Chapter 4

Eunuch Qi returned in less than eight minutes.

I was tucking the last medical book into my bundle.

I did not look up at the sound.

This time, however, his voice was cold and hard, his face impassive.

“His Majesty commands Lady Miao, the poison-tasting maid, to attend tonight’s banquet. Do not forget your place.”

My hands stilled for a moment.

I had spent five years beside Xiao Heng.

It wasn’t that he had never offered to make me a consort.

Soon after I entered the palace, he ordered the Ministry of Rites to draft the decree.

The investiture was set for three days later.

That night, in excellent spirits, he held my chin and asked what title I would like.

I gave no answer.

After he fell asleep, I reached for the short knife beside the bed and cut my wrist.

Blood quickly stained the bedding red.

When Xiao Heng woke, he froze.

He pressed desperately against the wound, his eyes terrifyingly red.

I looked at him. “Try to make me a consort again, and I’ll try to die again.”

He stared at me, his eyes stretched wide with fury.

The next day, the completed decree was quietly withdrawn.

He never spoke of an investiture again.

He merely acquired a poison-tasting maid whose position at his side nobody could quite explain.

That evening’s banquet, held in the imperial gardens, celebrated the new girl’s investiture.

It was already dark when I arrived.

The empress occupied the place of honor, with two Noble Ladies seated nearby.

Xiao Heng had few women in his harem, a subject on which the censors had often remonstrated with him.

Today, at last, there would be someone new.

Soon, silvery laughter sounded in the distance.

Xiao Heng entered the garden leading a woman by the hand.

This was Sang Ning.

She was indeed unlike the women of the capital.

She wore fiery red riding clothes and a short whip at her waist, moving with light, lively steps.

Her face was free of heavy powder and rouge, her long black hair tied high with a single silver ribbon.

Before the empress, the master of ceremonies murmured instructions on how she should bow.

Sang Ning frowned, plainly unwilling.

Xiao Heng smiled and steadied her.

“If you don’t want to kneel, don’t. I brought you here to enjoy yourself, not to learn all these rules.”

Only then did she brighten and sit directly beside him.

Holding her hand, he announced to everyone:

“Sang Ning’s frank and unaffected nature pleases me greatly. From this day forward, I invest her as Consort Chen and grant her residence in Qihuang Palace.”

Chen.

The word meant the sovereign’s dwelling.

Within the palace, nobody except the emperor dared use it lightly.

Sang Ning had only just arrived, and already she bore the title of Consort Chen.

At such an honor, even the habitually composed empress at the head of the table frowned slightly.

I approached the imperial table and took out a silver needle.

Lowering my head, I began testing the food.

Every dish had to be tested with the needle, then tasted by me, before it could be placed before Xiao Heng.

As I drew the needle from a dish of preserved bamboo shoots, his hand moved instinctively, pushing it toward me.

“Your favorite.”

The words left his mouth, and he stopped short.

It was a habit formed over five years.

Whenever there were preserved bamboo shoots, he pushed them toward me first.

Sang Ning tilted her head, studying me.

Raised in the hills, she had never learned to hide her thoughts.

The curiosity, hostility, and competitive desire in her eyes were all perfectly plain.

“Is she one of Your Majesty’s beloved consorts too?”

The garden abruptly fell silent.

Every gaze settled on Xiao Heng and me.

He laughed.

“Is she worthy of that? She’s nothing but used goods who’d already been married. Being allowed to serve me is more than she deserves.”

The wariness finally vanished from Sang Ning’s eyes. She raised her chin in triumph.

I finished testing the remaining dishes, made sure they were safe, and set down the needle.

“Your Majesty may begin.”

Then I withdrew to one side.

A soft laugh came from beside me.

The empress.

For once, she looked at me without loathing.

Instead, her eyes held a pity I could not quite name.

“You foolish woman. You had every advantage at the start. How did you end up like this?”

I did not answer.

But she wasn’t wrong.

When I was first detained in the palace, she had not yet married into the imperial family.

Yet after five years of favor, I had no child, no rank, not even a name that could properly be entered into the imperial genealogy.

Now that Xiao Heng had someone new, I would be sent out in disgrace like an object worn out with use.

To anyone watching, my defeat was complete.

I turned and bowed to the empress once more.

“Your Majesty is right.”

She looked taken aback.

But I had already turned away, my gaze apparently directed nowhere in particular.

At the head of the table, Xiao Heng was serving Sang Ning himself, listening patiently to her amusing stories of the forests and mountains.

Laughter rose continually around the feast.

I stood quietly in the shadows, looking past the tableful of delicacies at the bowl of medicine beside Xiao Heng’s hand.

It was a new prescription from the Imperial Medical Bureau.

He disliked the bitterness. Usually I had to coax him into finishing it.

Today, perhaps, he did not want to lose face before his new favorite.

He lifted the bowl and drank it clean without so much as a frown.