chapter 2

Thanks to my elder sister, I was finally allowed to study at the Imperial Study.

Every master who taught her music, chess, calligraphy, and painting was a leading scholar of the age, personally invited by the empress. Apart from the empress’s son and daughter, no prince or princess enjoyed that privilege.

Moved by my pitiful circumstances, my sister begged the empress to include me. The most powerful woman in Great Qi glanced coolly at me as I cowered with my head bowed.

“Very well. Whatever A-Ruo likes.”

Only much later did I understand that she had not looked at a person, but at some kitten or puppy her daughter fancied.

Indifference made her merciful.

On my first day, I listened with all my heart and tried to memorize every word the masters spoke. I treasured the chance to read and write, but failed to notice the worry in Sister Su’s eyes.

Perhaps diligence made the difference. Though my foundation was poor, I learned quickly. In six months I caught up with a year of my sister’s studies, and in elegant arts such as music and painting, I seemed especially gifted.

One day, the master taught us a new pipa piece. After hearing it once, I could play it haltingly. My sister, after hearing it three times, could manage only the opening phrase.

The master praised my talent effusively. My sister also smiled at me, rueful yet gentle. “A-Xiu is so gifted. I cannot compare.”

Lost in delight and pride, I never imagined what her innocent praise would bring upon me.

After I began studying, the days flew by. In a blink, the Winter Solstice arrived.

The empress dowager, who had left the palace to worship at Western Mountain, fell mildly ill. Age had made her miss her grandchildren. The princes were busy studying government, so only the princesses could attend her and comfort her loving heart.

As the eldest legitimate daughter, my sister was the obvious choice and received an imperial order to leave the palace.

The day before she departed, she held my hand and gave me endless instructions. “Grandmother likes quiet, or I would ask Mother to take you too.”

Indeed, serving an illness was less important than giving a girl trapped behind palace walls a chance to see the outside world. This was my sister’s first time leaving the palace, and she was thrilled. She promised to bring me red leaves from Western Mountain to make into elegant floating bookmarks.

I listened with longing and envy. Even after returning to my small, remote palace, I remained lost in thought.

The next day I did not see her off as planned, because heat woke me.

Flames towered into the sky. Thick smoke invaded my lungs until I could barely breathe. I struggled from bed, calling for Sister Su, but only burning beams crackled in reply.

Barely discerning the door, I crawled toward it with all my strength. A falling timber struck my wrist, and pain nearly knocked me unconscious.

“Help! Fire!”

I screamed hoarsely, but no one answered. In that boundless sea of flame, I seemed utterly alone.

Terror filled me—not merely the scorching heat, but the despair of abandonment. A palace was burning, yet no one came. Was I to be buried in the flames?

The fire grew fiercer and my refuge smaller. My vision blurred; even my mind began to fade.

“Your Highness, don’t be afraid. This servant has come for you…”

Through the haze, someone rushed through the fire and gathered me into her arms.

Sister Su had come to save me.

Supporting each other, we escaped the burning residence. The moment I crossed the threshold, I collapsed.

When I awoke, my sister had already left for Western Mountain, while I had been moved from my once-comfortable home into the most remote and derelict palace.

The eunuch in charge looked down his nose at me and said shrilly, “The treasury is strained. There may be no money to repair Your Highness’s burned residence, so you must endure the inconvenience.”

The weather grew colder each day. I lived for a month in rooms where even the windows admitted the wind. To keep me warm, Sister Su ignored propriety and shared my bed, laying our two thin quilts together and shielding me from the night wind with her body.

Predictably, she caught a chill. With little food or clothing, she worsened by the day.

I was terrified. Her weakness resembled Mother’s before she died. I could not imagine how I would live if Sister Su also left me.

“Sister Su, please don’t leave me…”

“Mother abandoned me. Will you abandon me too?”

I clutched her burning hand and begged, but her eyes were unfocused and she lacked the strength to answer.

I ran to the imperial kitchen to beg for hot water to moisten her cracked lips. The eunuchs and maids answered only with mockery.

“Hmph. She really thinks she’s a princess.”

“Just a lowly dancer’s daughter, living off Princess Ninghui’s favor.”

“Now that Her Highness is gone, let’s see who protects her!”

“I heard she even tried to outshine Princess Ninghui. She doesn’t know her place!”

Yes. With my sister away, I was again a weed anyone could trample.

I had considered appealing to the father I had met only a few times, but he had recently acquired a new beauty and spent every day feasting and every night in revelry.

Yet those servants’ words showed me the answer. I ran to Fengyi Palace, knelt on the stone steps, and said nothing.

The empress’s personal maid saw me, sneered, and soon turned away.

In my short eight years of life, my mind had never been clearer.

The empress was the one who wanted me dead—simply because I had eclipsed her daughter at the Imperial Study.

But I had survived. By kneeling there, I was telling her I understood my mistake and begging her to spare me.

I knelt outside Fengyi Palace all day, until my knees hurt so badly they went numb. Still, I thought only of Sister Su on her sickbed and prayed Heaven would give me enough time to return with a physician and hot water.

What followed is blurred. Autumn rain began to fall, and I nearly lost consciousness. No servant dared approach. As I shivered in the rain, I dimly heard footsteps drawing near. My last memory was a faint, clean fragrance.

When I woke, I lay on a soft bed. Sister Su entered carrying hot tea.

“Your Highness slept for four or five days. Another day and you would have frightened this servant to death.”

At her gentle smile, I choked and burst into tears. “You frightened me! I thought—I thought…”

“There, there. I’m well. It is Your Highness who has suffered.”

She held and soothed me, and from her I learned who had saved us both.

Madam Ning, wife of the chancellor, had come with her eldest son to call on the empress and happened to see me unconscious in the rain. Kindhearted and reminded of her own young daughter, she took pity and interceded.

Perhaps the empress had never truly cared whether I lived. She only meant to warn me that no one in the harem could displease her.

Thus the empress accepted the opportunity to relent, and I finally gained a breath of life.

Sister Su said Madam Ning had also summoned the physicians who treated us. I did not know whether I would ever have a chance to repay her kindness.

I was an unloved, powerless princess. She was a noblewoman and the chief wife of a great minister. Other than silently wishing her well, there seemed nothing I could do.