Chapter 1

Chapter 1

“Dangui, I have arranged everything. Next month, we will go to the frontier and enlist together.”

I had been reborn.

My young mistress sat before me, holding my hands with an expression of heartfelt sincerity.

“Men can win honor and build careers. Why should women be trapped inside the home, spending their whole lives scheming against one another for a husband? Is that truly the life you want?”

She had said exactly the same thing in my previous life.

Her speech had set my blood on fire, and in my confusion, I followed her to the frontier.

This time, having died once, I was much calmer.

“The frontier is dangerous,” I told her. “You have never trained in martial arts. You should not go.”

She waved the concern away. “What is there to fear? You will protect me.”

Perhaps realizing she had answered too quickly, she paused and smiled.

“Dear Dangui, I will learn too. How about I take you as my master and study martial arts under you?”

No, thank you.

Everything unfolding now was almost identical to my previous life.

Three months earlier, my young mistress had fallen into a pond. When she woke, she seemed to have become another person.

One moment she marveled at how interesting it was to live inside a novel; the next, she insisted she must be its heroine.

I suspected that someone else now occupied her body, but I said nothing.

The former mistress had treated me terribly. She beat me for the smallest offense and had even driven red-hot iron pins beneath my fingernails.

By comparison, the new mistress seemed kind. She did not strike me and told me that everyone was equal.

I was deeply moved and thought myself fortunate.

A month later, I began to realize something was wrong.

At the beginning of the year, the Madam had arranged my marriage to the steward’s eldest son.

I was very pleased with the match.

My intended came from a comfortable family, so we would never lack money. He was handsome, respectable, and ambitious. The other maids envied me.

When my young mistress learned of it, she exploded.

She said arranged marriages brought misery and that she could not watch me leap into a pit of fire.

Although she was only an unfavored concubine-born daughter of the house, she was still my mistress. When she refused to release me, the steward’s family understood the hint and withdrew the proposal.

She was delighted and spoke as if I should fall to my knees in gratitude.

“I saved you from marrying a man you do not love.”

Does love matter so much? I wondered.

For a maid like me, life’s greatest hopes were enough food, warm clothing, and freedom from abuse.

But I dared not say it aloud.

She was the mistress and I was the maid. She preached equality, yet whenever I displeased her, she docked my allowance.

After destroying my marriage, she began urging me to enlist.

“Dangui, you know martial arts. You should not be confined to an inner courtyard. You should win fame on the battlefield like Hua Mulan.”

It was true that I knew martial arts.

Before Father became ill, he had traveled the country as a martial performer. I trained beside him for many years. When sickness struck him, I sold myself into an official’s household to pay for his medicine.

In my previous life, her words had persuaded me.

We secretly left home and traveled to the frontier.

She began the journey brimming with confidence. She claimed to carry countless strategies in her head and to have memorized ten famous victories won against overwhelming odds. The soldiers, she said, would recognize her as a natural-born woman general.

The moment she reached the frontier, all that ambition vanished.

Dust covered everything beyond the border. Sandstorms rose without warning, leaving every face and head of hair gray. Water was so scarce that a person might not bathe once in an entire month.

We ate hard, coarse-grain cakes and slept in a communal barracks saturated with sweat.

She could not bear it.

She desperately wanted to return, but one rumor kept her there: the Crown Prince had come to supervise the army.

Blushing, she nudged me. “Dangui, if I meet the Crown Prince, what should I say first to capture his attention?”

Before we met the Crown Prince, we met raiders.

On a moonless night, they attacked our camp.

The centurion ordered us to take up weapons and hide. “Whatever you do, do not run!”

My young mistress ignored him.

Terror drove her from the camp like a startled rabbit, straight into the empty desert. I had no choice but to follow.

Fortunately, a sandstorm concealed us from the raiders.

Unfortunately, when it passed, we were lost.

The blazing sun seemed determined to roast us alive. We both knew we would soon die without water.

Then we encountered desert bandits.

Their chief saw that two women posed no threat. They offered us water if one of us agreed to become his bride.

My young mistress raised her chin and declared she would rather die.

Perhaps the heat had confused her mind, for I heard her muttering that she was the heroine and could not remain the heroine if she were no longer pure.

I knew nothing about being a heroine. I only wanted to live.

So I stepped forward and accepted.

The bandits kept their bargain. They gave us two barrels of water, then prepared to take me away.

I left the water with my mistress and told her to travel east. I would find her later.

That night, during the wedding feast, I got the chief drunk and escaped.

After running with all my strength, I finally found her.

The water was gone.

Two barrels could not possibly have been consumed as drinking water in a single night.

She had used them to wash her hair and bathe.

“I’m sorry, Dangui. The Crown Prince will pass this way. This is my last chance. I want to become Crown Princess…”

She had washed her body and hair and even laundered her clothes. Among people coated in desert dust, she now looked like a pristine snow lotus in bloom.

Continuing east, she did indeed meet the Crown Prince’s convoy.

After rescuing her, the convoy traveled on and found me close to death.

I had only one breath left. The Crown Prince ordered an attendant to open my mouth and pour in water.

My young mistress stopped him.

“Your Highness, you must not. I have seen this woman before. She belongs to the bandits. We cannot save her without caution.”

I looked at her with dying eyes.

She refused to meet my gaze. She stared only at the Crown Prince.

In that instant, I understood.

If I survived, I could reveal everything she had done. She wanted to play a pure and benevolent heroine, so the one person who knew her past had to die.

She gained her place beside the Crown Prince, and I breathed my last in tormenting thirst.

My spirit did not immediately fade.

I watched her return to the capital with him.

She claimed all my deeds as her own.

Soon, she became a legendary woman compared to Hua Mulan. People praised her supposed bravery on the frontier and invented tales of her fighting her way through the bandits’ stronghold seven times.

Even the Emperor commended her and decided to marry her to the Crown Prince.

My resentment was too deep for reincarnation. Instead, I returned to the days before we left the capital.

I had once believed the magnificent Shen residence was an oppressive prison. Now it did not seem so unbearable.

Here, at least, there was water to drink and shade from the heat. Sand would not choke my throat, and the sun would not bake me to death.

Yet just as before, my young mistress insisted on leaving for the frontier.

She even reproached me.

“I thought you were different from other delicate women. I never expected you to disappoint me like this.”

“You possess martial arts, yet instead of becoming a powerful heroine, you choose to submit to this world. I am ashamed for you.”

I seethed, but could not protest.

Her talk of a vast world filled with opportunity was empty in this age.

I could not refuse her. She owned my indenture. If I ran away, she could report me, and I would spend my life as an outlaw without legal status.

How could I escape her?

I served her obediently while searching for a way out.

A maid left her mistress only by committing an offense and being sold by a broker-or through marriage.

But my young mistress would never allow me to marry unless the groom was someone she could not oppose.

I considered the master of the house.

Absolutely not. I would sooner eat sand on the frontier than seduce him. Besides, the Madam was formidable. Over the years, every concubine he took had ended dead or crippled.

What about the young master, my mistress’s elder brother?

He liked me and often praised my bold beauty, saying I was unlike other maids. But he already kept more than a dozen bedmaids. He only wanted a new taste. If he took me without granting me status, my position would become even more precarious.

As I pondered, the sound of people bowing outside reached us.

The Crown Prince’s procession was passing.

A shy flush spread over my young mistress’s face. She gazed at him on horseback, dressed in a python robe and carrying himself with noble elegance.

“As expected of the male lead,” she murmured.

My hand shook, nearly dropping the teacup.

So that was it.

She had no true desire to free women from the inner courtyard or win honor. Those words were bait meant to manipulate me.

What she truly wanted was to marry the Crown Prince.

Despite her official family, her chances were poor. Countless talented and beautiful noblewomen in the capital coveted the same position. She was neither accomplished nor striking and could not stand out among them.

That was why she had to reach the frontier.

It was her only chance to become extraordinary. If she followed the Crown Prince to the border and shared life-and-death danger with him in the desert, she would gain an advantage no noblewoman in the capital could match.

It had all been her plan. From beginning to end, I was merely a pawn and a sacrifice.

Clenching my teeth, I formed a dangerous plan of my own.

In my previous life, while my spirit followed her convoy home, I noticed that the Crown Prince used only his left hand. His right arm seemed unable to move.

“Ah Heng, what happened to your right hand?” my mistress had asked.

Everyone else addressed him as Your Highness, but she insisted on using his familiar name, perhaps to appear more vivid and interesting than women constrained by ancient etiquette.

The Crown Prince lived and ate beside his soldiers and cared little for ceremony. Rather than punish her insolence, he answered, “I encountered assassins at the Lantern Festival. The injury has not healed.”

The Lantern Festival was this very month.

It was the capital’s greatest celebration, and the Crown Prince would attend among the people.

If I could save him from the assassins, I did not dare hope he would bring me into the Eastern Palace, but such a service would at least be enough to free me from slavery and my mistress’s control.

My decision made, I prepared in secret.

My young mistress had no intention of attending the festival. Too many beautifully dressed noblewomen would be there, and she knew she could not compete.

That evening, I helped her retire early, changed my clothes, and went alone.

Lanterns lined both sides of streets crowded with revelers.

The assassins must be hiding among them.

From afar, I saw the Crown Prince standing on a bridge. His dark robe was understated, yet could not conceal his noble presence. Black hair bound with pale jade crowned a tall, graceful figure.

Because he was mingling with the people, he had brought only two attendants dressed as servants.

I was about to approach when a familiar voice sounded behind me.

“Well, Dangui. What are you doing here?”

My limbs went numb.

My young mistress seized me from behind and jabbed a sharp fingernail against my forehead.

“I woke and found you gone, only to discover you at the festival. Tell me the truth. Are you meeting a lover?”

“No. I only wanted to see the festivities.”

She did not believe me. “You had better not lie. You are my maid. If you seduce a man in secret, I am the one who loses face.”

Her hypocrisy was absurd.

A match arranged by elders was, in her words, an unhappy forced marriage. Meeting someone I loved on my own was seducing an outsider.

Whichever way I turned, she wanted to keep me unmarried and working for her.

When I remained silent, she said magnanimously, “Very well. Since you want to stroll so badly, I will accompany you.”

She acted as if her company were a precious gift.

Without asking where I wished to go, she headed straight toward the arched bridge.

Of course. She had seen the Crown Prince.

She stopped a dozen paces from the bridge, her expression sour.

Several noblewomen surrounded him, solving lantern riddles. At their head stood the brilliantly dressed Eldest Miss Su, daughter of the Chancellor and celebrated as the capital’s greatest beauty.

My young mistress watched them approach the Crown Prince with equal parts jealousy and contempt.

“Look at her simpering like a courtesan!” she scoffed.

“Mind your words,” I said flatly. “That is the Chancellor’s daughter.”

“What daughter? She is only a concubine-born girl who wants to seduce the Crown Prince without asking whether she deserves him.”

My young mistress’s standards changed whenever convenient.

She too was concubine-born, yet always told me, “Birth does not matter. Everyone has the right to pursue happiness. If I want something, I will fight for it. I command my own fate!”

But when another woman fought for the same thing and defeated her, she sneered, “People should know their place. Those who crave what they do not deserve only bring disaster upon themselves.”

While she ground her teeth at Eldest Miss Su, I searched for a way to slip away. With her watching, I could do nothing.

Fortunately, her temper soon created my chance.

After discussing poetry with the noblewomen, the Crown Prince took his leave. The women turned and saw my mistress glowering beneath the bridge.

Eldest Miss Su was quick-tempered. She descended with her companions.

“Why, if it is Third Miss Shen. Does seeing us discuss poetry with His Highness upset you? You could have joined us. Who stopped you?”

Another woman laughed. “Third Miss Shen would never. Everyone knows she befriends only women less attractive than herself. Sister Su looks magnificent tonight. Third Miss Shen would not risk becoming an ugly duckling beside her.”

Her face reddened with rage. “You shallow women know only how to trade on beauty. I am nothing like you!”

As their quarrel grew, I announced, “All this talking must have made the ladies thirsty. I will buy tea,” and fled.

I hurried until I caught sight of the Crown Prince again.

The festival was ending, though the streets remained crowded. I followed from several dozen paces, matching his speed while watching those around him.

For some reason, he continued into increasingly deserted streets, leaving the festival behind and entering a dark slum alley.

It was so black that I could barely distinguish a human shape.

I blinked, and the Crown Prince and both attendants vanished.

Had I lost them?

I rushed forward.

Before I could look around, tremendous force struck my shoulders. Two figures sprang from hiding and pinned me between them.

The Crown Prince emerged from a side alley.

I could not see his face, only hear his frost-cold voice.

“Which faction sent you?”

I trembled and cursed my stupidity.

I was only a maid, yet I had dreamed of rescuing the heir to the throne. Now my clumsy pursuit had convinced him that I was an assassin.

Saying that no one sent me and that I acted alone sounded exactly like an assassin’s final declaration before biting off her tongue.

But it was the truth.

“This common woman learned that assassins would attack Your Highness tonight and came to protect you…”

Even I heard how ridiculous it sounded.

Who was I to claim I could protect the Crown Prince?

“Someone will assassinate me tonight?” Doubt entered his voice. “How did you learn this?”

I wanted to say I had been reborn, but no one would believe it.

One attendant drew his saber and pressed it to my throat. “Speak!”

Unable to invent a sensible explanation, I remembered the palace’s faith in omens.

“An immortal appeared in my dream.”

The Crown Prince laughed softly. “Did this immortal tell you who intends to kill me?”

Cold sweat covered me.

If I said no, they would never believe the rest. Yet I truly did not know.

The attendant holding the blade said, “Your Highness, she likely invented this after her attempt was exposed. We should kill her now.”

At the brink of death, inspiration struck.

After the Lantern Festival in my previous life, Eldest Miss Su disappeared. The mighty Chancellor’s household suddenly fell, and hundreds of Su relatives were executed.

What crime could have destroyed nine generations of a clan?

I gambled everything.

“Chancellor Su! The immortal said Chancellor Su would assassinate the Crown Prince!”

The Crown Prince’s expression changed.

So did the expression of the attendant holding the saber.

In a flash, he released me and attacked the Crown Prince.

The assassins had not been hidden among the festival crowd.

One had stood beside the Crown Prince all along.

I lunged and locked the traitor’s arms with Father’s joint-locking technique.

Unable to break free, he bit down on a hidden whistle.

Answering whistles sounded from every direction. He was not alone; his accomplices had been waiting nearby.

More than a dozen shadows appeared along the roofs.

The Crown Prince remained utterly calm. He cast a signal arrow from his sleeve. It streaked upward and burst like a firework.

The Eastern Palace’s hidden guards would see it and come, but until then, we had to survive.

The Crown Prince looked at me. “Your skills are good. Can you fight your way out with me?”

His composure steadied my heart.

“I can!”

He tossed me a sword, then, after a moment’s thought, a jade pendant.

“If we are separated, bring this to me.”