Chapter 4

Afterward, the garden steward came to tell me that some stones beside the lotus pond had come loose. Mother’s footprints had been found there, he said, but no one else’s. His conclusion was that she had lost her footing, fallen in, and drowned.

I found the claim laughable. The Liu estate was enormous, but could someone truly fall into the pond and cry for help without being heard? If Mother had not cried out, then someone must have knocked her unconscious before throwing her in.

Besides, Mother had been resting in bed. Why would she suddenly go to the lotus pond? Under ordinary circumstances, she would never have dared enter the garden.

Unable to accept it, I knelt outside Father’s courtyard and begged him to give Mother justice. He refused even to see me. I remained on my knees for a full day and night. Even when I fainted, that man never appeared.

When I woke again, I had been carried back to my own courtyard.

“Girl, the weak can never overpower the strong. You have to accept your fate!”

Uncle Sun, the steward of our courtyard, tried to reason with me.

Uncle Sun had also been a refugee whom Grandfather had taken in years ago. He began as Father’s page, but he was slow and awkward. Once Father passed the provincial examination, he decided Uncle Sun was an embarrassment and sent him to manage the rear courtyard instead.

It was Uncle Sun who had risen in the night and saved Mother when she was hanged. Mother and I had survived all these years only because he quietly looked after us.

With reddened eyes, I asked him, “They were the ones who wronged Mother. Why couldn’t they leave her alone?”

Uncle Sun had no answer. After a long silence, he sighed. “Because lives like ours are cheap…”

Every emotion I had been holding back broke free. Tears poured down my face. I wept for Mother’s bitter life and for the injustice of Heaven.

Years ago, Mother had not hanged herself at all. Someone knocked her unconscious and strung her up. If Uncle Sun had not found her in time, neither she nor I would have lived.

Mother knew who had done it. So did I. It was the man the whole world praised for his loyalty and devotion—my father.

He had wanted Mother, the obstacle in his path, dead so he could marry Lady Wang.

Mother had feared he would try again and kill me as well. For my sake, she asked to be demoted from wife to concubine.

For all these years, we had swallowed every grievance, hoping our surrender would persuade them to let us live. Yet they murdered her in the end.

Uncle Sun said our lives were cheap and that I must accept my fate. I refused. I would have revenge. I would make every one of them pay.

With Uncle Sun’s help, I found a burial plot and laid Mother to rest. Through his inquiries, I also learned something.

On the day Mother was killed, someone had seen the Crown Prince and Liu Qingyan hurrying out of the garden in a panic. Their clothes had apparently been somewhat disheveled.

I remembered that Mother had been weeding in the garden that day. I remembered how pale she had looked when she returned and how she had seemed to have something she could not bring herself to say. I could guess what had happened.

Mother must have caught the Crown Prince and Liu Qingyan in an illicit encounter. Afraid that the discovery would destroy their reputations, they silenced her.

Only Lady Wang could have acted so decisively. Father had ignored my plea for justice, which meant he must have known as well. They sacrificed Mother to preserve the reputations of the Crown Prince and Liu Qingyan.

Knowing who my enemies were left me under a pressure unlike anything I had felt before. Liu Qingyan, Father, Lady Wang, and the Crown Prince—every one of them towered over someone like me.

Behind Lady Wang stood the entire household of the Marquis of Yongyang. Even the present empress came from that family. The knowledge left me drowning in helplessness.

I shut myself away and thought for half a month. At last, I became certain of one thing: only the emperor could destroy them. My sole chance for revenge was to enter the palace.

And so I had to enter the palace.