Chapter 1

The late emperor had arranged my marriage to Song Heqing. He had placed third in the imperial examinations and was exceptionally handsome. Widower though he was, I was still besotted with him.

When I met him, his first wife had been dead for two years. She had fallen from a cliff while gathering medicinal herbs in the mountains. Her body had never been found.

He had mourned her for two years, which was devotion enough.

After we married, we treated each other with respect and lived in perfect harmony. For his sake, I moved out of my princess’s residence and into the Song household. I set aside the distinction between sovereign and subject, dutifully served his parents, and lived with him as any ordinary wife might.

We had always been happy together. All Duanjing held us up as the model married couple.

I never imagined that, on my sixtieth birthday, he would humiliate me so thoroughly.

The reception hall was utterly silent. No one dared speak.

The old woman named Liu Sanniang was older than I was. Her face was plain, her features unremarkable, but her figure was still as slender as a girl’s. Her hair was black, her skin fair. Apart from the lines around her eyes, her face was almost unwrinkled. Clearly, she had spent most of her life in pampered comfort.

Her daughter did not take after her. Seventeen or eighteen, delicate and lovely as a pale narcissus, she bore some resemblance to Song Heqing. She, too, had plainly been raised in luxury.

I sat in grim silence, and they remained on their knees.

Someone had already sent for Song Heqing. He arrived shortly afterward, looking startled at the sight of Liu Sanniang and her daughter. He hurried to explain. “Forgive me, Your Highness. I never meant to deceive you.”

It turned out that Liu Sanniang had survived her fall. Badly injured, she had been rescued by a local farming family and had taken three years to recover. When she found Song Heqing, she discovered that he had already married me.

She had no parents, no one but him. Unable to abandon her, yet unwilling to hurt me, Song Heqing had bought a house elsewhere and kept her there.

I gave a cold laugh. “Kept her how? As a sister—or as a mistress?”

His face flushed crimson.

Liu Sanniang explained softly, “Please do not be angry, Your Highness. A woman cannot belong to two husbands. I was the one who clung to him and begged him to give me a child to rely on. But the fall had damaged my health, and I could not conceive for many years. Even with all the treatment I received, I was past forty when Mian was born. If Your Highness must blame someone, blame me. I was shameless. There is only you in his heart.”

Song Heqing gave her a deeply moved look. Only then did he lift his robe and kneel, bowing his head to the floor before me. “Sanniang fell because she was gathering herbs for my mother. I owe her that debt. All of this is my fault. I wronged her first, then Your Highness. Kill me, punish me—do as you see fit.”

He was sixty-four and had not knelt to me in years. His old bones cracked as he went down. Several of the younger people in the room started in alarm and hurriedly knelt with him.

The other ladies and young women who had come to pay their respects began making excuses to leave. “There is no hurry,” I said. “Stay and hear what else my husband has to say.”

They exchanged glances, unable to hide the excitement and anticipation in their eyes.

Song Heqing’s air of noble resolve gave way to stunned disbelief.

Everyone in the room was younger than he was. However thick his skin, he began to squirm.

I looked at Liu Sanniang. “How did you get in?”