The sensation of life slipping away like sand through one’s fingers was all too vivid. Princess Baohua, Xie Yuzhang, knew that she was about to die.

She struggled to open her eyes. Plain cyan curtains embroidered with trailing vine patterns blocked out the candlelight, leaving the interior of the bed canopy shrouded in dim shadow. A slender silhouette was cast against the curtain, hands pressed together, lips moving in devout, silent recitation of scripture.

It was Fei Niang. Fei Niang had stayed by her side — all the way to the very end.

If time could be turned back, Xie Yuzhang did not know whether she would still ride at full gallop outside the city walls to snatch Lin Fei back from the column of prisoners being sent to the bitter northern frontier to serve as camp entertainers for the military.

Lin Fei was so resilient. Perhaps she would not have taken her own life on the road the way her mother had. Perhaps she could have survived long enough to see the day the Lin Family rose again. Her uncles and elder brothers had gone into hiding and fled — it was not impossible that they might have waylaid the column partway and rescued her before she fell to such a fate.

Thinking of it that way, it all seemed so much better than following her. Fei Niang had followed her and, in doing so, had known nothing but hardship upon hardship.

The Lin Family had since reclaimed a seat at court under the new dynasty and wanted to bring her home. If she had returned, she would once again have been a daughter of a great and noble house.

But that foolish Ah-Fei had refused. She had stayed behind in this Xiaoyao Marquis Manor — the place where the imperial family of the former dynasty were confined — keeping Xie Yuzhang company day after day beside green lanterns and ancient Buddhas, copying scriptures and chanting sutras, and would not leave.

What a fool!

Xie Yuzhang closed her eyes. The ice-cold tears slid from the corners of her eyes.

Soon. It would be over soon. She was about to be free. She could already hear the call of another world.

Those sounds drifted like wisps far away at the edge of the sky, then seemed to ring just beside her ear. The laughter — bright as silver bells — sounded exactly like the little palace maids of the old days, when she still lived in Zhaoxia Palace, scampering noisily along the covered corridors.

Those little palace girls had all been selected as her companions. Every one of them was lively and spirited. She had never restrained them either, letting them live carefree and joyful lives within Zhaoxia Palace, happy each and every day.

In the other palaces, the servants were all demure, respectful, and careful in their every step. Only in her Zhaoxia Palace could one hear the warbling and twittering of voices at any hour — laughter strung together in chains, as light and bright as fingers plucking at the strings of a qin, ding-dong, ding-dong.

Her father the Emperor had praised Zhaoxia Palace for its “genuine delight.” When the burdens of governance weighed on him and he did not wish to visit the rear palace, he would come to Zhaoxia Palace to sit awhile, taste the tea she had brewed herself, and enjoy the new dances she and the performers from the Imperial Music Bureau had rehearsed.

Her father the Emperor — he was skilled in every art: qin, chess, calligraphy, painting, with no exception. He had created a new style of writing and founded a new school of painting. Had he been born into an ordinary household of scholars, he might one day have become the founding master of a great artistic lineage, leaving his name to posterity.

But he had been born into the imperial family. He had been born to be Emperor.

He had spent far too much time on these pursuits that did nothing to advance the governance of the realm. And in those days, she had not found a single thing wrong with it.

Xie Yuzhang thought she heard the soft, rapid patter of little palace maids lifting their skirts and running lightly along the covered walkways, and could even make out their hushed whispers —

Where is Sister Ah-Fei?

She went to the Imperial Wardrobe Bureau. She said she had to see it with her own eyes before she could rest easy.

That makes sense — the gossamer silk is so sheer, one wonders how it is even woven. And the hundred flowers embroidery the princess wants, who knows if the embroiderers can manage it…

Xie Yuzhang did not know what they were talking about. The carefree life of her girlhood felt like it had belonged to another lifetime altogether — she could not remember any of it.

But she knew these were only auditory hallucinations. Such hallucinations arose naturally because her life had nearly reached its end, and another world was drawing her deeper and deeper into its grasp.

Listen — she could even hear the distant drone of cicadas, little palace children playing in the courtyard, the older ones sitting in the covered walkways and whispering secrets to one another…

Then Fei Niang’s voice broke through, sudden and startling: “Your Majesty?”

With that cry of surprise, every hallucination in Xie Yuzhang’s ears ceased at once and dissolved in an instant.

With Fei Niang’s careful and meticulous nature, she would never again mistakenly call her father… call him “Your Majesty.” The “Your Majesty” she was addressing could only be someone else entirely.

As though rallying for one last burst of strength before dying, Xie Yuzhang opened her eyes.

A tall man’s silhouette fell across the bed curtain — the outline commanding, imposing. His oppressive aura penetrated even through the curtain fabric, making Xie Yuzhang’s already faltering breath grow yet more labored.

Your Majesty!

That Majesty — how had he come to be here?

“How is she?” The man’s voice was deliberately lowered, yet still it could not conceal the authority of one who commanded thousands upon thousands of troops.

“Your Highness…” Fei Niang choked on her words, barely able to speak. “She is in her final moments…”

Oh, foolish Ah-Fei — before this man, what “Highness” remained? Xie Yuzhang thought with bitter self-mockery.

By now, in all the world, only Ah-Fei still called her “Your Highness.”

Yet the Emperor did not hold it against Lin Shi Fei Niang.

He was silent for a moment, then the shadow upon the curtain suddenly moved. A man’s hand reached toward the bed curtain, and light leaked through the gap it parted, stabbing and sharp.

No! Don’t!

Xie Yuzhang shut her eyes. Her hand could not be lifted, yet the tips of her fingers trembled beyond her control.

But the curtain was not pulled open by that hand — because Lin Fei leapt to her feet.

Her slender arms spread wide, blocking half the curtain, standing before the Emperor known throughout the land for his fierceness and ruthlessness. It was the image of a praying mantis attempting to stop a carriage.

“Your Majesty!” Lin Fei’s voice trembled. “The princess has known hardship all her life. The only thing left to her in this world is her beauty. Please, Your Majesty, please…”

Xie Yuzhang did not know what she looked like now. In these days when illness had confined her to bed, she had long since stopped looking into a mirror.

But she remembered the last time she had looked — over two months ago. The person in that mirror could only be described as gaunt and wasted. If Xie Yuzhang had still had the strength to raise her hand, she would certainly have covered her face the moment that hand reached for the curtain.

To be seen looking like this — she would not have wanted it. Not even in death!

Ah, why could she not simply die at once? Why did she have to endure this fright before dying?

Xie Yuzhang opened her eyes and struggled to keep them from falling shut, pouring nearly the last of her strength into fixing her gaze on that hand.

It was large — fingers long and powerful, the knuckles clearly defined. She could even see the calluses on the pads of his fingers.

Xie Yuzhang had memories of those calluses.

That time, he had seized her wrist in a long corridor of the palace gardens — his hand like an iron clamp, unyielding, so strong, those calluses rough against her tender skin and causing her pain.

It had been so sudden. No one dared make a sound. The attendants kept their eyes fixed on the bluestone tiles beneath their feet. The palace maid who had been leading the way stood bent at the waist, frozen in the posture of having lifted her skirt to take a half-step forward, not daring to withdraw her foot.

She had stood with her gaze lowered, the tips of her fingers trembling, not daring to look up at the man’s face — afraid that if their eyes met, she would never again leave this palace city.

But the Emperor, after seizing her wrist and rubbing it for a moment, had only dropped one remark — “Too thin” — and then released her and swept away.

From that day on, the women of Yunjing City considered a fuller figure the standard of beauty.

From that day on, she became a subject of ridicule throughout Yunjing City — the Emperor had found her too thin and had no interest in favoring her.

Or perhaps it was also because he disdained the fact that she had, while on the steppe, been married three times — first to the father, then taken by the son, then passed to the elder brother.

When she had returned, not only had the Da Zhao dynasty fallen and her status as princess become nothing, she was also a figure of mockery — a woman shared between father, son, and brother, a woman who had violated the bonds of human decency through three marriages.

And yet this person — this ruined flower, this shameless creature, this one who had clung to life so ignobly — had still, upon her return, dazzled all of Yunjing City. It had been enough to make people seethe with rage. Fortunately the new Emperor was a man of diligence and governance, not a lecherous fool, and had not been beguiled by the beauty of this last princess of the former dynasty.

The Emperor’s disdain for her had thus been a source of widespread satisfaction and pleasure.

Only those mocking voices were all shut out beyond the high walls of Xiaoyao Marquis Manor, unable to stir the faintest ripple in Xie Yuzhang’s heart, still as stagnant water. The one benefit of the whole affair was perhaps that afterward, when she made her regular visits to the palace to pay respects, Empress Zhang no longer made things quite as difficult for her as she once had.

So at the time, Xie Yuzhang had actually felt that being disdained… was really rather nice.

The memory conjured by that hand flashed and was gone.

The Emperor, understanding what Lin Shi Fei Niang meant, slowly withdrew his hand.

The curtain fell back into place. The small enclosed space grew dim again.

In those few brief moments, Xie Yuzhang had spent nearly the last of her strength.

The shadow’s head suddenly moved.

The Emperor seemed to have turned, gazing at the plain and unadorned cyan curtain. Or perhaps… gazing through the cyan curtain, at her.

Xie Yuzhang did not know why she should have such a thought.

In the end, she did not know why the Emperor had come to this place — this Xiaoyao Marquis Manor that held the confined former imperial family — to look in on her, this insignificant, dying princess of the former dynasty.

“Tell her…” The Emperor’s voice was grave and deep. It was a voice that made one feel, without reason, that whatever he said would be kept.

Swift horses cannot overtake a spoken word. A promise as heavy as a thousand-jun weight.

“There is a portrait of her in the palace.” He said. “The court historians will record it. People will know that Princess Baohua…”

“Was very beautiful.”

The Emperor had not read much and had little literary talent. Even when praising her beauty, his praise was this plain and unadorned.

Fei Niang’s silhouette dropped lower as she bowed in prostration. She tried to speak her gratitude for the imperial grace but choked on her tears, unable to form the words.

The Emperor’s shadow was silent for a moment, then turned and departed.

Xie Yuzhang finally closed her eyes, at peace.

Fei Niang crawled up and slipped inside the curtain, carefully gathering the fabric around them so that the candlelight would not sting Xie Yuzhang’s eyes.

She took Xie Yuzhang’s thin, withered hand in her own and said, her voice thick with tears: “He likes you.”

“I have always said — he likes you.”

“You never believed me.”

What are you talking about? The same old words again.

Likes? What was “liking,” anyway?

The old Khan had liked her. The nights she had spent with him had been revolting.

Xia’erdan had liked her. Throughout those days, she had trembled with fear from morning to night.

Wuwei had liked her too. He had been gentle, and so deeply infatuated with her, so doting, that she had thought she had finally found someone to lean on. But what had become of that in the end?

A man’s liking — for Xie Yuzhang, it amounted to nothing but disgust, fear, and disappointment.

Yet in these final moments, she felt a deep and inexplicable confusion — would that Emperor’s liking be different from other men’s?

But she no longer had the strength to think about it.

She was being dragged deeper and deeper into another world. The hallucinations in her ears grew clearer and clearer.

The laughter of little palace maids.

Wind chimes ringing under upswept eaves.

The chief palace attendant who managed her daily life calling to her in a gentle voice: Your Highness, it is time to rise…

Time to rise…

“Time to rise.”

“Your Highness.”

“Your Highness.”

Xie Yuzhang’s eyes flew open.

The summer sunlight blazed.

The round, smiling face of Nanny Xu — the palace attendant responsible for her daily care — was right there before her.

“You are awake, Your Highness. If you sleep much longer, you will have trouble sleeping tonight.”

The warmth in the old woman’s voice was boundless, coaxing her as one would coax a child.

Palace maids crowded around, each voice soft and sweet, careful not to startle her now that she had just woken from her afternoon nap.

“Your Highness, let this servant bring you a cup of honey water to soothe your throat.”

“Your Highness, this servant will wash your face and comb your hair.”

“Your Highness, shall we have you wear the deep violet soft-smoke gauze skirt this afternoon? In the whole palace, only the princess could carry such a color.”

Xie Yuzhang raised her hand in a daze, extending her palm toward the light.

The hand was fair and smooth, tender as spring onion shoots. The sunlight pierced through the edges of her palm, casting the translucent pink of living flesh — vivid, full of life.

At any rate, it was nothing like the dry, withered, sunken hand of someone on the verge of death.

“Your Highness? Your Highness?” Nanny Xu noticed something wrong and frowned as she called out. “What is the matter? Have you caught a chill? Ah, I told you all along — you should not keep so many ice basins in the room during the afternoon nap…”

She was still rambling when, without warning, Xie Yuzhang shoved her aside and bolted out of the room — barefoot, clad only in her short inner trousers!

Nanny Xu stumbled and fell to the floor, utterly shocked: “Your Highness?!”

Xie Yuzhang stood on the white jade steps, hair loose and feet bare. The little palace maids who had been resting in the shade of the flowers all stared at her in stunned disbelief.

Clusters of hydrangeas bloomed in rounded bursts, and the cockscomb flowers blazed a brilliant red.

The dainty palace maids in the covered walkways all lifted their skirts and came running toward her.

The sound of the cicadas was coming from the direction where the lower-ranked palace servants lived. In the quarters of noble personages, the attendants had long since used bamboo poles to clear away every last noisy cicada.

The sunlight was dazzling and fierce. Xie Yuzhang raised her hand to shade her eyes. Everything within her field of vision was the old world she sometimes revisited in dreams at midnight.

In those days, she had been the legitimate-born Princess Baohua of the Da Zhao imperial house.

Until the age of fourteen, she had lived in Zhaoxia Palace.

A noble birth, a flawless face, showered with love and utterly carefree — she had been the happiest woman under heaven, changing her dress as many as three times a day.

She had never known that there were people in the world who could not afford food. She had never known that the Da Zhao dynasty was already trembling in the wind and rain. She had never known that after enjoying thirteen years of the riches and honors of a princess, the day would come when she would be made to bear the burdens of one.

The palace maids closed in around her.

Those faces — some delicate, some radiant — Xie Yuzhang still remembered each of them.

“Don’t come near me, don’t come near me!” she cried in terror, tears streaming down her face. “Do not come to demand my life from me…”

They had all been the palace attendants she loved most dearly, and they had followed her to Mobei. Not one of them had come back. Beneath the bodies of coarse and filthy men, amid the sudden chaos of war and fire, these beautiful, gentle girls had all perished one by one, becoming a handful of yellow dust beyond the frontier.

The palace maids looked at one another in bewilderment, and one asked carefully: “Your Highness? Your Highness, did you have a nightmare?”

They stretched their hands toward Xie Yuzhang…

Xie Yuzhang let out a piercing scream and lurched away in a frenzy.

In the sixth month of the twelfth year of Shengping, Princess Baohua Xie Yuzhang awoke from an afternoon nightmare, ran through the palace barefoot with her hair unbound, and cried out in a terrible voice.

Palace attendants surrounded her but dared not approach.

When Lin Shi Fei Niang heard and came hurrying back to Zhaoxia Palace, the princess threw herself into her arms and wept with heartbreaking anguish until she fainted.