After Noble Lady Qi was dismissed, the Emperor cleared the room. He took my hand and pulled me down beside him.
"Why pick a fight with her?" he asked.
"Does Your Majesty feel sorry for her?" I shot back.
He tapped the tip of my nose with one finger. "I was beginning to think the palace had buried that fierce, imperious girl who first walked into my manor."
"Now Your Majesty is teasing. I'm sure you think I'm a tigress. Next time Su Peisheng will bar the door."
He laughed. "There's an old saying: 'A beauty at one's side to tend the incense.' Without a beauty, who's to stop me from drowning in paperwork?"
* * *
He smiled, still holding my hand. "That matter you raised last time—I've thought it over. Let Songzhi leave the palace. Your sister-in-law Nalan can arrange the wedding."
I leapt to my feet and bowed in thanks.
He pulled me back. "There's one more thing." A beat of hesitation. "Your brother's wounds have mostly healed. Tensions with the Dzungars are escalating, and I need him at the front. I cannot feel at ease without him there."
His mind was set. No matter how humbly I pleaded, he would not budge.
I went to Imperial Noble Consort Xi and begged her to speak on my behalf before the Emperor.
She didn't refuse outright. Instead, she asked: "Does Consort Hua truly believe there is room for negotiation?"
"What do you mean?"
"You have served the Emperor for many years. Have you ever seen him reverse a decree because a consort asked him to?"
I fell quiet. Once, the Emperor had changed his mind for me—had bent rules to favor my brother. But that was another era. The throne was secure now. He no longer needed the Nians' military might, so he no longer needed to pamper me or my brother.
I had barely cleared the gate of Yongshou Palace—was still within earshot—when Concubine Hui's voice drifted through the window.
"If it's nothing but mutual use, why bother spelling it out for her?"
"Do you remember what the Zuozhuan says about the lips and the teeth? When one is gone, the other freezes."
I stopped listening. Concubine Hui was right. Mutual exploitation—nothing more. When had Zhen Huan ever truly cared about me?
The realization hit hard enough to make me ill. Truly ill—bedridden. During my convalescence, I heard that Concubine Hui had finally agreed to share the Emperor's bed and was already two months along.
These years had taught me one thing with crystalline clarity: in this palace, no woman holds the right to bear a child. That right belongs to the man on the throne.
I had often wondered: if Zhen Huan had been born into a military family, would the Emperor even have allowed her to have children?
* * *
My illness lingered—three months, and still no improvement. The Emperor dropped by Yikun Palace every few days. Sometimes he sat with me while I drank my medicine; sometimes he simply read in silence.
Occasionally he mentioned my brother—never much, a few lines at most.
Perhaps to cheer me up, he ordered my sister-in-law to take Songzhi out of the palace and see her married.
Songzhi didn't want to go. She knelt before me, knocking her forehead to the floor again and again, insisting she would serve me for the rest of her life. I was too weak to do more than lift my hand and touch her black hair.
"I've spoken with Sister-in-law. He isn't from a grand family, but they will treat you well. If anyone wrongs you, come tell me. I'll see it right."
"My lady—"
The Emperor cut her off. "Consort Hua went to great trouble for you. It's getting late. You should go."
Songzhi looked at me one last time, eyes red to the rims. I waved my hand. She dropped into a deep bow, then left with my sister-in-law.
I remembered: when I was still a girl with my hair in twin loops, my father had bought Songzhi and brought her home to be my attendant. She was younger than me, yet she knew how to take care of people. Spoiled rotten by my father and brother, I had bullied her mercilessly. After my coming-of-age ceremony, she followed me into the Prince of Yong's manor. When he ascended the throne, she came with me into the palace.
She had done so much for me. I had once pushed her onto the Emperor's bed to shore up my own position. Later, when I lost everything, she stayed. Shielded me at every turn.
Songzhi had given me more than I could ever repay. And this—arranging her marriage—might be the only thing I had ever truly done for her.
* * *
After Songzhi left, the Emperor took my hand. Something shifted behind his eyes—an intensity that made it impossible for me to look away.
That night, he stayed in Yikun Palace. He lay behind me, arms folded around my body, our fingers laced together. Illness had stolen most of my sleep in recent weeks. I lay still in his embrace, eyes closed, counting his heartbeats.
Just as I was willing myself to drift off, his grip tightened. He murmured in his sleep: "Shilan… our child will surely be the most blessed of all…"
* * *
My throat clamped shut. The corner of the pillow beneath my cheek was already soaked through with tears.
If he had said those words at any moment before the Nian family fell—any moment at all—I would have walked through fire for him without a second thought.
Even if someday my brother had rebelled on behalf of my child, I would have shielded the Emperor with my own body.
Even if it meant turning against my brother.
But there are no "ifs."
The next morning, the Emperor told me he'd had a dream—about our days in the princely manor.
I couldn't speak. I just kept placing food into his bowl, one morsel after another.
He noticed. The Emperor always noticed.
He set down his chopsticks and studied me. "Are you feeling unwell, or does the food not suit your taste?"
I looked up at him. Something inside me gave way, and before I knew it, the words were out: "Your Majesty said you dreamed of the past. Did you dream of the little prince I was carrying?"
He nodded.
I couldn't stop myself. "If no one had taken that child from me—would you have let him live?"
* * *
The Emperor said nothing for a long time. Then he left, offering only: "Focus on getting well."
He did not return for two full months.
He didn't come. I didn't go. We simply festered in our separate silence.
Not until Guaerjia Wenyuan stirred up another storm—accusing Imperial Noble Consort Xi of adultery—did I see the Emperor again, at Jingren Palace. I had the second Zhen daughter bring my authority token to summon witnesses from outside the palace, and I confronted the nun Jingbai in open court.
Even I could see that the Empress had tampered with the water used in the blood kinship test. But the Emperor chose to believe her version of events. My best guess: the Empress had invoked the name of Empress Chunyuan. Whenever that name was spoken, his resolve toward the Empress crumbled.
I had once thought it was because the sisters looked alike—that the Emperor treated the Empress kindly for the dead woman's sake. He later dismissed that theory himself, saying: "No one in this world can compare to Chunyuan."
When the dust settled, Guaerjia Wenyuan was sent to the Cold Palace. The nun Jingbai was beaten to death. Wen Shichu castrated himself to prove his innocence.
In the aftermath, An Lingrong's maid delivered a message that startled Concubine Hui so badly she went into early labor. She hemorrhaged, gave birth to a girl, and died.
The Emperor posthumously elevated her to Imperial Consort and laid her to rest in the consorts' mausoleum. I was too ill to pay my respects. Her spirit, I suspected, would not have wanted me there anyway.
* * *
On the seventh day after Concubine Hui's funeral rites, the Emperor came to Yikun Palace.
He fed me my medicine with his own hands—just as he had years ago, when I first entered the princely manor and insisted on playing in a snowstorm until I fell ill.
"There's something I'd like to discuss with you." His voice pulled me back from the memory.
"Imperial Noble Consort Xi has the twins to look after. Consort Jing is raising Longyue. Consort Duan has Wenyi. I thought, since you're fond of children—perhaps you might take care of Princess Jinghe?"
I stared at him coldly. For a moment I couldn't form words.
Did he not know what I'd done to Shen Meizhuang? Did he not know I could have had a child of my own—one that shared my blood?
"Is that not to your liking?" he asked.
"Has Your Majesty consulted the Empress Dowager? Or discussed this with Imperial Noble Consort Xi?"
Now it was his turn to fall silent.
I laughed. At his hypocrisy—and at the exhausting performance of it all.
"What are you laughing at?"
"This concubine thanks Your Majesty for thinking of her," I said.
We were all equally false.
* * *
He said nothing more. A man as perceptive as the Emperor could hardly have missed how hollow those words were.
At the Mid-Autumn banquet, the Emperor barred the Empress from attending—a warning to know her place.
He knew full well the depth of the Empress's involvement in the blood kinship test. He simply could not bring himself to cut the last thread connecting him to Empress Chunyuan.
During the feast, Prince Guo's sleeve caught on something, and a small embroidered pouch tumbled free. Inside was a miniature portrait.
Huanbi claimed the likeness was hers. I knew better—it was Zhen Huan. The girl in the painting wore a qitou hairstyle, reserved for women of rank. No maidservant would have been painted that way.
Perhaps lightened by wine, the Emperor married Huanbi off to Prince Guo on the spot. Imperial Noble Consort Xi petitioned for Huanbi to be entered into the clan records—to exit the palace as Niuhuru's second daughter, with all the ceremony that entailed. The Emperor agreed.
"Congratulations," I said, my face betraying nothing. Even in arranging a servant's marriage, Zhen Huan had turned it into an imperial occasion. I thought of Songzhi, quietly married off to a merchant's son with no fanfare at all, and something bitter curled in my chest.
After Huanbi's departure, the Emperor's gaze kept drifting toward the second Miss Zhen. She was a striking beauty; the warm amber of her gown seemed to radiate sunlight.
Rumor had it: the second Miss Zhen bore the closest resemblance to Empress Chunyuan of any woman alive.
Yet somehow, the Emperor married her off—betrothed her to Prince Shen. A rare act of restraint, letting go of the woman who looked most like the ghost he spent his life chasing.
* * *
On the night of Miss Zhen's wedding, the Empress Dowager passed away. The servants of Shoukang Palace whispered that her final wish had been to see the Fourteenth Prince—locked away in the Clan Court for years.
But the Emperor was the Emperor. He would never unleash a tiger, even one whose claws had long since dulled.
My health worsened by the day. One prescription replaced another; I swallowed every dose. Nothing helped. The Emperor's people kept delivering tonics and supplements in an endless stream. My appetite failed me, and the crates piled up in the storeroom unopened.
While I was bedridden, the Emperor dealt with An Lingrong. I had always known that Zhen Huan's first target upon returning would be An Lingrong. But Zhen Huan's hands were immaculate—not a trace left behind.
They said that on the day Consort Li departed this world, the sunset bled across the entire sky.
No one in the palace seemed to care. In the end, a eunuch's flat announcement—"Consort Li has passed"—was all the ceremony she received.
Without Consort Li, the Empress was truly alone. She attempted to hold a new selection of beauties—to cultivate fresh allies—but the Emperor refused.
Perhaps it was age catching up with him. These days, he visited only the women who had been with him from the beginning: my Yikun Palace, Imperial Noble Consort Duan's quarters, Imperial Noble Consort Jing's quarters—companions from his years as a mere prince.
The three of us all knew exactly what kind of man the Emperor was. Consort Jing had never felt deeply for him. Her marriage had been arranged solely to dilute the favor he showed me.