Chapter 2

The newly married secondary consort was a military family’s only daughter.

The crown prince liked her willfulness and lack of pretense. They went everywhere together and were deeply attached.

Shen Rushi was terribly worried. She ordered me to get rid of her.

I was timid and weak. I hesitated.

Then my child caught a chill and fell gravely ill.

I knelt for hours in the courtyard, begging for one more glimpse of him.

The crown princess refused to let me through her door.

She said she did not know how to care for a child.

But I was sickly myself and unfit to see the child she was raising.

She was forcing my hand.

Left with no choice, I deliberately blocked the secondary consort’s path.

When she lashed me with her whip in a fit of arrogance, I toppled into the freezing pond with a splash.

I became seriously ill and ruined my knees. In exchange, the secondary consort was confined for a fortnight.

The crown princess brought the child to visit me and stayed in my courtyard for an hour.

Throughout that fortnight, I burned with fever every day. As though avenging the secondary consort, the crown prince tormented me through the nights.

Before long, I was pregnant again.

Shen Rushi feared I might be reluctant to sacrifice the child.

So she acted herself. A bowl of soup that had passed through the hands of someone from the secondary consort’s courtyard let her use my unborn child to bring the woman down for good.

I lost too much blood. My health never recovered.

I clung to what strength I had, grinding ink and making shoes and stockings for my child.

After that, the knife grew ever easier to wield.

No one in the Eastern Palace could surpass the crown princess.

Until,

the emperor fell gravely ill.

The crown prince’s accession was close at hand.

I was dying, and I was the last thorn in the crown princess’s side.

Quite “by chance,” she unearthed old cases from the Eastern Palace.

My name was written against every bloody debt.

The child I had half killed myself bringing into the world came to see me.

But all he said was this, with regret:

“Tonight, Mother will lay everything you have done on Father’s desk.”

“You brought this upon yourself. All your scheming has come to nothing.”

“I only regret that I did not come from Mother’s womb, that I was not born to someone as virtuous and generous as she is.”

At that moment,

I endured the pain piercing my heart and swallowed the blood rising in my throat.

Almost pleading, I pressed a box of poisoned pastries into his hands.

“I have little fortune left. I fear I will never have another chance to make you pastries. I deserve to die, but the servants in my courtyard are innocent.”

“I ask only that, for the sake of the bond between us, you take these to share with your father and mother tonight. Let old affection persuade them to spare the servants.”

“You would not want people to know how heartless you were to your birth mother, would you? If you refuse, I will haunt you even after death.”

In the end, he did not refuse.

That night,

as I was strangled in a side courtyard,

the three of them died in the main courtyard, blood pouring from every opening in their faces.

All my life, others had led me wherever they pleased. I had never had the slightest choice.

How could I willingly walk that same path in this life?

And so,

I swept Mother’s hand away, lifted my skirts, and hurried to kneel in the center of the hall.

“In the ritual of the magpie bearing a flower, surely it is the blossom that matters. There is no blossom in my vase. I cannot be counted as the magpie’s choice.”

“Besides, I am of little worth. I dare not sully the Eastern Palace’s name, and I have no wish to come between my sister and His Highness.”

“I beg Your Majesty to allow me to withdraw my vase.”