Chapter 2

Everyone said entering meant certain death.

I believed it was Pei Wujiu's only chance to live.

I spent the remaining silver on a plan of the maze. While delivering water, I memorized when its mechanisms moved.

For several nights, I didn't sleep. When the lamp oil ran out, I drew the gates on my quilt by moonlight.

Each time the water clock sounded, I changed direction in my mind.

Before entering, I took a wet cloth, an antidote, and a bronze mirror.

When poisonous mist rose, I covered my mouth and nose. When arrows rained down, I used the mirror to locate the openings they came from and gritted my teeth through the gaps.

Someone fell beside me and reached out for help.

I didn't stop.

My life could buy only one life.

The one I wanted was Pei Wujiu's.

By the time I crawled to the heart of the maze, my shoes and stockings were soaked in blood. I could no longer feel the pain.

I prostrated myself beneath the platform and begged the emperor for a physician.

A tiger's roar answered.

The palace servants hadn't lied.

The so-called reward was death.

Then, looking up from the tiger's jaws, I saw Pei Wujiu on the dragon throne.

“Qinghe, what am I to do? It was I who deceived you all along.”

I clutched his robe. My chest felt as though it would split apart.

“Pei Wujiu.”

“How cruelly you've deceived me.”

After a long silence, he bent to my ear.

“And yet, for someone like me, you were willing to throw away your life.”

I lost consciousness as the words fell.

4

When I opened my eyes again, I was in the imperial bed.

A man in the emperor's sleeping robes sat beside me. His features and eyes were no different from the Pei Wujiu I knew.

But his movements were so unfamiliar that a chill crawled down my spine.

A fingertip moved slowly over the wound on my face.

“Finally awake?”

My voice was hoarse.

“Who are you?”

He smiled calmly.

“I forgot to tell you my real name.”

I held my breath as he answered, one deliberate word at a time.

“Zhao Chengyao. A name that signifies inheriting the imperial line.”

Everyone in the realm knew that name.

I found it only absurd.

“Then who is Pei Wujiu?”

Zhao Chengyao adjusted the quilt without a trace of guilt.

“Merely a false name I use occasionally.”

“Palace life is dull. Sometimes I disguise myself as a eunuch for amusement.”

“And happened to meet you.”

I stared at this face, familiar and strange at once.

“You promised to leave the palace with me. To live a life with only the two of us. Was all of it false?”

He only smiled.

His silence gave me my answer.

I had lived in the dream so long that I had mistaken someone else's game for my whole life.

Still, I couldn't accept it.

“If you'd tired of the game, why pretend to be ill to test me?”

A childlike innocence appeared in his eyes.

“I originally meant to let you leave.”

“But you were willing to brave the maze for me.”

He took my chin, his voice filled with delighted wonder.

“Qinghe, no one has ever loved me like that.”

“So now I can't bear to let you go.”

I raised my hand to slap him. He caught my wrist easily.

Unable to break free, I told him coldly, “The man I love is Pei Wujiu. Not you, the emperor.”

His smile faded, then he leaned in and brushed his nose against mine.

“He's me too.”

“The same face. The same person. What difference is there?”

“Of course there's a difference!”

I looked straight into his eyes.

“Pei Wujiu promised I would be his only wife.”

After a long silence, Zhao Chengyao abruptly waved a hand and laughed.

“I have indeed wronged you these past years. I'll make it up to you.”

The doors opened. A line of eunuchs entered with bowed heads.

He issued his decree before them.

“Let it be known: the palace maid Qinghe is appointed Noble Consort and granted residence in the Palace of Heavenly Purity.”

I sat bolt upright.

“I refuse!”

He didn't look at me.

“Teach the Noble Consort how to express her gratitude.”

Someone immediately pressed down on my shoulders, forcing me to kneel at his feet.

He approached barefoot, bent to grip my face, and spoke as tenderly as a lover.

“Your parents and younger sister are still at the imperial tombs.”

“Qinghe, must I teach you what happens to those who defy an imperial decree?”

With my family's lives in his hands, I went rigid. I could only bow my head.

Just then, his sleeping robe slipped aside, exposing part of an unmarked leg.

Pei Wujiu had a deep old scar on his right knee. On rainy nights, it hurt so badly he couldn't sleep.

This man's skin was completely clear.

I lowered my eyes, clenched my teeth, and buried my shock deep inside.

5

Zhao Chengyao stood before me, quietly studying my reaction.

When I looked up again, my eyes overflowed with tears. I appeared utterly heartbroken by the betrayal of the man I loved.

“Pei Wujiu, you deceived me for all those years. What did my love ever mean to you?”

His gaze shifted slightly, but he didn't answer.

So I kept calling that name with hatred.

“Pei Wujiu, you knew deception was what I hated most. I'll never forgive you.”

His tense shoulders and back gradually relaxed.

“If you hate me, why were you willing to enter the maze?” he probed.

I gave a cold laugh.

“Had I known what you were, I'd have died in there rather than save you.”

At last, he laughed aloud, apparently convinced.

“Whatever else happened, you did save me. I won't forget that debt.”

“I shall treasure the Noble Consort's devotion and never disappoint her.”

He bent to my ear and lowered his voice.

“Shall the Noble Consort attend me tonight?”

My heart sank.

If he insisted on forcing me, I had no strength to resist. All I could do was play to his interest and buy time.

I deliberately looked petulant.

“The man who loved me was Pei Wujiu, the chief eunuch. Not the emperor.”

Knowing he disliked hearing it, I used the name to needle him.

“If Your Majesty truly wants me in your bed, it's simple. Wear your old face again. Then I can still be the woman you love.”

His expression darkened, as expected.

After considering it for a long time, he finally summoned the disguise maker.

He wanted to see just how besotted I could be with Pei Wujiu. Naturally, he couldn't bear to end the game.

Before long, that unremarkable face covered his once more.

“Is the Noble Consort satisfied now?”

I nodded with feigned, bashful delight.

Nausea churned in my stomach.

However identical the face, the person beneath it was not the same.

...

The red candles burned down, inch by inch.

Wearing my beloved's face, Zhao Chengyao pressed over me.

As a girl, I had dreamed countless times of marrying the man I loved.

My parents had favored my sister since we were little. At home, I had been little more than a spare possession. More than anyone, I longed for a home that was truly mine.

Pei Wujiu was gentle and scrupulous. He had sworn we would wait until we moved into our own little courtyard before taking that final step.

Now another man was trying to take that wish for himself.

He touched my wounds, not yet scabbed over. Pain brought tears to my eyes, but he mistook them for desire.

“Qinghe, did you know I was so capable before?”

I closed my eyes without answering.

All I could think of was where Pei Wujiu was imprisoned. Was he only a wall away, hearing my humiliation?

My silence made Zhao Chengyao press me maliciously.

“Open your eyes and answer.”

“Is there any difference between me tonight and the man I was before?”

I opened my eyes and smiled gently at him.

Just as the last sash was about to fall loose, I used all my strength to press the point behind his ear.

He stiffened and fell unconscious on the bed.

Pei Wujiu had taught me that way of defending myself when we first met. I had never imagined I would truly need it.

I pushed Zhao Chengyao toward the inside of the bed, then stained the bridal cloth with blood from my own wounds.

If he was so determined to be a debauched ruler who seized his elder brother's wife, I would give him a pleasant dream and let him believe he had succeeded.

6

Wrapped in my robe at the edge of the bed, I watched the moon beyond the window and remembered the younger brother Pei Wujiu had mentioned while drunk.

Since childhood, he said, the boy had loved taking his elder brother's things.

Whatever his brother liked, he had to seize. Once he had it, he never valued it. He only wanted to see his brother suffer.

If Zhao Chengyao really had imprisoned his brother nearby, and was so eager to force himself on me while I was badly injured, he surely wouldn't have hidden him far away.

I got up and tapped along the bedchamber, inch by inch.

From the bookcase to the imperial desk, everything answered with a dull, solid sound.

Almost despairing, I returned to the bed and happened to tap a hanging painting.

A hollow sound came from behind it.

I pried at the mechanism behind the scroll. The stone wall silently opened.

The heavy smell of blood struck me.

Inside the hidden chamber, Pei Wujiu was indeed chained to the wall.

His clothes were torn. The irons had almost worn through his wrists. Blood ran along his fingers and pooled darkly beneath him.

Tear tracks covered his face.

Yet when he saw me, he smiled first.

“Qinghe.”

I was about to rush to him when he dragged the heavy chains forward and knelt, the iron cutting deeper into his flesh.

He seemed not to feel the pain. He only apologized.

“It's all my fault. I couldn't protect you. I let you suffer such humiliation.”

I wanted to help him up. Then I remembered I was wearing clothes Zhao Chengyao had ordered for me and forced myself to step back.

“So this was the choice you hid from me and made on my behalf?”

He paused, then smiled bitterly.

“I knew I couldn't deceive you. I just hadn't expected him to move so quickly.”

He was so thin that little remained but skin and bone. Cold sweat soaked his black hair, leaving it hanging over his shoulders. He looked as though he might disappear at any moment.

Watching him, I finally guessed the truth.

“You delayed your original plan because my departure papers were approved?”

His silence told me I was right.

In anger, I raised my hand to strike him.

He didn't dodge. He obediently placed his face beneath my palm and even shuffled half a step closer on his knees.

“Go ahead, my wife. You'll feel better afterward.”

He left me torn between anger and laughter.

“Who agreed to be your wife?”

He lowered his head and called me that again, aggrieved.

“We haven't married yet, but can't you let me say it a few times in advance, my wife?”

Before his death, the late emperor had discovered the secret substitution between his twin sons. He had quietly left a group of loyal followers to his true eldest son.

Pei Wujiu had planned to act at the Longevity Banquet.

Then my departure papers were unexpectedly approved. He intended to take me out of the capital first, return, and stake his life on one final struggle.

Cruelly, his old illness flared at precisely that moment.

Zhao Chengyao noticed something amiss and threatened my life. Pei Wujiu could only surrender and be imprisoned.

I had entered the maze to save him. He had entered this chamber to protect me.

One wrong step, and we would be parted forever.

Fear hit me belatedly.

I hurried to ask him.