Chapter 5

We spent a long time at the Imperial Laundry.

Su Qing had meant to ask her family for help. But the father of the woman whose body she occupied was only an assistant director of the Imperial Library, a junior fifth-rank official. In a capital where a thrown shoe could hit three officials, that counted for little.

With Qin Yanran obstructing them as well, her family could do very little.

Only after more than a year did help finally reach her. Perhaps Qin Yanran had lost interest, or simply forgotten us. She stopped coming to make trouble.

At last, Su Qing received money from home.

She used it to bribe the right people at the Imperial Laundry and secure jobs for both of us delivering clothes.

Naturally, delivering clothes was easier than washing them. It would also let her move between the palaces. Perhaps she might have a chance to meet the emperor.

I could not dissuade her, but I wanted no trouble. I turned down the delivery work and stayed at the Imperial Laundry to wash clothes.

Still, life was considerably better.

Every day, Su Qing took washed and pressed clothes to the various palaces. It was a good assignment, but it had its difficulties.

Many of the candidates who had entered the palace with us had become imperial consorts. She had become a maid. Mockery was inevitable.

Sometimes even senior maids bullied her.

At first, she often came back with red eyes.

Slowly, she learned to show nothing. Only the resentment and resolve in her eyes deepened.

Then, three months later, she returned from a delivery bursting with excitement. She had really met the emperor in the imperial gardens.

“His Majesty even asked my name. He remembers me!” She seized my hands, unable to contain herself. “Ah Yun, I have a feeling I’ll be out of this hellhole very soon!”

A few days later, the emperor did send someone to fetch her. As she left, she looked back at me. “Wait for me, Ah Yun. I’ll come and take you away soon.”

I smiled and congratulated her, but joy and dread mingled inside me.

I did not know whether this would bring her good fortune or disaster.

After Su Qing left, the matron sent me to deliver the clothes that had been assigned to her that day.

They were the empress’s everyday robes.

It was my first visit to Jiaofang Palace.

I kept my head down. All I wanted was to hand over the clothes and leave as quickly as possible, before anything went wrong.

But outside the hall, I suddenly heard a child trying to stifle his sobs.

I followed the sound and saw a boy of five or six curled up in a corner, crying in secret.

I had not meant to interfere. But his cries brought back the sound of my little brother calling out in pain on the day he died.

My heart softened.

With a sigh, I went over and crouched before him.

“Why are you crying here, Your Highness?” I asked softly.

A little boy in this place could only be the empress’s son, the Second Prince.

He wiped his tears and looked at me. “I can’t remember my lesson. Mother will hit my hands…”

So even princes had their hands smacked by their mothers.

I smiled in sympathy, but could not bear to leave him like this. “Why can’t you remember it, Your Highness? Were you not paying attention?”

He protested at once. “I was! But the passage my teacher gave me is too hard. I just can’t remember it.”

“Shall I teach you an easier way?”

He paused. “Really?”

I nodded. “Really.”

I picked up a twig from the path, then began drawing on the ground as I recited.

“The river’s spring tide meets the level sea; above the sea, the bright moon rises with the tide.”

I drew a sea of curling waves, a large bright moon above it, and a little person watching the tide from the shore.

“See? Isn’t it easier if you draw the passage? Whenever you think of this picture, you’ll remember the line.”

It was a method I had often used when memorizing lessons in my old life.

Only I had been too lazy to draw. I had pictured the scenes in my head instead.

The Second Prince’s eyes brightened. He picked up a twig, too, and began to draw.

After a while, he looked up at me and smiled. “I think I really remember it.”

Tears he had not wiped away still clung to the corners of his eyes.