chapter 2

The bride-selection banquet ended in discord.

As I left the hall, I heard the empress’s muted rebuke behind me, punctuated by Zhao Yu’s brief but resolute replies.

At last, he had learned to resist.

In our first life, filial duty had crushed him while virtue imprisoned me. Neither of us broke the rules, and neither of us lived well.

During those twenty years in the Cold Palace, I raged and repented more times than I could count. Why had he never dared fight the empress dowager? Why had he not simply let those ministers who threatened to die do it? Why had I not poisoned Zheng Yueru? Why had I not killed the second prince?

Had they died, would everything not have gone our way? Zhao Yu would have protected me, and the ministers could not have killed me. At worst I would have endured a storm of condemnation and been called vicious. They had called me a demonic consort all my life anyway. Why had I not acted like one? Why had I kept trying to prove my goodness?

Once Zheng Yueru was dead, the throne of empress would have been mine. My son would have become crown prince and grown up laughing at my knee.

Why had I not killed her?

Regret cut across my skin like a blade. My heart bled, though it left no wound.

I had sworn that if there was another life, I would kill Zheng Yueru, kill her child, and watch the Zheng clan fall. Only then might the hatred inside me ease.

Another life truly came. This time I wanted no painted brows within palace walls. I wanted a blade in my hand.

At the palace gate, a eunuch hurried after me. He presented a brocade box and bowed. “His Highness asked this servant to deliver this to you. He says he wishes to take you as his wife and will never betray you in this life.”

It was Eunuch Fu, Zhao Yu’s personal attendant. After Zhao Yu died, Zheng Yueru had him executed too. He had been a good man. Remembering his master’s final instructions, his disciple had secretly looked after me in the Cold Palace.

I knew the box held the jade pendant signifying the crown princess’s rank. In our first life it had belonged to Zheng Yueru.

Later, Zhao Yu gave me the golden seal and register of an imperial noble consort, held a magnificent investiture, and entrusted the six palaces to me. Still, he had always regretted never placing that pendant in my hands.

Once, I had regretted it too.

Now, before vengeance was done, love was as useless to me as air to a fish.

“Will Her Majesty agree?”

“His Highness will do everything in his power to persuade her.”

Zhao Yu had changed.

After a moment’s silence, I said softly, “Please tell His Highness that something once given to another is no longer precious to me. I wish him well.”

He would understand. He would know that he was not the only one reborn.

Until my revenge was complete, there could be no future for us.

I resented him as well—his indecision, his weakness, and the fact that he had died too soon.

Yet I pitied him. An emperor held hostage by his cabinet, all he could do was obey and press his seal onto memorials already written for him. He left the capital only three times in his entire life. Each time, before he had gone far, frantic reports called him back: floods in one province, bandits in another. The moment he returned to the palace, the realm became peaceful again.

At last he understood. The ministers did not want him outside. They wanted him caged in the palace.

That palace imprisoned us both.

In his place, I might not have done any better. But I still resented him. Through endless nights in the Cold Palace, I counted the stars, the beams above my head, even the seconds it took a tear to spill from my eye and strike the floor.

Love and hatred entwined until they tore the heart apart. Resentment clung to my ankles like a drowned ghost and dragged me under.

I died with my purpose unfinished.

In this life, if I could not become righteous, then I would become a vengeful spirit.