Chapter 1

Chapter 1

In my previous life, word came that Prince Qi had rebelled and broken into the imperial city.

I dismissed the household servants at once and fled with my daughter.

My daughter did not understand. “Why are we not waiting for Father to come home?”

I smiled bitterly and held her tight. “Your father will not come home.”

He had someone he wanted to protect far more.

Sure enough, before long, the Emperor was slain by Prince Qi.

Shen Xu escorted the Empress and the Crown Prince out of the city.

From beginning to end, he never remembered that his lawful wife and young daughter were still at home.

Fortunately, I had long stopped expecting anything from him.

While his reputation for loyalty and righteousness spread across the realm, my daughter and I were hiding among refugees, never knowing whether we would survive the next day.

But as long as I held my daughter in my arms, hope never once died in my heart.

I thought that if we could escape by luck this time, I would live my own life properly.

All that had come before would be thrown away.

I would no longer carry that heavy, disgusting secret on my back, living every day in fear.

But heaven did not grant my wish. In the end, we still fell into the rebels’ hands.

Shen Xu had placed the Crown Prince on the throne and led the loyalist army against the rebels, forcing Prince Qi into retreat after retreat.

For some reason, Prince Qi remembered the rumors that Shen Xu deeply loved his wife and daughter.

He offered a heavy reward and finally captured us.

On the city wall, with no path left to escape, Prince Qi pressed a blade to my daughter’s neck and forced Shen Xu to hand over the Empress and the Crown Prince.

I knew it was useless, yet I still begged Shen Xu until my voice bled.

For the sake of the eleven years we had known each other since childhood, I begged him to save our only daughter.

But he drew his bow without hesitation and shot an arrow straight through her.

“Since ancient times, loyalty to the realm and love for family cannot both be preserved.”

Before the two armies, his ringing words echoed through the clouds.

With that one battle, he earned his glory.

He saved the Empress, upheld the Crown Prince, and rescued the collapsing dynasty, becoming a meritorious servant of the state.

He used my daughter’s blood to pave the way for his own eternal fame and to complete the splendid empire of the woman he loved.

My hair turned white overnight, and my heart was reduced to ashes.

Prince Qi did not kill me.

Before he fled, he ordered his men to send me back to Shen Xu.

I knew why he had spared me.

He wanted me to become a blade of revenge.

I had no reason to refuse.

In Shen Xu’s tent, I met the Empress whose beauty and fame were said to shake the world.

She leaned in Shen Xu’s arms and did not even bother to hide their relationship from me.

“For your daughter to die for the country was an enormous blessing. You must not nurse resentment or blame Lord Shen.”

“After all, with your frail, mediocre self, you were able to stay by Lord Shen’s side every day. You should have counted yourself fortunate.”

Meng Han looked down at me from above, her eyes filled with disgust and hatred she could barely conceal.

By then, she was already the most honored woman in the empire.

And I was nothing but an ant she had played with in the palm of her hand.

What did she hate me for?

The answer was obvious.

I let out a low laugh. “Your Majesty must be terribly jealous of me, must you not?”

“I may be a frail and mediocre woman, but I am still Madam Shen, the woman who can stand beside Shen Xu openly and honorably. As for Your Majesty, noble Empress though you are, you can only crawl into a dark room with him like a rat that cannot bear the light…”

Before I could finish, Meng Han flew into the rage I had been waiting for.

She strode forward and slapped me across the face. “You wretch! How dare you?”

My face snapped to the side. Half of it burned with pain, and a metallic sweetness surged up my throat.

Still unsatisfied, she raked her long nail guards across my face. “What are you, that you think you are worthy of speaking to me like this?”

“The fact that you still have this cheap life is only because I am merciful and magnanimous!”

“I had planned to let you return to the Shen residence and continue being an ornament, but since you are so ignorant of your blessings, you can go to Compassion Nunnery and pray for that little bastard you gave birth to…”

I did not give her the chance to finish.

The gold hairpin hidden in my sleeve pierced into her throat.

Blood sprayed across my face.

That bright, arrogant face from a moment ago twisted hideously with pain. Her mouth gaped open, her eyes bulged, and she looked like a dead fish.

Before I could pull out the hairpin and stab Shen Xu, a powerful kick sent me flying.

I coughed up a mouthful of blood. Through the red filling my vision, I saw only Meng Han collapsing into Shen Xu’s arms.

On that face which had been emotionless for ten thousand years, shock, pain, regret, and fury were finally tangled together. It was a beautiful sight.

With red eyes, he cursed me. “Vicious woman. I will make you suffer beyond redemption!”

Unfortunately, he would have no chance.

Before entering the tent, I had already taken poison.

Now the poison had entered my organs, every thread of it pain.

In a daze, I saw that little child, soft and round as a dumpling, waving at me.

Just as she had countless times before, she comforted me like a tiny grown-up. “Mother, do not be afraid. Zhaozhao will always stay with you.”

My daughter was named Shen Zhaozhao.

From the day she was born, her father had never once held her.

She was so well-behaved, so obedient.

She always asked me why her father did not like her.

She even thought that because her father did not like her, that was why he did not like me either.

To win her father’s love, she learned the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting.

Such a tiny child studied diligently day after day.

She thought that if she mastered them all and became the most famous young lady in the capital, her father would stop disliking her.

But even when her fingertips bled from playing, when the blood scabbed over, fell away, and formed layer upon layer of calluses, she still did not earn a single glance from her father.

That day on the city wall, facing the arrow her father shot at her, my Zhaozhao only looked at me.

She said, “Mother, do not cry. Zhaozhao is not afraid.”

She was only six years old.

In the final moment of her life, she was still trying to comfort her useless mother.

With the last of my strength, I reached out to her. “Good child, Mother is coming to be with you.”