chapter 2

Back then, Xu Wen had still been Consort Xu.

She accompanied the emperor to the Hot Springs Palace with a great throng of consorts and concubines, all waiting upon him as part of his retinue.

Xu Wen feared almost nothing in the world. Water was the sole exception.

Standing beside the spring, terror filled her round, almond-shaped eyes. She clutched my wrist and refused to take another step.

Consort Xue was equally afraid of water. She hid a little behind Xu Wen, nervously eyeing the mist-shrouded pool.

Consort Zheng teased her, deliberately fanning the flames.

“The old Marquis Xu was valiant all his life. How unexpected that his granddaughter should be so timid.”

Xu Wen’s forearm trembled as she fought for composure.

“Whether or not I am timid has no bearing on my grandfather’s illustrious name…”

“Perhaps not.” Consort Zheng sat soaking in the warm water. Steam flushed her already alluring face with an even richer glow. “But whenever people speak of you, they will always say you came from the old Marquis Xu’s household, will they not?”

That struck at Xu Wen’s deepest hurt.

She wanted to be Xu Wen. She wanted people to praise “Xu Wen, that extraordinary woman accomplished in both letters and arms,” not someone’s granddaughter or someone’s elder sister.

But once she entered the palace, she could only be a consort of the Xu clan.

I stepped in to rescue her that day because I saw tears gathering in her eyes and could not bear it.

But I could not deny my selfish motives.

Xu Kunyu’s valor in battle was already becoming famous. Xu Wen had boundless prospects ahead of her, and I needed to win something for myself.

Otherwise, I would spend my entire life beneath everyone else’s feet.

At home, I had been the daughter of an unfavored concubine, treated with less respect than my grandmother’s most trusted maid.

Inside the palace, I still stood at the very bottom. I knelt and bowed to everyone, my forehead forever in the dust.

So I gathered my courage, stepped forward, and spoke with a smile.

“What a timid mistress I serve. His Majesty brings all his ladies here every year to enjoy themselves, yet Your Highness cannot appreciate such a blessing.”

I closed my hand around Xu Wen’s wrist. Under her astonished gaze, I pulled her back from the water, turned, and plunged into the spring myself.

“Then let this servant enjoy the blessing in your place…”

The spring water was hot.

So was the agony of chili water poured over freshly whipped wounds.

That night in the prison, I developed a high fever. Pain and heat left me drifting in a feverish haze.

I remembered every insult the executioner spat as he lashed me.

“What sort of filthy cur crawls into her betters’ bathing pool?”

“Enjoy the blessing in Consort Xu’s place, will you? You should have asked whether you had the life to bear it!”

“I’ll peel off that dirty hide of yours for our masters!”

In that dark, foul-smelling dungeon, a young eunuch of even lower rank than mine stripped me naked, his face twisted with malice.

Fortunately, my rescuers arrived before he could subject me to a worse humiliation.

The first was someone I had not expected at all—

Qin Guantan, the Sixth Prince.

Only behind him came Xiaochun, the maid Xu Wen had sent to fetch me.

Xiaochun and I had entered the palace together. The sight of me naked tore a cry from her, and she rushed over to embrace me.

The Sixth Prince’s cloak settled over my shoulders. His young face was perfectly composed.

“By Her Majesty the Empress’s order, I have come to take the palace maid Tang Qi with me.”

The eunuch did not recognize his face, but he knew the cloud-patterned python robe. He dropped to his knees, bowed, and agreed at once.

I clutched the cloak around me and weakly knocked my head against the floor.

“This servant deserves death. I have troubled Your Highness to come in person.”

Qin Guantan had already turned to leave, but he glanced back at me.

“I came in person for two reasons.”

He was a reclusive prince, a man of few words, yet that night he patiently offered me an explanation.

“First, Consort Xu asked it of me. Second—”

“This servant planted a willow without meaning to and found shade beneath it. I am grateful that Consort Xue and Your Highness remembered me,” I cut in.

That earned me a second, more searching look from Qin Guantan.

Though the empress had adopted and raised him, his birth mother was the lowborn Consort Xue.

Because of my reckless act, Consort Xue had been spared from entering the water. I suspected she, too, had asked him to come.

People in the palace always said that the Sixth Prince had been taken into the empress’s care at the age of five and rarely visited Consort Xue afterward, proof that he was cold and ungrateful.

I wagered that he kept his distance to protect both himself and his birth mother, and so I dared to speak as I had.

It seemed I had wagered correctly. That night, Qin Guantan escorted me all the way to the entrance of Xu Wen’s residence.

I bowed with perfect decorum. His gaze slipped from my eyes as I bent, traveling downward before he hurriedly turned his head away.

“No need,” he said abruptly.

In the distance, moonlight and a mountain of lanterns shone over the imperial capital.

“Remember this,” he said. “Good intentions are admirable, but some things lie beyond one’s power. A person must not be too clever for her own good.”

With that, he turned to leave in hurried strides.

I watched his back without the slightest haste.

“I will wash Your Highness’s cloak and return it tomorrow.”

His tall figure paused.

“There is no hurry.”

Then Qin Guantan disappeared swiftly into the moonlit night.

The moment he vanished from sight, the strength went out of me. I collapsed completely into Xiaochun’s arms.

More than half a month passed before I woke with a clear mind.

It was Xu Wen’s voice that startled me awake.

*That damned old bastard is always talking about how sweetly I smiled at him during the autumn hunt.*

*Was I smiling at you? I was smiling at the sixteen-year-old Seventh Prince standing beside you!*

I bolted upright in terror—only to see Xu Wen feeding the emperor a bowl of plain congee. The room could not have looked more peaceful.