chapter 2
My original surname was Cheng, and my family ran a medicinal cuisine shop passed down through the generations.
One of our dishes was sweet and delicious, specially made to nourish women after childbirth.
After taking it, not only did their milk flow abundantly and sweetly, but it carried a faint fragrance of orchids.
Lady Xie was getting on in years and was on the verge of falling out of favor and being sent out of the palace.
The decoctions she had been drinking had stopped working. After much searching, she learned my parents could brew this medicinal dish, and she sent people to find us.
It was troublesome business, and my parents hadn’t wanted to take it on.
But her messengers were too overbearing and tyrannical, so they brewed a bowl and sent it off to fulfill the task.
Lady Xie’s constitution differed from other people’s, so her recipe was specially formulated.
After trying it, she was full of praise for the effects.
The next day, she sent people again, demanding my parents hand over the secret recipe from the night before.
My parents refused.
First, all the medicinal cuisine recipes had been handed down from our ancestors. Second, Lady Xie’s desperate pursuit of effects was draining her body’s foundations—long-term use would do nothing but harm.
Their proper refusal brought a massacre.
My parents died beneath the blades protecting their lives. My sister-in-law was dragged away, passed around and violated, then left to rot in the wilderness. Before she was taken, she hid me in the water vat in the back courtyard, and that was how I escaped.
In a single night, my family was shattered.
But my brother knew nothing of this. He was stationed at the border a thousand miles away, guarding the city for Xiao Jingcheng.
The court conscripted adult men to guard the border, each serving one year.
After my brother left, the family sent him supplies every three months—pickled fish, cured meat, freshly sewn autumn clothes, and a letter from home. The letters were nothing but small talk and greetings: bundle up against the cold, your wife is waiting at home, has Little Fish grown taller…
My brother was still wondering why no word had come this time.
He never got his letter home. Instead, he got me—a girl who had begged and wandered all the way from the capital to Yanbei Pass.
When I told him what happened, he spat blood on the spot.
It was only three months until New Year, and he would have taken his military pay and reunited with his family.
Trembling, he grabbed my shoulders and wept, asking me over and over:
“Little Fish, do we not have a home anymore?”
When his service ended, my brother changed his name and re-enlisted in the army.
Five years later, the war between Great Zhou and Northern Qi ended, and the newly appointed Guardian General returned victorious.
And I, as his only sister, was bestowed the consort title Yu and showered with favor.
Xiao Jingcheng’s love and favor toward me was, on one hand, to win over my brother, and on the other, because of my body’s fragrance…
That faint orchid scent—it was the same fragrance Lady Xie had, the scent he knew and cherished.
Starting three months before I entered the palace, I endured my disgust and took the same formula, soaking myself in it until I was steeped in the scent.