chapter 2
Just before dawn the next day, I waited at the capital gates for a travel-worn Dongye Pengpeng to arrive.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw me. “What are you doing here?!”
Who would have thought it would take her two whole days to walk this far…
“I hired a carriage,” I said.
Dongye Pengpeng stared at me.
“We were going to the palace anyway. It’s not as though we’ll need that silver now.”
She was furious. “Who said I was taking you into the palace? Go home!”
I refused.
“If you’re gone, who’s going to feed me?”
“I told you to ask Auntie Ma to find you a good husband!”
“I’m not marrying one of those hideous men for the sake of a few meals.”
That set her off again. She berated me for being precious and insisted survival came before vanity.
I watched her with a smile.
That only made her angrier. “What are you smiling at? I’m scolding you!”
“I’m coming to the palace to watch the spectacle.”
She threw up her hands. “What spectacle? There is no spectacle!”
Oh, but there was. A magnificent one.
By then, I had pieced together the truth. Her soul really had been exchanged.
Her true body belonged to the new emperor’s beloved wife, Empress Dongye.
Li You and Pengpeng had grown up together among the common people. Their love had begun in youth. Even after taking the throne, he had wrestled with his ministers for ages to make her his empress.
Then, in a single night, her soul had been ripped from her body and sealed inside the coarse, ugly shell of a beggar woman.
A beggar already carrying a bastard whose father no one knew.
After such a fall, she had simply kept her head down and survived among the common people.
Now she was finally going back to the palace. Even a passing dog would stop to watch this drama unfold. How could I miss it?
Eventually, she ran out of breath from shouting.
I took out a sweet rice cake I had bought on the road and began to eat.
Dongye Pengpeng stared at me again.
“I can’t endure hardship,” I told her. “If you won’t take me to the palace to live in comfort, I might as well find work in a brothel. At least the labor is easy.”
Her roar nearly shook the heavens.
“WEI ANYI!”
I burst out laughing.
As I said, Dongye Pengpeng was foolishly kind.
Afraid I truly would fall so low as to enter a brothel, she had no choice but to disguise me as her assistant and take me into the palace.
First, she warned me never to use her real name again. From now on, I was to call her Auntie Cao.
Then she promised to find me a new path in life once we were inside.
“And don’t you dare make trouble!”
“Oh,” I said.
Somehow, that made her angry all over again. “Aren’t you even going to ask what this new path is?”
“I’ll see when we get there.”
“Wei Anyi, are you trying to become a Buddha or something?”
We reached the palace gates while we were still arguing. A guard came forward to question us.
Pengpeng immediately grew nervous. She presented the imperial proclamation.
The guard looked her up and down with suspicion. “Off with you. What makes an old beggar think she can come to the imperial palace and try her luck?”
“The proclamation says all skilled physicians under heaven are summoned, regardless of birth—”
“Get lost!”
I fixed my eyes on the guard and cast a soul-control spell.
Pengpeng was still protesting. “You could at least pass on a message—”
The guard’s manner changed in an instant. He hurriedly stepped back. “My apologies. I meant no offense.”
Dongye Pengpeng fell silent.
The guard invited us to stay at a nearby inn while he sent word inside. The emperor would summon us when the report reached him.
“You’d better not be lying to me,” Pengpeng said doubtfully.
“I wouldn’t dare. If I failed to report you, I would be defying His Majesty’s own decree.”
She gave a small huff. “So long as you understand.”