Chapter 1

My elder sister froze.

The pearls on her phoenix crown seemed to dim along with her eyes.

She had spent her life shrinking before others. Even when she was in the right, she yielded rather than argue. When her wet nurse took a gold hairpin from her, she said nothing and sent me to retrieve it. When our third sister deliberately splashed dirty water on her, she swallowed her tears and waited for me to strike back.

After all these years, she had grown accustomed to having me fight every battle for her.

Now that I had suddenly refused, panic crossed her face.

“Who else can I trust but you?”

I was silent for a moment. “Several of our younger sisters are of marriageable age. They have been hoping for an opportunity like this.”

“How could they compare to you?” she choked out. “Back home, they relied on their mothers’ favor to torment me for sport. And now the women in the palace are either daughters of founding generals or young ladies from powerful clans. Every one of them has her eye on my position. If the sister sent into the palace is not truly on my side…”

I lowered my eyes sadly and said nothing.

The Prince of Jin’s household had once been an insignificant branch of the imperial family. They possessed little influence, but at least theirs was a simple family. The Princess Consort of Jin was kind, and Qin Zheng was an upright man without concubines or bedmaids.

My sister had lived well after marrying him. She and Qin Zheng treated each other with courtesy and never quarreled.

No one could have foreseen the coup.

The brother-in-law I had once addressed so casually became the Emperor, and my sister became the Empress. Daughters of ministers and aristocratic houses poured into the harem. Schemes multiplied, some hidden and some drawn like naked blades.

She and Qin Zheng might have been married in their youth, but sovereign and subject now came first. Everything had changed.

When I returned to myself, my sister had left the phoenix throne and was standing before me. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face haggard. She clearly had not slept for days.

“Can you truly stand by and watch your sister be plotted to death?”

In my previous life, I could not.

I obeyed my family and entered the palace.

At first, Qin Zheng summoned me to his bed several times. Once he realized that my heart was not with him, his manner gradually cooled. On the rare occasions he entered my palace, he came only at my sister’s request and left after sitting for a while.

I devoted myself to suppressing the overbearing favored consort and removing threats. I punished servants who bullied those beneath them and flattered those above, and I stamped out the harem’s corrupt practices.

My sister was never satisfied.

She constantly accused me of being too ruthless, of disregarding both human life and morality. I told her that the harem was not an ordinary household. Mercy toward one’s enemies would only bring ruin upon oneself.

She disagreed. Yet with my help, she secured her position as Empress. The harem settled into order, and rank was once again respected.

The Empress Dowager was delighted. She issued a decree raising my rank, then told me earnestly, “In the harem, heirs come first. Now that you are one of the Emperor’s consorts, you need a child of your own.”

The palace was a lonely place. Having a child at my side would have been a comfort.

My resolve shifted.

The next time Qin Zheng visited, I cast aside my earlier indifference. I nestled against him and attended to him with care. I made him sleeping robes, hats, and embroidered sachets—common tricks any consort might use to win the Emperor’s favor.

Qin Zheng cherished them all the same.

Toying with a lock of my hair, he smiled. “I like it when you put thought into pleasing me.”

Little by little, I received the legendary favor of an emperor.

In the heat of summer, I reviewed the harem accounts while the Son of Heaven sat beside me, waving a fan. Once, he caught me sternly reprimanding servants who had broken the rules. He backed me without a second thought.

“To upset Consort Chen is to upset Us. You would do well to consider the consequences.”

I disliked the heat, so ice was never allowed to run out in my rooms. Whenever jewels arrived as tribute from the Western Regions, I received everything my sister did.

I was three months pregnant when she was poisoned.

The imperial physician found arsenic in her food. Noble Lady Shu had put it there.

Some time before, she had spoken insolently. At my urging, my sister ordered her to kneel for half an hour as a warning to the others. Noble Lady Shu held a grudge and meant to poison me and my unborn child, but the poison somehow ended up in my sister’s medicine instead.

Knowing she would soon die, my sister was consumed by resentment.

Barely breathing, she clung to Qin Zheng’s shoulder with tears in her eyes.

“If I had endured Noble Lady Shu’s provocation, none of this would have happened.”

She closed her eyes weakly and sobbed. “Your Majesty, my sister is the one who killed me. If she were not so aggressive, if she did not make enemies everywhere… why would anyone have hated me enough to do this?”

I arrived too late and stood there as if struck by lightning.