chapter 2

chapter 2

When the noble consort saw me, she began to talk.

She said more to me that night than she had in all the years before.

“Cherry, these palace walls devour people. I live in fear every day. I am afraid my food is poisoned, afraid an assassin will come in my sleep, afraid someone has hidden musk in my clothes or jewelry. I am the emperor’s favorite, so every woman in the palace watches me. They are all jealous.”

I listened in silence.

Every dish she ate was inspected, then tasted in advance by someone else.

Two eunuchs and two maids kept watch outside her room every night. If an assassin came, the blade would have to pass through our bodies before it ever reached hers.

Everything she used was guarded, from her food and clothing to the silk-woven paper she used in the privy.

Still she complained.

“His Majesty said I was the only woman he loved. But look at him. He has taken so many consorts, and now he has married an empress. What does that make me? What became of all his promises?”

Yet his favor toward her had never faded.

However recklessly she behaved, the emperor indulged her. When she angered him, he punished us. When his rage boiled over, he killed one or two of us. But he never allowed the slightest harm to touch her.

The more Noble Consort Yuan spoke, the more aggrieved she became. Soon she was sobbing so hard that she nearly fainted.

“Cherry, rank and riches are all empty things. If I could be with the man I loved, what would it matter if we lived on husks and chaff?”

“If I had another life, I would rather be a palace maid, marry an ordinary man, and have his heart all to myself for the rest of our lives.”

“Will you trade with me, Cherry?”

At last, I came back to myself.

Words I had overheard – “System,” “leave this body” – spun through my mind. I did not understand them, but I knew I had to keep playing the loyal little maid.

I clasped the noble consort’s hand.

“Your Highness, this servant is willing. My life belongs to you. If it will make you happy, there is nothing I would not give.”

Night fell. A young maid climbed a ladder outside to light the palace lanterns. The eunuchs on night duty brought their bedrolls beneath the gallery.

The other servants retired to their rooms, huddling together and praying that the noble consort might eat something before the next day.

Noble Consort Yuan closed her eyes with a smile.

“At last. At last I can leave this man-eating palace behind.”

When I opened my eyes again, I sat bolt upright with both hands at my throat.

I gulped air until I realized that every old ailment in my body had vanished. Even the suffocating pain of being strangled to death was gone.

My fingers were pale, long, and delicate, without a callus or chilblain in sight.

My shoulders and neck were light and supple. No more blinding aches, no grinding joints every time I moved.

My knees – the knees I had spent years pressing to stone floors – no longer hurt.

I threw back the soft quilt and ran to the dressing table.

Noble Consort Yuan’s face stared back at me from the bronze mirror.

“My lady, did you have a nightmare? This servant will have Quanfu fetch a calming decoction from the Imperial Medical Bureau.”

Peach, who should have been dead, hurried over and helped me back to the couch, her face tight with worry.

Noble Consort Yuan and I truly had exchanged bodies.

And time had turned back five years, to when Xu Zhaohe first entered the palace.

At first, I was afraid.

Something so uncanny had happened to me that it seemed beyond the power of gods or ghosts.

The noble consort possessed a breathtaking face, but she had neither cunning nor restraint.

She was loud and quick to laugh. If she disliked someone, it showed plainly on her face, and she lashed out wherever and whenever she pleased.

In front of Consort De, who had been childless for years, she would say that the older woman was already too old to bear a healthy child.

She called Concubine Ying a scheming innocent. Whenever they met, she either forced the woman to kneel or slapped her across the face.

Even before the daughter of the all-powerful chancellor, she refused to yield. She declared that she alone was the emperor’s true love, while every other woman was merely a tool.

When anyone tried to caution her, she only laughed.

“Life and death mean nothing. If you do not like me, come fight me. Stop worrying. They cannot touch me.”

Of course they could not touch her.

I had spent every day treading on thin ice, turning her palace into a fortress and emptying my own purse to buy informants.

First I guarded against Consort De, who came from a great clan and had sharpened her schemes against a courtyard full of sisters since childhood.

Then I had to keep Concubine Ying suppressed. She appeared meek, but hatred for Noble Consort Yuan had poisoned her to the bone. If she ever gained the emperor’s favor and enough resources to act, she would show no mercy.

There were Lady Wei, Noble Concubine Shen, and many more besides.

Yet I was only a lowly maid. No matter how carefully I planned, my efforts were those of an ant trying to shake a tree before power and mountains of gold.

Again and again, I watched those women frame the noble consort.

Each new scheme left Yunfu Palace with fewer servants. Some were crippled. Others died.

We were utterly loyal. Like soldiers on a battlefield, we rose one after another and charged forward to die for her.

At such times, the noble consort would pat my shoulder and say with something like pride, “Do not worry. No one else remembers NPCs, but I do. I remember every little servant who has died for me.”

Now a treasonous thought, one that should have condemned me to ten thousand deaths, formed in my mind one word at a time.

Why could I not be the noble consort?

Xu Zhaohe did not deserve any of this.

And now, I was her.