chapter 1

My aunt stared at me in astonishment, my bedraggled reflection mirrored in her eyes.

My hair clung to me in wet strands, and a red handprint still bloomed on my cheek.

When my mother had struck me, she seemed to pour every ounce of her old resentment into that single slap, holding nothing back.

My aunt frowned and hurried over to support me, ordering the servants to prepare a bath.

As I soaked in the warm water, my right cheek throbbed with heat.

Even the maid washing me looked stricken with sympathy. “Miss, your knees…”

I instinctively pressed my hand over the bruised purple skin, trying to hide my shame.

Back when my parents believed I had done wrong, they would send me to kneel in the ancestral hall.

It was my fault when my sister’s jade pendant appeared in my room.

It was my fault when the soup I sent to my brother wasn’t refined enough.

They pointed out my mistakes one after another.

All so I would remember the lesson and never repeat it, lest I embarrass the Prime Minister’s household.

I knelt in the ancestral hall time and time again.

Day after day, I told myself that if I only behaved a little better, there would be no next punishment.

It was today’s slap from my mother that finally woke me up.

Not only had I failed to satisfy them, I had turned them against me.

After my bath, I followed the maid to find my aunt.

She was in her room, and someone was speaking: “The Prime Minister’s household says the young miss has a scheming heart. They brought her back and spoiled her temper, and now they can’t control her anymore. They’ve told the Princess Consort to do as she pleases with her — even driving her out is fine. With nowhere to go, the young miss will come home on her own.”

The maid who had heard the same words kept her head bowed low, not daring to look at me.

I walked in, lifted the hem of my gown, pressed both hands to my forehead, and kowtowed to my aunt.

“Song Zhen is willing to sever ties with the Song household,” I said. “From this day on, I will be nothing but the Princess Consort’s maidservant.”

Even as I said it, my heart was unsettled.

Even being a maidservant to the Princess Consort was beyond the reach of ordinary people.

I was the birth daughter of the Prime Minister’s wife. To become the Princess Consort’s maidservant was to stomp my mother’s dignity into the dirt.

My mother and my aunt were born of the same mother, yet from childhood they had been at each other’s throats.

In the year I spent back at the Prime Minister’s mansion, I had heard my mother sneer at my aunt’s airs more than once.

They did not get along.

I wasn’t sure my aunt would be willing to wade into this mire.

But I was thoroughly tired of being punished while facing their disappointed, disgusted stares.

I wanted to gamble once.

Perhaps my aunt would take me in just to spite my mother’s pride.

As I stood there uneasily, a hand came to rest on my arm. My aunt sighed. “How did you grow up with such a habit of dropping to your knees at every turn?”

I looked up and met her eyes, which seemed to see through every scheme of mine.

I looked away instinctively and murmured, “If the Princess Consort does not want me, I will leave. I only beg that you not send me back to the Prime Minister’s mansion.”

“You refuse your parents, and now you’d refuse your aunt as well?”

I stared at her in surprise.

My aunt patted the back of my hand. “Settle down and live here with your aunt. No one is driving you away.”

The taut string in my heart finally loosened.

A wave of exhaustion washed over me, blanketing everything.

Holding back tears, I bowed to my aunt.

“Thank you, Aunt.”