Chapter 3

Heavy snow fell the day Shen Ning gave birth.

The delivery itself went smoothly. The midwife had not been inside long before a baby’s cries rang out.

But Shen Ning began to hemorrhage.

After taking her pulse, the imperial physician asked about what she had eaten and drunk in recent days. The culprit turned out to be a cup of calming tea.

Thousand-year-old ginseng might be a tonic for an ordinary person, but it could easily cause a pregnant woman to miscarry.

She had not drunk it for long, so the baby survived. But nothing could stop Shen Ning’s bleeding.

The physician’s words struck me like lightning.

I had brewed that calming tea with my own hands.

And Su Yuling had given me the thousand-year-old ginseng.

Ginseng was supposed to be good. How could something good hurt a person?

I ran down the corridor. The cold wind sliced into my throat like a knife.

Su Yuling burned a faintly scented incense. She sat serenely before the burner. Light seeped through the paper window and filtered through a silk curtain, staining her face a ghostly green.

I stood in the doorway. “Why?”

She smiled. The flesh of her cheeks shifted, and she looked like a beautiful corpse.

“Lu Sui’an, you are nothing but a concubine without even a formal title. Who gave you the right to stand as my equal in this estate?

“Yes. Shen Ning gave you that right.

“She understands everything, yet she raised you to be this hopelessly innocent.

“Then allow me to teach you this lesson.

“In the imperial family, innocence is stupidity—and stupidity is a crime.”

I stumbled back, missed the step, and fell into the courtyard.

The snow had been swept clean, leaving only stone tiles frozen hard beneath me. I hit them with my full weight.

Aunt Songxue hurried over and pulled me up, her eyes rimmed red. “Miss, hurry back. Her Highness is waiting for you.”

My knee was bleeding, but I felt no pain as I ran.

Shen Ning lay on the bed, her face bloodless. When she saw me, she spent the last of her strength on a smile.

“Why are you crying? It wasn’t your fault.”

I knelt beside the bed and looked up at her. It felt as though a hand had closed around my throat. No matter how I tried, I could not speak.

Shen Ning wiped away my tears. “Whether you brought it or not, that ginseng would have found its way into my stomach. The prince is away from the capital. She would never have let this chance pass.”

And yet I was the one who had brought it.

I stared down at my trembling hands. I could not stop seeing them smeared with bright red blood.

Su Yuling had insisted that I kill my sister with my own hands.

“Do not blame yourself. My birth was humble, and I had to learn the ways of the inner household little by little. I was too sure of myself. I always thought I could hold her off for a few more years, until you had grown… What a pity. I will never see what you look like as a woman.”

Shen Ning’s breathing weakened. The baby began to cry.

“Sui’an, she has stained your hands, but do not use this against her. Protect yourself, and for me… protect Mincheng too. Will you?”

Blood spilled from the corner of her mouth. My insides knotted, and my whole body shook—

When Aunt Songxue’s wail rose behind me, I understood that Su Yuling had been right. At the heart of a struggle for power, innocence was stupidity, and stupidity was a crime.