Aristocracy

I was the Young Master’s maidservant, and I stayed by his side through every hardship.

When other servants tried to steal the credit that was mine, I put on a bitter little act to make him pity me.

When someone poisoned him, I risked my life to save his.

Step by step, I became the person he trusted most, hoping that, for the sake of all we had been through, he would help erase my name from the slave registry.

But once his wings had fully grown, he destroyed my freedom with his own hands.

When I was sixteen, the Zhou Family bought me to be a breeder for their lame son, Zhou Yuqing, to bear him children.

Though the agreement was for me to arrive in June, I reported to the Zhou Family in March.

I did this for two reasons: first, to save my own family some grain, and second, to leave a good impression on my future master.

But Zhou Yuqing despised me for being a country bumpkin and called me stupid.

He said I wasn’t nearly as delicate or pretty as Miss Su next door.

Even as he shared my bed, he looked down on me for being dirty.

“You must bathe four times with green jasmine and white champaca, then comb your hair with osmanthus oil. Miss Su uses osmanthus oil-have you got that through your head? ”

“If you serve me well next time, this young master might just grant you a formal title.”

I nodded, scrubbing myself with a loofah until I nearly rubbed my skin raw.

Suddenly, someone grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and hauled me, dripping wet, out of the tub.

It was Madam Liu, the broker who had sold me. She was in a frantic rush as she dragged my naked, fragrant body toward the door.

“Good heavens! It’s all wrong, all wrong! It wasn’t the Zhou Family who bought you-it was the Zou Family!”

I was born cold-blooded.

When my mother died, I stood by her bedside without shedding a single tear.

In the front courtyard, lanterns and streamers were being hung to celebrate my father’s concubine’s birthday.

“Yuntan,” my mother said, “you are just like your father.”

A dying person always carries a certain air of decay.

She stared up at the canopy of her bed and sighed again.

“It is better to be like him… the heartless… always live longer…”

“Do not be like me, trapped in the word ‘love’ for a lifetime. It was a mistake…”

My mother was a loser her entire life.

I never expected that years later, the most reputable and upright gentleman in the capital, Xie Yijue, the Heir to Duke Zhenguo, would come to my door to ask for my hand in marriage.

He had one condition: He wanted to take my younger half-sister, Ji Zhi, into his household alongside me.

The Emperor’s beloved Noble Consort, his one true love, was dead.

His one true love?

It was almost laughable.

And yet, the rumor had spread throughout all of Dayan.

I disguised myself as a man and spent twelve years in the barracks as a no-good soldier-only to suddenly learn that I was the Prefect’s true daughter.

The impostor daughter clutched my sleeve, sobbing as she shook it.

“Sister, I know I stole the place that should have been yours. I only beg you not to take away the love Father, Mother, and our brothers have for me.”

What she didn’t know was that I had no interest in stealing her love.

All I wanted was to get my brothers-in-arms some military pay.

My fiancé returned from the front, and with him he brought a woman.

She wore a long crimson robe, a curved saber fastened at her waist. She rode in through the city gates on horseback, bold and dazzling, like the wild azaleas that set the mountains ablaze in spring.

“So this is the kind of girl Ning Zhen likes.” She folded her arms and looked me over, one brow lifting. There was no telling from her tone whether she was pleased or displeased.

Ning Zhen only glanced at her helplessly. “A childhood promise can hardly be taken seriously.”

What a fine thing to say-a childhood promise could hardly be taken seriously.

I had waited three years for him, only to be given those words.

My husband holds the highest office in the land, and I am the most virtuous noblewoman in all of Shangjing.

The wives of the capital’s officials all claim I am blessed with good fortune, yet they have no idea that I have been neglected by him for years, my heart heavy with misery.

He finds me dull and is deeply in love with his concubines, with whom he has both sons and daughters.

Finally, after my mother-in-law had expressed her disdain for my inability to conceive countless times, I found myself pregnant.

But Cheng Wenting nearly lost his mind.

With bloodshot eyes, his hand trembled uncontrollably as he choked me. “Whose child is it?”

A gentle smile played on my lips. “My Lord, it is yours, of course.”

During the first year of our marriage, at my birthday banquet, a songstress appeared wearing a silk dress identical to mine.

My husband’s expression turned ice-cold. “Someone, strip that dress off her.”

He was clearly defending my honor, yet I felt not a single spark of warmth in my heart.

For I knew that he was also the man who had once spent a fortune on that very songstress and made a pact to elope with her.

I accompanied His Highness through three thousand miles of exile, yet after he reclaimed his throne, he found me lowly and loathsome.

Later, when the time came to reward merit in the Golden Luan Hall, I asked only one thing of him.

His Highness assumed I would ask for a title or a place by his side.

Instead, I prostrated myself deeply and spoke softly yet firmly: “I ask that Your Highness grant your subject’s daughter a marriage to General Shen.”

His Highness’s eyes nearly split with rage as he finally understood-

Throughout those three thousand miles of exile, from beginning to end, it was never him that I loved.

In my third year as Empress Dowager, my greatest fear is not the court officials, nor the brushes held by the court historians.

It is the moments when I wake from a dream in the dead of night and instinctively call out the name of Xie Wuyang.

As the palace lanterns flicker to life, I am reminded that three years ago, I was the one who personally wrote the secret order sending him to his death at Yanhui Ridge.