen Yuan Er

Ninth princess. Yanwan's daughter.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Princess Heke.

Yongyan

Aisin Gioro Yongyan/Prince Jia of the First Rank/Jiaqing Emperor

Played by: Wei Zi Han, Chen Xue Tao (child)

Fifteenth prince. Yanwan's son. Qianlong's eventual successor.

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• Corrupt the Cutie: This probably would have happened if Yanwan continued to stay with Yongyan and considering how she's raising him to be thinking of only her and no one else even the Emperor, it's a possibility. Thankfully, due to Jingse having someone spy on her, he and his sister are taken from her corruption.
• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of the Jiaqing Emperor.
• Innocent Prodigy: He was likely to be a second Yongqi considering he's doing better than Yongji in studying and calligraphy, but he was precocious and innocent, showing he wasn't like his mother at all and seemed to enjoy spending time with his brothers.

Officials

Zhang Tingyu

Played by: Qin Yan

Member of the Grand Council.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Zhang Tingyu.

Fuca Fuheng

Played by: Jia Ting Long

Langhua's brother.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Fuheng.

Ula Nara Na'erbu

Played by: Wang Jin Song

Ruyi's father.

Male servants

Ling Yunche

Played by: Jing Chao

An imperial guard who befriends Ruyi during her stay at the Cold Palace.

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• Crippling Castration: Qianlong, out of paranoia over the rumors that Ruyi is having an affair with Yunche, castrates the latter to humiliate him. When Ruyi finds out, she openly cries over the fact that one of her only friends in the palace lost his ability to have children because of baseless rumors and Qianlong’s suspicions.
• Establishing Character Moment: When he sees Hailan trying to visit Ruyi in the Cold Palace, he asks what are they doing and that it's a forbidden place. When he sees Ruyi giving something from her hair, he doesn't immediately take it, only to say how it'll be like he stole it and asks for silver which Hailan's maid gives. He tells Hailan to go to him for stuff. Later, when he talks to Ruyi for items she want, when she says she wants flower seeds, he says how she's quite unusual but goes to get it for her. He also gets Jiang Yubin for them too without any reward.
• Frame-Up: He is framed by Jinzhong and Yuyan for stealing her underwear while she was bathing, and subsequently beaten for it.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Is in love with Yanwan at the beginning of the series, but she leaves him to be a Concubine. He gets over her, and subsequently falls in love with Ruyi, although he keeps their relationship professional and never says it outloud. He also keeps his distance away from Yanwan (added on by her attempted rape), which pisses her off when he doesn’t fawn over her like she wants him to, and when he gets married to Maoqian, she deludes herself into thinking that he doesn’t like his new wife because he still loves her.
• Sinister Suffocation: San Bao tragically executes him this way. The method is called “Promoted to An Official”, and it involves one’s face being covered in wet yellow paper and slowly suffocating, basically another form of water-boarding. Hailan hears him gasp one last time and cries at the long silence after it.

Jiang Yubin

Played by: Yuan Wen Lang

An imperial physician.

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• Childhood Friend Romance: He and Suoxin are in love with each other, and have been for a long time. But when Suoxin gets a permanent limp from the abuse Yuyan’s torturers administered on her, she genuinely thinks that Yubin will hate her and look for someone else. He constantly assures her that he still loves her.
• Happily Married: He and Suoxin get married.

Giuseppe Castiglione

Played by: Steven Thomas Boergadine

An Italian painter.

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• Historical Domain Character: A fictionalised version of Giuseppe Castiglione.

Li Yu

Played by: Huang Ming

Qianlong's personal attendant.

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• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Has a crush on Suoxin, but he chooses her happiness over his own and lets her get married to Jiang Yubin. He even gives the couple a gift before they leave the palace despite his duty to stay at the emperor's side.
• Passive Aggressive Combat: He delights in giving the morally corrupt concubines bad news and then giving them even worse news when they’re distressed.
• The Reliable One: He is this to both Hongli and Ruyi. While he takes his duty as the Emperor’s aide seriously, he won’t hesitate to tell Ruyi everything she needs to know even if Hongli doesn’t want her to.

Wang Qin

Played by: Hu Ming

Qianlong's personal attendant.

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• Domestic Abuse: He physically abuses Lianxin.
• Eunuchs Are Evil: Forces Lianxin to marry him then abuses her, driving her to attempt suicide.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: He takes drugs before abusing Lianxin. While under the influence of the drugs, Lianxin pretends to be Xiyue, flirting with him and saying she’ll do whatever he wants. She leads him to the real Xiyue and in a fit of delirium, he starts groping her. Qianlong arrives soon after, and in a chain of events revealing Wang Qin’s abuse and framing Ruyi for revealing that Ruiji’s baby was deformed, he has his leg broken and is executed.
• Sadist: He doesn’t get any sexual pleasure from sleeping with Lianxin, but he does love torturing her.

Jinzhong

Played by: Jiang Xue Ming

Qianlong's attendant. He secretly helps Yanwan in exchange for favors.

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• Asshole Victim: As a lecherous manipulator who helped Yanwan with her schemes in exchange for favor, nobody shed a tear for him when Yanwan ordered Wangchan to choke him to death.
• Eunuchs Are Evil: He is first seen trying to manipulate a desperate Yanwan by telling her that he will try to get her out of Yuyan’s palace, if she will help him rise up in return. Then, when Yanwan becomes a concubine, he starts stroking her ego and helping her with morally deplorable plans in exchange for her putting a good word in for him.

San Bao

Played by: Li Qi

Ruyi's attendant.

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• Undying Loyalty: Just like with others who are close with Ruyi, Sanbao is Ruyi's most loyal eunuch and is the longest servant to stick with her. From the beginning of serving her in the prince's manor to the end of her death, he sticks with Ruyi's side till the very end.
  • When she leaves for the Cold Palace, he wanted to go with her but she only allowed Suoxin to go with her and lets him go to Hailan, because she wants Hailan to be safe. And when she finally leaves, he goes down on his knees and bows to her. When she comes back to the palace, he does the same thing again but this time welcoming her back.
  • When she forces Yanwan to kneel to her, Sanbao kicks her feet to the ground to make her do so.

Female servants

Lianxin

Played By: Wang Xiaocheng

Langhua’s maid. She is a timid and softspoken girl, who ends up suffering a whole lot because of Langhua’s bids to always stay on top.

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• Arranged Marriage: Is forced by Langhua to marry Wang Qin in exchange for information that will keep Langhua in Qianlong’s grace.
• Driven to Suicide: She tries killing herself by drowning because of the suffering Wang Qin puts her through, but she is saved by Ruyi’s servants and lives long enough to see him be executed and her marriage gets annulled. Then, she tries to drown herself after Langhua dies to follow her mistress into the afterlife. This time, she succeeds.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Not shown directly in the series, but in the novel, it’s made more explicit. Hailan gives her a doll for Yonglian to play with, and tells her that it’s filled with reed puff and reminds her of all the suffering Langhua put her through to secure Yonglian’s future. Lianxin’s turn to keep watch on Yonglian as he sleeps comes up, and she suffers a mental breakdown as she remembers Hailan’s words, tearing the doll open near Yonglian to cause his asthma to flare up.
  • When Langhua slips on oily floor and falls into the water at the docks, Lianxin sees her, but instead of calling for help, she steps back and watches Langhua drown, and although Langhua was saved by Ling Yunche, her previous illness combined with the cold water and the amount of time she spent flailing around caused Langhua to become much weaker, to the point that the imperial physician said she doesn’t have much time to live.

Suoxin

Played by: Chen Xiao Yun

Ruyi's maid. She spends most of the series by Ruyi’s side, but leaves to spend the rest of her life with her husband Jiang Yubin, although she occasionally visits to check up on her former mistress.

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• Earn Your Happy Ending: She's one of the few characters to get a happy ending. With Ruyi's encouragement, she marries her Childhood Sweetheart Jiang Yubin, a reliable man with a good heart, and leave the place to have a peaceful life. It's even mentioned that she became a mother and had two children with Yubin.
• Happily Married: To Jiang Yubin.
• Nice Guy: She's very nice as when she bumps into Yonghuang she offers him a bun and treats him nice. This trait is one of the reasons why Li Yu and Jiang Yubin like her. Even when she knows full well Aruo framed Ruyi, when she sees the climatic moment where Ruyi talks to her one last and when informed of her suicide, she looks sad.
• Undying Loyalty: To Ruyi. She was willing to go the Cold Palace with her and even as she got tortured to the point of gaining a permanent limp because of the allegiations with Ruyi's affair with the Grand Master, she still said nothing.

Rong Pei

Played by: Qi Huan

A maid from the Clothes Washing Division who succeeds Suoxin as Ruyi's Senior Maid.

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• Armour-Piercing Question: ”Chunchan, you know so much about her (Yanwan). Who do you suppose she will kill next to get rid of witnesses?” Chunchan, at first, doesn’t care and refuses to hear her out, but after she’s let go, she stops and thinks back to what Rong Pei says. Turns out, Rong Pei was right. As soon as Yongyan is taken away, Yanwan yells at Chunchan and accuses her of snitching, then a day later applies poisoned lipstick on her so she will die outside the palace.
• Bitch Slap: Delivers one to Yuyan after she insults Jingsi's weak heart and delivers a series of them to Yanwan as punishment.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Remains by Ruyi's side through thick and thin.
• Nerves of Steel: She never loses her serious face, even when Yongji is being held hostage.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: She is firm and sharp-tongued towards others but shows a much softer side towards Ruyi, especially in her final moments.
• Undying Loyalty: Towards Ruyi to the point that she commits suicide after Ruyi's death so she could follow her mistress into the afterlife.

Yuhu

Played by:

Hongli's personal maid.

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• The Reliable One: Probably the only one the Emperor thinks. She's the only female servant that Hongli can confide in without being suspicious of. Even after the few timeskips, Hongli still confides in her. It helps she is intelligent, objective, and articulated when she talks to Hongli about events happening in the palace. She does the investigating and reports it back to him without sounding like she has a internal motive. It helped when she recalls Hu Yunjiao's words and sees how it was misleading and confusing compared to Yongqi's last words about Ruyi. Plus, when she sees Qianlong fainting on his table, instead of screaming, she quickly shushes Jinbao and tells him to call for Jiang Yubin.
• Tranquil Fury: When she serves Yanwan the Qianji medicine, she has the look as she calmy explains what the medicine does and why it's called that before serving it to her.

Chunchan

Played By: Wang Chun

Yanwan’s maid. She and Yanwan were friends/coworkers in the gardens until Yanwan entered Qianlong’s harem, becoming her servant in the process. She helps Yanwan with her lies and schemes, until Yanwan tries to get rid of her by applying poisoned lipstick on her. Jiang Yubin manages to nurse her back to full health, and she fakes her death. She comes back to the palace to testify against Yanwan, along with Hailan and Zoulu. After Yanwan is confined to her palace, Chunchan comes back to serve her, this time with full intentions to make her suffer.

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• Heel–Face Turn: She was fully ready to help Yanwan with whatever she wanted, but after Yanwan tried to dispose of her, Chunchan realized that Yanwan has no qualms about getting rid of anyone who gets in her way. She turned on her and confessed everything that Yanwan had done to Qianlong.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: See Heel–Face Turn.

Lancui

Played by: Yang Liu

Yanwan’s second maid and Chunchan’s junior. Between the two, Lancui is more naive and is more concerned about the consequences of her mistress’s actions.

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• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: After everything she did for Yanwan, the latter orders her to be executed alongside Eyinzhu just to tie up loose ends. When Lancui is dragged to the punishment bureau, even she is confused and doesn’t know if she will survive.

Lingzhi

Played by: Zheng Shui Jing

Ruyi's maid.

Yunzhi

Played by: Chen Er Jia

Ruyi's maid.

Shuizhi

Played by: Li Lin Fei

Ruyi's maid.

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