Royalty

When I was thirteen, in order to serve the distinguished guest who had come from afar, I smeared lard on the soles of the lead dancer’s shoes, making her slip and embarrass herself on the spot.

After that, the beauty sent to his room became me, just as I had wished.

Yet that impossibly refined nobleman merely looked me over twice, then said a single sentence that left me chilled from head to toe, as if a basin of ice water had been poured over me.

“I saw everything just now.”

The emperor woke from a nightmare in the dead of night. In his dream, he had a daughter who had been lost among the common people. So he offered a handsome reward for any news of the princess’s whereabouts.

Everyone said His Majesty was a man of deep feeling.

But I knew there was another reason behind it.

The capital had gone a full year without rain. National Preceptor Xuanxiu advised the emperor that the only way to end the drought was to sink a princess into the river as a sacrifice to the gods.

The emperor had only one daughter, born of the Empress, and he treasured her like the apple of his eye.

And so, at long last, he remembered that sixteen years ago, when he had been living among the common people, he had once had another daughter.

He offered a great reward to find her so that daughter could take Princess Mingzhu’s place.

And die.

The day I died was the day my betrothed celebrated his wedding.

In a ruined temple on the outskirts of the city, blood poured from my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. I lay collapsed over a prayer mat, weeping before the long-dust-covered statue of Guanyin.

In this life, this humble believer had never wronged Heaven or Earth. So why had I ended up betrayed and abandoned by everyone?

Guanyin did not answer. She only gazed down at me with compassion.

Outside the door came the hurried thunder of hooves. Someone, carrying the chill of the night on his shoulders, was walking toward me.

My eyes could no longer see. I could only turn uselessly in his direction and beg in a hoarse voice,

“Whoever you are, please… give me a proper burial. In my next life, I will repay you.”

Trembling, he gathered me into his arms. A single scalding tear fell onto the center of my brow.

On the night of the first snow, the cold was bitter.

The young granddaughter, cherished like a pearl in the palm of the Marquis of Loyalty and Valor, died in the wilderness at the age of sixteen.

The transmigrated woman and the Seventh Prince were thrown into the Cold Palace together.

Her mission was to win over the Seventh Prince and get rid of me, the main villain.

But she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

So I picked up a brick and smashed it down hard on the unconscious Seventh Prince.

Once he stopped making a sound, I raised the brick with an icy expression. “Now I’m the Seventh Prince. You can win me over instead.”

On the day I came of age, the snow fell heavily, and he said he wanted to break off our engagement.

Later, he knelt before me and begged me to spare him.

They drove me out of the family.

Later, with my own hands, I sent them into military exile.

On the eve of His Majesty’s bestowal of marriage, I lay in the Crown Prince’s arms and murmured, “Your Highness dotes on me so much. When my sister marries into the household, she won’t be angry, will she? Everyone else envies Your Highness for receiving His Majesty’s favor and being allowed to hold the wedding in the palace, but all I feel is sorry for you. It must be exhausting.”

I thought I was just putting on a fragile, sweet little act for the Crown Prince.

I never expected him to be sincere with me.

My parents had always favored me most.

But on the eve of the imperial capital’s fall, they fled with the entire family-and somehow forgot to wake me from my sleep.

When I woke up, the courtyard was deserted.

Yet the moment I turned my head, I realized I wasn’t the only one who had been left behind.

The illegitimate son my father had with his mistress was still here too.

He stared at me without blinking, the look on his face hovering somewhere between a smile and a sneer.

“Second Sister, how did you end up reduced to the same state as me?”

Father and Mother will definitely come back for me.

The words were about to burst from my mouth, but I paused.

Then I cleared my throat and put on a calm, unbothered expression.

“I was the one who refused to leave.”

After my elder sister passed away, I entered the palace and became the new empress.

The emperor asked me to choose one of the princes to raise as my own.

The moment my fingers brushed against the two princes, I saw two chaotic glimpses of the future.

If I chose the Third Prince, he would one day ascend the throne, slaughter my entire family, and stab me to death.

If I chose the Ninth Prince, then after he became emperor, he would have me fake my death and confine me within the palace, turning me into a reviled temptress spat on by all.

I fell silent for a moment, then raised my hand and pointed at the little princess peeking in from behind the doorframe.

“Your Majesty, I believe I share a greater affinity with the Thirteenth Princess.”

While the concubines of the harem fought for favor, the Empress was wondering when the emperor would finally die.

The emperor and I had been married since our youth, but ours was a match arranged without either of us having any say.

After all these years, we had only ever treated each other with distant courtesy.

And as my son grew older by the day, I found myself hoping more and more that His Majesty might depart this world sooner rather than later-if only so all my years of diligently managing his harem would not have been in vain.

The Han army captured Luoyang. My husband, His Majesty himself, knelt at the rebels’ feet, trembling like a lamb waiting for slaughter.

“The Empress is in Jiaofang Hall. Please, don’t kill me…”

I had been married to him for five years and had given birth to our daughter, Princess Heqing.

Yet at the moment of crisis, he offered me up without the slightest hesitation.