chapter 3
For a time, Jing Ye devoted himself to Consort Yi and stopped visiting my palace.
She had won back his heart, and the ceremony appointing her empress drew near. She was exceedingly pleased with herself.
She busied herself preparing the grandest gold headdress and the most magnificent ceremonial robes.
Even so, she found time to visit me.
She declared that my dance upon the lotus leaves had been indecently seductive. I received twenty slaps and was made to kneel outside the hall until she was satisfied.
Jing Ye knew, but did not stop her. He said only, “Yi’er, do not go too far.”
In his heart, I truly could not compare to the woman who had endured hardship at his side.
I did not resist.
It did not matter.
The investiture was tomorrow, and the scene I had been awaiting was almost here.
That night, I became a marten and slipped into Consort Yi’s treasury.
The gold headdress she would wear the next day stood in the center. Fine gold wires formed stamens around jade hearts. It was exquisite.
Taking out the tools Sister had left me, I began to carve by dim candlelight.
I worked deep into the night, utterly absorbed, when a guard’s voice sounded outside.
“Chunhong, I’ve missed you so much…”
Then came the sounds of the guard and maid making love.
The sudden noise startled me. My hand jerked, prying loose a piece of jade.
No!
One fatal mistake could ruin my entire plan.
My heart thundered in the dark treasury. The headdress trembled in my hands and cold sweat beaded across my brow.
I forced myself to take slow, deep breaths.
Sister’s face rose in my mind.
When she was twelve or thirteen, her carving technique had still been clumsy. She was forever afraid that the sharp burin would slice off a finger.
Whenever she carved, she would tighten her little face and mutter to herself.
“Steady hands. Quiet heart. No fear.”
I closed my eyes.
I saw her beneath the osmanthus tree where we first met, her eyes curving like peach blossoms in March.
Her voice seemed to whisper in my ear.
Steady hands.
My trembling stopped, and I held the headdress firm.
Quiet heart.
I shut out the lovers beyond the door and calmed my racing pulse.
No fear.
Sister, I will avenge you. I fear neither imperial wealth nor boundless power.
I opened my eyes and saw the wax dripping from the candle.
A perfect solution came to me.
The next day was the investiture ceremony.
I attended with dark circles beneath my eyes after a sleepless night. Consort Yi wore robes embroidered in gold thread and a headdress of gold and jade. From her lofty place, she smiled down at me.
I lowered my head obediently to hide the delight surging in my chest.
Thousands of officials, imperial relatives, consorts, and servants bowed around us.
Consort Yi had awaited this ceremony for four years. Today, she would become the most exalted woman beneath heaven.
Everything was grand beyond measure.
Jing Ye waited atop the high platform at the end of a long flight of steps, dressed in matching scarlet robes.
It was the season of the autumn tiger. The sun blazed, dazzling against the white jade stairs.
The instant Consort Yi stepped onto them, cries of surprise rose from the crowd.
On the ground beside her feet appeared the enormous shadow of a phoenix.
Its wings spread in flight, vivid and lifelike, and it followed her every step.
Consort Yi started, then broke into a delighted smile.
Officials, nobles, consorts, and servants dropped to their knees in a black tide. Their voices rolled like thunder.
“Heaven has bestowed an auspicious sign! We congratulate Your Majesty upon an enduring realm and everlasting glory! May the empress preserve her beauty and enjoy a long life!”
Jing Ye clapped and laughed, his eyes full of love as he watched Consort Yi.
She covered her lips with a delicate hand and continued up the stairs amid the congratulations.
I looked at the sun.
Soon.
If you become empress today, I will write my name Di Aoxue backward.
And Your Majesty—since you cherish signs from heaven, watch this one closely.
Step by step, Consort Yi reached the platform.
She turned with a smile, flung out her sleeves, and stood above a sea of kneeling subjects.
The chief eunuch began to read the edict.
“By the Mandate of Heaven, the emperor decrees: Feng Baoyi is gentle, virtuous—”
He had spoken only two lines when screams broke out everywhere.
Everyone stared in horror at Consort Yi’s feet.
The phoenix remained—vast, vivid, and almost alive.
But something had changed.
Its eyes were gone.
The moment Consort Yi stepped onto the platform, the phoenix had become eyeless.
An official from the Directorate of Ceremonial knelt, trembling.
“Your Majesty, a phoenix facing the sun, yet blind to what lies before it… This is an omen of terrible misfortune!”
The crowd erupted. People stumbled backward, desperate to put distance between themselves and the platform.
Consort Yi panicked and darted about, as though she could escape the shadow.
It was useless.
Wherever she went, it followed.
Jing Ye’s face darkened until it seemed ready to drip ink.
A phoenix facing the sun, blind to what lay before it.
Anyone with sense knew that the blindness insulted not the empress, but the man who had chosen her.
The reigning emperor himself.
Consort Yi dropped to her knees, weeping. “Your Majesty, there must be some mistake! There must be!”
Jing Ye restrained his fury. He did not blame her, but swept away with his sleeves billowing.
The ceremony ended there.
The edict had never been completed.
Consort Yi was still not empress.
She stood upon the platform beneath a thousand pointing fingers. The ceremony of her dreams became a joke retold across the realm.
Worse, the ill omen meant that every move she made from that day onward would be scrutinized. One misstep, and the court would denounce her as a demonic consort burdened by heaven’s curse.
The newly enthroned emperor, branded blind, lost some of his former majesty as well.
As for how I had created the omen…
Its secret lay inside one tiny jade bead on Consort Yi’s golden headdress.
Using the most delicate micro-carving technique, I had cut a phoenix into the bead.
Sunlight passing through its uneven surface projected an enlarged image onto the ground, creating the phoenix’s shadow.
But its eyes were not jade.
They were wax.
As Consort Yi climbed the steps, the curved bead focused the sunlight and melted the wax.
By the time she reached the platform, the phoenix on the ground had lost its eyes.
I was only an ancient little demon. I did not know names such as pinhole projection, magnifying lens, or micro-carving.
I merely remembered those afternoons spent playing with Sister, when she carved a tiny portrait of me inside a bead. Sunlight shone through it and cast my image upon the ground.
I had pestered her to teach me, no matter how difficult it was.
I wanted to carve Sister into a bead and carry her everywhere, so we would never be apart.
Such exquisite craft had not been born for palace plots or blood-soaked revenge.
It had been born from love.
Because I loved her too much, I wanted to keep her with me forever.
I had filed thin the gold wire holding the bead.
When Consort Yi covered her face and fled down the platform, the wire snapped. The bead rolled to the ground, and I picked it up.
No evidence remained.
Only the name of heaven’s ill omen.