Chapter 4

In my first life, he had hated me so much he wanted me dead.

Now he seemed an entirely different man.

Whatever had happened after my death, in this life I had to keep my distance from the monster Xie Zhao.

Before he could reveal everything, I asked Father to arrange a meeting with Song Zhiyan as soon as possible.

I had met him once in my previous life.

He had come to the capital for the examinations. So poor and destitute was he that he fainted from hunger by the roadside.

Thinking that saving a life was worth more than building seven pagodas, I ordered him a bowl of noodles and gave him some silver.

Song Zhiyan was a kind man. He never forgot what I had done.

When he learned I had been banished to the Cold Palace, he tried to take me away from the imperial household to Jinling.

Afraid of implicating him, I refused.

Somehow, Xie Zhao’s spies discovered him anyway.

That very night, he was arrested. Accused of disrupting the inner palace, he was torn apart by five horses.

I arranged to meet him at the lotus pavilion.

He wore dark blue brocade, his hair bound high. A twin-fish jade pendant hung at his waist.

With his jade-fine face and extraordinary bearing, he seemed the very image of the verse: a beauty like jade beside the road, a gentleman without equal in the world.

When he saw me approach, he blushed and invited me to sit.

“Second Miss Pan.

“I have never forgotten how you saved my life.”

“You knew it was me who gave you that meal?”

He nodded.

I told him all my misgivings.

After thinking for a long while, he smiled.

“What you ask is not difficult, Second Miss. I am willing to help.”

I stared.

I had not expected him to agree so readily.

13

The next day, he came to the Pan residence with great ceremony to propose.

Father gave him my eight birth characters. Their compatibility was checked at the temple, and an auspicious date sought.

A few days later, the Empress held a birthday feast.

My name was on the guest list.

To avoid drawing attention, I dressed very simply.

Once inside the hall, I chose an inconspicuous corner.

Song Zhiyan saw me as soon as he entered and greeted me with a smile.

I gathered my skirts and curtsied.

After sitting down, I kept feeling someone’s gaze on me, so hot it seemed it might burn me.

It made me shiver.

I drew in my neck and tried to make myself as unobtrusive as possible.

Suddenly, a presence bore down on me.

A pair of golden shoes stopped before my seat.

Xie Zhao.

He held a glass cup. A smile gathered at the corners of his eyes, and the red mole on his face lent his beauty an uncanny air.

His chilling voice raised the hair on my scalp.

“Why are you sitting in a corner, Second Miss Pan? This is hardly proper hospitality from your brother-in-law. Come to the front. Your sister is waiting.”

Following his indication, I saw my sister staring at us with a dark, furious expression.

I smiled and declined.

“I’d rather stay here, Brother-in-law. It’s very pleasant and quiet.”

His smile slowly disappeared.

“Are you afraid I’ll eat you, or that your sister will?”

His voice was like the hiss of a snake, sending a chill down my spine.

With so many people watching, I could only follow him to avoid attracting notice.

His lips lifted slightly in a self-satisfied smile.

14

The feast began.

The dancers moved in flowing waves, holding the guests spellbound.

Partway through, the delighted Empress asked Song Zhiyan to compose a poem.

He quickly took up his brush.

I was watching him anxiously when an arm suddenly tightened around my waist.

To my astonishment, Xie Zhao had put his arm around me before my sister’s very eyes.

I immediately leaned away from his hand.

His expression stiffened. The smile vanished at once.

After the time it took an incense stick to burn, Song Zhiyan finished his poem.

The Empress liked it immensely and asked what reward he desired.

He immediately knelt low and declared, each word distinct, “I ask that Your Majesty grant me marriage to Second Miss Pan, Pan Changle.”

“Then we would have two happy occasions in one. Second Miss Pan, what do you—”

Before she finished, Xie Zhao interrupted.

“Mother, I object.”

The Empress frowned. Her face darkened in warning.

“Why do you object, Crown Prince? Think carefully before you speak.”

Daunted by her look, he wilted and dared not answer at first.

Finally, he seized on an excuse.

“I feel Song Zhiyan is not worthy of Second Miss Pan. As the Crown Princess’s own sister, she should marry into the imperial clan, or at least a distinguished noble family—not a man of humble birth like him.”

The Empress turned to me.

“What do you think, Second Miss?”

Kneeling, I answered clearly.

“Your Majesty, I am willing to marry Lord Song.”

At last, she smiled.

“I grant it.”

Xie Zhao went pale and tried again.

“Mother…”

One glance from the Empress silenced him.

15

Early the next morning, my maid Cuiping burst into the courtyard in such confusion that she forgot to announce herself.

Her face was white and her lips trembled. It took her a long time to force out a sentence.

“Miss… His Highness the Crown Prince… he’s kneeling in the great hall, begging His Majesty to grant him a marriage!”

The twin-lotus sachet in my hand dropped onto the table with a thud.

The needle pierced my fingertip. A drop of blood welled up and spread over the brocade.

Cuiping hurried to offer a handkerchief, but I waved her off and put my finger in my mouth.

The taste of iron spread across my tongue. My heart was colder than my fingertip.

“What happened next?”

“His Majesty was furious. He said the Crown Prince already had a lawful wife—how could he ask to marry her younger sister? But His Highness said… he wanted to demote the Eldest Miss to secondary consort and make you Crown Princess. His Majesty had him beaten thirty times with the staff on the spot…”

I rested the embroidery frame on my knees and stared at the gathering clouds outside.

For a long time, I said nothing.

In my first life, Xie Zhao had humiliated me again and again because my sister returned.

Now my refusal had driven him out of his senses.

He could withstand thirty strokes.

When he made mistakes in the palace before, he had often been beaten without so much as a frown. His self-control and endurance were exceptional.

“Miss, Young Master Song is here.”

Cuiping entered again.

“He’s in the front hall discussing an auspicious date with the master.”

I gripped my embroidery frame and stood. The unfinished lotus was crushed and wrinkled.

As I reached the corridor outside the front hall, I heard Song Zhiyan’s clear voice giving the dates chosen from our birth charts.

“The eighteenth day of the sixth month brings the conjunctions of Heavenly and Lunar Virtue. It is suitable for marriage. If there is no hurry, the eighth day of the seventh month is also favorable.”

Father stroked his beard and nodded.

“Then the eighteenth of the sixth month. There are more than twenty days left—enough time to prepare.

“Delay might invite complications.”

If word spread that Xie Zhao wanted to demote his wife and replace her with her sister, the Pan family would be disgraced too.

When Song Zhiyan rose to take his leave, he passed me.

He inclined his head, his ears a little red, and said softly, “Rest assured, Second Miss Pan. I will not fail you.”

“Thank you for your consideration, Lord Song,” was all I said.

As I turned away, I happened to glimpse something by his sleeve.

It was the old sachet I had embroidered for him in my previous life.

Its faded threads remained, its stitches crooked. He seemed to have repaired the edge himself with blue thread.

My heart ached. I nearly wept.

In my first life, he had lost his head because of me.

This time, at last, I could give him a whole life in return.

16

After thirty strokes, Xie Zhao was torn and bleeding, scarcely an uninjured patch left on him.

When they carried him back to his chamber, blood from his back had soaked through his inner robe. Imperial physicians came and went, and the lights burned all night.

Distraught, the Empress knelt in the Hall of Supreme Harmony to plead for him.

The Emperor loved his wife. Softening, he lifted the punishment and merely confined Xie Zhao to the Eastern Palace.

The next day, one of its guards brought me a letter in his own hand.

At the sight of that familiar writing, my fingers trembled.

He asked me to meet him at the lotus pavilion.

He also said he had been reborn and knew I had too.

I crumpled the letter, threw it into the brazier, and watched it turn to ash.

At midnight, beneath a dim moon, the wind rose.

Xie Zhao came.

I had not thought he truly would.

When he climbed through my window, I was about to extinguish the lamp.

A gust entered with him. The candle flame flickered twice.

I looked up and saw him standing beside the window.

He wore black. A dark red patch showed faintly across his back; his wounds must have reopened.

Moonlight lit half his face. The other half remained in shadow.

His bloodshot eyes were frightening.

I stepped back and struck my waist against the table’s corner, drawing a sharp breath.

He advanced two steps, unsteady on his feet. Climbing over walls all the way from the Eastern Palace seemed to have exhausted him.

“What has brought Your Highness here?” I asked quietly.

He did not answer.

He simply looked at me.

For a long time.

I knew that look.

In my first life, whenever he came to degrade me in the Cold Palace, he had looked at me like that first—as though he wanted to cut me open and see what I contained.

His voice was hoarse.

“You’ve been reborn too, haven’t you?”

I gripped my sleeve and said nothing.

His mouth twitched. I could not tell whether he was smiling or feeling something else.

“The night you burned yourself, I rushed inside.

“The fire was too fierce. I couldn’t get far in. I only managed to retrieve one thing.”

He took a handkerchief from inside his robe.

It was blackened, its corners curled. Only a faint trace of the embroidered lotus remained.

I recognized it at a glance.

It was the handkerchief I had left in the Cold Palace.

“I searched the ruins for three days. My nails tore away before I found it.”

He clenched it in his palm until his knuckles whitened.

“Only after you died did I question Pan Changyue and learn she had run away herself. You had borne the blame for her.

“I had her executed by slow slicing. Your parents were exiled three thousand li away. I spared no one in the Pan family.”

He spoke with strange calm, as though telling a stranger’s story.