Chapter 3

A sudden crash rang out from inside the hall—the sound of porcelain shattering.

A sharp slap followed, along with an angry roar: “Wretched woman! What did you put in the wine?”

I looked up at Jiuqu. Terror showed in both our eyes.

There were two great taboos in the palace: witchcraft and illicit aphrodisiacs. An earlier Consort An had once used an aphrodisiac incense on the Emperor. She had been beaten to death with rods that very day.

Two eunuchs rushed into the hall. Jiuqu and I dropped to our knees and did not dare move.

06

Inside, Consort Chun wailed pitifully. “Your Majesty, I only wanted you to cherish me a little.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw the Emperor kick her to the floor, then tell the eunuch beside him, “Take her to the Empress for punishment.”

The bright-yellow dragon robe moved toward the doorway. Seeing Jiuqu and me kneeling on the floor, he barked, “Raise your heads!”

I looked up instinctively. It was the first time I had seen the Emperor.

He was somewhat stout and wore a short beard. His cheeks were flushed and his breathing labored; the drug had clearly begun to take effect.

His cloudy gaze swept over my face, mottled with red spots, then shifted to Jiuqu.

The Emperor seized Jiuqu by the collar and dragged her into the hall, fumbling with his own belt as he pulled her along.

Jiuqu did not dare struggle. Large tears rolled down her cheeks.

I knelt there, rigid, icy all over.

A ruler so cruel and cold saw the women in his grasp as little more than playthings. Beyond power, what could there be of a love that cherished someone for a lifetime?

Master Juekong must have been wrong.

The next day, the Empress’s decree arrived.

Consort Chun was demoted to Attendant and confined to the Cold Palace.

Zhou Hui knelt outside the Imperial Study for two hours, pleading for his mother.

The Emperor showed no mercy. Instead, he scolded him for failing to distinguish right from wrong, barred him from attending lectures at the Imperial Academy, and ordered him to live in the Cold Palace with Attendant Chun.

I had never imagined that, after more than a year in the palace, I would be cast from Yiyou Court into the Cold Palace.

The path Master Juekong had pointed out for the Marquis’s household seemed ever farther away.

07

In the desolate, crumbling Cold Palace, Attendant Chun lay on a creaking wooden bed, loudly cursing the Empress and Jiuqu. She looked no different from a madwoman.

Serves her right.

If she died in the Cold Palace, it would at least make up for Zhenzhu’s life.

Zhou Hui stood blankly in the courtyard. For the first time, his face showed the confusion of a child his age.

After all, he was only ten.

My younger brother, Cheng Min, was the same age. He used to follow me around, sweetly calling me “Elder Sister.”

Looking at Zhou Hui’s young face, I remembered how he had stood up for me that night. In the end, my heart softened.

I carried over a bucket of water and said, “Your Highness, life still has to go on.”

I managed to tidy up three rooms that were fit to live in.

Zhou Hui followed behind me without speaking, but clumsily helped where he could.

The Cold Palace was in a remote corner. The food delivered there was always cold. I gathered some discarded firewood and an iron pot, and after several tries, managed to start a fire.

Though both Zhou Hui and I were blackened with soot, at least we had a hot meal.

Without the nourishing medicine, Zhou Hui’s nighttime cough grew worse.

I took the medicinal seeds Zhenzhu had left behind and cultivated a patch of ground in the courtyard. When spring winds came, green shoots really did emerge.

Overjoyed, I forgot all propriety and pulled Zhou Hui out of his room. “Do you believe it? I grew medicinal herbs!”

“I, Cheng Mingyue, actually managed to grow medicinal herbs!”

Before entering the palace, this was something I would never have dreamed I could do.

“Tell me what medicines you used to take. Maybe I can figure out how to make them all.”

Zhou Hui looked at me with bright eyes. “Elder Sister Mingyue, you’re amazing.”

08

Life in the Cold Palace was unbearably hard.

It wasn’t only the meager food and thin clothes. The most chilling thing was the despair of being forgotten by everyone.

I could endure it, but Zhou Hui was a prince.

He could not believe he had been completely abandoned.

His eyes red, he asked me, “Elder Sister Mingyue, why? Am I not Father’s son?”

I told him the truth. “In the palace, people say a mother’s status rises with her son. But a son’s status rises even more with his mother’s.”

“Empress, Noble Consort Shen, Consort Shu—which of them isn’t a noblewoman from a powerful clan? Each has borne a prince.”

“Even Concubine Chen and Attendant Wei, though lower in rank, can win some consideration for their children as long as the Emperor favors them.”

“Unfortunately, you…”

Unfortunately, your foolish mother ruined your prospects.

The light in Zhou Hui’s eyes slowly faded.

“Elder Sister Mingyue, Mother Consort never taught me any of what you just said.”

“You know so much. Will you teach me little by little from now on?”

My heart ached.

I, too, had once been a noble young lady whom the Marquis’s household had spared no effort to educate. I began learning characters at four, and my literary talent was no less than my elder brothers’.

When Father and my brothers discussed court affairs and the political climate in the study, I sat beside them and listened.

They said that a woman who became mistress of a household could not let her perspective be confined to the inner chambers.

Who could have imagined fate would toy with me this way?

Looking into Zhou Hui’s hopeful eyes, I suddenly found courage.

The future was long, and our paths were not yet set. Who had never struggled through the mud to find a way to survive?