Short Story

After I was exiled to the frontier, my fiancé took up with my younger half sister.

Everyone in the capital said she was my replacement.

Then she shattered a keepsake my late mother had left behind, and he stepped forward to protect her.

I drew my sword and pointed it at his throat.

If he loved her so much, he could die with her.

I heard the daughter of Tailor Han in the east of town had become an official’s concubine.

Some said she was off to a life of comfort.

Others said she was off to suffer.

I was that daughter of the Han family.

I hung from the city wall while the rebel leader taunted my husband.

“My lord, choose: your old love or your wife!”

Beside me, Li Yaoyao cried out with righteous resolve, “Sui’an, don’t worry about me!

Storm the city!

Tell the crown prince I’ll marry him in my next life!”

Two arrows whistled through the air.

The rebel holding Li Yaoyao at his mercy fell dead.

I watched in silence as Shen Sui’an and the crown prince came flying toward us.

Both crowded around Li Yaoyao.

Neither noticed that my rope had been cut.

I was the daughter of Princess Changning and a peasant from the countryside.

When I was seven, the Empress Dowager bestowed a name on me.

She said my very birth was a grievous wrong, and named me Luoyuan.

For years I lived in the palace, fearful and ashamed, keeping both myself and my heart imprisoned.

But someone told me I should be a bird with its wings spread against the sky, free to soar.

And so, in the end, I found the courage to be brave—for myself, and for him.

The real princess consort was back.

It was time for me, the impostor, to go home and farm.

Before leaving, I gave everyone careful instructions.

When the vegetables in the back garden sprouted, they were to whittle stakes and put up supports for the vines.

When the fruit in the grove ripened, they mustn’t pick it all.

Leave some on the branches for the birds to get through winter.

Leave the swallows’ nest over the residence gates alone, too.

They would be back next year.

I said a great deal.

Everyone stood with their heads bowed, and no one answered.

Then I understood.

Ah.

Of course.

The princess consort came from a rich family.

Surely the money she had brought back would feed the entire household.

I no longer had to worry about keeping a dozen-odd people alive.

The steward asked, his voice thick, “Won’t you leave a word for His Highness?”

I thought about it.

“Well… tell him I hope he eats a couple more bowls of rice.”

Gu Qingxue had already been chosen as the next crown princess.

Out in the wilderness, she stole Father’s horse, tossed down an ingot of silver, and called it payment.

The delay kept Father from bringing the midwife home in time.

Mother died in childbirth.

Father said he would seek justice for her.

Gu Qingxue treated him as a beggar and, in a fit of anger, kicked him in the chest.

It killed him.

On the day of Father’s funeral, Gu Qingxue married, becoming the most exalted crown princess in the land.

Later, a new dancing girl arrived at the Eastern Palace.

On my first night inside the novel, the villain barged into my practice room.

Then he found himself staring at the male lead and the second male lead, already seated on meditation cushions.

After a long silence, he said, “Move over.

Make room for me.”

“There’s no room,” the male lead said.

“There really isn’t.”

I surveyed the cushions packed across the floor.

“I think we can squeeze in one more.”

At my birthday banquet, my husband presented me with a portrait of myself on horseback.

The face in it was an ugly pig’s head.

The young woman holding it laughed at my scars, and he asked me to forgive her: immortals, he said, knew nothing of mortal rules.

I drew my sword and cut off her arm.

Now she knew mine.

I had always thought I was the heroine’s sworn enemy.

Only when I saw her willingly confine herself to a husband’s household for love did I realize how terrifying blind devotion could be.

Stroking her belly, she urged me to find a good man and discover the pleasures of love.

I shook my head, as determined as ever to follow my own path.

In time, she lost sight of her dreams in that household, all for love, while I made love itself a stepping-stone and climbed to the highest seat of power.

Times were hard.

I was sold to a wealthy household to be a playmate for its young master, who had a lame leg.

He had a delicate, handsome face, but his health was very poor.

His right leg was disabled, he was always coughing, and sometimes he was too weak even to sit up.

Everyone in the household said he would not live long.

Afraid I would be sent away, I slipped into his room and leaned over the edge of his bed.

“Could you please not die?

If you die, I won’t have a home again.”

He paused, then smiled gently and stroked my head.

“All right.

I’ll see if I can stay alive.”