Chapter 3

With one enormous iron pot and the Grimm fairy tales I knew by heart, I secured my place in the palace.

You’d expect the women here to scheme and fight for favor and position. Qi Yin’s harem had taken a rather different approach—

Apparently, Lady Liu, who held the rank of Beauty, had recently spent three days kneeling before the Buddha, praying that Noble Consort Gao might stay forever by the emperor’s side, blessed with endless good fortune.

When that reached my ears, I ground my teeth.

How very kind of her.

One wrong move around that unpredictable tyrant and you were beheaded or beaten to death. Would she like a share of all that good fortune?

I’d also heard…

The delicate, sickly Lady Gou, a Lady of Talent, once spotted His Majesty in the distance in the imperial gardens. She turned around and ran all the way back to her chambers. Estimated speed: twenty kilometers an hour.

Lady Nian, a Lady of Bright Deportment and a beauty lovelier than any flower, had her tablet selected three nights in a row. The fright brought on a heart condition. A month later, she was still in bed, white as a sheet.

Lady Shen, a Lady of Grace with a mischievous streak, put on a red robe and played ghost in her chambers every night, terrified that the tyrant might set one foot through her door.

…

My sisters were all timid souls. All the wealth and splendor in the world meant nothing if you weren’t alive to enjoy it.

I’d thought my two special skills would let me coast along peacefully in the palace. Then—

One day, when I wasn’t feeling well, Xiao’e summoned Physician Zhou to examine me.

I was studying his face with my chin in my hand when he suddenly dropped to his knees.

He said a great deal of medical jargon I didn’t understand.

Only the last sentence made sense—

“Your Highness may… have little time left.”

For a long while, I couldn’t respond. Then I asked blankly, “How little?”

Physician Zhou’s voice was grave. “Three to five months at most. At the least… ten days to a fortnight.”

Once I’d received my terminal diagnosis, I gave up trying altogether.

This body wasn’t going to last much longer anyway. Why should I spend my remaining days trembling and fawning over that tyrant?

I wanted freedom.

I wanted rebellion.

So that night, when Qi Yin selected my tablet again, I gnawed on a pig’s trotter and told Xiao’e,

“Go tell that tyrant I’m not feeling well today. I can’t attend him in bed.”

Xiao’e was so frightened her calves were practically cramping. She was about to talk me out of it when my chamber door was kicked open again—

A flash of imperial yellow.

Then Qi Yin’s angry voice, deliberately lowered.

“My beloved consort is unwell? In what way?”

My hand froze around the trotter. I tried to reassure myself.

I was dying. What the hell did I have to be afraid of?

And yet.

When I looked up and met the tyrant’s dark eyes, my knees gave out despite me. I dropped to the floor.

“Your Majesty, my… legs are weak…”