Su Su suddenly opened her eyes, as if waking from a nightmare. She looked around in a daze, her fingers instinctively clenching the bedding beneath her.
Is this… the netherworld?
But the familiar carved bedposts before her, the somewhat worn brocade curtains, and the stale, lingering musty smell in the air clearly belonged to the side hall of Changxin Palace where she had lived after being demoted to Answering Lady. She sat up blankly when a maidservant had already rushed to the bedside, tears brimming as she grabbed her sleeve. “My lady! You’re finally awake!”
Qiuju?
Su Su’s pupils shrank sharply this maid, who had died protecting her in her previous life, was now alive and well, crying right in front of her!
Trembling, she pinched her thigh. The sharp pain stabbed straight into her heart, so real it made her gasp.
She had… been reborn?!
Was this Zhuang Zhou dreaming he was a butterfly, or had Heaven taken pity on her and truly granted her another chance to start over?
She pulled Qiuju into her arms, tears spilling over. When this girl had breathed her last in the previous life, her body had been just as cold.
“My lady, please don’t cry…” Qiuju panicked as she wiped her tears. “It’s all that Consort Zhuang’s fault for pushing someone! If not for that fall, you would’ve already gone to the Imperial Study to explain yourself to His Majesty…”
Seeing Su Su cry, Qiuju assumed she was grieving over her demotion. Her heart ached, and she continued to comfort her. “There’s still time. In a few days, His Majesty may soften his heart. If Consort Zhuang hadn’t played dirty tricks, the sudden death of Prince Ning’s heir could have been explained clearly to the Emperor…”
Qiuju’s words pried open the floodgates of memory…
Gazing at the flickering candlelight outside the window, Su Su seemed to see her former self stubborn and unyielding. As the Empress
Dowager’s most beloved niece, she had been groomed since childhood as a future empress, yet she had fallen hopelessly in love with that lonely, aloof young emperor beneath the plum trees.
Back then, Li Qianche often stood alone under the plum blossoms, his robes whiter than snow, his brows forever frozen with an unmelting chill. Only she dared tug at his sleeve, growing from the little girl who chased after him with osmanthus cakes into the noble consort who openly fought for his favor. She had once believed that if she were passionate enough, she could eventually melt the ice in his eyes.
Others cursed her for being arrogant and abusing her favor, hated her for throwing her weight around but who truly understood? She was merely a fool in love, greedy for the heat in his throat when desire stirred, for the broken murmurs of her pet name between his teeth when he lost himself, even foolish enough to dream of living an ordinary lifetime as husband and wife with him within these nine layers of palace walls.
The Empress Dowager was not the Emperor’s birth mother. When the late emperor was alive, the only one in his heart was the Empress. The current Emperor was the Empress’s legitimate son, but fate was cruel she died young. The late emperor then entrusted him to the then-
Consort, now Empress Dowager Su Shangci, to raise. For more than ten years through changing seasons, she personally cared for him.
On the surface, the Emperor and Empress Dowager appeared to be a loving mother and dutiful son, but beneath it all ran dangerous undercurrents. The Empress Dowager had long interfered in state affairs, her overreaching power plays already provoking imperial displeasure.
As for Su Su, the Empress Dowager’s carefully cultivated niece, in the Emperor’s eyes she was likely nothing more than a chess piece in this game of power.
When her coming-of-age ceremony was completed, she was made a Noble Consort. His fingers brushed the warmth at her neck, more scorching than the red candles in the Hall of Union. But once the clouds dispersed and the rain ceased, that warmth ebbed away like the tide, and he returned to being that cold, jade-carved emperor.
With countless beauties in the inner palace, he treated everyone with the same detached indifference yet she mistakenly took those fleeting moments of tenderness as exclusive favor.
From then on, whenever he spared another consort even a glance, jealousy surged like a raging sea. She would smash cups, cause scenes, and rely on the Empress Dowager’s backing to run rampant through the harem. The consorts dared not speak their anger aloud, and the Empress
Dowager simply turned a blind eye.
In her bid for imperial favor, she committed many wrongs. And now, the sudden death of Prince Ning’s young son had pushed her straight into the eye of the storm the entire palace suspected she had secretly poisoned the child.
How did I ever end up like this?
It all began with the Winter Solstice palace banquet a few days ago. To help temper her, the Empress Dowager ordered her to oversee everything. At the start, everything went smoothly. In high spirits, she drank a few extra cups and grew slightly tipsy when a palace maid accidentally knocked over a wine cup, soaking her skirt. Seeing her dazed, the Empress Dowager had Qiujü escort her to a side hall to change.
Who would have thought that after changing and just as she returned to the banquet, Prince Ning and his wife would stagger into the hall, beating the floor and wailing that their young son, who had been resting in the side hall, had inexplicably died.
In an instant, the entire hall erupted. Their cries struck like thunder, completely shattering the banquet’s cheer. The Empress Dowager and the Emperor were furious and immediately ordered a thorough investigation.
That night, palace lanterns glowed blood-red and the sounds of flogging echoed again and again only for the final result to plunge her into icy despair: she alone had entered and left the side hall.
She tried desperately to defend herself, but the Emperor’s gaze toward her was inscrutable, like a blunt knife slowly slicing away her dignity.
The side hall had been empty; Qiujü had gone to fetch fresh clothes, and no one could testify for her.
Rumors spread like wildfire, instantly devouring what little innocence she had left. Earlier, during an argument with Zhuang Shuning, she had spoken recklessly and threatened to make her “pay.” Now those words became a death sentence.
The child who had died young was the son of Prince Ning and Zhuang Shuran, Zhuang Shuning’s younger sister.
Who in the court and harem didn’t know there was an arrogant, domineering Consort Su in the palace? Thus the charge of killing a child was pinned squarely on her.
In her previous life, when she was demoted to Answering Lady, she turned the palace upside down.
When the Empress Dowager came to see her for the last time, she stood coldly outside the hall and said only one word “Foolish” even dodging aside when Su Su reached out to tug at her sleeve. Only now did Su Su understand: it wasn’t that she despised her for being useless…
His niece, but rather lamenting that the sharp blade she had spent over a decade painstakingly forging had ultimately wounded the imperial bloodline.
Even if the Empress Dowager and the Emperor were locked in a silent struggle, the royal bloodline was her absolute bottom line. In my previous life, I died in the Cold Palace and she never once came to see me she must truly have cast me aside.
The eastern pearls on my phoenix crown had yet to warm against my skin when the golden register of a Noble Consort turned into the straw mat of the Cold Palace. I had entered the palace less than a year, fallen from the clouds into the mire, and when the bitter spring chill came the following year, I could not even earn myself a thin coffin.
If a court historian were to record this, it would surely invite ridicule for in the past three hundred years of the inner palace, there would be no concubine more short-lived than I.
At this moment, Li Qianche must have been firmly convinced that I had murdered Prince Ning’s young son. Who could blame him, when I had always worn the word “spoiled” on my face?
Knocking over tea cups before the throne was routine; making other consorts kneel was as common as daily meals; I even dared to smash an imperial-bestowed jade bracelet right in front of him. This infamy spread faster than palace gossip itself.
When Prince Ning’s heir suddenly died, memorials jointly submitted by officials piled higher than the documents on the desk, each one condemning me as venomous-hearted and unworthy of the rank of Noble Consort.
On the day I received the decree, I trembled with rage how could His Majesty not believe me either? I tore off my jeweled hairpin and cried as
I tried to storm the Imperial Study, only to run into Zhuang Shuning in the corridor.
Seeing my fall from power, that poisonous woman immediately clawed at my hair and wailed, “You vile bitch! Give me back my nephew’s life!” In the struggle she shoved me hard; the back of my head slammed against the bluestone pavement. When I woke again, I had already lived a second life.
In my previous life, during the first month of confinement after my demotion, I counted the frost flowers on the window lattice, watching them slowly melt into watery streaks. Palace servants whispered that His Majesty had brought back a beauty from his inspection tour of the southwest.
Their voices were hushed, yet they pierced my heart like needles. By the day my confinement was lifted, the entire harem was abuzz Mu Hanyan, a Jiangnan woman with even her family background unclear, had been directly granted the title of Consort Wan.
From then on, I washed my days with tears, sitting in a daze, unable to accept that he not only misunderstood me but also already held another in his heart. After my release, I heard servants gossip in private every day how the Emperor doted on Consort Wan, how rewards flowed endlessly into Shuning Palace. In my previous life I was unwilling and jealous, growing ever more domineering; whenever I met her, I hurled cutting words, hating her for stealing Li Qianche from me. Yet she always seemed indifferent, aloof and unworldly, as if nothing concerned her.
Later, at the plum-viewing banquet, Mu Hanyan suddenly miscarried. I was still reeling from the shock that she had been pregnant when Zhuang Shuning accused me of plotting against the imperial heir and even produced “evidence” found in my palace.
The Emperor was furious; the Empress Dowager was utterly disappointed in me harming an imperial heir had crossed her bottom line. On the spot, I was imprisoned in the Cold Palace, forbidden to take a single step outside.
Afterward, on that bitterly cold winter day, Zhuang Shuning arrived through the snow with an edict, declaring that the Emperor had bestowed death upon me and ordering me to drink the poison at once.
I could not believe it and begged to see the Emperor, but she sneered and said my father and brothers had colluded with foreign enemies; the Emperor wished to rid himself of us and did not want to see me again. She then forced the poison down my throat.
The snow-covered ground was hard as iron, the cold gnawed to the bone. The poison burned through my organs; every breath felt like a knife cutting me.
As my consciousness scattered, hurried footsteps approached in the distance the Emperor and Consort Wan.
They must have come to confirm that I was truly dead, to avenge their child with my blood. I lay on my back in the snow, letting the flakes cover my face.
This life was absurd as a farce. I had burned away my foolish devotion for him, soaked my silken robes with tears, broken my pride, lost my very soul… It was not worth it not worth it at all.
Now, blessed with rebirth, Heaven has granted me a second life. I no longer wish to die early like a shooting star.
In those years of loving Li Qianche, I gave everything, yet never managed to warm his heart of ice nor could I compare to Mu Hanyan in his heart. In this life, I no longer wish to fight for favor. I only want to live peacefully.
No grace or romance can compare to a bowl of hot food in my hands, to the safety of those around me. That heart I could never warm I won’t try anymore.
He never liked me in the first place. I only blame myself for being too foolish, for failing to see through it sooner, and for committing so many pointless, stupid mistakes.