Outside Qingfeng city, in this first year of the Yong’an era, all was devastation.

A massive boulder, pitted with countless craters, had crashed down onto the south gate, smashing the once-grand gate beyond recognition, leaving only a jagged, broken crater—a testament to Heaven’s terrible power.

All who saw it were struck with fear, and all bowed before it.

Monks and Taoist priests gathered hastily from in and outside the city, along with mediums and shamans who dealt in exorcising evil spirits, and blind fortune-tellers, had all been forcibly summoned by the new dynasty’s officials. Each had set up their own altar, chanting according to their own methods, all gathered around the great crater.

As for the remaining three gates, they were thronged with crowds, though no one really knew where they were heading, or which gate might lead to survival.

Atop the ruined city walls, a ring of bloodied heads hung on display, the blood not yet dry, when another ring of heads was already being brought to hang beside them.

Officials of the former dynasty, once caught by Heaven’s punishment, needed no consideration of mercy—the moment they were spotted, a single stroke of the blade finished them, their heads then hung on the city gates as an offering to Heaven.

The starving people who had been trapped in the city for two months poured out, while more refugees who had been hiding in the shadows outside the city continued to trickle in from all directions.

Old soldiers in tattered cloth armor patrolled listlessly; whenever they encountered anyone stepping out of line, a jab from a spear-tip—polished bright with human blood and flesh—was enough to bring them into obedient submission.

Because Heaven had decreed punishment, the new Emperor, ascending the throne in respectful compliance with Heaven’s mandate, wished to please Heaven above and so ordered relief stations set up at all three remaining gates of Qingfeng, distributing porridge from open-air kitchens.

Here, at last, was a path to survival, and so people streamed in from every direction, converging obediently, waiting for a bowl of thin porridge clear enough to reflect their own reflections—their one lifeline.

After half a gourd-ladle of watery, moldering porridge and two mold-covered offering fruits went down her stomach, Madam Wang finally regained a bit of strength. Stiff and numb, she began looking around, taking in the sight of what had once been a bustling, harmonious household, now reduced to some gone mad, some scattered and lost, with only this handful remaining.

What was she to do now? Grief welled up in her, and she felt she might die of sorrow, yet she dared not waste her strength on tears—she didn’t even know where tomorrow’s meal would come from.

Utterly despairing, she could only surrender herself entirely to Heaven’s will, come what may.

Leaning against half a rotted old tree stump, Madam Wang began muttering curses at her own husband, Master Huo—the man who, before the siege even began, had fled into the city with his beloved concubine and young son, taking with him all the food that Huo Family Village had left. May he be hacked into ten thousand pieces.

Just as she was cursing with great satisfaction, Madam Wang caught sight of her eldest son limping over, carrying half a gourd-ladle of clear porridge.

Huo Yunzhang knelt before his mother, holding out the ladle with tears in his eyes, pleading: “Mother, please stop cursing, save your strength—Father can’t hear you anyway.”

Madam Wang lowered her head and drank a few mouthfuls; her wretchedly empty stomach finally settled a little. Reluctantly, she pushed the ladle back toward Huo Yunzhang. “Son, you drink some too.”

Huo Yunzhang forced a bitter smile and refused: “I already drank some, Mother. Have a bit more.”

Madam Wang didn’t want to drink more, so she looked around, and her eyes fell upon the seventh daughter sitting nearby, covered head to toe in mud, one shoe missing.

Qiqian’er, sensing someone watching her, turned and smiled foolishly at her stepmother. Ah—it had been so many years since she’d seen her. In her previous life, if not for Madam here, she would never have encountered that Stinkhead, never have borne her precious An’er, the best child in all the world…

Now she needed Madam’s help once again—without her, she would have no way back to the Old Chen family.

Without returning to the Old Chen family, she couldn’t meet that Stinkhead. Without meeting Stinkhead, she couldn’t give birth to his good An’er.

She could hardly march up to their door and casually announce, “Ah, so, I’m your family’s future grandson’s wife, and I’ll bear you the finest grandson in the world”?

Even though the Old Chen family would later rise in fortune and might not think much of her An’er, others might not treasure him, but she certainly did.

As a mother, her heart had been broken for over forty years in her previous life—there hadn’t been a single day she hadn’t longed for him, hadn’t felt the ache in her chest. And now, at last, things were about to turn around for the better.

With that thought, Qiqian’er picked up the tattered quilt lying by the tree stump, wrapped it around herself, and grinned foolishly.

She resented the woman before her, yet could tolerate her all the same, still grinning foolishly as she dug at the rotten soil with all the ferocity of a mother wolf guarding her cubs.

Madam Wang glanced at Qiqian’er, still feeling contempt in her heart. Look at Wu Rong and Liu Ning—once let out, they’d fled straight for survival and never came back. Only this girl, clutching a few rotten fruits in her arms, too afraid to eat them herself, had foolishly come running back home.

Truly, foolish beyond measure.

Madam Wang, pleased with her own cunning, began to feel once more that there was nothing in this world she couldn’t control.

In short, this woman would never once consider what fate those two poor missing girls might have met—she firmly believed she had done them a kindness by setting them free to find their own paths to survival.

Madam Wang withdrew her gaze with disdain and said to her eldest son: “Son, give it to your seventh sister to drink. She’s at least shown some conscience—far better than that old wretch, your father!”

Huo Yunzhang nodded at this, his expression softening slightly as he handed the gourd-ladle to Qiqian’er. In the past, he had never once shown a kind face to his father’s concubine-born younger siblings.

Qiqian’er foolishly took the ladle, thinking to herself that this was at least better than that field mouse from before. Though she wasn’t truly hungry, she forced herself to drink with her head lowered, all the while listening carefully to the mother and son’s conversation.

Madam said: “I don’t know whether your second brother found anything in the city. That old beast—better if he’s dead.”

The eldest son said nothing for a good while, then finally stammered: “Mother—Father, Father surely never expected he wouldn’t be able to get out. Wasn’t it Uncle who called him in? Father—Father couldn’t refuse, could he?” Then, lowering his voice further, Huo Yunzhang added: “Mother, whatever you do, don’t mention Uncle. It’s the new dynasty now.”

Madam stopped cursing, and after a long silence, only sighed quietly: “Who could have imagined such a thing—how could it happen so fast?”

Huo Yunzhang nodded with a faint sigh.

Who indeed could have imagined it—others might not know, but his family had, for generations, guarded the imperial estate lands for the royal family. They had witnessed the awesome authority of those at the very top, and every year at year’s end had carefully tended the estate’s harvest, cautiously escorting hundreds of carts to the foremost household within the capital’s gates.

Such a place, such a family, such a dynasty, such a realm that had commanded reverent submission for hundreds of years like a roaring tide—gone, just like that? How could anyone believe it?

Was this all just a dream?

The autumn wind blew on; daylight wore on and on until it finally sank into darkness. Wrapped in her tattered quilt, Qiqian’er sat with narrowed eyes, thinking over her troubles—thinking of the past, of the present, of what was to come…

She wondered why Heaven had chosen to open its eye on her of all people. Perhaps out of pity for her, doomed to a lonely, childless old age?

In her previous life, she had been weak and spineless. From the moment she was old enough to remember, she had helped with rough labor around the estate, spinning thread and mending clothes alongside the sharp-tongued women of the back courtyard, and during busy farming seasons when hands were short, she had even joined her sisters chopping wood and hauling water, doing men’s work.

Back then, she and her sisters had felt that the most terrifying person in this world was Madam.

If Madam let them live, they lived. If Madam said she’d beat them to death, she really would beat them to death.

She had witnessed a killing at the age of six—though she’d never dared open her eyes to watch, she had still heard the sound of it.

When a concubine in the household had offended Madam, Madam had gathered all the concubine-born children in the back courtyard and said to the fourth daughter, that concubine’s own child: “Today I’m going to beat her to death. Do you hate me for it?”

The fourth sister, terrified, shook her head and said she didn’t dare hate her—but Madam didn’t believe her either. She had the concubine beaten to death with rods, blow by blow, then turned around and locked up the fourth daughter, starving her to death.

In the past, Qiqian’er had felt that the greatest force in the world was Madam, yet she had never once thought to ask why a person could be so cruel, so vicious.

Madam was ruthless through and through. Whenever the Master slept with a concubine and she bore him children, Madam never let a single one survive—if not sold off, then done away with by some means. Even at ten-some years old, the mere words “Madam wants you” were enough to make them wet themselves with fear.

Though she too was a daughter of this household, her life had at times been worse than that of the servants’ children. She didn’t even properly know what her father, Master Huo, was called.

Though the household’s old women had once mentioned that her family actually had powerful connections—that the family’s eldest master held some sort of clerical post under the Emperor himself, which was why their whole family managed the imperial estate for His Majesty.

Qiqian’er knew how to spin thread and weave cloth, embroider and mat-weave, sew clothes and make shoes, chop wood and cook… From the moment she could remember, she had worked alongside the bondservants and tenant farmers on the estate, never once knowing a day of rest.

At the time, she had thought that was simply how people like her lived—after all, aside from Madam’s circle, people like them were meant to live this way, and once they could no longer work, they were meant to die.

Somehow, her thoughts drifted back to that eunuch surnamed Liao. If it had been before, someone like Master Huo would hardly have deigned to glance at him sideways.

Surely so—a Chief Steward from the palace, someone of that stature…

As she thought this, the night grew deeper still, and Qiqian’er’s ears filled with the faint sound of sobbing all around. Down by the great crater at the city gate, soldiers had formed a ring around it, and a shamaness who couldn’t properly recite scripture and had been found out was dragged out, beheaded with a single stroke, and thrown into the deep pit…

Cheers rose from the officials’ side, while the sound of chanting monks carried from the south gate all the way to the east gate.

Deep in the night…

The carts hauling corpses rattled and creaked as they rolled past her ears… Qiqian’er, half-asleep beneath her tattered quilt, thought to herself, I’ll just wait—wait until tomorrow when Madam sells me off, and then I’ll be able to find that Stinkhead…

She had just drifted off when rustling, broken voices rose again nearby, along with what sounded like carefully suppressed crying.

She woke again but didn’t want to open her eyes, choosing instead to listen closely with her eyes shut. The second young master, choking back sobs, whispered urgently: “Father—Father and Uncle’s heads are at the city gate, hanging there! Mother! Mother! We have to run! The sky’s falling!”

Ah, so Master Huo had died all over again.

Madam said nothing, only pounded the ground with her hand, over and over. She must have stuffed something in her mouth to muffle the sound, for the same broken, choked sobbing that had come from the concubine she’d once had beaten to death now came from her own throat.

Afterward, the eldest son said: “Mother… let’s go back home and sort through things later—whatever we should give up, we’ll give up. Let’s flee… otherwise, if they remember us tomorrow, not one of us will survive! Mother, please, let’s flee—our lives matter more!”

Ah! So that’s how it happened. That’s exactly how it happened.

Qiqian’er felt she understood it all now.

In her previous life, she had at least been the old matriarch of a sixth-rank official’s household. Though Stinkhead had never favored her, and she had spent her whole life toiling away in the old house on Quanqian Street, by her later years she had at least learned to read and gained some understanding of the world.

Now she understood—the former dynasty had fallen, and her family’s uncle had been among the last remnants resisting alongside the old regime. Madam and the others, fearing implication, had no choice but to sell off these concubine-born children and flee.

Qiqian’er felt a small surge of satisfaction in her heart at this—so they truly had run for nothing. Though the new dynasty had gone through some chaos in its early years and had pursued remnants of the old regime, in all that pursuing, she’d never once heard of anyone going after some family that merely managed an imperial estate for the emperor.

Thinking on it now, killing her uncle and her father, Master Huo, had probably been as casual an affair as that shamaness’s execution just now…

As the saying goes, if it’s your turn for bad luck, then it’s your turn, and that’s all there is to it.

There was no reasoning to be found, and no reasoning needed here either.

The crying continued nearby.

Huo Yunzhang wore a bitter smile, and glancing around to make sure no one was watching, said quietly: “Mother, the night before last when Heaven’s punishment fell, those over there… never mind Father—not one of them who resisted at the city walls survived. Even the Sixth Prince’s head is hanging there now… that whole family didn’t escape either, they say they were all hanged together. Those who didn’t die are being hunted down now too, cutting out the roots entirely. You’d better make a decision quickly! What are we, compared to them? Look at Mianzhou—when the army arrived, not a single sword was drawn, they opened the gates and the high officials there are still enjoying their wealth and rank. What was Uncle, compared to that? They don’t even know what he looked like. And yet he had to go and be a fool, and drag Father down with him too…”

The sharp sound of a slap rang out. Qiqian’er’s eyes suddenly opened, gazing brightly up at the twinkling stars in the sky. That Sixth Prince—she knew of him too, actually. If the eldest young master hadn’t mentioned it, she might never have remembered—that old eunuch must have been the Sixth Prince’s man.

So he had died too, then.

Having finished slapping her son, Madam Wang glanced warily around, then cursed in a low voice: “What Sixth Prince, whose Sixth Prince! Still calling him Sixth Prince? He’s a remnant of the old regime! Remnants, all of them—all deserving to be hacked to ten thousand pieces!”

As Madam Wang said this, she gritted her teeth with every word.

Qiqian’er slowly closed her eyes again. Huo Yunzhang, fearful, shrank his head down and glanced around as well, and seeing all was quiet, nodded helplessly, choking back tears: “Mother’s right. All of them! All of them… deserve to be hacked to ten thousand pieces, remnants of the old regime that they are.”