Chapter 3
I drifted into a heavy sleep. When I woke, the sky was still ink-black, the bright moon high overhead.
A pale, slender hand pushed open the door, and a slim, graceful figure stepped inside.
Siluo.
Every hair on my body stood on end. I recoiled.
“You…” Something seemed to lodge in my throat.
“What’s wrong, Your Highness? A nightmare?” Concern in her eyes, she bent to tuck in my quilt, revealing a stretch of pale neck.
Her neck was whole, without a trace of a blade. Had I truly dreamed it?
I forced down my terror. “Nothing.”
Siluo looked at me doubtfully, then nodded slowly. “Your coming-of-age ceremony is only three days away. You should rest early.”
“How can it still be three days? You said three days yesterday.”
She paused, then smiled. “You must be muddled from sleep, Your Highness. Dawn is still four hours away. It’s still the sixteenth day of the tenth month.”
I had slept so long, and it was still the sixteenth?
After settling me, Siluo turned to leave.
Without time to think, I snatched the hairpin beside my bed, sprang down, and drove it savagely into her neck.
Once, twice, three times. Her blood spattered the window gauze, like an ink painting in the moonlight.
Taken by surprise, Siluo gave only one cry. Before she could react, she crumpled.
One hand still clung stubbornly to the doorframe.
I let the hairpin fall.
My eyelids were so heavy. I was going to sleep again.
When I startled awake, it was still pitch-black outside. Panic gripped me.
And that familiar, soft voice seemed to answer my fear.
“Why are you having nightmares, Your Highness? Your coming-of-age ceremony is only three days away.”
After that, I killed Siluo three more times.
Almost the instant she died, I too sank into sleep. Each time I woke, she was standing unharmed beside my bed, reminding me it was still the sixteenth day of the tenth month.
At last I understood. Siluo couldn’t be killed.
Unless I wanted to stay in this day forever, I had to give up killing her.
Finally, I closed my eyes in resignation and let her leave alive.
And time finally began to move.
The seventeenth day of the tenth month.
I ordered Siluo to go to the Palace Service Bureau and check the gift list for my coming-of-age ceremony once more.
“You’re the only one I can trust with this.”
It was part of her duties. Smiling, she nodded and left to carry out the order.
Once she was gone, I said I wanted a nap and shut the door, alone. I poured lamp oil over the bed curtains and set them alight with a candle.
Flames spread at once. Only when the fire had grown did I leisurely call for help.
Panicked maids and eunuchs rushed into the inner chamber.
An east wind was blowing that day, and the fire burned fiercely and fast. Seeing that I had already emerged unharmed, the servants devoted themselves to putting it out. No one was watching me.
Quietly, I slipped into the servants’ quarters.
The other maids shared rooms in pairs, but Siluo, deeply favored by me, had a large room to herself.
Close as we were, I had never set foot in it.
She was careful. The door was locked.
I hesitated, then decided to break in.
I unfastened the little knife at my waist. A prince from the Western Regions had given it to me; it could cut through iron as though it were mud.
The severed lock fell to the ground. The door swung open, and I stopped short. The room was too orderly.
Every piece of furniture was just the right size and placed just so. The windows shone, and there wasn’t a speck of dust.
It was like an unremarkable painting by a painter too mediocre to give it any life.
Everything was perfectly arranged. Even the pillow looked as though no one had ever lain on it.
The room was so normal, ordinary, and reasonable that it was profoundly strange.
As soon as I entered, all sound from outside vanished. Even the air seemed to congeal.
Warm sunlight fell through the window, covering me like scattered gold.
Suddenly, I realized what was most uncanny about the room.
It was snowing heavily today. A pall of cloud covered the sky; the sun was nowhere to be seen.
Yet outside this window, there was sunlight.
I stepped outside again. Snowflakes drifted through the air, and the heavens looked like a mottled white shell.
Back inside, that shaft of sunlight beyond the window was still dazzling.
The weather in this room was different from the weather outside?
It seemed to exist apart from the rest of heaven and earth.
Holding my breath, I pulled open a small drawer beneath the dressing table.
A few objects lay quietly inside.
A fan pendant, a jade hairpin, rouge. All looked a little old.
They seemed inexplicably familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I had seen them.
At the very back of the drawer lay a flat, square brocade box, apparently something the owner particularly treasured.
Inside was a small, gold-wrapped jade ring.
As a child, I had believed a piece of gold and jade could bind that boy to me forever.
When had it left Xiao Jue’s neck and found its way into Siluo’s dressing table?
Footsteps rustled outside. Without hesitating, I tucked the ring, box and all, inside my clothes and slipped out.
A group of young maids was approaching. They bowed respectfully. “There you are, Your Highness. Young Master Xiao requests an audience.”
Behind me, the door quietly closed. The lock I had cut apart was whole again, hanging neatly in its place.
Was the room truly haunted?
Then a deep voice rang out from the pale, lightless vault of the sky.
[Congratulations! You have obtained one of the Five Divine Artifacts: Xiao Jue’s Jade Ring. Effect: Xiao Jue’s loyalty +30. Hint: Collect all Five Divine Artifacts to defy heaven and change your fate. Good luck!]