The white jade porcelain vase on the desk cast a cold, faint glow in the moonlight seeping through the broken window.
Jiang Linyue jolted awake.
There was no transition, no warning. One moment she was curled up on a straw mat in the cold palace, feeling her life ebb away inch by inch; the next, she abruptly opened her eyes and crashed into a patch of blinding morning light.
She instinctively raised a hand to block the glare, but her movement froze halfway.
Her hand.
This was the hand of a young girl. The fingers were slender, the skin smooth, and the nails neatly trimmed, retaining a healthy, pale pink hue. There was no deep, stubborn yellow staining from years of compounding medicines, no thick calluses worn from practicing hidden weapons, and certainly no frostbite or cracks from three years of torment in the cold palace.
This should not have been her hand.
Jiang Linyue’s heart began to beat wildly, thumping violently against her chest wall and making her eardrums ache. She slowly sat up and looked around her,
This was a small office, simply yet neatly furnished. By the window stood a desk with the Four Treasures of the Study and several stacks of ledgers; against the wall was a hard wooden bed, which was where she was currently lying; and in the corner stood an old camphor wood chest, on top of which rested a neatly folded set of sixth-rank female official court robes.
Morning light filtered through the paper-lined window lattice, casting slanted patches of light across the blue brick floor. In the distance, the faint sound of palace attendants sweeping could be heard, occasionally interspersed with a few bird calls.
This was not the cold palace.
This was the office of the Record-Keeping Department within the Bureau of Palace Attendants.
Jiang Linyue’s breathing stalled. She tremblingly pulled back the light quilt covering her and stepped barefoot onto the floor. The brick floor in the early autumn morning retained a chill, yet it was not as cold as the raging tempest in her heart.
Stumbling, she rushed toward the bronze mirror by the window.
The mirror reflected a face.
A seventeen-year-old face.
Her brows and eyes still carried the childish innocence of youth, her cheeks were full, and her lips were brightly colored. There were none of the fine lines slowly gathering around the corners of her eyes after the age of thirty, none of the dark blue eye bags from years of staying up late to handle palace affairs, and none of the withered, deathly aura of the cold palace. This face was clean and vibrant, like an apricot blossom freshly blooming on a branch.
Jiang Linyue raised a hand to touch her own cheek. The touch was soft, warm, and her skin was firm. She lowered her gaze to look at her white undergarment, the standard-issue set given by the Bureau of Palace Attendants when she was first promoted to Record-Keeper, with the collar embroidered with the azure sparrow pattern unique to the Record-Keeping Department.
Impossible, she muttered to herself, her voice hoarse.
Yet the person in the mirror was indeed her, Jiang Linyue at seventeen years of age.
She abruptly turned around and rushed to the desk. Spread out on the desk was a duty logbook, the ink still wet. She grabbed the logbook and flipped to the first page, the twenty-third year of Tianqi, August seventh.
The twenty-third year of Tianqi.
That was nineteen years ago.
It was her third day since being promoted to a sixth-rank Record-Keeper.
Jiang Linyue let go of the logbook and staggered backward, her back hitting the cold wall. In her mind, the memories of her past life surged forward like a tide, crashing and intertwining frantically with everything before her eyes,
She remembered this day. Her promotion to Record-Keeper was the starting point of her official career in her past life; full of ambition, she had vowed to carve out a place for herself in the Bureau of Palace Attendants. And on this very day, she had made her first explicit overture of allegiance to the Third Princess, Xiao Qingyan, using a meticulously organized file of personnel across the six bureaus to earn the Third Princess’s evaluation of usable.
From then on, she climbed step by step, eventually ascending to the position of Grand Palace Attendant, only to climb right into an abyss of no return.
But now
She had been reborn.
She had returned to seventeen, back to a time when nothing had yet begun.
Jiang Linyue slid down to the floor, hugging her knees and burying her face in the crook of her arm. Her body was trembling, shaking uncontrollably. It was not from the cold, but from something deeper seeping out from her bone marrow, mingling with the memories of her past life, her unwillingness, her remorse, and that pool of icy water.
The Seventh Princess.
That was the image of the young girl that had floated into her mind just before she died.
The girl in the water stared with wide-open eyes, watching her, her eyes as empty as an abyss.
Hah Jiang Linyue let out a short, sharp gasp. She raised her head, her eye sockets red, but without tears. All her tears seemed to have run dry on that snowy night in the cold palace.
Supporting herself against the wall, she slowly stood up, walked over to the bronze mirror, and looked at herself in the reflection once more.
A seventeen-year-old appearance, with thirty-six-year-old eyes.
Those eyes held nineteen years of court factionalism, seven years of bloody struggles for the succession, three years of despair in the cold palace, and the hollow gaze of a blind princess sinking to the bottom of the water.
This lifetime, she said to her reflection in the mirror, word by word, her voice so soft it was barely audible, I will never walk the old path again.
The moment her voice fell, the sound of murmuring drifted in from the corridor outside the window. It was a few young palace maids who had woken up early and were chatting together in the corridor outside the office.
Have you heard? The one in Jingyue Pavilion is ill again.
What’s so strange about that? Which winter doesn’t the Seventh Princess fall ill a few times?
But this time I heard she’s quite seriously ill, coughing for half a month now. The Imperial Household Department even withheld her charcoal supplies, so Jingyue Pavilion is as cold as an ice cellar right now.
Shh, keep your voice down! If someone hears us discussing our masters, be careful of getting your mouth slapped!
What is there to be afraid of? A blind princess, who even takes her seriously anymore? I heard the Third Princess’s side has already given word, telling the Imperial Household Department to ‘handle things according to the rules.’ You figure it out; what does ‘handling things according to the rules’ mean?
Sigh, it’s pitiful
The voices gradually faded away.
Jiang Linyue stood by the window, her fingers digging desperately into the window frame until her knuckles turned white.
Jingyue Pavilion. Seventh Princess Xiao Wangshu.
That young girl who had been ignored by her in her past life and ultimately met her end in the lotus pond was now ill, stuck in a freezing room without even charcoal for warmth.
A sharp, piercing pain erupted in her chest. It was not sympathy, nor pity, but something much deeper and more complex, mingled with the guilt of her past life and the awakening resolve of this lifetime, that slammed violently into her cavity.
She turned around and strode quickly to the camphor wood chest, lifting the lid. Inside lay neat stacks of court robes, with the uppermost layer being her formal official attire as a sixth-rank Record-Keeper, an indigo base with azure sparrow patterns embroidered along the collar and cuffs, secured with a leather belt.
Jiang Linyue reached out and stroked the embroidery of the official uniform.
In her past life, when she put on these clothes, her heart was filled with the ambition to climb higher. She used it as a stepping stone to knock open the door of the Third Princess, which ultimately knocked open her own grave.
What about this lifetime?
She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again, all the confusion in her gaze had been swept away, replaced by a clarity that bordered on sharpness.
Quickly changing out of her undergarments, she slipped into the official uniform and tightened the leather belt. Walking over to the mirror, she gathered her long hair into the standard round bun of a Record-Keeping Department female official, securing it with a plain silver hairpin. The young official in the mirror looked solemn and proper, her brows and eyes hiding a calm maturity unbefitting her age.
After tidying her appearance, Jiang Linyue walked to the desk and pulled open the drawer. Inside lay her identification plaque, her pass to enter and exit the inner palace gates, and a small pouch of loose silver, the entirety of her savings accumulated over three years of service.
She tucked her pass and the silver into her sleeve, opened another drawer, and took out a blank booklet and a brush.
The brush tip hovered over the paper for a moment before finally falling.
She began to write rapidly. It was not the duty logbook, nor a record of palace affairs, but a list, a list concerning Seventh Princess Xiao Wangshu.
Her birth date, her birth mother Consort Lin, losing her sight at age eight, moving to Jingyue Pavilion, daily provisions, the servants by her side. Every piece of information related to the Seventh Princess from her past life’s memory was meticulously written down.
When she reached the end, the tip of her brush paused.
The summer of the twenty-sixth year of Tianqi, the Seventh Princess drowned in the imperial garden’s lotus pond.
That was something that would happen three years later.
Jiang Linyue stared at this line of words, her eyes profound and dark. After a long moment, she raised her hand to tear the entire page off, brought it close to the candlelight, and set it aflame. The flickering flame quickly devoured the ink marks, finally reducing them to a few drifting ashes that fell to the ground.
There would be no drowning in the twenty-sixth year of Tianqi.
In this lifetime, it would never happen.
She stood up and pushed open the office door. Morning light rushed to meet her, carrying the slightly chilly air of early autumn. In the courtyard of the Bureau of Palace Attendants, female officials and maids were already bustling to and from. Seeing her emerge, they respectfully bowed their heads and greeted her, Official Jiang.
Jiang Linyue gave a slight nod, her pace unyielding.
She crossed the courtyard of the Record-Keeping Department, walked down the long corridors of the Bureau of Palace Attendants, and the scenery along the way felt both familiar and strange. In her past life, she had lived here for nineteen years, knowing every single corner by heart, yet looking at it now, everything seemed coated in an unusual halo of light.
When she reached the main gate of the Bureau of Palace Attendants, she paused and looked back.
On the high-hanging plaque, the three gilded characters Bureau of Palace Attendants shone brilliantly in the morning light. This had once been the starting point of her ambition, as well as the starting point of her fall into the dust.
In this lifetime, she would walk an entirely different path.
Official Jiang? A tentative call came from behind.
Jiang Linyue turned around to see a young, unfamiliar palace maid holding several volumes of account books, looking at her timidly.
What is it?
Grand Attendant Rong sent word asking you to go to her place at the hour of Si, saying it is to discuss the preparations for the Third Princess’s birthday.
Grand Attendant Rong.
Jiang Linyue’s heart stirred slightly. This was her mentor from her past life, and the key figure who had drawn her into the Third Princess’s faction. In her past life, it was precisely after this meeting that she had officially embarked on the path of no return in allegiance to the Third Princess.
Understood, she replied calmly. Tell Grand Attendant Rong I will be there on time.
The palace maid was granted a pardon, bowed hurriedly, and retreated.
Jiang Linyue watched her figure disappear around the corner of the corridor, a very faint curve appearing at the corner of her lips.
Preparations for the Third Princess’s birthday?
Of course she would go.
Only this time, she would no longer present that meticulously organized personnel file of the six bureaus, nor would she show a shred of intention to pledge allegiance.
What she wanted Grand Attendant Rong and the Third Princess to see was a diligent and dutiful sixth-rank Record-Keeper, but nothing more than that.
And her true target lay in a completely different direction,
Jiang Linyue looked up toward the depths of the palace. Beyond the towering walls, in a remote corner, stood a secluded courtyard called Jingyue Pavilion. Living there was a blind princess who was currently ill, coughing, trapped in a freezing room, waiting for a turning point that might never arrive.
She took a deep breath and stepped down the steps.
The morning light stretched her shadow long across the bluestone path, extending straight ahead.
The path of this lifetime was one she would choose for herself.
And her choice, from this moment on, was already sealed.
Walking northwest from the Bureau of Palace Attendants, passing through three palace gates, the surroundings grew increasingly secluded.
The bluestone path gradually turned into a small gravel trail, and the palace walls on either side became low and mottled, with withered yellow moss growing in the corners. As noon approached, the autumn sun slanted down, unable to pierce the cold and desolate atmosphere of this corner.