Chapter 1

Once the imperial decree granting the marriage arrived, I stopped visiting the palace and stayed home to prepare for my wedding.

The day was not far off. Fortunately, most of the embroidery on my bridal gown was already finished.

I had once imagined wearing that gown to marry Cui Jiu. I had turned away the embroiderers my family hired, insisting on stitching it myself, working late by lamplight.

Now that I had handed it over, I discovered that professionals really did earn their living for a reason. Their skill was extraordinary. The few dull-witted geese I had embroidered became so brilliant and lifelike under their hands that they could finally hold up their heads and call themselves phoenixes.

Much better. Why had I bothered with all that thankless work?

At last I began behaving like a proper young lady. I took a book out to the swing to enjoy the shade, laid it over my face, and promptly fell asleep.

Life would have been almost perfect if I had not dreamed again of that dreadful rainy night.

In the dream it was early winter, not this time of year. When Father had asked whether any of his daughters would marry Pei Yao, none of us agreed. He delayed for half a year before choosing me.

In the dream, I flung myself against the Cui family’s gate and hammered on it. The soaked wood was slick, clammy, and cold to the bone. The gate opened. Cui Jiu stood inside beneath an umbrella, looking at me, drenched to the skin. His white robes were as ethereal as ever, his patrician face as captivating. But when those thin lips parted, he said, “Whomever the third daughter of the Xia family chooses to marry, what has it to do with me?”

I still refused to give up. Forcing out what little breath I had left, I asked, “Master Cui, we have known each other for five years. Do you truly not know how I have treated you? Is there not even the smallest place for me in your heart?”

Cui Jiu sighed softly and turned away. “I had no idea you had misunderstood me so completely, Sanniang.”

For an instant, my heart seemed to stop. My hands and feet felt colder than the rain. I strained my eyes wide, but the downpour still blurred my sight.

People said my love was entirely one-sided. I never believed them.

When he painted, I ground his ink and mixed his pigments. Before his brush moved, I had already handed him the color he wanted. He would look up, and we would smile at each other. Back then, I was certain there was an understanding between us.

My aunt had teased me: did I mean to become a painting slave for the Cui clan of Qinghe? The warning could hardly have been clearer, yet I had managed to ignore it, pretending she was only joking.

Now I could no longer refuse to believe it.

He simply watched me stand in the cold rain. He offered no bowl of ginger broth, did not invite me inside, did not even lend me an umbrella.

I walked home, just as I had walked there.

Still I would not accept it. I ran to my aunt to complain that I was unhappy with the marriage Father had arranged and begged her to intervene.

My head must have been filled with the entire Yellow River, so muddy was my thinking. It never occurred to me that the person who had chosen me to marry Pei Yao was not Father at all. It was my aunt.

She smiled gently. If I did not wish to marry Pei Yao, she asked, did I mean to enter the palace and keep her company?

I stood there like an idiot. Then His Majesty came in smiling, bestowed the consort’s rank of Jieyu on me, and instructed me to choose an auspicious day to enter the palace.

On that auspicious day, I drank the wine my aunt personally gave me from her cup and died on the spot.

My soul hung in midair. I watched my two useless brothers, who had arranged the banquet, lose their heads as well.

His Majesty lamented their wickedness: over some petty old grievance, they had tried to harm their own aunt and killed their sister instead.

But anyone with eyes could see that everything had been part of my aunt’s plan.

His Majesty might well have known too.

Still, when the empress herself clipped the wings of her maternal relatives, he could only benefit.

When I woke, I initially thought it had been no more than a dream, something I could not take seriously.

Then I found a glass cup with two handles beside my pillow.

It had been sent as tribute from the Arab lands and could not be found outside the palace. The pattern, color, and shape were all identical to the cup of poisoned wine that had sent me to my death.

Cold sweat poured off me. I found a silver needle and tested it. The bright tip turned purple-black in an instant.

My hand shook. I almost smashed the cup, then hurriedly hid it, terrified someone would discover it and accuse me of stealing from the palace.

That was when I vowed never to let the events of the dream come to pass.

Never mind that Pei Yao, whom I had never met, was of Turkic blood. Had he been lame, blind, or a white-haired old man, I would still have married him.

“Wake up. Wake up.”

Someone shook my shoulder and took the book off my face.

Light flooded in. Before I even opened my eyes, I was frowning.

That voice was… Cui Jiu’s.