Soft blossoms sparse, the sky serene; clouds drift to and fro, a few branches like snow.
The setting sun slowly sank beneath the lake, leaving behind a hazy glow that shimmered over Moon-Watching Pool.
An octagonal pavilion stood at the water’s edge, its curtains hanging gently. The murmur of flowing water mingled with the faint crackle of a charcoal brazier, making one feel all the more drowsy.
Yue Li leaned against the railing, her hand propping up her cheek, her head nodding bit by bit, her butterfly-like long lashes casting a faint shadow.
With a “thunk,” her fair forehead knocked against the railing. The woman’s willow-leaf brows knitted slightly, and her eyes fluttered open.
Yue Li stared blankly ahead. The ridged eaves of towering palace halls stretched into the distance, vanishing at the edge of the fading light.
Her eyes were still full of lingering bewilderment and fear.
Bracing herself against a pillar, she rose to her feet, feeling as though she were walking on clouds, her steps unsteady.
“My lady, what’s wrong?” Outside the pavilion stood a young maid with double-bun hairstyle, who peered in anxiously.
“Lianqiao?”
How could it be Lianqiao?
On the night of the palace coup, Lianqiao had tried to flee the palace with her, but they were separated along the way, her fate unknown.
And hadn’t she just been run through by a rebel soldier’s blade?
How could she open her eyes and see Lianqiao again?
“Please don’t grieve too much, my lady. Even though His Majesty hasn’t come to see you these past few days, he hasn’t visited any other palaces either.” Lianqiao assumed she was merely upset at being neglected, and mustered the courage to console her.
Yue Li paid her no mind. She reached down and felt her own stomach—intact, no hole.
She hurriedly lifted her skirts and ran out of the pavilion, crouching at the water’s edge to look at her own face.
The water’s surface reflected her lovely features, her hair adorned with pearls and jade—nothing like the wretched figure who had fled for her life on the night of the coup.
“Goodness! My lady, careful!”
Startled by her actions, Lianqiao hurried after her and wrapped the woman’s delicate figure in a crescent-white crane-feather cloak she carried in her arms.
“The ground is covered in snow. Please get up quickly—you mustn’t fall into the water!”
Yue Li, feeling light as air, was led away from the water’s edge. She gazed down at the waning moon reflected in the pool, snowflakes drifting onto its surface, shattering the tranquil lake.
Looking at everything before her, Yue Li felt as though she were in a dream—nothing seemed real.
“What day is it today?”
Though Lianqiao suspected her mistress might have been frozen silly, she still replied, “Today is the seventh day of the twelfth month, in the fourth year of Cheng’an.”
The fourth year of Cheng’an—Yue Li had only entered the palace four months ago.
She had returned to the past.
Back to a time more than two years before that rebellion.
Yue Li came from the famous Spring Breeze Pavilion in the Jiangnan region—or, to put it plainly, a place that trained Yangzhou “slender horses.”
Jiangnan abounded with beauties, but some could be beautiful in a way that stood entirely apart.
Yue Li had brows like distant mountains, eyes like autumn water, cherry lips and a fine nose, skin like ice and bones like jade. Ever since she came of age at fifteen, many wealthy young men of Jiangnan had wished to buy her.
In the seventh month of the fourth year of Cheng’an, the Emperor made a southern tour. Yue Li had been purchased by the local prefect, intended as a gift for the illustrious General Xiao. But when she stole a glance at the general at the banquet—broad-backed and burly, looking like some fearsome demon—Yue Li wished she’d grown two extra legs so she could flee all the faster.
Distressed and nauseated, she was wandering aimlessly through the garden when she collided with a graceful young gentleman stepping out from behind a rockery.
That gentleman had broad shoulders and a narrow waist, handsome features, and an elegant bearing. Most importantly, the jade pendant at his waist was a priceless Hetian jade!
When he glanced at her only once and turned to leave, Yue Li gathered her courage and grabbed his sleeve:
“This servant wishes to serve you, my lord…”
Anyone who could appear at a banquet at the prefect’s residence was surely either rich or noble.
Yue Li guessed right—except this man was too noble. Far too noble.
After a night of tangled intimacy, she learned that this man was none other than the Emperor himself!
It was widely known that the current Emperor was violent, capricious, and killed without hesitation. Only belatedly did Yue Li begin to feel a little afraid.
But when she was brought to the Jiangning temporary palace and saw those resplendent, golden halls, Yue Li decided that violent was fine—she could endure it.
For three years she sailed smoothly as a favored consort, rising from a lowly Yangzhou courtesan to Consort Yu, the most pampered woman in the six palaces, spending every night in song and revelry with His Majesty, drunk on pleasure—until the spring of the seventh year of Cheng’an, when Prince Xian rebelled.
That night, blood flowed across the imperial city and wails filled the air. Yue Li had no idea where the Emperor had gone. Terrified, she grabbed some silver and tried to flee with Lianqiao.
The palace had descended into chaos. After the two were separated, Yue Li, heart pounding, crept along the covered walkways, using the cover of night to run toward the city gates.
The beacon fires blazed like the red sun; the war smoke rose like black clouds.
In a single night, mountains and rivers were overturned.
No matter how Yue Li hid, she was still spotted by the rebel soldiers.
Several common soldiers seized her and were about to violate her when, at the critical moment, scalding hot blood splattered across her deathly pale face.
When she opened her eyes, He Yanchen stood before her, his tall figure enveloping her.
He reached out his hand toward her.
The rebel’s head rolled and tumbled past her feet, and the gleaming blade in the man’s hand still dripped with blood.
This time, she had not been abandoned.
“Your Majesty!” Yue Li stumbled forward and threw her arms around him, tearfully pouring out how frightened she had been.
The man’s cold, hard features were hidden in the darkness. Yue Li could not make out his expression, but she could feel that he was no longer the languid, careless, flirtatious man who used to dally with her.
He Yanchen was alone. He led Yue Li to the grove in the rear courtyard of the Zhuoyu Palace—her own residence, planted with a large field of pear trees. Yet she had never known there were so many winding paths here.
“Keep walking straight from here. Get out.”
He Yanchen released her hand. Yue Li stared at him, at a loss, choking through her streaming tears: “Your Majesty… won’t you come with me?”
She wanted to say they could leave together, go to her homeland in Jiangnan—she had brought silver, enough to support herself…
“Your Majesty…”
Before the words could leave her lips, the man suddenly pressed that bloodstained blade against her throat.
“Get out.”
Her skirts and hairpins in disarray, Yue Li wiped her tears with her dirty sleeve, and under the man’s icy gaze, slowly backed away—then turned and ran, faster and faster.
He Yanchen closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the woman’s figure had vanished, leaving only a single white pear blossom spinning down to land upon the mud.
He silently watched the fallen flower withering in the wind—no matter how brilliant and beautiful it had once been, it would ultimately be carried away by the wind.
Yue Li didn’t know how long she had run. A woman as cowardly and money-loving as she should be focused on one thing: fleeing fast, taking this silver, and living a carefree life.
Yet somehow, somehow, Yue Li’s steps grew slower and slower… and slower…
She thought of how much He Yanchen had doted on her over these years. The happiest time of her life had been in the palace—with him backing her up, she could slap anyone who displeased her, never again having to grovel and endure bullying like she had back at the Chunfeng Pavilion.
Having grown used to a life surrounded by servants, she could barely even dress herself anymore.
Without him, how could a little useless thing like her survive on her own?
Besides… besides, with so many rebels, he would die if he didn’t leave!
Yue Li stopped abruptly, then turned around and ran back as fast as she could.
By the time she returned, she could see from a distance that He Yanchen was surrounded by a crowd of attackers, streaks of blood marring his rugged face.
“Your Majesty!”
Yue Li instinctively rushed to help him, but slipped on the thick, sticky blood beneath her feet and crashed straight onto a rebel’s blade.
She finally learned what it felt like to have her stomach pierced through.
It was as if her whole body had sprung a leak…