7.
Meeting Princess Vệ Dương was truly unexpected.
If this hadn’t happened, I probably would have gone to Hương Sơn Temple three days later. In my previous life, I heard a guard say that the emperor had gone to a Taoist monastery and been targeted in an assassination attempt. His Majesty flew into a rage, and the interrogation of the Tô family was delayed.
Whether it was my father, Hứa Mộc, or Tô Nguyệt Oanh, they were all just servants or noble young ladies now—not worth fearing. What was truly concerning was that the new emperor would attack the capital years later.
Father and the First Madam had been secretly sleeping together for years. Tô Nguyệt Oanh was already so grown, nearly old enough to pin up her hair. Why did he suddenly want to take them away?
What would he do with them after taking them away? Was he sure he could give them a better life than they had with the Tô family?
Besides, the Tô family had served as officials for four generations and had been firmly established in the capital for nearly a hundred years. How could it collapse so quickly?
There had to be someone backing Father.
In my previous life, I’d heard that Father had joined the new emperor long ago and was deeply trusted.
For now, Father and Tô Nguyệt Oanh had only been thrown in jail. I’d never met the new emperor, and I didn’t know where he was or whether he could reach into the prison.
Going to Hương Sơn Temple to find the emperor was extremely risky, but I had no other choice. I was only a servant girl who worked in the flower garden. Even if the emperor killed me, that would just be my fate.
But Princess Vệ Dương’s appearance truly was a turning point.
“Get in the carriage. We’ll talk there.” Princess Vệ Dương beckoned to me.
I climbed into the carriage without a word. I’d heard that Princess Vệ Dương was wanton and debauched, and it seemed…
As soon as I got in, two handsome young men stared at me.
“Don’t be afraid. They’re just my male favorites.” Princess Vệ Dương patted my shoulder. “Want to hold one?”
Well, it certainly seemed to be true.
8.
Princess Vệ Dương was nothing like the rumors. She seemed innocent and simple.
I told Vệ Dương that someone else might be deeply involved, stirring up trouble in the capital.
But her reaction was beyond anything I’d imagined. She peeled a mandarin and handed it to me. “You know, the wheels of history are always turning. People are only a small part of it, and it’s hard to change anything. It’s best to go with the flow.”
“It’s not that I haven’t tried, but history will ultimately take its own course. We might as well enjoy the life we have now.”
I knelt. “Even if…”
I hesitated, unsure how to talk about my previous life.
“Even if what?” Princess Vệ Dương looked at me with a smile. “Even if the dynasty is destroyed? Even if I’m hacked to death?”
I was startled. I pressed my forehead to the floor, cold sweat breaking out across my back. In my previous life, when the new emperor attacked the capital, the emperor took his own life, and his younger sister was hacked to death by the soldiers who stormed the palace.
Could Princess Vệ Dương have been reborn too? If so, shouldn’t she want to change everything even more than I did? Why did she want to go with the flow?
Princess Vệ Dương pulled me to my feet, leaned close to my ear, and whispered quickly, “Prosperity, democracy, civility, harmony, freedom.”
I didn’t react, so she hurriedly said, “How much is a shirt rack?”
I still said nothing, feeling confused.
Princess Vệ Dương seemed a little annoyed. She paced back and forth, then sat cross-legged beside the table, propping her chin on one hand. “Quan Trình, I remember you said you were a servant girl in the flower garden, right?”
“I don’t know what you’ve been through, but remember not to say anything careless. I’m a princess; I can make life difficult for a little girl like you.” She spoke fiercely.
Then she seemed to offer some comfort. “Lucky for you, you ran into a kind college student. If you’d met a crafty master, you’d have lost your little life by now.”
“Here’s one last piece of advice.” Princess Vệ Dương’s expression turned serious. “Leave the capital within ten years. Don’t go north, either. Go to Giang Nam!”
I bit down hard on my lip. The new emperor was from another people. He would advance south from the Northern Sixteen Cities and seize the capital. Everywhere he passed, he left no survivors—massacring and looting.
What’s more, when he attacked the capital, his men abducted the women there, whether they were married or not. If they saw one, they took her and handed her over to the soldiers under their command. If there weren’t enough women, one woman had to serve a father, his sons, and his brothers. In those days, screams and wails rang through the capital without end.
Families with strict rules would take a length of white silk and use it to end the lives of their daughters and daughters-in-law, preserving their honor.
In my previous life, I escaped that fate because I was a courtesan. But if I don’t go to a brothel in this life, how will I escape this calamity?
Should I really take Mother away to escape the danger? But Mother’s maternal family was still back there. In my previous life, because her maternal family had nowhere to flee, my pregnant cousin-in-law, my married older cousin, and even my fourteen-year-old younger cousin all failed to escape.
But if I took the whole clan and fled, I sighed. Who could so easily leave the place where their ancestors had lived?
Besides, there were so many other women in the capital. Was I really going to let the tragedy of my previous life happen all over again?
Their civilization trampled by foreign invaders, their homeland laid waste.
I let out a deep sigh, knelt on the ground, and pressed my forehead against the cold floor. “Princess…”
“No need to say more.” The princess waved her hand. “Quan Trình, let me ask you: if, in the future, a general could defeat an army of thirty thousand with only eight hundred men, who do you think my court should send to face him?”
A strange bitterness crossed the princess’s face. She murmured, “Don’t I want to change this humiliating part of history? Just reading about it in the history books is heartbreaking. Countless novels try to save history, but what am I supposed to do now that I’m actually here? That’s the Great General Shenwu!”
I stared at her in shock. The Great General Shenwu? Wasn’t that my father?
I asked cautiously, “Do you mean Quan Thanh? He’s in prison right now.”
Princess Vệ Dương looked a little dazed. I’d thought she would ask me how I knew the Great General Shenwu was Quan Thanh, but instead she asked, “What about Empress Tô? Empress Tô—the woman who bore the late emperor, who had no heirs, four sons?”
“He’s in prison too.”
“General Quảng Uy Hứa Mộc? The one who successively captured four cities and took the capital…”
At that, her eyes suddenly widened. “The man you just beheaded was Hứa Mộc, wasn’t he?”
I felt a little guilty and nodded lightly. “By now, he’s… probably about to die.”
“Good heavens!” Princess Vệ Dương stumbled back several steps in shock, then plopped down in a chair.
“You’ve wiped out the previous dynasty’s entire imperial household, too.”
9.
I became Princess Vệ Dương’s lady-in-waiting.
She was always looking at me with a meaningful expression, muttering things I couldn’t understand.
“Quan Trình, you know, by our tradition, we should be arguing right now. Ten years ago, I should have beaten you. But times have changed, and now everyone likes watching you beat me.”
I said nothing, but she wouldn’t let it go. “Besides, we should be fighting over a man right now.”
Crash…
The porcelain vase in my hands fell to the floor. Princess Vệ Dương hurried over, looking heartbroken. “Oh, no, an antique…”
“Be careful. One day, all of this…” Princess Vệ Dương gestured toward the palace. “Will have to go in my tomb. I want to create jobs for the country, so people can dig around in there for thirty to fifty years.”
To stop the princess from saying any more strange things, I hurriedly said, “Princess, the two people in prison…”
“Don’t worry. They’ve been locked up separately. I’ve hinted to my imperial brother about what you said, too. If nothing comes of it, there’s nothing else we can do. We’ve done all we can.”
As she spoke, Princess Vệ Dương blew on a sheet of paper whose ink was still wet. It was covered in proposals. I glanced at it; the first was to return military command to the generals.
I fell silent. The maternal family of His Majesty and Princess Vệ Dương was the Hạ family, led by Chancellor Hạ, the foremost of the civil officials.
“Though people in later generations have studied this dynasty a great deal, this is my first time putting any of it into practice. I suppose I’m standing on the shoulders of giants,” Vệ Dương muttered.
She started to get up, and I caught her hand. “Princess, have you forgotten? Your maternal grandfather is Chancellor Hạ!”
His help was what enabled His Majesty to ascend the throne back then.
“I know.” Vệ Dương smiled. “My imperial brother knows, too.”
“He’s been planning this for a long time. Otherwise, why do you think my imperial brother was so furious about the imperial examination fraud case? He wanted men from poor families to oppose the powerful clans, but then even the imperial examinations were tainted.”
“If the Ngụy dynasty is to endure, the powerful clans must be defeated.”
10.
Not long afterward, Tô Nguyệt Oanh entered a brothel. In this life, no one took the blame for her.
My father kept his status as Third Master and was led to the execution ground half a month later.
The night before his execution, I went to visit him.
Princess Vệ Dương understood at once and handed me a token. “I understand. It’s a necessary step. Humiliate him. Trample him underfoot.”
My father had grown much thinner. His eyes were bloodshot. When he saw me, he gave a few hoarse laughs. “Quan Trình, you’re too clever for your own good. Quan Trình, you don’t even know who you’ve helped!”
“I know why you came here.” He leaned against the pile of straw beside him. “You came to see whether I regret it.”
“Why would I regret it? Quan Trình, you’re terribly unlucky. I gave that woman birth control, but she still got pregnant. I never wanted you to be born. How could I have considered you my child?”
“Your best option was to take the blame for Nguyệt Oanh. You’ll never guess who that person really is.”
My father laughed eerily. “He’ll take revenge on you.”
I listened silently. When he finished, I smiled.
“Father,” I said softly. “It doesn’t matter whether you care about me. I know you care about Tô Nguyệt Oanh, and that’s enough.”
I stood up. “Tô Nguyệt Oanh has become a prostitute. She’ll suffer all the terrible things you once imagined for her.”
My father suddenly grabbed the bars and shook them frantically. “Quan Trình, what are you going to do? Quan Trình! Quan Trình!”
When I returned to the palace, the princess was painting. I went over to look. Her brushstrokes were as crooked as her handwriting.
Princess Vệ Dương happily held up the painting again. “Look, this is the royal sacred emblem of that dynasty. The people of other ethnic groups all worship it.”
When Princess Vệ Dương turned the paper upside down, I thought the picture looked a little familiar.
I slapped my forehead. What was going on? I was just a servant girl in the flower garden. The only things I saw most often were the older women who worked there and the flowers. Why did this emblem of the other ethnic groups seem so familiar?
Late that night, a heavy rain began to fall.
Amid the rumble of thunder, I shook Princess Vệ Dương awake.
The princess rubbed her eyes and scolded me. “Quan Trình, I really am going to hit you!”
“That emblem…” I took a deep breath, feeling much more clearheaded. “I saw it on Third Master’s prayer beads—the Third Master of the Tô family.”
The day I was taken to the main courtyard, I met Third Master for the first time. Everyone was anxious and uneasy; only Third Master fingered his prayer beads, his expression impossible to make out. On the beads was the very emblem Princess Vệ Dương had just painted.
Princess Vệ Dương immediately sat up and threw on her robe. “Wait here for me.”