Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The fifteenth day of the first lunar month-the Lantern Festival.

Ever since the winter solstice before New Year’s, Kaifeng Prefecture had been hung with lanterns and lined with festival awnings. Sightseers thronged the Imperial Street, where strange tricks and marvelous feats, songs and dances and every sort of performance filled the air with music and clamor for more than ten li.

When I came out of the Jiaofang, My Lady was seated in a soft sedan chair not far away. Draped in silks and crowned with flowers, she looked like a bodhisattva wrapped in gold-threaded jade burial robes.

At the sight of me, a frail smile broke through her joy.

“Little Cat, come here.”

I stood where I was and did not move.

My gaze, however, slowly lowered and came to rest on the swell of her belly.

Sensing my stare, her smile deepened at once. “Are you happy, Little Cat? You’re going to be an aunt.”

In that instant, it was as if someone had pinched the center of my spine. My whole body began to tremble.

“Whose child is it?”

“Silly Little Cat.”

She shot me a reproachful look. “His Majesty’s, of course.”

At that, I pointed at her in disbelief. “Then… then what about the fact that he killed your father?”

Before the words had even settled,

My Lady suddenly stopped smiling.

Her slender fingers stroked her belly, and the beauty before me said blandly, “His Majesty has promised me the position of Empress.

“A trifling grudge over a murdered father-what does that amount to?”

My Lady had changed.

More than ten years ago, I was abandoned by my parents the moment I was born.

She was the one who picked me up, brought me back, and raised me in her own chambers with good food and proper care. Because my cries sounded like a kitten’s mewling, she gave me the name Little Cat.

For the past decade and more, she had been the one to teach me how to read and how to be a decent person.

But she was also the one who, after our entire household was seized and our whole clan exiled, became the first among us to be heartless and faithless, disloyal and unfilial.

And now, she was even going to become that man’s Empress…

I stood rooted to the spot, gritting my teeth so hard I nearly bit through my gums. In a daze, I saw the hem of a robe embroidered with sea-wave patterns enter my field of vision. Lantern light struck the gold and silver threads woven through it, bursting into a dazzling glare.

The man at the head of the party wore a jade crown and bright yellow brocade. Tall and imposing, he carried an overwhelming majesty.

It was His Majesty.

Then I looked at the brocade-clad young man behind him. A soft fox-fur collar circled his neck, burying even his jaw and chin, leaving only a pair of brows like distant mountains and eyes like mist and cloud exposed.

My Lady hurriedly pulled me down with her, kneeling to pay our respects.

“Little Cat, quickly. Greet His Majesty. Greet the Junior Tutor to the Crown Prince.”

His Majesty’s expression was displeased; it seemed he had heard every word I had said.

But before he could erupt, the young man had already spoken, cutting off the emperor’s wrath at just the right moment.

His voice was gentle yet cool and remote, like jade shattered over ice.

“Han Mo pays his respects to Consort Liu.”