Chapter 1

The crown prince had spent fifteen years as a hostage in an enemy kingdom. On the day he returned to the capital, I knelt beside the road with the other commoners.

It was March, with winter’s chill still in the spring air. A peach blossom suddenly landed in my hair. Startled, I looked up to see where it had come from.

And caught sight of the man in the imperial carriage.

His robes were whiter than snow, his expression cool and distant.

Yet his face outshone even the beauty of spring.

Beauty so vivid it cut like a blade.

Meng Xuan looked my way too. His eyes, still as an ancient well, flickered.

As our gazes met, the eunuch reading the proclamation reached the decree the emperor had issued to bring blessings upon the crown prince.

“In celebration of the crown prince’s return, a general amnesty is hereby granted throughout the realm!”

Our eyes parted. He neither punished my insolence nor showed me any special regard.

That was how it should have been.

The crown prince and I had never had anything to do with each other.

Meng Xuan was the heir to the throne. Fifteen years ago he had sat in a carriage just like this, cold and aloof, leaving Baiyujing while the people bowed before him.

I had been five that year, the carefree little daughter of Old Li, who owned a flatbread shop.

Now I was twenty, a prostitute who stood smiling in a brothel doorway to attract customers.

What a cruel trick fate had played.

I had only gone to pick plums outside the city with my playmates. When I returned, my parents lay in pools of blood, their eyes wide open, murdered.

At seven, I suddenly had no home.

The authorities hurriedly closed the case, claiming the husband and wife had killed each other.

My uncle refused to believe it. He went from place to place seeking help over a case that had not caused so much as a ripple in Baiyujing.

But did a day ever pass without someone dying?

Wars on the frontier, struggles in the palace—those made far better gossip.

My parents were ordinary people, as insignificant as dust.

Without some salacious scandal attached, two commoners’ lives did not even make a morsel of conversation over wine.

My uncle was stubborn. He had to have justice. He sold everything he owned and went to the court day after day. Let them sneer, let them fob him off—he would have justice in the end.

But even when snow buried Baiyujing, even when he and I were buried beneath fresh snow with me in his arms,

justice still had not come.

Just when I thought I was going to die, a pair of hands dug me out of the snow.

Those same hands delivered me to a brothel.

After that, no trace remained in Baiyujing of Old Li and his flatbread shop.

Li Anning, once cherished in her parents’ hands, lost even her name.

Wushuang. That was my name now.

Miss Wushuang of Ruyi House: a beauty who could topple a city, whose lovely arms had pillowed a thousand heads, and who played the pipa beautifully.

At first, I had accepted my fate.

Lock anyone in a room without daylight for three days and nights, give them neither food nor water, and they will bow their head and submit.

Madam Du said I had been so hungry that I could no longer feel the beatings. An iron-bound club crashed into me, and all I cared about was stuffing steamed buns into my mouth.

“Wushuang, don’t blame Mama. Blame that cursed fate of yours. If you hadn’t brought death upon your parents and your family, you wouldn’t have ended up here with me.”

I stuffed the buns into my mouth and cried.

It wasn’t true. I wasn’t the one who had killed my parents.

But if it wasn’t me, who was it?

Night after night I lay dazed, until I almost came to believe that I really was their executioner.

Otherwise, why was I here, suffering every kind of humiliation?

If good was rewarded and evil punished, did my suffering mean I was guilty?

Night after night I couldn’t sleep, but the sun rose all the same.

Ruyi House remained a place where men came and went for pleasure. The girls were allowed to smile, never to cry.

So I smiled as I poured wine for a newly arrived honored guest. Fragrant Daughter’s Red—an ounce of wine for an ounce of gold.

After several rounds, everyone was a little tipsy. The guest suddenly spoke.

“Thirteen years ago, there was a flatbread shop beside the old scholar tree in the west of the city.”

My pouring hand stopped. He was talking about my family’s shop.

“What made you think of a flatbread shop all of a sudden?”

“I rather miss the taste.”

I thought he really meant our flatbreads, until the young gentleman who had come with him doubled over laughing.

“Is it the flatbreads you miss, or the husband and wife?”

My heart began to pound.

Forcing myself to stay calm, I leaned into the young gentleman’s arms with a smile. “What could be so memorable about a couple who sold flatbreads?”

He pinched my chin. “Perhaps you don’t know, Miss Wushuang. Young Master Yan knows how to enjoy himself. The front door or the back—he’s equally at home in either.”

Stunned, I looked at Yan Zixiu. He lay carelessly across a courtesan’s lap and sighed. “They were so beautiful. Even their blood was beautiful, so clear and bright.”

It had been him!

My body began to shake beyond my control. I couldn’t tell whether grief and rage or wild excitement were stronger.

The man who had murdered my parents, the murderer my uncle had spent his life trying to find, had simply appeared before me.

And now he was reminiscing so casually about the two people who had died at his hands.

He had used two lives to embellish a tale of his sexual exploits. A family of three who should have lived ordinary lives had all been caught in this world’s cruel net!

Reduced to a dish for others to chew over and complain was stale.

Yan Zixiu looked at me curiously. “Why are you trembling so, Miss Wushuang?”

I began to laugh, until tears ran down my face.

The young gentleman looked pleased with himself. “See? Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Even a whore finds you outrageous.”

Yan Zixiu smiled faintly. “A pity. I’ve never found another couple so beautiful.”