Emperor Xue Yun

Writer's note: This storyline start is loosely based on Dynastic China. I know there are many things and traditions and naming conventions that I'm not super familiar with. This is a sex story loosely based on reality in a fictional world. Please give me some leeway.

Looking back from the mirror is you. Emperor Xue Yun. A man of average stature, with pale skin and dark hair, you are the latest in a series of Emperors who have ruled the Grand Celestial Empire since immemorial. Your Great Grandfather, Emperor Xin claimed The Mandate for your family and after a brief unrest, have ruled peacefully since. All of that almost came to an end with your father. Emperor Dai was a sickly man whom many thought was impotent. Despite many years on the throne, and many women having served with him, he never had an heir until you were born late in his life. Your mother did not survive childbirth and when you were eight, he married another woman. Empress Yi, a woman with ties to a prominent family in the South, married your father at 18 with the intention of producing more heirs. However, she never bore him a child before he died two years later.

The now Empress Dowager Yi was left in a precarious position of being only 20 years of age and de facto regent to the emperor. Much of the intrigue was insulated from you, but from what you have heard; several threats to her regency were addressed. Men who believed that she was too inexperienced to be involved in an Emperor's upbringing. Any threat to her rule was addressed and resolved with little external chaos to be seen.

You sigh and walk out onto the balcony to look across the city. Bei Ma was the largest city in the northern part of The Empire. The City of a Million People had been the center of the realm for hundreds of years. The Imperial Palace, the circular beating heart of governance was the tallest building and from your bedroom on the top, you had an unobstructed view of the city. The entire top of the palace was your bedroom. A large spacious room with few walls obstructing your path. Thick pillars kept the ceiling from collapsing. You have a small library of books across one wall with a sofa and a desk for writing. The bed is easily large enough for four people to sleep comfortably on and faces the south wall. Finally, farthest from the door is a large bath that is also open to the rest of the room, but has a pullable curtain for privacy.

Your door opens to a set of stairs that hugs the wall of the entire palace and leads down into the expansive building. Slowly gets wider as the building does from two to three people near the top to nearly a dozen at its base. Many aged Emperors have fallen and been found dead at the base. A proverbial "Falling from Heaven". Directly below your bedroom is your personal living facilities. A Meal Room, Study, lounge, library, and bathroom. Anything that you would need to live your life and servants to ask for if you needed anything else. Below that, The Emperor's Concubine Rooms. Then farther below, various layers of governance and day-to-day management of The Empire until you reach the bottom floor. The Throne Room and another large spacious floor where you take front and center as ruler of the realm.

From your perch on the top of the tallest building, you can see to the east the towers of The Great Houses in the distance. A conglomeration of similarly large, tall buildings that house the administration of the most influential families in The Empire. Then between them and The Imperial Palace is The Emperor's Tower. A tower of slightly higher stature that houses the center of The Emperor's family. Sadly, over the last few decades, that spacious tower has gone more and more silent as the aged members of your distant family have died off. You had lived in it for several years of your life until your father died. Now it rests as a pillar marking the heart of the Noble Estates. To the south and west lie the sprawling residential district and to the north is the sprawling heart of the financial district. Out from there are several smaller villages that have been overtaken by the sprawling hub that is Bei Ma over the centuries. Some of them were quite prosperous in their own regard, others were little more than slums.

As you relax on the balcony's railing, you hear a firm knock on your door. You walk back into your room and call towards the door, "Enter."

One of the two large, ornate doors that adorn the entrance to your bedroom opens. Although old, the well-maintained door opens with barely a creak as someone enters your room.