Guo Nüwang

Guo Yong's daughter from Guangzong, of such beauty her father called her 'the king among women' — the name Lady King stuck. Taken as Beloved Consort, her arrival breaks Lady Zhen's standing, and her ambition for the Empress's place drives the intrigue: she takes the minister Zhang Tao into her confidence and the wooden-image charge follows. Set up as Empress over Lady Zhen's corpse. Childless, so she raises Cao Rui as her own — but does not name him heir; his father does that, after the hunt.