Chapter 3

I remained on my knees, cold to the bone.

Voices buzzed and burst around my ears, but I could make out nothing.

“What are you saying?”

I remembered him breaking off a peach blossom and tucking it beside my temple, telling me I was lovelier than the flower as he declared his feelings.

I remembered him secretly slipping me a piece of osmanthus cake at a Mid-Autumn banquet. His fingertips brushed my palm, and we both blushed.

Back then, there had plainly been no one but me in his eyes.

The night I was sent to Shuiyue Convent, the pain of my broken legs made me faint three times.

I gritted my teeth and told myself he would come to save me.

Over the following three years, half the letters I wrote in blood were addressed to him.

He wrote back that his former betrothal to me had cost him the emperor’s favor. He was confined to his residence and could barely protect himself.

At the time, I thought he was merely heartless.

But that was not it.

The bastard who had been tumbling with Shen Yueru was him.

Yan Rongyu caught my sleeve and shook it lightly. “Wantang, stop making a scene. Let us admit it. I’ll take responsibility for you. I’ll shoulder all the blame myself.”

I looked at that hand and smiled.

“Though we are betrothed, I have observed every rule of propriety and never overstepped.”

“If Your Highness truly lay with me, you must know of the red mole on my left shoulder. Is that mole on the left or the right?”

Yan Rongyu hesitated. “On the… left, of course.”

I said nothing, only shook my head as though in regret.

His smile stiffened. “No! It was dark. I couldn’t see clearly…” he snapped.

“I remember now! It was on the right! I’m certain. The right.”

“Wantang, why insist on discussing something so intimate before everyone?”

Shen Yueru chimed in between sobs. “Sister, the evidence is undeniable, and His Highness is still protecting you. Admit it. Stop disgracing yourself.”

I watched the pair of them play their parts, my eyes cold.

“Your Highness seems very certain. Unfortunately, there is no red mole on either of my shoulders.”

Yan Rongyu’s face drained of color. “You… you deliberately led me into giving the wrong answer!”

“Deliberately?”

I raised an eyebrow. “In this world, a woman’s chastity is valued above her life. If her good name is ruined, she may not even have a place for her bones after death!”

I turned to the room, my voice rising sharply.

“If a woman’s reputation can be decided by a single word, does that not place every woman’s innocence at the mercy of Your Highness’s tongue? Today you name me. Whom will you name tomorrow?”

Several officials’ wives changed color at once.

Yan Rongyu panicked. “Stop this nonsense! When have I ever accused anyone else—”

I laughed coldly. “Just now Your Highness switched from left to right as though this were a game, yet dared to claim before the emperor that you had lain with me.”

“If you were truly speaking honestly, how could a few questions from me expose so many holes in your story?”

Someone in the crowd snorted with laughter.

The great hall was utterly quiet.

After a long time, the emperor finally spoke. “Shen Wantang, do you understand what you are saying?”

I raised my eyes. “I do, Your Majesty. I am not merely pleading my innocence. I am reporting that someone has deceived the throne!”