Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The man sent to exorcise the ghost turned out to be Xu Yan.
Sharp brows, narrow eyes, pupils black as ink, and a face pale as snow.
He should have looked detached from every worldly desire, but his full, peach-blossom lips lent him an inexplicable air of sensuality.
The boy I had adored was all grown up now, and every bit as handsome as I had imagined.
I floated circles around him, pulling faces right in front of him.
Naturally, he saw none of it. His expression did not shift in the slightest.
Bored, I launched into a Lüyao dance.
Not the proper version, of course. I had learned mine by spying on courtesans at a pleasure house.
It was coy, seductive, and—most importantly—shameless. Behaving wantonly in front of Xu Yan was something I had always wanted to do and never dared while alive.
Something hit the floor with a soft clatter.
I turned in surprise. Xu Yan’s fly whisk had slipped from his hand.
Suspicion stirred. I danced closer to him.
My fingers curved like an orchid as I traced a path from between his brows down to his lean waist.
If only his Daoist robe had been made with a little less cloth. Then I might have fulfilled my dying wish of seeing him bathe.
While I mourned the lost opportunity, Xu Yan lit a burner of incense.
As I danced, my movements gradually slowed.
Within the curling smoke, I had taken shape.
I looked like a dancer behind a screen, every movement rendered perfectly in light and shadow.
I froze.
Xu Yan lowered his gaze to me with calm, unerring precision. His peach-shaped lips parted.
“Princess Ruyi. At last, I can see you.”
I was still caught in my previous pose, nearly pressed against him. From this close, I could see the light shimmering in his eyes like West Lake in June.
Startled, my first instinct was to flee.
Xu Yan hooked an arm around my waist.
“Why are you hiding?”
I flushed, glanced at the hand on my waist, then looked up again with feigned composure.
“Xu Yan. Ten years apart, and you really did become a Daoist.”
“Ten years apart,” he replied mildly, “and I never expected Your Highness to greet this subject with such a surprise.”
I followed his gaze downward and saw myself.
Ah. My clothes hung in tatters, using even less fabric than a courtesan’s costume.
I clapped both arms over my chest. “I’ve been dead for ten years! No one has burned me any clothes. Close your eyes before you grow a stye!”
I was still sputtering in mortification when his robe came down through the air and wrapped around me. It was warm and carried the faint fragrance of herbs and trees.
Xu Yan’s scent.
I stared at him.
Fly whisk in hand, Xu Yan lowered his eyes, solemn and proper exactly as I remembered him.
He said nothing about my torn collar and did not look at my sorry state. From those rosy lips came an excuse that was no excuse at all.
“One should dress warmly in cold weather.”
Cold? It was early summer. What cold could there possibly be?
All at once, I wanted to cry.
“You still think of me as Princess Ruyi? I’m a ghost now. I—I don’t feel cold at all.”
He did not expose the lie. He only smiled. “It has been ten years. I thought your soul had scattered long ago.”
My fingers tightened involuntarily around the robe. Its rough silver embroidery seemed to carve itself into my flesh and bones all over again.
“When I sacrificed myself for the kingdom, I never thought I would return either.”
Xu Yan and I had once been fellow disciples.
The Imperial Preceptor had an adopted daughter: me.
He also had a prized student: Xu Yan.
When the young crown prince began his studies, the emperor summoned Xu Yan and me to the palace to study alongside him.
That was when I fell in love with Xu Yan—and when Xu Yan had eyes for nothing but the Dao.
Later, a foreign tribe demanded a princess in marriage. The only true princess in the palace was not yet five years old.
And so Ruiniang became Princess Ruyi, destined to marry north in exchange for peace.
I sealed away every scrap of my love for Xu Yan. I imagined that after becoming a wife and mother, this secret devotion might turn into a sweetmeat to nibble with my wine—until the wine and memories made me weep.
But time never gave me that ending.
In the third month after I became Princess Ruyi, with less than two months before the wedding, enemy forces invaded the frontier.
No one had known they possessed such terrible might. They took eighteen cities in succession and reached the walls of the capital in a mere twenty days.
The kingdom tottered. Its soldiers cast off their armor.
The invaders gave us three days. If we did not open the gates to welcome our new sovereign, they would burn the entire city.
The crown prince and I had once sneaked a look at the forbidden books my adoptive father kept locked away. We knew of one last way to save the kingdom.
If a member of the imperial family willingly sacrificed their life for the realm, the Son of Heaven’s blood and the royal aura would purge every foreign invader.
My name had been entered into the imperial genealogy as Princess Ruyi. That made me a member of the royal family.
The crown prince refused. “I’ll do it.”
I shoved him aside. “Let me.”
“I’ll do it,” he insisted.
I smacked him. “If you dare, I’ll beat you senseless!”
He looked thoroughly aggrieved.
I tipped my face toward the sky. “You have to live well and become a diligent, capable ruler. Oh, and keep an eye on Xu Yan for me. After I die, don’t let him fall for any other girl—or any other boy. Understand?”
It was an excuse that was no excuse at all.
The crown prince’s eyes reddened.
I patted his cheek. “If Father hadn’t found me, I would have died at three. It’s time I repaid the thirteen stolen years he gave me.”
The crown prince burst into tears again.
On the last of those three days, intricate talismans were painted across my entire body in cinnabar.
I did not wear a princess’s gown. I dressed from head to toe in vivid red.
The clothes had been soaked in blood and dried again—my blood and the crown prince’s.
When I stood atop the city wall, the foreign army stretched below me as far as the eye could see.
A man rode slowly forward and gave a mocking whistle. “Who stands upon the wall?”
“Princess Ruyi.”
He roared with laughter. “So it is my betrothed.”
He was too far away for me to make out his face. All I knew was that his laughter grated against my ears. It could never compare to Xu Yan’s voice.
Xu Yan. Xu Yan.
The crown prince should have been keeping him occupied. He would not discover what I meant to do.
The rider received no answer and laughed more brazenly. “What? So eager to marry your husband that you’ve come in your wedding robes to surrender? What an obedient little bride. You have far more sense than your emperor!”
Laughter erupted below. Naked, undisguised stares crawled across me.
They clung to every inch of my skin like bloodsucking leeches.
I laughed too and flicked a sleeve red as blood.
“I have come to accept your surrender.”
He looked as though he had heard the greatest joke in the world. “Little princess, have you gone mad with fear? What nonsense are you babbling?”
I was about to offer him one last chance when an anguished cry came from behind me.
“Ruiniang!”
I turned. It was Xu Yan.
His white robes were in disarray, and a crack had appeared in his customary composure. “Ruiniang, no. You are not allowed. You are not allowed!”
The crown prince trailed behind him, apology written all over his face. “I couldn’t stop him.”
I looked at Xu Yan and blinked. “Xu Yan.”
He came closer, his fingertips trembling. “Come down. We’ll find another way.”
So he knew.
Of course he did. He had read far more of Father’s forbidden books than I ever had.
I swept his hand away. “Go, Xu Yan. Don’t think I’m noble. I only want you to think me brave. I only want you to remember me. Look at me. I’m exactly that kind of scheming girl.”
The corners of his pale eyes slowly turned crimson.
So beautiful. If only I could have kissed away the tear at the corner of his eye.
But the appointed hour had nearly arrived.
Seven long chimes rang from the bell tower, one after another, each urging me onward.
I looked at Xu Yan one last time, trying to carve his face into my mind.
Sharp brows, narrow eyes, pupils black as ink, and a face pale as snow.
He should have looked detached from every worldly desire, but his full, peach-blossom lips lent him an inexplicable air of sensuality.
If I ever had another life, I would have liked to know how those lips tasted.
Unfortunately, there would be no next life for me.
This forbidden art, unique in three thousand years of history, would transform me into a vengeful ghost. With the might of the Son of Heaven and the royal aura, I would sever the life from every invading enemy.
The price was the utter dispersal of my soul.