Chapter 5

In times like these, the dead had to be buried quietly.

Make a grand affair of it, with music and ceremony, and the body would be dug up almost as soon as it was buried, dragged away to who knew where.

After dark, my parents carried me out of the house.

They chose a desolate spot with no one around. They didn’t even dare raise a proper burial mound.

My brother went ahead with a lantern.

Its light swayed over my parents’ stumbling steps.

My sister had been taken into the palace that day. Once those vermilion gates closed, she no longer belonged to the Guan family.

They lowered me into the pit. Shovelful after shovelful of earth fell over me with dull thuds.

My brother knelt beside it and cried quietly for a while.

My parents shed tears too, but theirs were shallow tears, quick to dry.

Mother pressed her sleeve to the corners of her eyes. “I was prepared for her to become a beast,” she said hoarsely. “Who knew she would die instead… Well, so be it. So be it. Jiang Li was an ill-chosen name from the start.”

Father was silent for a long time before he spoke.

“We never meant to have a third child. A girl and a boy—we already had everything. Perhaps Heaven took pity on us and sent Jiang Li to save her sister and brother.”

My brother suddenly clutched his chest. “If I’d known Jiang Li would die, I’d rather have gone without the bone she grew!” he said through clenched teeth.

Father frowned and rebuked him. “Don’t talk nonsense! Without that bone, how could our Guan line have continued?”

None of them spoke again. Supporting one another, they stumbled away over the uneven ground.

The lantern receded into the distance.

At last it was only a blurred glow, swallowed whole by the night.

Floating in the air, I touched my face.

Dead. I couldn’t even cry anymore.

The place was utterly forsaken. Dead grass grew taller than a person.

When the wind blew, it whispered and rustled like countless people talking.

I couldn’t leave. Something seemed to tether me there. Day after day I could only squat on my grave, counting the occasional travelers on the road.

Sometimes someone would collapse as they walked and never get up again.

Once the family had finished crying, they began dividing up the arms and legs.

Brothers and sisters fought to the death over a thigh. One slip, and someone else died.

There. No need to divide it now. Enough for everyone.

The days drifted by. Before I knew it, another two years had passed.

The realm was close to utter chaos.

Once, I heard travelers talking as they rested beside my grave. They said a wicked consort had appeared in the capital.

She had thrown the palace into turmoil, caused the crown prince’s death, and urged the emperor to banish the empress to the Cold Palace.

She had coaxed the ruler into neglecting court and spending his days feasting. In these years of war and disorder, she had him levy tax after tax.

She would wear only eastern pearls and drink only the finest wine.

For her, the emperor had confiscated the estates of several loyal families in succession.

Heads were cut off below while those above drank and made merry. They used human skulls as cups, pouring amber wine into them before the blood had even dried.

That consort’s surname was Guan. Her given name was Sushang.

My sister’s name.

I rolled frantically through the air.

How could my sister possibly have killed the crown prince?

They loved each other deeply. She couldn’t bear to tread on an ant, and sighed for ages over fallen blossoms in spring.

How could someone like her be a wicked consort?

But when I’d finished rolling about, I still had to squat down and count ants.

After all, however much the dead worried about the living, it did no good.