I thought of myself as an enlightened person, yet I had never truly regarded them as my equals.
Relying on my modern knowledge, deep down I still looked down on these ancients,
assuming all they knew was the three obediences and four virtues and raising children, and that they could never truly accept modern ideas of equality.
But as it turned out, I was the one bound by the deepest and heaviest chains.
When Triệu Diệp cast me aside and I drained the cup of poisoned wine, I thought my heart had withered to deadwood and ash.
But when I saw the look in Thẩm Phù Nhược’s eyes—
full of ambition, like an undying flame.
I had kindled that flame myself. Now I was willing to give my life to become its eternal fuel.
So I willingly knelt before her, pledged my allegiance, and let her command me.
For her ambition, and for the ideals and aspirations we shared,
I put on a human-skin mask and became an ordinary palace maid at her side.
Just like that, more than twenty years passed.
11.
After Triệu Diệp gave me the poisoned wine, he pretended to be moved as he reminisced about our past affection.
While I was alive, I was a hidden threat to him.
But once I was dead, I became a pure, untarnished moonlight.
Thẩm Phù Nhược saw through his hypocrisy and personally brought a woman who looked exactly like me to his side.
The woman who stood in for me looked seven or eight parts like me, but was more delicate and gentle.
What’s more, she was a courtesan, skilled at pleasing men.
I personally coached her in every word and gesture, so that her every move would resemble mine even more.
I also taught her some modern knowledge—
enough to make her seem novel and interesting to Triệu Diệp, but not enough to make him feel threatened.
Most importantly, Phù Nhược gave her the identity of a lowborn commoner’s daughter. Unlike a highborn young lady, she was someone Triệu Diệp didn’t have to be wary of at every turn.
He could let himself go and indulge in the comfort of her arms.
You could say she was a soft trap that Thẩm Phù Nhược and I had personally designed for Triệu Diệp.
He couldn’t help but take the bait.
Sure enough, Triệu Diệp doted on her as if she were the most precious thing in the world, wishing he could tear out his heart and liver and give them to her.
He had three thousand beauties in his harem, yet all his favor was concentrated on one woman.
When I was still “alive,” he had never been so devoted;
after I “died,” he put on a show of being lovesick over the woman who stood in for me.
How ridiculous.
When all was said and done, it was only because he thought the woman was lowborn enough, harmless enough, and easy enough to control
that he could “safely” love her.
And the woman did live up to our expectations as a pawn personally chosen by Thẩm Phù Nhược and me.
A year later, she became pregnant.
Fearing that the great clans might rebel, Triệu Diệp had been secretly giving the consorts in his harem medicine that impaired their fertility.
So to this day, he had no heir.
Because Phù Nhược had taken too much medicine, she would never be able to have children.
But we needed a child.
That was the pawn’s most important purpose.
When she had carried the child for ten months and safely delivered a prince,
her mission was declared complete.
Phù Nhược announced to the outside world that she had died in childbirth from a hemorrhage.
In truth, she was secretly sent back to her hometown to reunite with her family.
—She had been an official’s daughter. Her father had offended the powerful and his entire family had been prosecuted.
The men in the family were exiled to the borderlands, and the women were sent to the Imperial Music Bureau.
Phù Nhược saved her and her family. To repay her, she had willingly become a pawn.
She won Triệu Diệp’s heart and gave birth to an imperial heir.
She did her job very well.
As it happened,
perhaps because she already looked somewhat like me, even the child she gave birth to resembled me by half.
With this child, only one final obstacle remained.
Phù Nhược began giving Triệu Diệp a slow-acting poison.
She gave him a tiny dose each time, making sure to leave no trace that could be detected.
At first, we thought it might take five or six years for his health to completely fail.
But ever since ascending the throne, Triệu Diệp had spent every day immersed in wine and women.
—In truth, if he could have become a wise and capable ruler, I wouldn’t have thrown the whole realm into chaos just for my own selfish reasons.
But how could a schemer who even plagiarized poems written by women become an upright, enlightened ruler once he took power?
Triệu Diệp’s health had never been good, and wine and women had drained him dry.
So the poison took effect faster than we expected.
In the fourth year after ascending the throne, he finally died.
And he had only one son.
The child who looked half like me naturally became the sole heir.
At the time, he was only three years old.
Phù Nhược was his stepmother and the Empress Dowager, so naturally she began ruling from behind the curtain.
The course of events was now set.
12
Throughout those years, Phù Nhược ruled wisely, never daring to rest for even a moment.
I, too, did everything I could to support her from the shadows.
On the surface, I was merely an ordinary palace maid in the Palace of Eternal Longevity.
But in reality, who knew how many of those policies I had issued?
Throughout those twenty years, Phù Nhược and I never forgot the ideals we had once shared.
In our hands, this country grew better, step by step.
But at the same time, the young emperor grew up, step by step.
Phù Nhược had raised him herself, and he looked half like me.
If I could, I truly hoped that the prosperous age Phù Nhược and I had built together would flourish even further under his rule.
But he disappointed me terribly.
He had delusions of grandeur and thought far too highly of himself.
He had none of the bearing or magnanimity of a ruler,
only a belly full of underhanded schemes.
Just like Triệu Diệp before him.
And when he brought Kỷ Linh—
—the woman who looked exactly like me once had, back to the palace, my disappointment reached its peak.
It believed that Kỷ Linh’s intelligence and talent, along with knowledge and techniques far beyond this ancient era, could give it the leverage to stand against the Empress Dowager.
When she was useful, it treated Kỷ Linh like a treasure. When she was no longer of any use, it sent her straight to the Cold Palace.
How utterly heartless.
How could someone so lacking in virtue and ability be emperor?
The realm belongs neither to me, nor to Thẩm Phù Nhược, nor to Triệu Diệp, nor to Triệu Thành, nor to Kỷ Linh…
The realm does not belong to any one person.
The realm belongs to the countless people who live in it.
Those with ability should govern; those of virtue and talent should govern.
Why not?
The system of hereditary succession exists to ensure political stability and a smooth transfer of power, so the common people need not suffer the ravages of war.
But if the government could remain stable without dragging innocent people into it...
Why shouldn’t the old emperor be deposed and a new one enthroned?
Three months after Kỷ Linh was taken from the capital, the young emperor was deposed.
Empress Dowager Thẩm had governed from behind the curtain for twenty years. Now she formally ascended the throne as emperor.
13
The first imperial edict after Thẩm Phù Nhược ascended the throne was to appoint me chancellor.
One after another, the court officials submitted memorials in protest. How could an old palace maid with no accomplishments be fit to serve as chancellor?
But she shut down every objection and insisted on appointing me chancellor.
It was the promise she had made me long ago.
She would rule, and I would serve as her chancellor.
Together, we would have our names carved into the history books.
Twenty-four years in hiding.
Twenty-four years behind a mask.
All for the sake of waiting for this moment.
I had waited far too long.
That day in the Cold Palace, Kỷ Linh once asked me in despair:
“Is there really nothing we can do?”
“I thought I could change this era.”
“But I never imagined that, in the end, it would be the era that changed me.”
No. That wasn’t true.
One person changing an entire era—that was simply impossible.
The progress of an era requires the combined efforts of countless people.
No matter how hard I tried, this feudal society could not transform overnight into the age of freedom and equality I had once lived in.
But I could kindle a flame for them here.
If, back then, at Prince Tấn’s residence, I had casually delivered an impassioned speech that kindled a flame in the heart of a woman whose heart had been still as water...
Then, decades later, she became the first empress in this world’s history.
In this world that does not belong to me, I will raise the banner high and burn bright for all who come after me.
In this world, besides the first empress and the first female chancellor, there will also be the first female general, the first female great scholar, the first female physician, the first female artisan…
When countless people raise their torches together, perhaps we will glimpse a ray of light heralding change.
Even if I cannot live to see that day,
I can still say with pride:
“Because I came into this world, it became a little better.”
That is enough.