Chapter 1

Xiao Ji froze for a moment.

Then he rubbed his weary brow and said languidly,

“Our nation is weak, our armies depleted. We face turmoil at home and danger abroad. Your sister and I have too much weighing on us to indulge in matters of the heart.”

I nodded.

“I understand.”

His hand stilled against his brow. He studied me for a long moment.

“But what you said would sound terrible if word got out.”

I fell silent, then met his gaze without flinching.

“I misspoke. I take it back.”

It left him with nowhere to direct his anger.

His gaze swept over my badly wounded arm.

His expression darkened. With a trace of apology in his eyes, he reached for me.

“They’re only fireworks. We can set them off anytime.”

“The frontier is in upheaval, and the people there are in mortal danger. While they go hungry and cold, how would ten miles of fireworks over the capital look to the rest of the realm?”

“Ah Sui, I’ll make it up to you next year. Tonight, let me at least have a bowl of longevity noodles with you…”

He stopped short.

I had stepped away from his hand and risen with the support of my maid’s arm.

As I passed him, I replied softly,

“There’s no need. It’s only a birthday. There will be another every year.”

The words had barely left my lips when the watchman’s clapper sounded midnight.

This year’s birthday had passed as well.

Something trembled in Xiao Ji’s dark eyes.

“But you’ve always cared so much about it.”

Yes. I had cared very much.

Half a month earlier,

my sister and Xiao Ji had arranged a banquet to lure our imperial uncle into a trap.

To make it convincing, both the young emperor and I had attended.

But once the wine had made three rounds,

our uncle abruptly overturned the table.

His agents hidden within the palace answered his signal and drew their blades one after another.

The banquet dissolved into chaos.

When I saw an assassin’s sword descending toward my sister’s back,

I forgot everything else. I threw myself forward to stop it with my own flesh.

Xiao Ji was a step ahead of me. He knocked my sister to the ground beneath him.

Only I, like a fool, was left standing as the assassin’s target.

The blade sank into my flesh. Only then did an imperial guard’s arrow pierce the assassin’s throat.

When my sister began screaming Xiao Ji’s name in panic, I finally understood that they had known about the assassination attempt all along.

Even my maid had a knife hidden in her sleeve.

I alone had been kept in the dark.

As the court physician stitched my wound, Xiao Ji and my sister argued furiously on the other side of the screen.

My sister said,

“She’s always been frail, and she knows no martial arts. Who gave you permission to save me instead of her?”

Xiao Ji answered,

“There was no time to think. This is your fault for being so overconfident that you refuse to keep more guards around you.”

My sister retorted,

“I’ve spent my life among blades and arrows. What wound couldn’t I endure? She has always been terrified of pain. Who knows how hard she’s crying?”

Xiao Ji replied,

“Secrecy was essential to our success. We did nothing wrong.

“But Ah Sui was injured. She refuses rewards, so we should compensate her on her birthday in half a month.”

My sister agreed.

“She hasn’t recovered and mustn’t tire herself. We’ll hold a banquet for her in the palace. I’ll see to every detail myself.”

Xiao Ji rejected the idea.

“She dislikes the strictures of palace etiquette and loves the open landscape. Why not take a pleasure boat along all ten miles of the city moat?”

My sister would not yield.

“An excursion outside the palace would waste money and labor. A palace banquet would be safer and more practical.”

Xiao Ji sighed.

“The Xiao family will pay. It need not cost the Empress Dowager a thing. I’ll make the arrangements in advance and leave no opening for trouble.”

My sister grew angry.

“The war at the frontier is desperate. Countless people have exhausted their supplies. You are the Grand Chancellor, yet you would feast in luxury and squander resources in the capital. Even if the money comes from the Xiao family, how many people will care once some court windbag seizes on it as grounds for impeachment?”

Neither would give way. They glared at each other until deep into the night.

Only after I had endured seventeen stitches, sweating from head to toe,

did they finally come to my bedside together.