Ancient China

Yang Bufan never took anything seriously.

Not even marrying me.

An auspicious date for the betrothal?

Too much trouble to choose.

How much to offer in betrothal gifts?

Too much trouble to think about.

He left every last detail to his cousin.

He would sooner spend an entire afternoon beneath the flowering trees, stringing jasmine for our dear Miss Meng, than spare a second glance at the marriage contract I had sent him.

He was getting annoyed.

“She’s changed it twice already.

Last time, I left two strokes out of her name.

What is it now?

Did I leave something out of mine too?”

The servant who had brought it faltered.

“The names have been corrected, sir.

It’s just that Miss Lu would still like to know what you think…”

Yang Bufan propped his chin on his hand, already losing interest.

“As long as it’s fixed.

Tell her to stop hurrying me.”

“The sixth day of the sixth month, isn’t it?

I’ll be back.”

Before we married, I already knew my husband had a concubine he doted on.

It did not matter.

I was marrying into a great house to become its mistress.

Naturally, I could afford to be generous.

After the wedding, I put the marquis’s household in perfect order, and my reputation as a virtuous wife spread throughout the capital.

Whether that concubine had a brain in her head, I could not say.

She actually let people know that the marquis and I had never consummated our marriage.

She meant to humiliate me, to make me a laughingstock.

What she never imagined was that her little stunt would force my mother-in-law to send the marquis knocking on my door late one night.

At the funeral of my father’s lawful wife, he brought home an illegitimate daughter.

The hall was draped in mourning white.

She alone wore pink and red.

My eldest sister’s murderous glare sent her cowering behind Father, her eyes brimming with helpless tears.

He took her hand and said fondly, “Don’t be afraid.

This is your eldest sister.

This will be your home from now on.

In a little while, I’ll bring your mother here too.”

Watching from the side, I laughed to myself.

Where did those two get the nerve?

My eldest sister had already lived this life once!

In the year when I was at my most spineless, the Noble Consort called me oversensitive.

That very night, I took a rope to her bedchamber, intending to hang myself beside her bed.

Fortunately, she found me in time and rescued me in tears.

Later, a beauty newly arrived at the palace called me as stupid as a pig.

I said nothing.

I simply took out my rope.

The Noble Consort said nothing either.

She just kept slapping her.

“Even I daren’t scold her.

Who do you think you are?”

I paid for my fiancé’s journey to the capital to sit the imperial examinations.

He came back with a reward far greater than first place.

During the palace examination, His Majesty saw a face identical to his own.

He confirmed that my fiancé was his long-lost eldest son.

Restored to the imperial family, he was named crown prince.

Naturally, his engagement to me—a mere concubine-born daughter of a seventh-rank county magistrate—could no longer stand.

But he remembered what he owed me.

He took me as his sister.

He even found me another husband: a marquis’s heir.

He himself became engaged to the chief minister’s legitimate daughter, who would be his crown princess.

Everything had worked out for both of us.

Thanks to his protection, I spent five blissful years in my husband’s household.

My mother-in-law dared not subject me to her rules.

My husband dared not entertain other women.

Everyone treated me with respect.

Until, on an afternoon as ordinary as any other, he was deposed.

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.

Pei Xu was the Chancellor’s son.

On a wager, he disguised himself as a poor young man and set out to win me over.

Instead, he fell deeply in love with me and swore he would marry no one else.

When his sister learned of it, she had my younger brother and sister killed, then sold me to a brothel to put an end to my presumptuous dreams.

Years later, she was to marry the young marquis.

But on their wedding day, he never came to fetch his bride.

Dressed in his wedding robes, he was at a brothel, spending a fortune on me.

I was a terrible stickler for the truth.

When my husband returned from war, he brought a woman home.

The moment she saw me, she dropped to her knees and declared that she wanted to marry the marquis, even if she could only be his concubine.

I said nothing at the time.

But after tossing and turning until midnight, I could bear it no longer and knocked on her door.

My husband wasn’t the marquis.

The marquis in this household was my widowed father-in-law; my husband was only his third son, born to a concubine.

Her dimming eyes suddenly lit up at the word widowed.

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.”

A merchant had been away for three years without returning home.

Everyone said he had fallen for someone else and set up a mistress in another town.

His wife refused to believe it.

On New Year’s Eve, she stood beside the road with a bronze mirror in her arms, listening to the words of wandering souls.

When she learned where her husband was, she set out alone to find him.

A year later, their daughter Yihe received a letter from her mother.

The letter assured her that all was well.

But Yihe knew her mother was in danger.

To uncover the truth, she followed her mother’s example and took up a mirror to seek an answer.

After a long wait, a wandering soul’s face appeared in the glass.

Slowly, it spoke: “The Son of Heaven is lighting the Everlasting Lamp.

“Human bones are its wick.

Human flesh is its oil.

“While the lamp burns without end, its master cannot die.

“Thus may the Son of Heaven live forever.

“Your father has already been rendered into lamp oil.

As for your mother…

“She is to be the emperor’s new empress.”