I lost all interest in gardening after that encounter. I handed the planting over to A-Yan and sat in my room, turning the problem over and over until a plan took shape.
The one who tied the knot must be the one to untie it. The solution had to start with Fu Tingyan.
So the next day I pleaded illness and stopped going to Fenglin Palace. The first two days, nothing happened. On the third day, Eunuch Chen appeared at my door.
As Fu Tingyan's faithful hound, his mission was clear: His Majesty sent me to check on you. If you can't get up, he'll come to you instead.
The very next morning, I obediently dragged myself back to Fenglin Palace.
If Fu Tingyan was an immovable wall, then my only option was to win the Empress over instead—rebuild some goodwill on that front.
I spent some effort learning what the Empress enjoyed. When I found out she loved embroidery, my heart sank.
Jiang Mu, master of the blade and the brush—hopeless with a needle.
I settled on a compromise: I couldn't embroider, but I could design the patterns.
It didn't take long to draft three sketches—landscapes, rivers and peaks, birds perched on flowering branches—and I carried them straight to the Empress's chambers.
The key was communication. Once the Empress understood that I had no designs on the Emperor, she could rest easy and I could live in peace.
Her apartments dwarfed mine—rockeries on every side, a winding stream threaded between them, little golden fish flicking through the channels. I stared, openly envious.
I had just finished explaining my purpose to one of the attendants when the door cracked open and someone stepped out.
The lady-in-waiting. The one who had glared daggers at me.
She smothered the displeasure in her eyes with professional speed, walked over, and dipped into a proper bow. "What brings Your Ladyship here?"
I knew she didn't like me, so I wasted no breath on pleasantries. I produced the sketches and held them out. "I'm having a folding screen embroidered but can't decide on the design. I've heard Her Highness's eye for such things is unmatched—would she be willing to glance at these?"
"Her Highness is feeling unwell. I'm afraid she would be of little help."
A flat refusal. But my skin had always been thicker than most, and a good start was never easy. No matter what, the Empress at least had to know I'd been here.
I kept my smile wide and harmless and pushed the sketches a fraction closer. "I only need a moment of her eye. I won't be any trouble—would that be all right?"
Perhaps it was the unspoken weight of my rank. The woman's resolve finally bent. She took the sketches, murmured "Please wait," and disappeared inside.
I waited patiently. This might actually work.
She was gone for a long time. Just as the last threads of my patience began to fray, she emerged again with the sketches in hand.
She still won't let me in?
Before I could puzzle over it, the lady-in-waiting pulled one sketch from the set and handed it to me. "Her Highness says this one would suit a folding screen best."
It was the panoramic scene—boats on a broad river, a bustling ferry landing, the whole tapestry of mortal life.
"Her Highness has made her selection. Your Ladyship may go." The woman bowed her head—courteous, unyielding—and extended her arm toward the gate.
Lingering any longer would have been graceless. I took the sketch and left.
I hadn't managed an audience, but at least the Empress had responded. It was a start.
After that, I showed up at the Empress's quarters every few days, armed with a new excuse each time, until the fifteenth visit—when the Empress finally came out to see me herself.
She burst through the door with tears blazing and fury in her eyes.
* * *
While I waited outside, a violent crash erupted from inside—something shattering—followed by the Empress's scream. The door flew open.
She burst out, face twisted, eyes locked on me with naked hatred.
That frail, delicate woman—I had never imagined she could look this unhinged.
I stood frozen a beat too long. Before I could duck, she seized my collar in both hands.
"What more do you want?" She shook me, yanked me close, her voice cracking. "What do you want from me?!"
Attendants swarmed in from every corner and pulled us apart. The Empress's chest heaved; sobs ripped out of her in a torrent of tears.
"If this humble consort has given offense, I beg Your Highness's forgiveness."
I was still dazed. My robe was torn where she'd clawed at it; I pressed it shut with one hand and curtseyed. The sight nearly made the Empress faint.
If the lady-in-waiting hadn't caught her in time, she would have collapsed right there on the flagstones.
"Your Ladyship, please go." The woman propped the Empress up, struggling to keep her voice steady. "Her Highness, she's—"
She never finished. The Empress gripped her arm, shoved past the crowd—attendants dropped to their knees in a wave—and stumbled toward me on unsteady legs, a wretched smile splitting her face.
His Majesty dotes on you, she said. Loves you. You get all the tenderness, while I get the knife in my chest. He didn't love me—yet he killed the only person I had left to lean on. And now I'm here, walled inside these crimson corridors, with nothing but my own shadow for company.
That was when I learned: the late Dowager Consort Sun had been the Empress's aunt.
The villain in everyone else's story had been someone's only shelter.
A palace maid draped a cloak over my shoulders and escorted me home. Walking the corridor, I stared up at the crimson walls rising on either side—sheer as prison walls, silent witnesses to more joy and grief than anyone could count.
Back in my chambers, A-Yan saw my face and tried to cheer me up. "Don't worry about it. She's the first wife, you're the concubine—a few scratches are the price of the position."
She assumed the Empress had beaten me.
I didn't bother explaining. I changed my clothes in silence.
The Empress's anguished expression hovered before my eyes. She was nothing more than a woman ground between the millstones of a power struggle—and punished for outcomes she'd never chosen.
That evening, when I arrived at Fenglin Palace, Fu Tingyan was bent over his usual mountain of memorials. I picked up a silver needle and trimmed the lamp wick brighter. His voice came from behind the papers.
"You visited the Empress today?"
If he was asking, he already knew. There was no point sugarcoating it. "Yes. I went to show her some embroidery sketches."
He kept writing, head down, but his next words nearly knocked me sideways. "Bold of you to say. Since when can your needlework be shown to anyone?"
"Your Majesty has never actually seen me embroider. How would you know whether it's any good?"
I couldn't actually embroider, but I refused to surrender the last scrap of my dignity. Besides, he would never make me prove it.
Fu Tingyan paused, brush hovering. "You say that only because you're certain I won't call your bluff."
I opened my mouth and nothing came out. While I was fumbling for a response, he closed the memorial. Dark, ink-black eyes settled on me—serious, unhurried.
"Don't do anything dangerous. If you feel unsafe, come to me." His voice was low, each word deliberate. "I am the highest authority in this palace. The only person who can protect you is me."
And the only person who can destroy me… is also you.
For one unguarded instant, I let myself sink into those words. Fu Tingyan could satisfy every fantasy a woman might have. But no matter how many good things he offered, I could not afford to hope.
Otherwise, I might become the next Empress.
* * *
"What does Your Majesty like about me?"
I lowered my eyes with a soft smile, then lifted them back to meet Fu Tingyan's gaze—sweetly, shyly, the way any girl lost in her first infatuation might ask the question. My voice was gentle, laced with just enough timidity. But the emotion I had expected to find in his eyes was not there.
"I like the real you." He answered without a heartbeat's hesitation, calm and precise. "But right now, you're living so carefully that you won't even tell me what you want."
The words caught me off guard.
He was right. I had been tiptoing through every hour—wary, hypervigilant, a small animal stepping onto unfamiliar ground. Everyone in this palace outranked a frontier general's daughter. From the moment I entered these walls, I knew there was no way out.
And since there was no way out, the goal was simple: stay alive. Grow old quietly.
Keeping A-Yan safe and getting through each day—that was the sum total of my ambition in the inner palace.
That was why I was so afraid.
"Your Majesty."
I called his name. There were things I needed him to understand.
Things I wanted him to know.
"I want to live in peace. No titles, no extravagance—just a quiet, unremarkable life until old age takes me."
The composure on Fu Tingyan's face cracked into surprise, and then something soft rose from deep behind his eyes and swallowed the surprise whole.
"Having no ambition isn't good. Won't you ask me for just a little more?"
I shook my head. He reached over and ruffled the top of my hair.
"Try a bit harder. Push a little further. Who knows—you might end up with all of me." A half-smile ghosted across his lips. "Sure you don't want to try?"
* * *
Monopolizing the Emperor—that was a level of terrifying I could not bring myself to attempt.
I did, however, make one request: I wanted out of the Bewitchment Decree.
Fu Tingyan had been buried in state affairs lately. Surely he had no time to visit my chambers.
He refused without blinking.
His fingers pinched my cheek—hard, as though squeezing out frustration. "Do you have any idea how many people in this palace are praying for you to slip up? I am your only shield, and you keep trying to shove me away?"
His words were an exact echo of A-Yan's.
In the days that followed, Fu Tingyan was busier than ever. General Du's forces had reached Shazhou, fortifying the city while mounting attacks on Gaochang. The Xiongnu were pressing hard, apparently determined to swallow all six western districts. The front was in chaos.
Where before Fu Tingyan could still retreat to his own sleeping quarters, now he practically lived in Fenglin Palace—eating, sleeping, receiving ministers at all hours of the night.
Which meant some evenings my lantern duties were cut short; he'd send me back early.
I was profoundly grateful to every minister who showed up at midnight. They were, in their own way, granting me freedom.
With the extra time, I finally got some rest. I spent most of it sleeping, occasionally loosening the soil around the flowers, or piecing together small curiosities with A-Yan—lanterns, sachets, whatever kept our hands busy.
As the Mid-Autumn Festival drew near, the palace hummed with preparations. A-Yan was already debating whether to collect red-bean or five-kernel mooncakes from the Imperial Kitchen Bureau.
I had assumed the holiday would be nothing more than a quiet meal together, but someone suggested that the dance troupe perform a new piece for the occasion. I'd been in the palace over a year and had never seen a proper performance. The prospect was, I'll admit, exciting.
On the night of the Festival, the moon hung in a cloudless indigo sky. The banquet was set on a waterside terrace, and every consort of sufficient rank had a seat. Lanterns swayed over rippling reflections.
But carrying the title of the woman who bewitched the sovereign meant my social standing was nonexistent. Not a single consort spoke to me throughout the meal—which at least made it convenient to smuggle food out for A-Yan.
I had brought a few sheets of oiled paper and a small cloth pouch. Whenever no one was watching, I slipped pastries inside. During one such moment, I swept the room to make sure I was unobserved—and my gaze collided with Fu Tingyan's from the head table.
I stopped breathing. My eyes darted instinctively to the seat beside him. The Empress was looking at Fu Tingyan, then followed his line of sight straight to me.
Her calm expression fractured into raw, naked grief. I dropped my head and pretended none of it had happened.
The banquet was barely half over when an attendant hurried in and whispered something to Fu Tingyan. He left at once—didn't even stay to see the new performance.
The Empress sat alone in her seat, as though her soul had been drawn out of her body. Her eyes stared at nothing. The noise and the laughter swirled around her without touching her, as if she were sealed behind a pane of invisible glass.