Adeline’s note: hello hello! This was originally supposed to be a personal read, but I found the story so intriguing and interesting, that I can’t help but share it to my readers. I don’t know if you guys are also fond of Chinese novels, but I do read some in my past time. I won’t be charging for this novel, as I just want to share this story to everyone who might be interested.

Updates will be released daily~

I hope you enjoy reading!

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A heavy winter snow. Thick drifts piled atop the red walls and tiled roofs.

An urgent commotion swept through the palace. The imperial guards surged forward, forcing their way into a remote hall deep within the palace grounds.

The hall was overrun with weeds, desolate beyond measure.

The guards who had come rushing in charged inside and surrounded the hall, their expressions grave as they looked at the man standing in the snow.

Behind the guards, a heavy palace robe trailed across the ground as Noble Consort Ning entered. Resplendent and dignified, she pressed a jade handkerchief over her mouth and nose and deigned to step into this forsaken place. She looked at the man standing in the snow with undisguised contempt. The thick snow could not dim the opulence draped across her, and when she gazed down at him with that sweeping, disdainful look, her eyes held not a shred of feeling, only the hauteur of one who had long occupied a position of power.

The man in the snow wore only plain white. His complexion was the color of snow, drained of all blood. Not even the charcoal braziers inside the hall had been lit. Cold air seeped in from every direction.

He looked like a ghost imprisoned in this place, utterly lifeless. His eyes were bottomless. His gaunt face was ridden with sickness, and along one side of it ran an ugly scar.

Only his eyes moved, fixed straight ahead, looking past the snow-blanketed palace walls. When the distant toll of a bell rang out, the corner of his mouth twitched. He burst out laughing, loud and unrestrained, as though he had just heard the most absurd joke.

Hearing that reckless laughter, Noble Consort Ning’s expression darkened further. She cast a cold glance to the side. A figure stepped forward. Blood sprayed. A head struck the ground with a dull thud. The face of the man who had just been beheaded still wore a look of frantic urgency, as though he had been desperate to pass some message to someone, but had been separated from his body before he ever got the chance.

The man lowered his eyes. He looked at the severed head of someone who had been by his side since childhood. His expression was unreadable.

“That loyal dog of yours wanted to get you out, even at the very end,” Noble Consort Ning said with a laugh. “But I nearly forgot. His Highness’s mind hasn’t been right for some time now. You’ve probably long since forgotten this eunuch you sent out of the palace. What a pity. You let him go, and yet he kept thinking of his master. He made secret contact with traitors and tried to come back and save you.”

The blood from the severed head seeped into the snow. The eyes that refused to close in death met Ying Fusheng’s gaze. His mind, long ravaged by poison, seemed to find its way back to a single thread of clarity. He laughed. “It seems my dear imperial brother has grown anxious. It’s understandable. Ascending the throne without a rightful claim, he must be jolting awake from his dreams every night.”

At the mention of the new Emperor, Noble Consort Ning’s jaw tightened. Behind her, the imperial guards raised their blades. The fastest dispatch had arrived at the palace less than an incense stick’s time ago: the new Emperor had ascended the throne and was purging his enemies. All those deemed traitors had been sentenced to the most severe punishment. The man confined in this cold palace was the last of them. No one had anticipated that someone like him, cut off from all information within the palace walls, could have joined forces with the prince of a different surname who had held the northern frontier for years, throwing the entire court into chaos.

Rumors about the new Emperor had been spreading everywhere. The one that had taken deepest root was the whisper that the new Emperor’s identity was suspect, that he was not Empress Xu’s biological son.

A eunuch read the decree of crimes aloud in a sharp, carrying voice. “The criminal Ying Fusheng deceived his sovereign, colluded with rebel factions to incite treason. The evidence is conclusive… He is hereby granted a cup of poisoned wine and commanded to end his own life.”

“Given the bond between mother and son, do you have anything left to say?” Noble Consort Ning said.

“What is Noble Consort Ning in such a hurry for? He was only a eunuch. There was no need to trouble yourself.” Ying Fusheng reached out and closed the eunuch’s eyes. His tone was calm, almost serene, yet every word was a provocation. “The Xu family hasn’t even panicked, and yet Noble Consort Ning is rushing to legitimize the new Emperor. Someone who didn’t know better might think the new Emperor was your own biological son. But, Mother, now that I have committed treason, do you really think the new Emperor will let you and the Ning family off so lightly? The Ning family may be meritorious subjects today, but they can just as easily become traitors tomorrow. Between leaving behind a lingering threat and cutting out the root, which do you think would put the new Emperor more at ease?”

“This madman. Send His Highness on his way,” Noble Consort Ning said through gritted teeth.

The imperial guards stepped forward.

Behind Consort Ning, a palace attendant followed in small, hurried steps, carrying a tray. A few flakes of snow had drifted into the cup and were melting. The poisoned wine swayed gently.

The head eunuch said nothing. He brought the poisoned wine before Ying Fusheng. “Your Highness, please.”

One cup of poisoned wine. Ying Fusheng looked out at the desolate hall beyond. This forsaken place was probably receiving more visitors today than it ever had. His imperial brother had actually been willing to deploy this many palace guards. He laughed out loud. The sound echoed through the hall, carrying something faintly unsettling in it, enough to put the assembled guards on edge.

“No need to trouble yourselves.” Ying Fusheng’s whole body was trembling. Even without this cup of poison, he would not have survived the winter. He reached out and took hold of the cup. His face flickered in and out of the reflection on the surface of the wine. He murmured, “No time to celebrate with such fine wine before me. Then let this be a toast. May my imperial brother never sleep through the night, and may his high seat never feel secure…”

He drained it in one gulp. The poisoned wine burned down his throat, yet it was the most alive he had felt in years.

What did it matter, being born a prince? Without power, without influence, he had never been able to cross over that red wall.

It had taken Ying Fusheng many long years to understand this. Consort Ning’s manipulation. The secrets of the inner palace. His absurd life, abandoned by all.

Ying Fusheng’s gaze drifted past the wind and snow, toward a higher place.

His vision slowly darkened. He could not close his eyes. The look in them as they fixed on the heights of the inner palace was nothing but refusal.

Within moments of the wine going down his throat, his breathing stopped.

If there were a next life…

…

A heavy thud. A suffocating pressure hit him full in the face. Water rushed into his nostrils. Ying Fusheng sank downward through the cold.

“This is bad, His Highness has fallen into the water!”

“Someone come quickly!”

Gurgle, gurgle. His ears felt as though they were submerged beneath a layer of water. He felt his body being moved. Someone nearby was breathing hard.

Ying Fusheng heard the noise around him. The roaring rush of water in his ears receded. The first thing he became aware of was the intense heat of his own body. His throat burned as though scorched. Breathing felt like an enormous effort. He struggled with everything he had to break free from the grip of near-death, and when a rush of air finally forced its way into his throat, he snapped awake from the convulsions.

Fallen into the water. What were these people talking about?

Fragmented words and sounds poured into his ears. He opened his eyes.

What met his gaze was a brightly lit inner chamber. The bed curtains on either side were richly colored, lustrous with pearl-like sheen, their tassels swaying gently.

The light was so sharp it nearly forced his eyes shut. After years of confinement in the depths of the palace, he had long grown accustomed to damp and cold. But warmth surrounded him on all sides now, so stifling it left him breathless, his mind hazy, his head splitting with pain.

Wasn’t I dead?

As the sounds around him grew louder, his face went two shades paler. Before he could make sense of what was happening, an excited cry suddenly rang out beside him: “Your Highness!”

The moment it sounded, everyone in the room went still. They stared at the figure on the bed as though they had seen a ghost.

As his five senses returned, Ying Fusheng became aware of a flurry of panic around him.

“Go quickly and tell the Lady, His Highness has woken up!”

A distant memory came rushing back with that cry. Ying Fusheng’s whole body went rigid. His throat still seemed to hold the scorching burn of his final moments at death’s door. Shifting shadows before his eyes seemed to reflect the new Emperor’s cold face on the great hall steps. The clamor in his ears carried the malice of others… and then, through the haze, it all dissolved into the bedchamber before him.

A young eunuch knelt in front of him, eyes brimming with tears, overcome with relief at the sight of Ying Fusheng opening his eyes.

Ying Fusheng surfaced from his daze. “Song’an?”

Song’an the eunuch. A palace attendant who had served at his side since childhood. The image of that severed head in the snow, eyes refusing to close, seemed to hover right before him, overlapping with the young, childlike face in front of him now.

Hadn’t he died alongside him? Then who was this person?

So he really had gone mad in the end. The residual poison had eaten through him, and he was seeing such a vivid hallucination in his final moments before death.

“I told you to leave the palace. Why did you come back?” he murmured.

“Your Highness, what are you saying?” The young eunuch Song’an froze for a moment, then, hearing Ying Fusheng rambling, grew so distressed that tears spilled over. “You fell into the water by accident. You’ve been unconscious for half a day. The imperial physicians all said you might not pull through.”

The outside was not visible from where he lay. Ying Fusheng found the warmth startlingly intense. Whoever had ordered the charcoal fire didn’t know it was meant to be used sparingly.

Ying Fusheng looked at the scene before him, unreal as a dream, then looked again at Song’an, still small-limbed and young.

The two images overlapped. The grip tightening around his hand grew stronger and stronger. A dream? A hallucination? Or something else?

It was all too real. His face drained of color, he asked, “Fallen into the water? When did I fall into the water? Has the new Emperor ascended the throne?”

The people around him were struck dumb with fright and rushed forward. The Great Yuan was at the height of its power, and His Majesty was still in the prime of his years. Had the fever burned His Highness stupid, for him to say something like that?

At last, Ying Fusheng noticed the expressions around him, all looking at him as though they had seen a ghost, and came to his senses. “What year is it right now?”

“The sixteenth year of Taiyuan,” the palace attendants answered, going along with him at the sight of the Sixth Prince’s dazed expression.

The sixteenth year of Taiyuan… ? Fifteen years ago?!

A jolt ran through Ying Fusheng’s entire body. He looked around in a daze, and finally fixed his gaze on his own thin arms. They were mottled with the bruises left behind by years of needles, the veins standing out sharply beneath skin that was far too pale. Most importantly, these hands, these arms, were the arms of a child. He stared at the sight before him in stunned disbelief, his mind adrift, and through his flickering vision made out the people gathered around him.

The familiar furnishings of the hall were nothing like the cold palace where he had been imprisoned for years. The charcoal brazier burned warm, and no cold wind crept in. Distant memories surged up with the sight. This was the Weiyang palace, the palace where he had lived as a young child.

The Weiyang palace? Had he gone mad, or was he hallucinating?

“Noble Consort Ning has arrived!” a voice called from the outer hall, pulling Ying Fusheng back from his stupor.

He followed the sound almost instinctively, looking straight toward the outer chamber. The hanging curtain was lifted, and a beautiful woman in palace robes walked in.

“Noble Consort Ning! His Highness has woken up!”

Ying Fusheng’s gaze, drawn by the commotion, settled on the beautiful woman in palace robes standing behind the attendants.

In a haze, or perhaps not long ago at all, he saw a woman walk toward him. Magnificent palace robes swept through the thick snow before the cold palace doors. Palace attendants followed behind her with perfect deference, their fawning voices addressing her as Noble Consort. 

Through the shifting shadows, the young Consort Ning walked toward him. This favored and beloved imperial consort’s eyes held not a trace of concern, only a coldness without bottom. The two figures overlapped. The face before him bore none of the matronly grandeur it would carry in later years. It was just as he remembered: young and beautiful, with opulent earrings, magnificent palace robes, and even the rouge fragrance on her person, all gifts bestowed by the Emperor.

Ying Fusheng’s pupils contracted. This was Consort Ning. His so-called ‘birth’ mother.

The scorching burn of the poisoned wine became a ghost image in his memory. Perhaps because the Weiyang palace felt too real, seeing this person young again, he was reminded of his youth, when he had been at everyone’s mercy.

He had been born premature. His Mother had nearly died bringing him into the world, and the ordeal had cost her half her vitality. From childhood, Ying Fusheng had never been loved by his Mother. He never complained. He understood that his birth had been an ill-fated thing, that he had nearly taken his Mother’s life, and so he treated Consort Ning with reverence and filial devotion. Even when met with indifference and neglect, he never defied her.

And so later, when his Mother asked him to help with a small matter, he agreed without a second thought. He never imagined it would be the beginning of his downfall. The small favor she asked of him involved a military ledger. The moment he touched it, it was like a thousand mountains collapsing. It enraged the Emperor directly, and he was imprisoned deep within the palace. Even as he was being locked away, he had worried that his mistake might implicate his Mother. As it turned out, he had worried for nothing. Not only did his Mother come to no harm, she and the Ning family behind her rose in one stroke to become part of the crown prince’s faction.

He had been the pawn pushed to the front, the stepping stone the Ning family used to climb their way up.

It was not until two years into his imprisonment that he learned the truth from an old nursemaid who had miraculously survived being poisoned mute: he was not Consort Ning’s biological son. He had been switched at birth. His true birth mother was Empress Xu. At the time, the Ning family had been in decline. The Eastern Palace had no heir. The Empress was deeply trusted and favored by the Emperor. And so Consort Ning had bribed the Empress’s personal handmaid, taken labor-inducing medicine, and on the same day both women gave birth, carried out the earth-shattering act of switching the imperial sons.

In the end, the new Emperor ascended the throne. The Ning family rose to power and became meritorious subjects of the new dynasty.

And he had been put to death with a cup of poisoned wine, and opened his eyes to this.

“Noble Consort Ning!” The palace attendants bowed.

A single phrase from the attendants pulled Ying Fusheng back from his thoughts. He found that the hand hidden beneath the bedding was trembling. A hatred like a maggot festering on the bone surged up in his chest. He tightened his fingers into a fist and took in everything around him. The overlapping images vanished. People and objects stood clearly before him.

The Sixth Prince had fallen into the water and burned with fever for an entire day without waking. The Weiyang palace had been on edge all day. The imperial physicians had come and gone several times. The moment he came to, Consort Ning arrived with a physician in tow. The physician took Ying Fusheng’s pulse and, beneath his anxious expression, let relief show on his face. After a careful examination, he said, “It is good that His Highness has woken up. It is very good indeed.”

“My lady, His Highness has come through!” someone said.

Consort Ning’s face looked haggard, her eyes faintly red. Hearing this, she let relief show on her face. She drew close to Ying Fusheng, gathered his arm gently, and pulled him into her embrace. Her voice was full of emotion. “Is Sheng’er feeling better? You troublesome child, how did you end up wandering off to that place?”

“Thank heaven the physician’s skill brought you back. If something had happened to you, what would your mother do?!”

The scent of rouge washed over him. The sound of water in Ying Fusheng’s ears receded. He looked down at Consort Ning’s hand gripping him with excessive force. The friction of fabric against skin brought a sting that pulled him back to himself. She seemed entirely unaware of how roughly she was holding a child in the middle of a fever. In just a few short sentences, beneath a veneer of gentle concern, she was in fact reproaching him for falling in and causing trouble, and blaming him for his recklessness.

When Consort Ning finished and the small figure in her arms said nothing, she said, “You child, why aren’t you saying anything?”

“My lady, His Highness has only just regained consciousness. Please handle him with care,” the physician said at last, with tactful delicacy. “But that he has woken at all is already a great blessing!”

Consort Ning seemed to realize this only then, and quickly asked the physician what she needed to watch for, every bit the flustered, anxious mother.

The physicians and palace attendants around them, seeing this, offered Consort Ning reassurances that His Highness was blessed by heaven.

Listening to this hollow performance, and taking in the physicians’ placid, soothing expressions, Ying Fusheng finally remembered what moment in time this was. This was the winter night in his childhood when he had fallen into the water and nearly not recovered. The physicians had treated him through the night to pull him back from the gates of death. The fall left him ill for a long time and planted the seeds of a lasting ailment. Consort Ning had hushed the whole thing up, telling everyone the prince had been reckless and playful, while putting on her performance as a devoted and virtuous mother, earning herself quite the reputation for benevolence.

“Your Highness, is there anything causing you discomfort?”

After a while, the physician finally sensed something was off.

Through several exchanges, the Sixth Prince had not reacted at all. He had barely even moved.

He had long heard that Consort Ning and the Sixth Prince shared a close bond, and that she had even kept vigil through the night. Yet looking at them now, the Sixth Prince and Noble Consort Ning seemed almost like strangers. The young eunuch had gotten a response earlier, so why was it that with Noble Consort Ning, the prince had not said a single word?

In the past, whenever Consort Ning said things like this, Ying Fusheng would have agreed at once. But today, for some reason, Ying Fusheng did not react for a long moment. The physician nearby glanced over. Consort Ning’s jaw tightened slightly. She called to him in a soft voice and dug her fingers into Ying Fusheng’s hand, trying to force a response out of him.

The child sitting on the bed did not move. He leaned against Consort Ning’s embrace, his lips alarmingly red from the fever, his hair loose around his face. A pair of dark eyes looked up at Consort Ning, and for a moment it gave the unsettling impression of a vengeful spirit coming to collect a debt. The palace attendants, catching on, thought back to the delirious things His Highness had said when he first woke, and felt a creeping unease.

At last, just as the physician was about to step forward, the Sixth Prince finally spoke. “I’m thirsty.”

“Bring the medicine,” the physician said.

The eunuch Song’an rose at once and went to fetch the medicine for Ying Fusheng.

When he brought it back, Consort Ning took it from him. She carefully brought it to Ying Fusheng’s lips. “Here, Sheng’er. Mind the heat.”

Before she finished speaking, the Sixth Prince’s body gave an uncontrollable shudder. He shifted slightly forward and knocked into Consort Ning’s hand holding the medicine. She had not anticipated it at all. The warm medicine spilled all over her. Her magnificent palace robes were left stained and ruined. For an instant her expression slipped entirely out of her control. The heat made her flinch back, and she nearly cried out.

The people around them paled and rushed forward. Ying Fusheng looked at Consort Ning, then after a moment seemed to register what had happened. He looked at her with concern. “Mother?”

Consort Ning met Ying Fusheng’s gaze and barely managed to compose her expression. “It’s nothing. Sheng’er wasn’t burned, was he?”

The palace attendants scrambled to clean up the mess. Consort Ning’s hand had gone red from the burn. She clenched her teeth and forced a smile, unable even to go and change her robes. “Physician, how is Sheng’er?”

In the midst of the commotion, the physician saw that the Sixth Prince had come around and stepped forward to ask him a few questions. Satisfied that Ying Fusheng responded to each of them, he withdrew to the side and said to Consort Ning, “His Highness fell into the water and took in the cold. Now that he has woken, he will recover. These next few days, however, he must be watched carefully.”

“The palace banquet is nearly upon us. Sheng’er’s condition has stabilized for now, but if word were to spread and cause the Empress Dowager undue worry, that would not do.” Consort Ning’s face was drawn with exhaustion. As she spoke, her gaze kept drifting to the Sixth Prince on the bed, her expression full of concern. “I will have to trouble you these next few days.”

“This subject understands.” The physician bowed gratefully. After all, a prince falling gravely ill after a fall into the water was the sort of thing that could easily bring blame down on the Imperial Medical Office.

Once the physician was finally seen off, Consort Ning’s expression settled back into calm. She looked at Ying Fusheng on the bed, barely concealing her revulsion. All pretense of feeling dropped away. The gaze she turned on Ying Fusheng was the gaze one might give an ordinary patient, holding not a shred of tenderness or pity. She might as well have come only to go through the motions.

Seeing that Ying Fusheng showed little reaction, she thought to herself: what a wretched thing, why didn’t the fever burn him senseless?

A palace maid brought over a freshly prepared bowl of medicine. “Your Highness, the Lady personally oversaw the preparation of this medicine and watched over it for more than an hour.”

Consort Ning’s patience was nearly spent. Mindful of the attendants still present, she schooled her face into a rare look of concern and softened her voice. “The Empress Dowager’s birthday is almost here, and the palace is at its busiest. Your mother has been entrusted with the banquet arrangements. Your imperial father has not yet returned from the frontlines. This is no time for willfulness.”

She talked until her mouth was dry. The stained robes were making her deeply uncomfortable.

Only when she was nearly at the end of her patience did Ying Fusheng finally begin to drink the medicine.

Ying Fusheng drank it down. Consort Ning’s brow finally eased. Seeing that he had drunk nearly half the bowl and was already drowsy, she set the medicine bowl aside, instructed the remaining palace maids to keep watch over him, said that His Highness needed rest and quiet, and left.

The moment Consort Ning was gone, the remaining attendants in the hall watched the Sixth Prince lying there without moving. Especially when his eyes swept over them, it gave everyone a faint, creeping unease.

Hearing the head palace maid say he needed to rest, several of the attendants hurried out after her.

The moment the others left, Ying Fusheng suddenly pressed his hand to his throat. Nausea surged up at once.

He vomited up all the medicine, startling Song’an, who was standing nearby, who immediately tried to call for the imperial physician: “Someone come—”

Ying Fusheng reached out and stopped Song’an. He made sure every last drop of medicine had come back up. His body still trembled with nausea, his chest heaving violently, and his emotions felt unsteady with it. He waited a long while for the worst to pass. The nightmares of the past receded one by one, and only then did he slowly look down at the medicine splattered across the floor…

This medicine could not be drunk. As a child he had been frail, said to have been born with a depleted constitution from the premature birth. Even if he managed to grow up without incident, he would be prone to illness and misfortune.

Consort Ning had been very attentive back then, constantly having people seek out tonics and supplements, wanting to build up his health. It was partly because of this that Ying Fusheng had once believed Consort Ning loved him, only that she was poor at showing it… But later, imprisoned deep within the palace with no one to rely on, it was a kind-hearted elderly female official who examined him and told him the truth: he had been gravely harmed by a secret poison used in the inner palace.

It was a secret drug from the former dynasty. The female official told him that even if an imperial physician examined him, they could only determine that his constitution was depleted. Without knowing the drug’s specific properties, it was nearly impossible to detect. But over time, it corroded the internal organs and affected the mind. Most who took it either went mad or died of illness.

Ying Fusheng stared at the darkening medicine stain on the floor. What appeared to be a life-saving tonic for nourishment and recovery was in fact pushing him toward his end. He looked away and took in the opulent, warm bedchamber around him. In the next moment it seemed to transform into that dim and suffocating cold palace, the howling wind threatening to tear his mind apart.

“Your fever hasn’t broken yet. This servant will go find Bizhu-jiejie and have her order another batch to be prepared.”

Bizhu was Consort Ning’s personal palace maid. Song’an said this and moved to leave.

He had only taken a few steps when he felt a tug at the hem of his robe. He stopped at once, afraid to startle His Highness, and turned to find His Highness’s dark eyes fixed on him. Those eyes were clear, yet seemed to have no bottom to them. Song’an was taken aback.

“Song’an, come closer,” Ying Fusheng said.

Song’an moved closer in a daze. The moment he did, His Highness’s feverishly warm hand reached up and rested against his neck.

The sudden heat startled him. His Highness seemed to be feeling for something at his neck that wasn’t there, and said nothing for a long moment.

“Your Highness?”

Ying Fusheng felt the pulse of life beneath his fingers. The severed head that had refused to close its eyes now had a vitality it had never possessed before. The beating of blood beneath his hand pulled him back to himself. He concealed the look that crossed his face, and after a moment spoke. “It’s nothing. You may go.”

Song’an felt a vague unease, but seeing that His Highness wanted to rest, he had no choice but to withdraw.

Consort Ning had instructed that no one enter, so the outer hall was empty. With Song’an gone, the silence was complete.

It was a silence Ying Fusheng knew well. Many years later, he had lived inside this very kind of silence, the kind that could drive a person to their death.

Ying Fusheng threw on a robe and got up. He lifted the medicine bowl, smelled it, then poured it into the charcoal brazier. The so-called tonic Consort Ning had personally prepared was devoured by the flames in an instant, evaporating without a trace. He walked to the bronze mirror nearby and looked at himself. The young face gave no hint of what it would become. His features were gaunt with illness, and when he lowered his eyes there was a fragility to him. He was already ten years old, yet he looked like a child of seven or eight. His small frame made him appear weak and easily preyed upon, tender and timid, though without the scar that a blade would later leave across his face.

Ying Fusheng’s body burned with fever, yet his heart grew cold inch by inch.

This was a face that bore no resemblance to his mother. If there was any similarity at all, it was perhaps a faint likeness around the brows and eyes to his imperial father. There was nothing of the Ning family’s broad brows and wide eyes…

He had not died.

He had returned to his childhood, to the time before everything began.

Qi-ge was still on his way!