At the hour of the Tiger, it was cold and dark within the palace walls. A thick curtain of darkness hung beyond the windows. The clear sound of watch-drums had already echoed along West First Long Street, awakening the entire solemn and sacred Forbidden City.
It was early spring, and the biting cold pierced the skin. Streaks of clouds drifted across the pale dawn sky, the chill enough to make one’s teeth chatter.
In a small private cubicle in the eastern wing of the Palace of Heavenly Purity, the maid Xiansi had already dressed and washed. For years, she had slept curled on her side, which had made her a light sleeper, and she was accustomed to rising a quarter-hour early each morning.
She wore a pale jade-colored top with a round collar and narrow sleeves, and a pure white pleated skirt, worn pale from washing. As the spring chill lingered, she had added a sleeveless, front-opening vest over her outfit. With her body warm, she worked more briskly. She wore her hair in two low buns, one on either side of her head—simple and neat, adorned with neither pearls nor jade.
As the head maid of the Palace of Heavenly Purity, she was excessively plain, invisible in a crowd. This was also what she often taught the young maids under her charge: a servant must be steady and dutiful, avoiding frivolity and seductiveness.
Plain as she was, she carried an aloof dignity. With the disciplinary ruler in her hand, none of those beneath her dared to act out of line.
“Good morning, Senior Maid!”
“Greetings, Senior Maid.”
Along the way, young maids and eunuchs bowed their heads in succession.
Xiansi had been in the palace for seven years. Her features had matured—her brows were level and long, dark without need of makeup. She had beautiful bone structure and a face that tapered to a delicate chin, far prettier than the dark-skinned little maid who had cried all day when she first entered the palace. Her looks did the servants credit. At twenty-three, she was considered old in the palace, yet the natural baby fat at her cheeks had not fully faded. She was tall, slender, and graceful.
Arriving at the communal sleeping quarters, she called out, “Rise—”
One word from her, and the young maids rose at once.
The senior maids of the Palace of Heavenly Purity held absolute authority over the young maids—they could strike or punish as they pleased, deciding the girls’ futures. It was a position of great dominance.
The sky was still pitch black, save for a faint pale blue tinge at the eastern edge. In the silent Forbidden City, the silhouettes of roof beasts on the upturned eaves loomed dimly, and a jet-black crow perched there for a long while, unmoving.
The drowsy young maids washed and dressed quickly, then went to the western wing for their morning meal.
Xiansi was slim, with faint dark circles under her eyes that veiled her comely features. Her complexion was as pale as a sheet of white paper. For her morning meal, she took only a bowl of rice porridge—as she had done for years. Servants were expected to avoid appearing bloated and gluttonous; a corpulent figure disgusted their masters. The lives of maids and eunuchs were bitter—many were gaunt to the bone, and few ever put on fat.
Outside the covered gallery, a young maid was being beaten for having eaten an extra piece of cake at breakfast. She looked very young, newly entered the palace. An old eunuch was scolding her fiercely: “Have you learned your lesson? That will teach you to be greedy! That will teach you!”
Xiansi waited until the beating was done before stepping forward. The young maid, her face streaked with tears, had been punished by kneeling in the corner. She looked thirteen or fourteen. Seeing Xiansi, she clutched her head and begged repeatedly: “Good Senior Maid, this servant will never dare again.”
Xiansi saw the bruises mottling her body, blue and purple. The palace had its rules: maids were only permitted to eat to seventy percent fullness, and raw and cold foods were forbidden. If one belched or lost composure before the masters, it would not end with mere kneeling. In the end, the girl was simply too young, too inexperienced—tears still welling in her eyes.
Xiansi walked over and said, “You know you’ve erred, so don’t do it again. Your godfather did it for your own good.”
With that, she pressed a jar of medicinal ointment into the girl’s hands.
The young maid’s tearful, naive eyes shone with gratitude. Without the Senior Maid’s medicine, her open wounds would surely have festered.
“Kneel for two hours, so you remember the lesson.”
And yet she left those words behind as she walked away.
Xiansi was known throughout the Five Western Residences as a servant of unblemished reputation—adept at navigating all relationships, sharp-eyed and meticulous, serving her masters well while keeping the lower servants in line. In the palace, the common practice was currying favor with the powerful while trampling the weak, and bending with the wind. But she believed that fortune’s wheel turned, and one never knew who might prove useful someday. So within her means, she treated everyone with kindness.
In the vast Palace of Heavenly Purity, beneath a rectangle of blue sky, a person was no more than an insignificant ant—lonely, tiny, all serving their masters. Why make things difficult for one another? By treating those around her well and enjoying their goodwill and gratitude in return, her own days had grown better and better.
Over the years, Xiansi had accumulated a spotless reputation through diligence, skill, and dexterity. She had risen from the Laundry Bureau all the way to the Palace of Heavenly Purity—seven years of time, from a lowly maid bullied by everyone to a respected senior maid admired by all.
At the hour of the Rabbit, the sky was fully bright.
Cool breezes drifted off the Inner Golden Water River, and the day was so clear it seemed washed clean.
The Emperor was holding an audience at the palace gate. Seizing the moment as the imperial procession departed, the eunuchs and palace maids raced against time to polish the floors of the nine main bays with cloths until they gleamed—busy yet orderly, methodical and unhurried.
Chief Steward Liu Lun, catching a brief moment of respite, summoned Xiansi over.
Liu Lun was twenty years older than Xiansi. Fine wrinkles gathered at the corners of his eyes, and he walked perpetually hunched, wearing an expression of cheerful alertness. He was the foremost favorite before the Imperial Presence. Over the years, Xiansi had received much shelter and protection from him.
Liu Lun spoke in a soft, measured voice: “Miss Xiansi, starting tomorrow, you may take the night watch in the inner bedchamber.”
Xiansi kept her joy faintly concealed. Her upper body remained perfectly straight as she bent her knees slightly, performing a full and proper salute of thanks: “This servant thanks the Chief Steward.”
The night watch at the Palace of Heavenly Purity was grueling and exhausting, with no extra stipend—yet it remained a coveted post that everyone fought to obtain. For it meant serving the Emperor at close range, attending the Emperor throughout the day and night, in a proximity that even the gentlemen of the Embroidered Uniform Guard could not match. Should one catch the Emperor’s favor and earn a word of praise, even those connected to her would rise with her.
The servants of the bedchamber had to be chosen from among the best of the best—the most capable of the capable, the sharpest of the sharp. They were responsible for guarding the Emperor’s safety through the night, ever vigilant for any cough, call for water, nightmare, or sleeplessness.
For a servant, bearing such a weighty responsibility meant immense trust and immense glory. Only when the master slept soundly could the servant’s heart be at ease. In his early years, Liu Lun himself had risen to prominence through the night watch.
Xiansi had struggled and scrambled through many years, considering herself the most clever in the palace. Yet she had only ever served in the outer precincts of the Palace of Heavenly Purity, never having the fortune to enter the bedchamber itself.
The several eunuchs behind Liu Lun, upon hearing this, bowed their heads even lower, silent—their envy and jealousy beyond words.
“We servants are not even worth as much as a dog kept by our master. Our entire reason for existing is to make the master comfortable. To be able to draw close to His Majesty is a blessing to savor. When His Majesty is pleased, he bestows a few words of praise; when displeased, a couple of slaps. Thunder and dew alike are boundless grace.”
Xiansi spoke eloquently, unhurried and unflustered, each word crisp and clear—a pleasure to hear. She held her hands neatly folded before her. The calluses left by years of labor were marks of loyalty and steadiness. She knew gratitude; she was the kind of clever person suited to survive in the palace.
People strive upward, water flows downward. To serve the Emperor—this was indeed what she had longed for.
The Emperor, sovereign and father to his people, showered his grace over every corner of the realm. Radiant and brilliant, he embodied the sun itself. That an ant from the gutters could look up at the sun and moon filled her with immeasurable awe.
“This servant, though dull-witted, can still prostrate herself to polish His Majesty’s dragon boots, and grind her very marrow to fertilize His Majesty’s flowers. This servant will surely serve well, cherish this grace, and never betray the trust you have shown by promoting me, Chief Steward Liu.”
Steady, composed, meticulous, perceptive of others’ moods, and adept at aligning herself with the right side.
Liu Lun could not help but regard her with newfound respect. He flicked his fly-whisk and said with a smile, “Well now, Miss Xiansi is indeed the clever one.”
It was fortunate that she was someone he had personally nurtured, which was why he dared entrust her with such a weighty responsibility. For if any misstep occurred, offending the Imperial Countenance, his own head would roll along with hers.
Xiansi’s reverence for the Emperor was not merely that of a servant toward a master, but carried a genuine admiration from the depths of her heart.
The imperial grace—she had felt it firsthand.
That year, when she shattered the jade vase and was nearly dragged out to be beaten to death, it was the Emperor’s single glance that saved her. She had held that memory dear for half a lifetime—the Emperor was light, was warmth. In her heart, the Emperor was her sun, the sun of the entire Palace of Heavenly Purity, the sun of all under heaven. It was this reverence, born from the depths of her soul, that allowed her to rise step by step through the palace, growing ever more secure in her position.
Her food, clothing, shelter, and stipend—all were bestowed by the Emperor’s grace. She, a mere ant of a creature, could only bow low to repay the warmth of early spring; to steal a distant, covert glimpse of the Emperor was a blessing she might encounter but once in a lifetime.
Her only regret was that she was nearing the age for release from service, and she would soon leave the palace.
But even if she were to leave and marry in the future, she could always speak with relish: she was one who had served the Emperor.
In her youth, Xiansi had suffered mistreatment at the hands of her uncle and aunt, swallowing her suffering without a word. When the time came for maidens to be selected for palace service, the palace gates led into a world as deep and unfathomable as the sea—everyone knew the bitterness of a palace maid’s life. Her aunt, unwilling to part with her own daughter, pushed Xiansi forward instead. She had never known a shred of affection from her kin, and deep down, she had long since considered them dead.
When she first entered the palace, she endured countless beatings and scoldings from the senior maids. Alone in the world, she strained her eyes until they ached to master fine needlework, learning to read faces and bear hardship without complaint.
If one spoke of family, the senior eunuch Liu Lun was closer to her than her uncle and aunt had ever been. When Xiansi first met Liu Lun, he was not yet the powerful senior eunuch of the Palace of Heavenly Purity, but merely a laborer doing dyeing work in the Bureau of Imperial Attire.
Three months after entering the palace, the senior maid led her before Liu Lun, had her bow, and thus secured her a patron. She was supposed to call him “godfather,” but Liu Lun, being a kindly soul and seeing she was a shy young girl, chuckled and said, “Just call me Supervisor.”
By custom, every young palace maid had such a patron until she left the palace—her only family in that cold, forbidding place. Even a eunuch, a man without roots, needed a wife, needed someone to carry on after him.
Xiansi counted herself fortunate: sold by her heartless uncle and aunt, she had met this kindly old eunuch. Thereafter, Liu Lun supported her at every turn, helped her arrange family visits, send her stipend home, and buy needles and thread.
Compared to other vicious and venomous eunuchs, Liu Lun was a hundred times better. He always shielded her, and to say he felt no affection for her would be a lie. But the age gap was too great, and Liu Lun was unwilling to hinder her future.
This time, Liu Lun had also informed her in advance within the rules, saying, “On the fifth day of the month after next, at the western grille of Xuanwu Gate, family visits are held. I’ve put your name on the list.”
Xiansi was taken aback. Having severed ties with her uncle and aunt, she had not received a family visit in years. Every year, she yielded this precious imperial grace to other palace maids.
Liu Lun sighed. After all, she was a palace maid he had trained himself. Old as he was, his heart had softened, and there were matters he could not help but consider. He said, “You’re twenty-three this year, and your time to leave the palace is near. You must plan ahead.”
Palace rules decreed that palace maids of a certain age must leave the palace. Those with foresight would secure a marriage prospect early, lest they find themselves without a home upon leaving.
Xiansi’s regret was written all over her face: “This servant has only just had the honor of gazing upon Your Majesty’s countenance and attending to the imperial presence; I am loath to leave.”
Liu Lun frowned helplessly.
Xiansi understood the unspoken message—to say anything more would be overstepping her bounds.
She could no longer recall her own family name or given name, only that there had been a woman surnamed Zhang who had once been her neighbor. Over all these years, the Zhang family had remained in contact with her maternal uncle and aunt’s family. The Zhangs’ son had taken a wife, who had died half a year ago. If Xiansi were to marry into the Zhang family as the widower’s new wife after leaving the palace, she would have someone to rely on for the rest of her life.
Liu Lun had said just enough, hoping Xiansi would take the hint.