Li

Li (李) is a minor character in Bu Tian Ge. She is from the Li family and married into the Qin family. She is the mother of the deceased consort Qin Jing, and the grandmother of Chen Ating and Qu Chen.

Appearance
Li appears as a middle aged woman. She has visible wrinkles on her face despite wearing makeup and red lipstick. Her hair is elaborately done up and decorated with accessories. She usually also wears a pair of small, round blue earrings. Li wears elaborate and colorful hanfu that is blue and purple which signifies that she is of a higher social status than imperial attendants.

Introduction arc
On a rainy evening with thunderstorms, Li's daughter, Qin Jing is in labor. Li is delighted seeing her daughter deliver twin grandchildren and tells her daughter that the delivery of twins an auspicious blessing. However, Qin Jing notices that her newborn daughter has six fingers. A princess with six fingers symbolizes a bringer of calamity because under the previous dynasty, a regent princess with six fingers attempted to seize control of the empire and hence brought chaos and disaster upon the imperial court. Qin Jing orders her mother to inform the Emperor that she only delivered a son. Li is distraught at the thought abandoning one of her grandchildren, however, she obeys her daughter's orders and bows down to her.

Later on, far away from the imperial palace in a carriage, Li cries as she holds a blood-soaked cloth while looking into a basket. In the basket, is the newborn princess soaked in blood and appears to have passed. Li cries in grief and tells the child not to blame her mother for her accursed fate. She tells the princess that may she never be reborn into the house of the emperor again.

Qin Jing
Li shows support towards her daughter, as can be seen when she stayed by the bedside of Qin Jing as she went into labor and delivered twins. Li was delightful at the though of Qin Jing having twins and viewed them as an auspicious blessing from both a dragon and a phoenix. However, when Qin Jing found that her newborn daughter had six fingers and ordered her to be abandoned, Li was visibly distraught in the moment. Despite being distraught, she obeyed her daughter without disagreements, brought the newborn outside of the palace and had her sixth finger amputated. She then abandoned the newborn to drown in a river.

Influence
As a daughter of the Li family, Li has access to the family's wealth and uses the money to pay for the services of men to carry out tasks, such as Zhang Liu. Li also has people who are loyal to her family.

Trivia

 * Her surname 李 Lǐ means "plum". Her personal name is not known.