Chapter 1
Of all the imperial princes, Xie Yu, Prince Chen, had the worst reputation for debauchery and lust.
Yet in my last life, this same wastrel prince had killed his brother and father and ultimately ascended the throne.
I knew his dissipation was an act.
So I played along.
Summoning my courage, I shuffled forward on my knees until I reached Xie Yu’s feet. My pale fingers curled around the jade-studded belt at his waist. The robe slipped naturally from my left shoulder, baring smooth white skin.
“Your Highness, please have mercy on me.”
Xie Yu’s gaze still rested on my eldest sister.
Song Huaiyu was a renowned beauty in the capital.
If Prince Chen meant to uphold his lecherous reputation, naturally he had to covet the loveliest daughter of the Song family.
Noticing his gaze, my sister straightened with haughty righteousness.
“Nothing disgusts me more than women who rely on men! Even if the Song family is exterminated today, I will never beg a man for mercy. I refuse to become a pampered wife sheltered by you!”
My sister loathed “pampered wives.” She often lectured me that a woman must stand on her own and depend on no one.
At first, I thought her words made perfect sense. In this world, the only person a woman could truly count on was herself.
Then she began condemning Grandmother. “So what if Grandmother used her dowry to hold up the entire Song family? She was still throwing herself at a man and begging him to live off her!”
She condemned a princess sent away in a political marriage. “If that princess were truly capable, she would command an army and become a heroine, not act as a pampered wife whose marriage buys peace!”
Three days ago, she had even attacked the powerful empress.
“A real strong female lead would have usurped the throne and made herself empress regnant by now. When all is said and done, isn’t the empress merely a pampered wife who gained power through a man?”
The emperor and empress heard every word.
Enraged by the insult to his wife, the emperor ordered my sister imprisoned. Only the empress’s plea saved her.
But my sister spurned that kindness.
“Doesn’t your power to pardon me come from a man? I don’t need pity from a pampered wife like you!”
The empress’s expression changed.
Three days later, an imperial edict accused the Song family of treason. Our men were to be beheaded, and our women exiled as slaves and prostitutes.
With calamity descending so suddenly, Prince Chen was the only person willing to help us.
In my former life, Xie Yu had taken a fancy to my sister’s beauty.
“Come to my residence, and the women of the Song family will not be registered as government slaves or prostitutes.”
Her reckless tongue had caused our ruin. Even when given a chance to make amends, however, she was too self-righteous to bow her head.
“Even if every woman in my family is enslaved, I will never beg a man for pity like some pampered wife!”
Xie Yu gave a cold laugh and swept away, snuffing out the Song family’s last hope.
That winter, the women of our household were sent north into slavery.
During the march, my second brother, Song Huaizhang, who had escaped the manhunt, came with twenty sworn companions to free us.
Snow filled the sky, and the guards escorting the women had grown careless.
My brother attacked from the rear, silently killed two guards, then freed the Song women one by one.
Everything went smoothly—until my sister suddenly screamed an alarm.
“Someone’s freeing the prisoners! Someone’s freeing the prisoners!”
The guards reacted at once, drawing their blades. The two sides crashed together.
In the chaos, our elderly grandmother took a sword through the chest while shielding my brother.
I organized the others and urged them east, but my sister deliberately yanked on her ankle chain.
The prisoners’ shackles were linked. Until someone cut them apart, one hard pull was enough to drag every Song woman into the snow, where they were trampled and butchered.
She delayed us until government reinforcements arrived. Nearly all my brother’s men died, and he was shot down in a hail of arrows.
With his final breath, he clutched my sister’s sleeve and asked, “Why?”
Why had she stopped him from saving the family?
She looked down on him with contempt.
“Because I refuse to be rescued by a man!
“Women who need men to save them are all pampered wives!
“I would rather the Song women remain slaves for generations than let them depend on men for rescue!”
My brother spat blood in rage and died with his eyes open.
My sister loftily shook off his hand.
Of all the exiled women, only she and I remained alive.
The rest had either been killed in the fighting or struck by stray arrows.
The surviving guards were about to take us away.
Then an arrow from the distance pierced their commander’s skull.
A man in black robes trimmed with fox fur rode out of the blizzard on a powerful horse.
“I admire what you just said.”
With a longbow wrapped in animal hide, he lifted my sister’s chin.
“A woman that fierce and independent is worthy of being mine.”
We were near the border, barely ten li from the Northern Yi kingdom.
His splendid clothes and commanding manner marked him as a man of rank. The break in one eyebrow was the unmistakable mark of Helian An, king of the Northern Yi.
I expected my proudly independent sister to recoil from his touch and taunting.
Had she done so, I might at least have respected her consistency.
She did not. She caught the end of his bow and said,
“You think you can conquer me?
“I will never submit to a man, unless…
“You make me your lawful wife.”
Helian An laughed. He swung down from his horse and drew her into his arms with the bow. My sister nestled delicately against his warm chest.
She looked exactly like the kind of pampered wife she despised.