chapter 1
“Her Majesty has trained her maid remarkably well.”
The Emperor looked down at me where I had rolled to his feet. His voice was glacial. “So in the Empress’s palace, We are not even permitted to smash a cup?”
Without a word, I rolled several times in the opposite direction. Then I scrambled up, dropped to my knees, and admitted defeat.
“Please forgive me, Your Majesty. I only acted because this tea set was a gift from Your Majesty, and Her Majesty treasures it dearly…”
The Empress tugged gently at his sleeve. “Why vent your anger on her? She meant well.
“If Your Majesty dislikes the idea of another selection of consorts, then I simply won’t raise the subject again.”
His expression eased when she yielded. Then he turned and saw me still kneeling there with my head hanging—and still clutching the lotus-patterned cup to my chest. He laughed in exasperation.
“It seems to Us that you are the one who loves that cup.”
He pointed toward the door. “Go outside and stand for two hours with it balanced on your head.
“If you break it, you will answer to Us.”
I kowtowed at once, hugged the cup to my chest, and scurried out with my arms and legs moving stiffly in unison.
Outside Kunning Palace, I found a level patch of ground, placed the cup on my head, and stood obediently against the wall.
I had transmigrated here a year ago.
At first, I had been a fourteen-year-old low-ranking maid assigned to wash clothes. Before transmigrating, I had been a first-year graduate student in artifact conservation.
The field sounded impressive, but the employment prospects were dismal and most of the work was manual labor. Five years of study had already cultivated in me a transcendent ability to take life as it came.
Now that I had become the lowliest laundry maid, I still ate when it was time to eat and slept when it was time to sleep. When a matron was watching, I swung my washing paddle with great enthusiasm. The moment no one was supervising me, I set it down and slacked off with equal enthusiasm.
Life tried to chew me up, only to discover that I melted in its mouth.
Things might have continued that way forever. Then someone ruined one of Noble Consort Yan’s robes and pinned the blame on me.
When the news reached Noble Consort Yan, she was dyeing her nails. Admiring her delicate fingers, she said lightly, “It’s only a robe. Beat her to death.”
I was dragged off for punishment without even being given a chance to defend myself.
Truthfully, I was rather calm about it. In this man-eating age, someone like me had a life worth less than dirt. Living was certainly preferable, but dying would hardly have been unusual.
I had intended to meet death with dignity. Unfortunately, the paddle hurt too much.
By the end, my screams had developed the range of a coloratura soprano.
Perhaps the noise was simply too extraordinary, because it somehow reached the Empress three streets away. She learned what had happened and saved me.
From that day on, I became a cleaning maid in Kunning Palace.