A chill, as if seeping from some hidden place, suddenly invaded the space beneath the skirt hem.

Her skin tightened. Her spine ran cold.

In that very moment, for reasons she could not explain, Mu Fulan’s thoughts drifted away — floating and swaying back to a night long ago, a night she had long since thought forgotten.

Autumn rain on Ba Mountain, red candles lighting the western window. On that night, the man she had yearned for through years of devotion had finally come home.

He seemed to be very fond of her beautiful form and her gentle, tender manner. Afterward, he had not immediately fallen asleep; he continued to hold her in his arms, showing her tenderness.

To receive her husband’s affection — she felt both shy and joyful.

She knew he had not recognized her. She hoped he might also recall their first meeting. She nestled within his arms and, summoning her courage, told him that three years before, in a certain spring, by the old cypress tree on Monarch Mountain, he had passed by and helped her rescue a nestling bird that had fallen over a cliff.

He had clearly forgotten the event entirely. After a moment of blankness, he finally recalled it.

He smiled, and told her that on that day he had gone to visit the medicine elder. He had not expected that the little girl he encountered on his way down the mountain was the Princess of Changsha.

So he had seen her even then.

His response was not as warm as she had imagined. This left her slightly disappointed, but when she buried her face in her husband’s arms and listened to the strong and steady beat of his heart, she was once again submerged in the happiness of utter contentment.

An encounter by chance — meeting the one who fulfills my wish. An encounter by chance — to be sheltered together with you. What could be more beautiful than this?

She looked forward to, and deeply believed, that from this day forward, she and her dear husband would grow old together in mutual devotion.

But very soon, she came to know. The husband she had married was not entirely the man from her longing dreams who, when he smiled, seemed capable of making heaven and earth lose all their color.

Qi Lingfeng from the Qi Family — under her own personal supervision and arrangements — had soon entered the household.

In the years that followed, Xie Changgeng was rarely at home. He was forever busy. Now stationed with the troops in Hexi, now suppressing rebellions in various places.

She was his wife — she had to attend upon her mother-in-law and manage the household. How could she possibly go to be by his side?

She and he spent far more time apart than together, seeing each other only a few times in a year, if even that.

The sole comfort was that the following year, she gave birth to Xi’er.

Xi’er was bright and lively, the flesh of her heart, and accompanied her through one long night after another.

She had thought life would simply continue this way — until she could never have imagined that in Xi’er’s fourth year, her fate was abruptly overturned by a single action of her husband’s.

By that time, the princely rebellions spreading across the country had already persisted for nearly ten years. The nation was exhausted, its people weary. Her husband, too, had finally made his move.

Someone secretly reported to the court that Hexi Military Commissioner Xie Changgeng had been amassing troops and nurturing strength in secret in the northwest, plotting an insurrection. The court, already wary and fearful of his power in those years, was seeking to seize his military authority. He, in turn, raised his troops in the northwest in open defiance and marched toward the capital.

The court was shaken to its foundations. The Zhao clan princes, who had been scheming and fighting among themselves like dogs in the street for over ten years, seemed to smell the threat of approaching catastrophe. They suspended their infighting and, under Prince Qi’s mediation, reached a temporary compromise with Empress Liu — who controlled the puppet emperor — joining forces to repel this threat and preserve the Zhao imperial house, which had endured for hundreds of years.

Her elder brother had met with misfortune several years earlier. Her sister-in-law, consumed by grief and longing, had just recently passed away. Mu Fulan had taken Xi’er to Yuezhou for the funeral and had not yet returned. Xie Changgeng sent people to fetch her, intending to bring mother and son back to the safer location of Kuizhou. But unexpectedly, an accident occurred on the road.

Their whereabouts were exposed, and the court dispatched troops to intercept them. Mu Fulan and Xi’er were captured and imprisoned in Pucheng.

The court used mother and son’s lives as leverage, demanding that Xie Changgeng surrender Fucheng and withdraw his forces immediately.

At that moment, Xie Changgeng had just captured Fucheng.

Capturing Fucheng meant he had opened the road connecting him to his rear base. With this city in hand, he could attack or defend at will — advance southward to take the capital, or turn east to reach Luoyang.

Xie Changgeng did not agree to the terms.

With lightning speed, he sent men to make a surprise raid on Puyang, the city where Prince Qi was based, and captured Prince Qi’s ailing son Zhao Xitai, who was there recuperating. He used Zhao Xitai to counter-threaten Prince Qi.

Zhao Xitai was weak and sickly, the only son Prince Qi had managed to raise to adulthood, and Prince Qi doted on him dearly. He did not dare act rashly, and both sides entered a deadlock.

Mu Fulan, along with Xi’er, became hostages in this way, eking out a difficult existence in Pucheng.

This imprisonment lasted nearly a year.

Then one day, she finally received the person who had come to rescue her.

Yuan Handing had come.

After her elder brother’s death, Changsha was dissolved, but Yuezhou remained, and for these years it had been Yuan Handing who watched over what remained of the Mu clan.

He bribed his way past Prince Qi’s men, slipped into the city by blending in with the population, and managed to see Mu Fulan. He told her that the imprisoned Prince Qi’s heir had died of his illness, but the news had not yet gotten out, and Xie Changgeng had decided to move quickly to capture Pucheng and, before the soldiers arrived at the gates, extract mother and son first.

Yuan Handing brought her and Xi’er out of the prison in the deep of night, and they only needed to wait for the city gates to open at dawn, at which point they would work from the inside as the outside forces moved in simultaneously, and get the people out at once.

Perhaps it was the destined tribulation she was fated to face — before they even left the city, the rescue was discovered. The city gates were sealed shut, and with pursuing soldiers swarming toward them, Mu Fulan told Yuan Handing to take Xi’er and flee, to find a way to hide, and to ensure Xi’er’s safety at all costs.

She hardened her heart and pushed away her son, who was weeping as he clung with both small hands to the hem of her garment, refusing to let go. She did not even have time for a final kiss or embrace goodbye. And so mother and son were separated — and would never meet again in the world of the living.

She was recaptured.

Not long afterward, Xie Changgeng’s forces arrived at the gates of Pucheng.

By then, Prince Qi had already learned of his son’s death and was in a towering rage, redirecting every ounce of his fury onto Mu Fulan.

In those days and nights of imprisonment, Mu Fulan had long since understood — her husband would never stop his advance for her sake.

Living, she was nothing but a burden to him. And all that awaited her going forward would be endless humiliation and torment.

Her only consolation was that Xi’er had at last been protected.

She trusted that Yuan Handing would guard Xi’er and bring him safely back to his father’s side.

When the final moment came, she had no other choice — only to end her own life.

Her body was hung upside down from the city walls, exposed to wind and sun, swaying back and forth.

Three days later, Xie Changgeng captured Pucheng, put it to the sword, and gave Mu Fulan a proper burial.

The following year, he took the capital, killing Empress Liu and the imperial nobles of the royal house. That day, the blood flowing from the city gates almost turned half the water in the moat red.

The new imperial dynasty, built upon the dry bones and festering blood of the old, established itself on this foundation.

The founding Emperor of the Great Zhou was wise and resolute. After ascending the throne, he abolished the ancient princedoms and reformed long-standing corruptions. Brilliant and far-sighted in both civil and military governance, the whole world came under his sway and ten thousand people gave him their hearts.

Ten years passed in the blink of an eye.

That winter, snow blanketed the earth in white. In the capital, every household was draped in white mourning cloth, grieving for the Empress Dowager, who had passed away just a short while before.

The Emperor was a deeply filial son. Having lost his father early in life and, by his own account, having caused the Empress Dowager much anxiety and fear in his younger years of hardship, now that he held all under heaven, he personally devoted himself to caring for her with great attentiveness. Years earlier, after the Empress Dowager suffered a stroke and was bedridden with chronic illness, the Emperor, whenever he was in the palace, no matter how busy, would go personally every morning and evening to visit and attend to her medicine — never failing even once. His filial devotion, practiced in word and deed, earned the unstinting praise of officials and common people alike. Now that the Empress Dowager had passed, the funeral rites were naturally of the greatest splendor and ceremony.

In the great hall where the body lay in state, Empress Consort Qi Shi, draped in heavy mourning garb, led the consorts of the rear palace, kneeling before the Empress Dowager’s bier, weeping bitterly deep into the night. Her strength gave out until she was nearly fainting, and only when pressed by the others did she finally let palace attendants help her back to her chambers to rest.

She had barely entered her chambers, had not yet even sat down, when Eunuch Cao — the Emperor’s trusted attendant — came in leading several powerfully built eunuchs.

Eunuch Cao entered with a smile on his face, saying he had come to convey an imperial decree from His Majesty.

Qi Lingfeng hurried forward to receive it.

Eunuch Cao said in his sharp, thin voice: “His Majesty has decreed: Empress Consort Qi has been virtuous and exemplary, and has served the Empress Dowager for many years, earning the deepest affection of the Empress Dowager. Now that the Empress Dowager has departed this world, the Empress Consort is to follow her in death, so that in the world beyond, she may once more faithfully attend upon the Empress Dowager, fulfilling her filial duty on His Majesty’s behalf.”

Qi Lingfeng’s face went deathly pale. She could not even hold herself steady in her kneel and collapsed on the spot onto the floor. Only when she saw the eunuchs produce the rope they had brought did she wake as if from a dream, scrambling to her feet, shrieking that she wanted to see the Emperor and have things properly explained to her.

The Eunuch Cao, who had always shown her the most deferential respect, now wore an expression that was icily sinister. He ordered the junior eunuchs to seize her, and said: “His Majesty has gone to see the Crown Prince. He will not see you. Empress Consort, what this servant is about to say comes entirely from His Majesty — listen carefully, lest you die thinking you were wronged.”

He coughed once and, mimicking the Emperor’s own manner of speaking, said coldly: “Qi clan — you think that what you and your brother did to the original Empress, I did not know? I knew of it long ago! It was only because the Empress Dowager could not do without you that I allowed you to live on in the world for this time. I allowed you to be Empress of the central palace for all these years and spared you a complete corpse — that was already repayment for the Qi family’s protection of the Empress Dowager in those early days. Now that the Empress Dowager is gone, what reason do you have to go on living? Go down below and keep her old ladyship company!”

Qi Lingfeng reeled as if struck by lightning. At first she cried out loudly that she had been wronged, flailing and clawing at the eunuchs in a frenzy, like someone gone mad. But when she heard that her elder brother had already been stripped of his post and was awaiting execution, that the entire Qi family — hundreds of men and women — had all been implicated together, she dissolved into floods of tears and crumpled to the ground, kowtowing again and again. She said the fault was entirely hers, and begged Eunuch Cao to allow her to seek the Emperor and plead her case.

Eunuch Cao’s face was utterly cold. He ordered the junior eunuchs to act.

Two eunuchs pinned the Empress Consort to the floor; two others took a white silk cord and wound it around her neck.

The Empress Consort struggled with all her might, her legs kicking wildly, her embroidered shoes flying off her feet.

All the glory of the world, all its wealth and splendor — she had stood over the rear palace, peerless in her station, praised far and wide as a virtuous Empress. Life had been at its most richly satisfying; in her wildest dreams she had never imagined that the Emperor, who had just that very afternoon stood together with her before the assembled officials to pay last respects to the Empress Dowager, would suddenly turn on her — cold and ruthless to this degree.

She had never considered herself a bad person. For so many years, she had been genuinely filial to the Xie family’s mother, had given her whole heart to Xie Changgeng — who had once been her sister’s husband — even entering the Xie household as a concubine’s humiliation. Even toward the Mu clan woman she had been proper and respectful in all the ways that mattered, never taking advantage of Xie’s mother’s favor to mistreat her in any way.

As for what she had done back then — quietly leaking word of the mother and son’s return journey to Prince Qi’s people — it had been nothing more than a moment of confusion.

She had long since repented of it. Over the years, not only had she confessed her transgression before the gods, but to atone for her error, she had done a great many good works besides. When people spoke of the Empress Consort, who did not speak with the deepest admiration and unstinting praise?

Now, just when she had nearly forgotten that thing — she never imagined that the moment the Empress Dowager passed, she herself would be summoned to follow her in death.

She truly did not know when the Emperor had learned of that matter. Thinking that throughout all these years he had shown nothing, waiting calmly for precisely this day when the Empress Dowager would depart this world, she felt a chill that reached her very marrow, as though she had fallen into an abyss.

There are moments when everyone steps wrong and makes mistakes. And had he himself never killed, never had blood on his hands?

She did not deserve to be treated with such terrible cruelty.

How could she be willing to die like this?

But how could she match these ferocious, wolf-like eunuchs, or the cord of death wound around her neck?

Her face slowly turned from blood-crimson to purple. Her eyes rolled back, bulging and bloodshot, dotted with petechiae; her tongue, too, was forced out from between her lips.

For fully the time it takes to drain half a cup of tea, she was held down until her neck was nearly broken, before she finally ceased to breathe, and stopped her futile and agonized struggle — strangled to death in the central palace chambers that, only a moment before, had been hers.

Outside the halls, the night sky lay heavy and thick; the north wind howled with fury; snowflakes swirled in a frenzy — as though a spirit were somewhere weeping and trembling.

That night had been so bitterly cold.

That bone-cutting cold seemed to be pressing in upon Mu Fulan still, inch by inch, seeping into her skin.

She shivered. Her eyes snapped open abruptly, meeting the man’s gaze just to the side of the reclining couch.

His hand had already found its way to the space between her legs.

It had not yet touched her, but the inner surface of her thigh — that sensitive and tender skin — had already clearly felt the pressure of the man’s approaching hand.

She stared at those darkly brooding eyes of his, and slowly opened the legs she had been holding tightly together in self-defense.

She reached down and with one hand flung back the pomegranate-red skirt hem.

A pair of spread, snow-white long legs — ordinarily hidden deep beneath layer upon layer of skirts, without a single blemish — were suddenly stripped of all concealment, laid entirely bare before his gaze.

More than that — beneath the pomegranate-red skirt, there was not a single thread of undergarment!

The candles flickered. Her skin was like carved jade; the inner depths between her thighs glowed with a luminous softness, the full scenery of that hidden landscape utterly exposed to view — so beautiful it nearly stung the eyes.

Xie Changgeng’s hand stopped dead with her movement of spreading her legs and flinging back the skirt.

His gaze faltered, and he slowly raised his eyes to look at her face.

There she sat, leaning against the reclining couch just so, both hands holding the flung-back skirt hem, her delicate pointed chin lifted, looking down with disdain upon himself — who had been reaching his hand toward her.

Xie Changgeng and she held each other’s gaze for a moment. From deep within his eyes, a flicker passed through — a mixture of something and a trace of wretchedness.

He slowly withdrew his hand. Standing upright, he stared at her through clenched teeth and muttered low, “Shameless wanton.”

Mu Fulan drew her legs together, unhurriedly let her skirt hem fall, smoothed it back into place, even tucking her feet fully out of sight beneath it, and said, “Husband, if you had known what I was like at the very start, would you truly have changed your mind and not sought marriage with Changsha?”

Xie Changgeng’s expression twisted slightly. He turned, strode away with large steps, and did not look back at her again.