Story of Kunning Palace – Jiang Xue Ning – Part 1

There was something I wanted to touch upon about Jiang Xue Ning (Xue Ning) specifically the part about the first life.

All we know about the first life and her actions therein are largely from Xue Ning’s perspective. Since we’re limited because of this perspective, it is also hard to judge just how “evil” she was. She certainly judges herself very harshly but let’s dig a little deeper.

For the purpose of clarity, I’m going to break this up into a few key points that I think would illustrate what I’m trying to say, the post is split into 2 parts:

PART 1
1) Early Life
2) Desire for power and control.
3) Ning’s desire to be loved.

PART 2
4) Alliances in first life and her influence in 2nd life
5) Ning’s Personality
6) Conclusion

EARLY LIFE:
Wanniang, Xue Ning’s father’s concubine, switched her own daughter with Xue Ning, partly out of spite because she was being thrown out and partly because she wanted her own biological daughter to have a good life (a massive fuck-you to the Jiang family)

On her deathbed, Wanniang confesses to Xue Ning about what she did and that she has informed the family as well. Once, Ning’s back home, she’s faced with a family that she knows nothing about. Her father, in her first life, was largely indifferent towards her, her mother was outright hostile (she remained the same for a large portion of the 2nd life as well) and finally there was Xue Hui, the usurper. Her entire life, up until that moment had been a massive lie and one that had absolutely nothing to do with her, she was just unfortunate to get caught in the crossfire.

If we look at things from Ning’s perspective, she was raised by Wanniang and thinks that Wanniang didn’t really care about her, she talks about her insecurity both in the novel and show, when she says that Wanniang would sometimes look at her as if trying to see someone else in her face, or that she’d suddenly pull away from Ning. It was only later that Ning realised why that was.

At home, she always felt like an interloper. She knew that when her mother looked at her, she saw Wanniang and would not let go of that prejudice. Her father had no influence at home (he’s repeatedly told that he should leave the home front to the wife) and the sister, who is so damn virtuous that there’s no way that Ning could compete with her.

Her ambition then, to become the empress, makes complete sense, it stems from wanting power and control over her life.

DESIRE FOR POWER AND CONTROL:
This is tied to her early life where she felt that she had no control. It is easy to see why she would want to be the empress because the only person more powerful than her would be the emperor. But never again would she be left unable take the reins in her life. I’m going to go in deeper into how she did that in another section.

Her pursuit for power and control stems from her perceived lack of either in her life. She felt like she didn’t have any agency, all of the things that had happened were due to other people and the decisions they made, no one considered Ning’s feelings or what she might want to do.

That she pursues Shen Lang is for 2 reasons, his older brother is sickly and sooner or later, it would be Shen Lang on the throne. The 2nd is that she sees it as balancing the scales. Since Xue Hui took everything that was meant to be hers, she would take Shen Lang, it’s that simple. It’s fortunate that Shen Lang is a decent man and while Ning was never in love with him, she did care about him.

DESIRE FOR LOVE:
Ning herself would beat up anyone who dared to say that she was driven by her desire for love. Now, some might be thinking that in that case, why did she rebuff Yan Lin who so clearly liked her? That’s partly tied to her desire for power and control. She’s so incredibly haunted by what her life was like, everything that was taken from her and feeling unwanted by her own family.

She knows that love doesn’t mean a damned thing if she’s still powerless and ultimately her need for power overshadows any tender feelings she might harbour for Yan Lin. She feels used by the people who should have been looking out for her. Ning thought that Wanniang didn’t love her and she could probably deal with that if she got along with her ‘birth’ family but she instead found herself alienated from them as well. I imagine she felt that there since there was no one in her corner, no one to protect her, she would have to do that herself but that also came from a place of hurt and disappointment. Her attitude towards and treatment of the people in her first life reflects her vindictiveness, she’s going to use them to get what she wants.

Ning’s actions in the first life are largely driven by her hurt and the all the trauma she’s experienced. Imagine coming home to your “family” and realising that you’re the outsider. Her desire for power and love are so deeply intertwined that I doubt that Ning herself could differentiate between them. She’s been hurt by people who should have cared about her, accepted her, and she will be damned before she lets anyone else do that again. It never occurs to her that there are people who could genuinely care about her and moreover she doesn’t let herself consider that they might care.

It is only once she comes back that she has more information and context and she spends more time with people like Xie Wei, Shen Zhi Yi, Yan Lin, etc that she realizes that maybe she was wrong. Time and distance allow her to see people more clearly now that her judgement is not clouded by her prejudice, by her hurt. It’s why she realizes that Shen Zhi Yi is very clearly in love with her (that’s just not up for debate) and even at the end of the first life, when Xie Wei gave her the knife, maybe he did want her to have something to defend herself with. Xie Wei had to know what Yan Lin was doing every night but being an ally, he probably didn’t want to alienate him, so instead gave Ning the dagger to protect herself with.

In keeping people at an arm’s length lest they hurt her, Ning doesn’t realise that she’s also closed herself to people who might genuinely care for her and I think she does realise that. It’s just that she figures that it’s a fair trade, she’s convinced that love and regard won’t last in the long run but shared interests will (hence her relationship with Zhou Yinzhi) but she only had to look at You Fangyin to know that people do have the ability to surprise you.

Click for Part 2