Chapter 1
Great Li
Beneath the eaves of the Cold Palace, Li Weiyang counted the sixth louse in her long hair. She had gone so long without a bath that her body felt as if it were covered in a thick suit of armor. Picking lice had become her only way to pass the time.
Twelve years. She had been locked in the Cold Palace for twelve whole years. Weiyang lifted her head to gaze at the sky. Whenever it rained like this, the pain in her legs was enough to drive anyone mad.
She was the biological daughter of Chancellor Li Xiaoran. Unfortunately, she had not been born to the First Madam, but to a lowly servant girl. And because she was born in the second month, she fulfilled the superstition that daughters born then brought misfortune to their parents. So her father sent her away to be raised by distant relatives. But they had no affection for a concubine-born daughter like her, and left her in the countryside to fend for herself. Though she was a noble girl from the wealthiest family in all of Great Li, she had to manage the household herself and even work in the fields.
A precious daughter, abandoned among commoners. If her legitimate elder sister, Li Changle, had not refused to marry that man, her father and the First Madam would never have thought of her...
Changle, Weiyang. One could hear the names and tell at once who was noble and who was lowly. When she first returned to the Li residence, she had been overjoyed, thinking her father had finally remembered her. But all she heard was her father saying with relief to her beautiful, noble, fairy-like elder sister, Li Changle, “Xianhui, you needn’t worry anymore. This girl will marry Tuoba Zhen in your place.”
Her elder sister Li Changle, courtesy name Xianhui. What a beautiful name, Weiyang had thought at the time. She never imagined it would become the nightmare of her life.
Later, just as her father had wished, she entered the Third Prince’s residence and devoted herself to helping Tuoba Zhen rise from prince to Emperor. She even bore him his eldest son, Yuli. It took eight whole years before Tuoba Zhen ascended the throne and made her Empress.
Tuoba Zhen had once told her that her skin was smooth as jade and her features as lovely as a painting, making her a beauty among beauties. But even the finest beauty could not compare to a celestial maiden. In the blink of an eye, she had become like the rot in a corner—ugly and repulsive.
And then? Then—
Whenever Li Weiyang thought of that day, she laughed. She laughed at her own fearless youth, and at how far removed she now was from the person she had been.
She still remembered that night. Everyone in Kunning Palace was subjected to the most brutal punishments. They seemed so eager to end it all—or to cover it all up—that no one was even taken to the execution chamber. It began right there in the courtyard outside her bedchamber. The gates of Kunning Palace were locked tight, and gags were forced into the mouths of those being punished. In an instant, Kunning Palace was awash with blood. Li Weiyang was dragged before the Emperor, Tuoba Zhen.
Tuoba Zhen’s eyes had always been deep, but now they glinted with cold light. He stared at her with merciless severity. “You wretched woman! You could even bring yourself to harm your own elder sister.” Heartbroken, Li Weiyang said only, “I harmed her? I never harmed her!”
Tuoba Zhen showed no mercy. He kicked her squarely in the chest. Li Weiyang spat out a mouthful of blood, only to meet his look of disgust. “Wretched woman! Changle was in difficult labor while I was away from the palace. Her maid came to beg you for help, yet you hid in Kunning Palace and refused to see her. You clearly meant to kill her! If I hadn’t returned in time, both she and the baby would have died!”
She lifted her head to look at Tuoba Zhen. He was still so handsome, as dazzling as the sun in the sky. The truth was, she had never understood this man. She did not know what kind of man she had fallen in love with, how tender he could be or how merciless. She even felt like a great joke—a fool who had clung to him, loved him, and given everything she had, never realizing he had never wanted any of it.
Li Weiyang gave a cold laugh. “Your Majesty only thinks of my sister. Have you ever thought about our son, Yuli? On the very day your son with my sister was born, my Yuli fell gravely ill and lay on the verge of death. What was wrong with calling the imperial physicians to save him? Is my sister a person while my son is not? Now my sister has safely given you a son, and you made him Crown Prince the moment he was born. My Yuli, meanwhile, is dead. You promised me you would make Yuli Crown Prince! Aren’t you the Emperor? Why did you go back on your word? Why?”
Tuoba Zhen’s cold expression made her heart turn to ice. His face was utterly impassive as he stared her down. “I have already made you Empress, and you’re still not satisfied? You still covet the position of Crown Prince?”
Li Weiyang could taste iron in her mouth. Her voice was like shards of ice floating on the surface of the water, brushing against one another with a chill. “Empress? Yes, I am the Empress. But the edict deposing me has been on your desk for ages, waiting only for my sister to bear a prince before you press the imperial seal! Tuoba Zhen, what did I do wrong? We’ve been married for eight years. How have I treated you?”
As she spoke, she slowly unfastened her outer garment, revealing the twisted, puckered scar over her heart. She pointed to it and spoke slowly, one word at a time.
“In the thirty-eighth year of the Late Emperor’s reign, I took a sword meant for you, straight through the heart! In the fortieth year, I knew the former Crown Prince had sent you poisoned wine, yet I drank it down for you! In the forty-first year, I learned the Seventh Prince meant to kill you, and rode eight hundred li through the night to warn you! In the forty-second year, you caught the plague while relieving disaster victims. I sent away the palace attendants and cared for you alone, night and day, for forty-eight days! Do you remember what you promised me when you ascended the throne? You said that for every day you were Emperor, I would be Empress! But then you fell in love with Li Changle. You gave her son the position of Crown Prince, and now you mean to depose me! Tuoba Zhen, how could you do this to me?”
Tuoba Zhen’s expression was calm. He looked at her with such indifference that it was as if he had turned a blind eye to her. His indifference came so naturally, as though he had been born to look this way.
His expression made her heart contract sharply, as if an incredibly fine, sharp needle had suddenly pierced it. She sucked in a painful breath, yet still had to keep up a brave facade. Only a trace of sorrow flickered in her eyes.
“Changle is the one I love. I had planned that, even after stripping you of your position as Empress, I would keep a place for you in the harem, so you could live out the rest of your life in comfort.”
“Live in comfort?” Something hard and sharp seemed to be slowly scraping away at her heart. A shallow pit deepened into an abyss, until it seemed to bore right through her. Li Weiyang’s face looked like a sheet of ice on the verge of shattering. They had been husband and wife for eight years, sharing every hardship and every trial. When things were at their worst, she alone had stood by his side. Yet now that he had become Emperor, he loved Li Changle so deeply that he would not only depose her, but even tell her she could live in comfort.
“I did everything for you, even risked my life to protect you, and all I get in return is those four words—‘live in comfort’? Eight years! Eight years of marriage, and it means nothing beside Li Changle’s celestial beauty. Live in comfort? Who wants your comfort? I risked my life to earn everything I had, and you hand it so easily to another woman! And you expect me to thank you both for it?”
Tuoba Zhen suddenly slammed his palm down on the table. The teacup clattered off the edge and rolled to the floor. His face twisted. “Enough! She isn’t ‘another woman’—Changle is your elder sister!”
Li Weiyang gave a scornful laugh. “My elder sister? She’s a lofty fairy, the legitimate eldest daughter of the Li family, a cloud in the heavens. What am I? Nothing but a concubine-born daughter of the Li family, an ill-omened girl even her own father ignores, nothing but mud on the ground! If she truly thought of me as her younger sister, why would she take my husband and my son’s place as Crown Prince?”
Tuoba Zhen gave a quiet snort and lowered his head. His dark, menacing eyes slowly swept across Li Weiyang’s pale face, his gaze so terrifying it nearly stole her breath. “Changle is innocent and kind, pure and flawless. She wouldn’t even step on an ant. You don’t measure up to even one of her fingers! As for Yuli, you raised him so poorly that he dared to speak disrespectfully to Changle. What right did he have to be Crown Prince?”
Innocent and kind, pure and flawless? From childhood on, she had been the one doing good deeds, yet the praise and reputation always went to her elder sister! Just because she had a beautiful face, everyone treated her like a fairy and worshiped her!
Li Weiyang could not help but feel how ridiculous it all was. Tuoba Zhen’s words were like a steel blade, stabbing into her heart again and again until she bled. Faint tears slowly welled in her dry, hollow eyes.
Her gaze brimmed with pain. “Yes, I’m not as good as my sister! But what had Yuli done to deserve this? He was only four years old. He didn’t understand anything. He had only watched me grieve and cry over you, and in a moment of anger, said a couple of resentful words about his aunt. How could you be so cruel as to lock him up for three days and three nights?”
Tuoba Zhen gazed at her coldly without a word.
Her heart ached even more. “If not for that, how would he have caught lung disease? How would he have died so young? He was your own son! All because he said something childish, you treated him like that! Was I wrong? I called every imperial physician to treat him. I wanted to save my own son! You only thought of Li Changle. My Yuli was burning with fever all over, crying out to me, ‘Mother, it hurts so much! Mother, it hurts so much!’ Do you know how I suffered? If I could have, I would have given my own life to keep him alive! You treasure your Li Changle, but I was all Yuli had! Why did I have to go to her palace and look after her when she was in labor, while my Yuli was still fighting for his life? I don’t want anything anymore! I only want Yuli back! I hate Li Changle! I hate her so much I want to tear the flesh from her bones!”
“You wretched woman!” Tuoba Zhen grew even angrier, utterly disgusted by the woman before him. “If you want someone to hate, hate me! She didn’t want to come. I insisted that she enter the palace and made her Empress! How could someone as kind and pure as her have a little sister as vile as you?”
He strode over to Li Weiyang and seized her roughly. “I will never forgive you! I’ll make sure you wish you were dead for the rest of your life! Guards, sever this wretched woman’s legs and throw her into the Cold Palace!”
Then Weiyang saw that bright-yellow object. In the pitch-black palace, its color outshone everything. Its dazzling brilliance eclipsed the lamplight and tore the whole world apart. She knew what it was: the edict deposing the Empress! She was being deposed!
The eunuch droned on as he read the decree. All around her, eyes like poisoned arrows shot toward her, as though they meant to pierce her with a thousand wounds. Her soul had already left her body. The only thing surging and crashing through her thoughts was hatred; she could hear nothing else. Her entire spirit had abandoned her broken body and hurtled toward the unreachable sky.
Tuoba Zhen, you’re so cruel, so cruel! She had laid her heart before him, prostrating herself to win his favor, but he had not even looked at it. He had simply crushed it beneath his foot without a hint of mercy! Now he was not only hurting her body, but also torturing her dignity and soul.
Li Weiyang laughed wildly. She had once said that she loved the scenery of Jiangnan most of all. When everything was settled, she wanted to go there to admire the landscape, drink fine tea, listen to her favorite little tune, and travel across mountains and rivers. Tuoba Zhen had promised to remember; he would remember for the rest of his life. And because he remembered, he was now using it to punish her! She wanted to travel across mountains and rivers? Then he would sever her legs! She cared about being Empress? Then he would depose her and cast her into the Cold Palace. Tuoba Zhen, you’re cruel—you’re truly cruel!
Beneath the eaves of the Cold Palace, Li Weiyang narrowed her eyes. After that, Tuoba Zhen made Li Changle Empress and named her son Crown Prince. She enjoyed his undivided favor for the rest of her life, surrounded by boundless glory. As for Li Weiyang, the world had already forgotten her.
She clung to life by a thread, telling herself she had to outlive Li Changle. She had to outlive Li Changle!
Just then, the Cold Palace gate opened. Li Weiyang saw a faint, warm, yellow light drift in from the darkness outside. “Madam Li, kneel and receive the decree!”
Kneel? Both her legs had been severed. How could she kneel?
For a moment, Li Weiyang could not understand what he was saying. Her mind was clouded, and the piercing cries in her ears made it impossible to think. Someone dragged her from beneath the corridor and hauled her to the ground.
“By the Emperor’s decree: The deposed Empress, Madam Li, is without virtue. In the Cold Palace, she has failed to reflect on her faults and curses the Empress day and night. She is to be put to death with poisoned wine!”
“Your Highness, don’t blame anyone else. The Empress is so troubled and frightened she can’t sleep at night. The Emperor had someone read your fortune, and your fate is too strong—you’re bringing misfortune to the Empress. Leave this world soon and be reborn into a better life!”
A cup of poisoned wine. It was a cup of poisoned wine! She had spent her whole life being a good woman, working like a beast of burden for him. She had been a good Empress all her life. During war, she had ignored her illness to personally encourage the soldiers. In times of disaster, she had risked her life to open the granaries and distribute food to the victims. She had even dared to anger Tuoba Zhen to correct his political mistakes. She had treated the palace eunuchs and maids with kindness and generosity. And what had she received in return? When she fell into misfortune, who was willing to stand up and say a single word for her? No one!
Li Weiyang burst into mad laughter. “Tuoba Zhen, Li Changle, you’ve been so good to me! You’ve treated me so well! In my next life, I, Li Weiyang, swear I’ll never be kind to anyone again, never enter the palace, and never become Empress!”
The old eunuch looked at the deposed Empress, Madam Li, with a faint twinge of pity. He sighed. “Take her away.”
Even from far away, one could hear Li Weiyang’s anguished, frenzied cries. Her voice rang through the deep palace like a curse, haunting and chilling to the soul...