My boyfriend had been missing, without explanation, for a full year.

While sorting through his old things, a poster slipped out by accident.

To trace him, I signed up for the “Traveler Tour Plan” printed on it.

At the appointed hour I boarded a commercial minivan bound for the destination.

Along the way, I kindly offered a bottle of water to the carsick middle-aged man beside me.

Just before getting out, he leaned close and quietly left two instructions at my ear.

“If you want to live, never let them find out you are a time traveler.”

“Mid-Autumn night. The Mirror Abyss Platform.”

Zhou Yue and I met on the university campus.

We had planned to hold our wedding once he finished his graduate degree this year.

Through the three hundred-odd days and nights of his disappearance, every single day had dragged by like a year.

Having packed up Zhou Yue’s old things at the school and bought some fruit on the way, I knocked at the Zhous’ door, my heart in my mouth.

Zhou’s mother opened the door with red-rimmed eyes and welcomed me in.

She had raised Zhou Yue alone through every hardship; now she had to bear this blow as well, spending her days at home drowning in tears.

Over the past year she had been to the police station countless times, posted hundreds of pleas across every platform, and even spent her saved retirement money on a detective.

Yet every effort sank like a stone into deep sea, yielding nothing at all.

After I set the old things back in Zhou Yue’s room, I saw a copy of Studies in Economics on the desk, veiled in a thin layer of dust.

I picked the book up gently, shook it out, and was about to return it to the bookcase.

A folded poster slipped lightly from between its pages, and across it stood several words in deep red: TRAVELER TOUR PLAN.

And the time window was precisely the period when he had vanished a year before.

Could this be some new kind of northern-Myanmar scam?

Unable to bear giving Zhou’s mother false hope, I hid the poster away in secret, meaning to verify it on my own.

Back home, I found, as expected, no registered information about this travel agency anywhere online.

Still clutching a thread of luck, I dialed the registration number on the poster.

Before long, a mechanical system voice came through the receiver.

“Registration for the Time Traveler Tour closes after six p.m. Only one place remains. To apply, press 1.”

I pressed 1, and the line was instantly cut.

Almost at the same moment, a message appeared on my phone.

The registration fee was thirty thousand yuan, payable to an overseas bank account.

Once the transfer succeeded, tomorrow’s gathering point would be sent; registration in any form would close after six.

I checked the time: it was half past five.

Could so obvious a scam truly be connected to Zhou Yue’s disappearance?

As the deadline crept closer, I gritted my teeth and wired the money.

The reply came quickly.

Assembly was at ten the next morning, at a nearly abandoned open-air parking lot on the city outskirts.

Before leaving, I told the whole story to a classmate who served on the police force.

He gave me a satellite positioning tracker, a little black square the size of a fingernail.

Other officers had been posted to watch the area; if this truly turned out to be a human-trafficking case, cracking it would be a major merit for them.

At the appointed place I was startled to find six other fools just like me!

A pair of newlyweds, and three teenage girls traveling as a group.

The last was a middle-aged man who looked burdened with worry.

I could only sigh to myself in silence.

These people were so rich—and so easy to cheat!

Soon a silver commercial van glided in.

The driver looked honest and simple; after waving us aboard he prepared to set off.

I was seated beside the middle-aged man. Seeing his pale face, I offered him the window seat of my own accord.

He thanked me, sat down, and closed his eyes to rest.

The silver van pulled smoothly away from the abandoned lot, dense green trees lining both sides of the road.

A steady humming began to sound in my ears. Turning my head, I saw the man beside me forcing down waves of discomfort.

I rummaged a bottle of water from my bag and held it out.

“Are your ears ringing too? Have some water to settle it; it helps.”

Just before getting out, he leaned close and quietly left two instructions at my ear.

“If you want to live, never let them find out you are a time traveler.”

“Mid-Autumn night. The Mirror Abyss Platform.”

I was about to chase after him for details, but the instant the soles of my shoes touched the ground, a sudden vertigo swept over me like a tide.

The moment I opened my eyes, I had a new identity.

Song Yuheng—the legitimate daughter of Song Huaimin, Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial.

I had expected to wake in some industrial park in northern Myanmar.

Instead, this was a genuine transmigration.

After the evening meal in the main hall, Father summoned me to the study with a grave expression.

“In another month comes the palace selection.”

“I had thought sending you back to Danzhou would let you dodge it—yet when the Inner Court delivered the roster, your name was on it all the same.”

He sighed, a grief I could not read in his eyes.

“Your grave illness three months ago—you must keep it absolutely secret.”

“I have already given orders to the household staff. There is no need to fear outsiders learning of it.”

Puzzled as I was, I nodded.

Father waved a hand and told me to go back to my room and rest.

Just as the door was about to close, his voice drifted out, unhurried.

“Remember this—no matter who you were before.”

“From this moment on, you can only be Song Yuheng.”

Cold sweat broke instantly across my palms, the chill spreading from my fingertips to every limb.

As a graduate student of history, the institutions, rites, and conduct of the scholar-official class recorded in the ancient texts had long been carved into my mind.

I had believed my three months of lying low in Danzhou had rendered the part flawless.

I never imagined that on my very first day back at the Song mansion, someone would see through me so easily.

Home for several days, I had not yet properly toured the flourishing capital.

The broad official roads were paved with even bluestone slabs; along both sides ran drainage ditches, and the ways were divided into pedestrian lanes and carriage-and-horse roads.

These details plainly exceeded the bounds of normal history—as if someone were deliberately reshaping the age along a modern pattern.

“Miss, look—another Moonlit Tea Hue has opened here!”

I turned a feigned look of puzzlement toward my personal maid, Que’er, who explained to me with perfect earnestness.

“It’s the most popular tea shop in the capital lately; five branches have already bloomed along West Market Street alone!”

Que’er looked at me expectantly.

“Miss, their Hidden Orchid Brew is the best of all—would you like to try it?”

I nodded and watched with a smile as she dove headlong into the long queue at the door.

“Yue-gege, buy more green plums. I’ve been craving sour things lately.”

A woman’s honeyed voice came from behind. Perhaps because the form of address was so familiar, I turned before I knew it.

The man standing before the candied-fruit stall had clean, handsome lines to his profile and was tilting his head down to speak gently to the woman at his side.

The woman beside him had a faintly rounded belly—plainly with child.

“Oho—sour means a boy, spicy a girl! Congratulations, Lord Zhou.”

The vendor ladled a heaping spoonful of candied green plums into an oil-paper bag.

He held it out to the man with both hands.

“Take this bag of preserves as a congratulatory gift; I hope Your Lordship won’t think it shabby.”

The man accepted it but still ordered his servant to pay silver, smiling mildly as he spoke.

“Earning a living is hard enough. No need for such courtesy.”

With that he said no more, only carefully supporting his wife’s arm and walking slowly toward the end of the street.

As he passed, perhaps sensing how strange my gaze was, he turned his head for a second look.

Watching the pair depart arm in arm, I dug my nails hard into my palms.

Even with a different face, how could I fail to recognize Zhou Yue’s expressions, his movements?

Only one person had ever called him Yue-gege.

Lin Sirou—a junior-year girl from his own department.

I shut my eyes hard, my very breath trembling.

Song Yu, Song Yu—you are utterly ridiculous!

To find him, you gambled everything.

And here he is, holding office with another woman, fathering children, living a life of peace and pleasure.

“Miss, do try it.”

Que’er’s voice pulled me back to reality.

The glazed cup before me brimmed with amber tea.

“You drink it. It doesn’t look like anything special.”

Que’er did not notice anything amiss and cheerfully agreed.

It took me a long time to calm myself.

Whatever lay ahead, for now I could only hide in this body and watch how things turned.

The carriage back to the mansion had just turned into a quiet lane when a dark shadow slipped inside, cat-agile, moving so lightly it barely disturbed anyone.

The next instant, a cold blade pressed against my neck.

“Don’t make a sound. Borrowing your carriage to lie low for a while. I won’t take your life.”

Only when the noise of the searching guards faded into the distance did he withdraw the knife.

“I know you.”

I kept my voice low, staring hard into the middle-aged man’s eyes.

“You knew the travel was real. Why didn’t you warn us before we got on?”

Mockery filled the man’s face.

“A pack of fools who don’t know the height of heaven. Why should I warn you?”

I could not help a self-mocking laugh. He was right.

Willing blow, willing back—what standing did I have to reproach anyone?

“That Mirror Abyss Platform you mentioned before—is it the way back?”

The middle-aged man gave me a puzzled glance.

“What? After coming all this way, you already want back?”

“I came to find someone. Now that I’ve found him, naturally I want to return.”

“Oh? What a coincidence. Is the person you came for willing to go back with you?”

I spread my hands, a tremor I could not keep from my voice.

“He gets whatever he wants these days. I’m an outsider; how could I have any say?”

“Fool beyond redemption. Every time traveler who stays here dies!”

A chill slowly rose in me. I stared at his pale, sharp face.

“Hasn’t this place been developed splendidly by time travelers? Zhou Yue is alive and well—why would he die?”

“Only because he still has value to squeeze out.”

“The moment that last scrap of value is wrung dry, he becomes dry bones for the imperial power to behead.”

“If you know that, why come back and risk it?”

“Because I mean to take my daughter away.”

Back at the mansion, I shut myself in my room.

And carefully thought through what to do next.

According to Uncle Lin, the Mirror Abyss Platform lay in the northwest of the imperial palace, under heavy guard.

Its passage could only be forced open by an outside power once a year, on the night of the full moon.

Which meant I had eight months before I could go back.

Uncle Lin was a discharged soldier. On his first crossing he had infiltrated the palace and become one of the Mirror Abyss Guards.

That was how he had seen things ordinary people could never see.

The Mirror Abyss Platform seemed to have struck a bargain with the emperor of Great Yong: every year it delivered seven time travelers to this world.

The useful ones were kept to develop the dynasty’s economy, culture, military, and the people’s livelihood.

The useless ones were put to the sword the moment they were found.

And Uncle Lin’s daughter, Lin Yan, was the reigning Noble Consort.

She was naturally unwilling to follow her father back to the modern age and live an ordinary, mediocre life.

So she refused to believe a word he said.

What I had to do now was to be kept in the palace as a selected beauty.

Find an opening to win the Consort’s trust, and meet up with Uncle Lin on the night of the full moon.

He would lead us along his earlier route, evade the guards, and get us out of this godforsaken place.

On the day I entered the palace, I solemnly bowed and kowtowed to Father.

Whatever his reason for not exposing me, he had shielded these days of peace for me all the same.

I knelt with the other selected girls on the cold gold bricks of the great hall, my skirt spread around me like layer upon layer of cloud brocade.

“All of you—raise your heads.”

The Consort on the high dais wore the most brilliant of finery, yet a cold aloofness showed between her brows.

She was indeed a beauty of striking color.

A palace servant took a sheet of plain white paper from a tray, and a string of curving, twisting characters met my eyes.

“We are family.”

Three dark lines streaked across my mind. Surely not—so blunt?

The Consort’s voice sounded again.

“Can any of you read the characters on this paper?”

The selected girls in the hall stirred at once, some glancing blankly around, others quietly tugging at a neighbor’s sleeve.

Amid the confusion, a crisp female voice suddenly rang out.

“I can read it!”

Her words had barely landed when a second, rather hurried voice came from the right.

“Me too!”

I sighed, so faintly no one could hear. What a pity.

These two were probably among the three teenage girls from that group trip.

Far away as I was, I clearly saw a flicker of mockery cross the Consort’s lips.

“You two—stay.”

“The rest may be dismissed and sent home.”

A commotion suddenly rose outside the hall, accompanied by a eunuch’s shrill announcement.

“The Emperor arrives—”

I hastily bent lower with everyone else, my forehead nearly touching the cold gold bricks.

Only those two death-defying girls had eyes full of curiosity and hope.

“My beloved consort selects concubines for me like this—you’ll chill the hearts of all my ministers.”

The voice held not a trace of warmth, yet carried an innate imperial majesty.

The Consort on the high seat rose lightly, the corners of her eyes reddening.

“Your Majesty wrongs this concubine with those words.”

“How could I mean to chill the ministers’ hearts? I only thought these girls looked far too constrained and feared they would never catch Your Majesty’s eye.”

The Emperor’s tone softened a little, carrying a thread of hard-to-detect amusement.

“You always have so many excuses.”

A eunuch stepped forward, unrolled the roster in his hands, and his shrill voice rose again.

“Su Qing, daughter of the Vice Censor-in-Chief; Song Yuheng, daughter of the Minister of State Ceremonial—raise your heads.”

Following protocol, I slowly lifted my face and looked forward.

Xiao Lin’s features were extraordinarily handsome—the arc of the nose just right, the line of the jaw clean and decisive.

An aloof, distant nobility clung to him, like the first snow lying on a distant mountain peak.

The instant our eyes met, I hurriedly lowered my lashes and feigned shyness.

With looks like that, no wonder so many came rushing forward, one after another, to die.

“By His Majesty’s decree—”

“Su Qing, daughter of the Vice Censor-in-Chief, dignified and steady, of outstanding bearing: hereby titled Consort Xian, granted residence in the main hall of Yonghe Palace.”

“Song Yuheng, daughter of the Minister of State Ceremonial, gentle and virtuous, measured in every advance and retreat: hereby titled Zhaoyi, specially granted residence in the main hall of Changle Palace. Thus decreed—”

Life in Changle Palace looked, at first, like a still, unrippled pool of spring water.

Xiao Lin never once summoned me to his bed, and I had no need to pay morning respects to the Consort.

Only Nuanxiang, a palace woman newly assigned by the Inner Court, looked like trouble.

One afternoon she sat sullen under the eaves, muttering to herself.

“Hmph. Why should we have paid the same money?”

“You get to dress as a selected girl and be favored by the Emperor, while I can only dress as a palace maid.”

She did not forget to shoot a glare back toward my room.

“What a wretched mistress I got assigned—can’t even catch a glimpse of the Emperor’s coattails.”

From that day on, I moved her to the side hall for menial chores.

With the fate of those two selected girls unknown, I did not want any fellow traveler to discover my identity.

The Consort’s manner that day had looked like far more than simple disbelief, as Uncle Lin claimed.

Perhaps she had always been an accomplice in this screening of time travelers.

Night fell. I had just removed my hair ornaments, and Que’er was making the bed nearby.

Suddenly, frantic pounding came from beyond the courtyard wall.

“Nuanxiang! Nuanxiang, are you there? Open the door, quickly!”

“Xiaoru is already gone! Save me! You’re the only one who can save me!”

The weeping cries grew more and more urgent, interspersed with guards’ shouts.

“There she is! Seize her!”

A bad premonition rose in me, and the palace gate was kicked open from outside with a bang.

I had no time to dress; I threw on an outer robe and went out.

In the moonlight, the figure at the gate stabbed at the eyes.

Xiao Lin wore dark casual robes, a great retinue of servants and eunuchs sweeping along behind him.

Consort Yan leaned half her weight against his chest; as her gaze passed over me, it carried the chill of a half-smile.

Almost without hesitation, I bent and knelt.

“A little ‘cat’ I keep in my courtyard slipped its leash and insisted on coming here to find a playmate.”

“I hope it didn’t frighten Lady Zhaoyi?”

I pressed my head lower, my voice docile and tinged with panic.

“For Your Ladyship and His Majesty to visit Changle Palace is this concubine’s blessing; how could I feel frightened?”

Xiao Lin led Consort Yan to a seat in the courtyard and tapped the tabletop lightly with a fingertip.

“Today’s affair has nothing to do with Lady Song.”

“Rise. You may as well sit and watch a fine show with me.”

“Your Majesty, my friend Nuanxiang is a top student at the music conservatory.”

“She sings beautifully. I’ll find her for you right now.”

The selected girl knelt in the courtyard, her eyes full of all-or-nothing urgency.

“Trash. What use is she?”

“In this palace, musicians who can amuse His Majesty can be grabbed by the handful.”

Consort Yan’s voice rang out suddenly, thick with scorn.

“You, on the other hand, have considerable nerve.”

“Without my permission, you dared try to seduce the Emperor.”

Her eyes, as if quenched in ice, pinned the girl kneeling on the ground.

“Weren’t you planning to perform a dance today?”

A cruel smile curved the Consort’s lips, and she raised a hand to signal the servants behind her.

“Someone—fetch my Twining-Branch Whip.”

Soon two servants came forward bearing a whip with an ebony handle.

Its lash was wound with fine silver thread, and between the threads barbs glinting cold could dimly be seen.

The mere sight of it sent chills down the spine.

“One wrong step, one stroke of the whip.”

“I’d like to see which is prettier—your dance steps, or this whip across your body.”

Consort Yan’s tone was indifferent, as if discussing a trivial matter of no account.

The girl trembled all over and lay prostrating herself, kowtowing again and again.

“Spare my life, Your Ladyship! I know I was wrong! I beg Your Ladyship, let me off!”

“Either dance, or be beaten to death right now—choose.”

The girl’s sobs cut off abruptly. She lifted her head, her eyes full of despair.

She looked at the whip, then at Xiao Lin sitting motionless, and knew she had no choice.

Trembling, she rose and fumbled to straighten her disordered clothes.

Drawing a deep breath, she began to twist her body clumsily.

Her steps followed no pattern at all; it was less a dance than blind thrashing in terror.

Crack—

The crisp lash exploded in the courtyard.

She screamed, stumbled, and dropped to a sitting position on the ground.

A mangled, bloody wound opened instantly across her arm, blood seeping through her sleeve.

“Keep dancing.”

Consort Yan watched with relish until the girl could hold out no longer and collapsed in a bloody heap.

Only then did she turn unhurriedly and lean prettily against Xiao Lin.

“Your Majesty, how did you find her dance? Far more splendid than those palace musicians, isn’t it?”

Xiao Lin’s gaze fell on the half-dead girl without a single ripple.

“As long as it pleases you.”

Five short words, yet they struck my heart like a boulder.

Within these high walls and deep palace, human life had always been light as grass.

But only now did this bone-piercing reality truly jolt me awake.

Lin Yan had come from the modern age just like us.

Yet she had sunk completely into this mire of imperial power—even better than Xiao Lin at using the cruelest means to purge her own kind.

She was no longer Uncle Lin’s daughter. She was the headsman who helped Xiao Lin screen and exterminate time travelers.

From tonight on, I could not indulge the slightest shred of luck.

Consort Yan had bared her fangs, and Xiao Lin watched from the dark.

I would have to play the part of Song Yuheng with far greater care.

“Lady Zhaoyi’s color looks rather poor.”

Consort Yan’s voice came from behind, adding weight to the chill along my back.

I turned at once, still keeping my head bowed.

“Thank you for your concern, Your Ladyship. Perhaps the night wind is cool; it has left this concubine feeling a little cold.”

She changed tack, her gaze sweeping toward the side hall.

“Speaking of which, tonight’s disturbance has dragged on long enough. I am weary.”

“Hand over the girl Nuanxiang in your palace, and today’s business will be considered settled.”

I nodded and sent someone to the side hall to summon her.

Watching the bloodstain drying on the bluestone, only a sigh remained in my heart.

If Nuanxiang had not been so eager to reunite with her dear sister, she might have lived in this palace a while longer.

Suddenly I sensed a searching gaze settle on me.

It was Xiao Lin.

I lifted my eyes on instinct and looked straight into his deep pupils.

Like ink jade steeped in a cold night, fathomless.

“My beloved consort.”

Xiao Lin’s voice rang out suddenly.

“The night is late. Return to your own palace and rest first.”

The smile on Consort Yan’s face froze; she had plainly not expected him to say such a thing.

“Your Majesty means... to stay the night at Changle Palace?”

The hand at my side quietly clenched. Xiao Lin was doing this on purpose!

He knew full well how jealous she was, knew full well a life had just been taken tonight.

Yet he chose this moment to speak of staying—simply to thrust me into the teeth of the storm.

He was an emperor; this kind of unreadable, soundless maneuver was his greatest skill.

Watching others suspect and scheme against one another.

Xiao Lin did not answer, only turned to look at me.

“Lady Song, will you not order someone to help me change and prepare the sleeping couch?”

I dared not hesitate for even a breath and bowed in assent.

“This concubine obeys. I shall see to it at once.”

Then I stepped slowly forward, following at Xiao Lin’s side toward the inner hall.

As Consort Yan left, her expression held undisguised venom and killing intent.

“Lady Zhaoyi must serve His Majesty well. Do not be remiss.”

The candles in the inner hall had long been lit, their warm yellow light spilling softly over the brocade-draped bed.

Xiao Lin walked to the bedside, raised a hand, and undid the jade belt at his waist.

He handed it casually to Que’er at his side, as naturally as if this were his own bedchamber.

Que’er took the belt and, sensing her cue, led the palace maids out, gently closing the hall door behind them.

“Come here.” Xiao Lin’s voice was low, carrying an unmistakable force.

I drew a deep breath and walked slowly to the bed.

Suddenly he reached out, took my wrist, and pulled lightly. Unable to resist, I dropped to a seat at his side.

“You seem very much afraid.”

His breath drew close, warm against the side of my ear.

“Afraid of the Consort—or afraid of me?”

I dared not turn my head; I could only keep my eyes down, my voice trembling a little.

“This concubine... would not dare fear Your Majesty.”

The faintest smile crossed Xiao Lin’s eyes. His fingertip tilted my chin upward.

“In this deep palace, other people’s faces count for nothing.”

“Your only support can be me.”

There was not a trace of tenderness in his eyes—only an emperor’s clarity and control.

Xiao Lin was offering me a choice, and also a warning.

Either lean toward him, become his, and borrow his power to live.

Or defy him and end as those selected girls had ended.

Rather than accept passively, I would break the deadlock myself.

I took a deep breath and pressed down the panic and helplessness in my heart.

Gently I circled his neck and kissed him.

Xiao Lin’s breathing grew abruptly heavy. He raised a hand to clasp my waist, the breath between his lips and teeth growing hotter.

The bed curtains swayed lightly with his movements, gathering all the chamber’s languor within.

From that night on, rewards from the Inner Court flowed into Changle Palace like water.

And along with them came Consort Yan’s open spears and hidden arrows.

Perhaps Xiao Lin had warned her in private, and she had to weigh my standing as the daughter of an eminent clan.

Her harassment always kept a measure of restraint; she did not truly dare take my life.

Still, fending off her underhanded tricks every day left me utterly exhausted.

The third month arrived before I knew it, and the imperial hunting grounds outside the capital showed their first lush growth.

Early that morning Xiao Lin took Consort Yan deep into the grounds, leaving a special instruction before he went.

If I felt bored, I might take the air near the traveling palace.

Glad of the quiet, I changed into a plain ruqun dress and, taking only Que’er, walked toward the wooded park.

“Young lady—fate is kind to us. We meet again today.”

Zhou Yue stood beneath a peach tree not far off, in dark navy casual robes, sharper with official bearing than when I had last seen him.

“Who are you?”

My hand tightened on my handkerchief, but I kept my tone as distant as I could.

Zhou Yue came forward, his gaze on my face, tinged with probing.

“This humble official is Zhou Siyue, Vice Minister of Revenue.”

“From a distance I took the young lady for an old acquaintance of mine. Her name is Song Yu.”

“Lord Zhou, I see.”

I inclined my head slightly and stepped back several paces to draw a clear line.

“Though this concubine’s surname is also Song, I have never heard of any woman named Song Yu.”

At that, the probing light in Zhou Yue’s eyes dimmed.

Following the proper ceremony of a court official toward a rear-palace consort, he slowly bowed.

“I was presumptuous. I beg Your Ladyship’s pardon.”

“Since Your Ladyship’s surname is also Song, may I ask where your ancestral home lies?”

He was still testing me. For an instant I truly wanted to ask him why.

Ask what I had ever been to him. Could seven years really be worth so little?

Ask why, if the woman in his heart was Lin Sirou, he had ever promised me marriage.

But I could not. He was a time traveler already exposed to Xiao Lin’s eyes.

I would not waste any chance to live on a man not worth it.

“I have heard that Vice Minister Zhou is young and accomplished, with a reputation as a devoted husband.”

“Surely he must come from a family that sets great store by filial piety—how else could it have raised a man of both talent and feeling?”

At the words filial piety I deliberately paused.

If any conscience remained in him, he ought to remember the mother at home waiting for his return.

Zhou Yue’s throat worked. In the end he only murmured a low sound of assent and withdrew.

Only after his figure vanished around the bend in the peach grove did I slowly loosen the handkerchief I had been gripping.

My true purpose in coming had been to meet Uncle Lin; instead I had first stumbled into bad luck.

Following the bluestone path on, the peach trees gradually thinned.

I found a pavilion to sit in and sent Que’er to pick wild flowers by a distant stream.

Only when she was far off did Uncle Lin show half his face from behind a pavilion pillar.

“I must see Yan’er once.”

“Uncle Lin, you know perfectly well what she has become. She stopped being the daughter you knew long ago.”

“I know!”

Uncle Lin’s voice shot up, then he quickly lowered it, struggle filling his eyes.

“I will bring my daughter back. Once we’re back, she’ll be all right again.”

Helpless, I sighed and dropped my voice.

“Tonight at the hour of the dog, I will lure her to the peach grove west of the traveling palace.”

I paused, looking at him heavily.

“But Uncle Lin, let me say the ugly words first.”

“If you cannot persuade her, do not drag me into it.”

At the hour of the dog, moonlight spilled through the branches onto the ground, mottled as scattered silver.

Lin Yan must already have received the secret letter saying I was meeting a man in the depths of the peach grove.

To make the play complete and convincing, I had Uncle Lin bind me.

Suddenly a steady tread of footsteps came from outside the grove, with the crisp clash of guards’ armor.

“Lady Zhaoyi, what audacity! You dare meet an outside man secretly at the hunting grounds.”

Lin Yan’s voice rose sinisterly from behind.

“Yan’er. It is me.”

With one hand Uncle Lin tore off his face-veil; the other held a long blade at my neck.

“Hmph. What have you come back for?”

“Last time His Majesty spared you for my sake. Don’t mistake kindness for weakness.”

“Yan’er, stop helping him kill! He will kill you too!”

Uncle Lin cried out in bitter anguish.

“Don’t compare me with those trash! His Majesty said so himself—I am the most unique being in all this world!”

“He could never, ever kill me!” Lin Yan corrected him, furiously angry.

Seeing her so bent and unrepentant, Uncle Lin’s eyes slowly reddened.

“Yan’er, what will it take for you to come home with me?”

Her gaze swept to me; as it passed over my bound wrists, a smile curved her lips.

“After all these years, you’ve finally done one thing that pleases me.”

She pointed at me, her tone an order beyond question.

“Kill her, and I will go back with you.”

All color drained from Uncle Lin’s face.

“I seized her only to lure you here to meet.”

“She is innocent! Yan’er, how did you become this? Is killing truly so easy for you?”

“Since you insist on refusing a toast only to drink a forfeit, don’t blame me for being ungracious.”

“Rest assured. After you die, your daughter will burn plenty of paper money for you.”

The words barely out, she turned slowly away, leaving Uncle Lin only her resolute back.

“Hear me, Feathered Forest Guard: Lady Zhaoyi has met an outside man in secret, polluting the palace quarters.”

“Today shoot the two of them dead on the spot—to correct palace discipline and warn all others!”

Dozens of arrows leveled at us at once, their points gleaming with menacing cold.

I closed my eyes in resignation. Why was the hidden piece I had set to break this deadlock making no move?

“Since when do my Feathered Forest Guard take orders from you?”

A figure stepped slowly out of the shadows, and the pressure around him silenced the noisy grove in an instant.

Lin Yan’s body went rigid; the cold ruthlessness she had worn moments before mostly dissolved.

“Your Majesty! What brings you here? This concubine... this concubine only saw the assassin holding Lady Zhaoyi and lost her head in her anxiety, hoping to share Your Majesty’s burdens.”

She reached to take Xiao Lin’s sleeve, but he eluded her without seeming to move.

“Consort. I have warned you.”

“Lady Song is the daughter of a senior minister, a concubine I personally enfeoffed.”

“To move against her is to move against my arrangement of the court.”

Lin Yan’s face went white as paper, her voice close to tears.

“This concubine... knows she was wrong! I forgot the weight of things for a moment; I beg Your Majesty’s pardon.”

I quietly raised my eyes and shot Uncle Lin a glance out of the corner of them.

He understood at once. Keeping the long blade at my side, he drew me back into a stretch of ink darkness behind us.

“Don’t anyone come closer!”

Uncle Lin raised his voice deliberately, even as his eyes swept the surroundings like a falcon’s.

In a few breaths he left only a rush of hurried footsteps, soon dissolving into the wind.

Only when he saw I was safe did Xiao Lin issue orders to the guards behind him.

“If alive, bring the person; if dead, bring the corpse.”

I kept my eyes down and quietly let out a breath.

A secret passage along the route led straight to the outer edge of the hunting grounds; no mishap should befall him.

Only two palace lanterns burned in the warm chamber of the traveling palace, and the air was strangely delicate.

“Don’t move.”

Xiao Lin took a cotton cloth and gently wiped the fine beads of blood welling from my neck.

“Since you had the presence of mind to send me a plea, weren’t you afraid that man would turn the play real?”

Neither anger nor pleasure could be read in his tone; the cloth passing over my neck left a fresh, clean coolness.

I looked up at him, deliberately reddening the rims of my eyes and softening my voice.

“Of course I was afraid. But this concubine truly cannot withstand Consort Yan’s constant provocations.”

“I could only use this chance to beg Your Majesty to judge for me.”

“So you truly took my words to heart.”

The usual cold hardness in his eyes quietly receded a degree, and even the ridge of his brow relaxed.

“There is one thing this concubine does not understand.”

“Why would Consort Yan’s own father lure her out to meet him in such a way?”

Xiao Lin bent closer, his brow lifting faintly, a touch of boyish mischief in it.

“What? You really want to know?”

His fingertip slowly stroked my earlobe, a hint of temptation in it.

“Serve me well tonight.”

“Tomorrow, I will take you somewhere wonderful.”

Could the wonderful place he meant be the Mirror Abyss Platform?

I steadied my heart and met Xiao Lin’s desire-filled eyes with fervor.

So be it. It is not my body anyway.

I had only one goal: to go home!

The palace before us had walls several zhang high, iron brambles along their tops glinting with a cold, sharp sheen.

Xiao Lin nodded and stepped through the gate; I followed close at his heels.

A muffled sound carried from far away—like the clatter of iron chains dragged across the ground.

After walking a while longer, a towering platform rose before us.

It was built entirely of ink-black jade, polished bright as a mirror.

Over ten zhang tall, its summit wreathed in cloud and mist so that its true shape could not be made out.

I stood nailed to the spot by the eerie sight.

Such a structure utterly exceeded everything I knew of ancient craftsmanship, and looked like nothing modern technology could forge either.

“This is a divine miracle.”

Xiao Lin’s voice rose slowly behind me, tinged with reverence.

“A national-fortune miracle that shields my Great Yong dynasty, keeping its mountains and rivers eternal and its altars enduring for a thousand autumns.”

He seemed to sense my daze and turned his head to glance at me.

“Has my beloved consort nothing she wishes to ask?”

It took me a long while to find my voice.

“Does this place have to do with where the Consort and the man who held me came from?”

At that Xiao Lin did not answer at once; a meaningful smile curved his lips.

He reached out, his warm palm covering the back of my hand.

With an undeniable force, he led me toward a small room beside the platform.

The room was far smaller and more cramped than I expected, with space for only three or four to stand, its walls covered in dark mottled stains.

Whether the grime of years or blood long dried, I could not tell.

Thick chains were wound around a stone pillar in the corner.

On the floor lay a rusted iron collar and instruments of torture I could not name.

“People... were once imprisoned here?”

I could not help speaking, a barely detectable tremor in my voice.

The scene was more oppressive than the dungeons beyond the palace walls.

Every object breathed despair and cruelty, silently recounting past suffering.

“It is rather a long story. Does my beloved consort truly wish to hear it?”

Complicated emotions churned in Xiao Lin’s eyes: coldness, humiliation, and a thread of fragility.

As if moved by some unseen hand, I nodded.

“At fourteen, I chanced upon my imperial father striking a bargain with a man whose face I could not see.”

“From that day on, this became a forbidden quarter, and a Mirror Abyss Platform appeared out of thin air.”

“Father said it was a divine miracle—a gift from the gods of heaven to Great Yong.”

“Later, the princes’ struggle grew fiercer by the day.”

“If I did not risk everything, I would only die beneath a brother’s blade.”

Xiao Lin suddenly sat cross-legged on the ground, as if sinking into memory.

“One day, a young man from the divine miracle appeared before me.”

At the mention of that man, a light flickered through Xiao Lin’s eyes, there and gone.

But the next instant the light was swallowed entirely by heavy gloom.

“He helped me win over court officials, helped me plan campaigns, even put on armor himself and took a fatal arrow for me on the battlefield!”

“I thought then that I had found the one person in all the world to whom I could turn my back in trust.”

“I gave him the tiger tally of the armies. I gave him the keys to the treasury. I gave him every scrap of trust I had!”

“But on the very day of my enthronement, he imprisoned me here.”

“He said he was the ruler more fit for this world.”

Xiao Lin’s voice shot upward, every word wrapped in hatred.

“Two years. Two entire years.”

“I was trapped in this place... unable to live, unable to die.”

At the end he turned his head aside on instinct, avoiding my gaze.

True torment never lay in the flesh.

For some reason my eyes suddenly burned, and warm liquid rolled down without warning.

Even I was stunned. Why was I feeling his past along with him?

Could these nights of sharing a bed have planted feelings in me I ought never to have had?

“Your Majesty...”

I opened my mouth, wanting to offer comfort, yet not knowing where to begin.

“What happened then?”

The next instant, Xiao Lin’s warm thumb gently brushed the corner of my eye.

As if steadying his feelings, or as if confirming something.

“Then,”

“the miracle answered.”

His fingertip slowly drew back from my cheek, his voice calmer now, settled.

“Five elder ministers, your father among them, launched a coup. The court would recognize only the blood of the Xiao line.”

“They rescued me.”

It suddenly occurred to me that for him to lay his past bare before me like this, he might already know something.

“So the Consort and her father both came from the miracle?”

“My beloved consort asks what she already knows.”

Xiao Lin’s gaze rested on my face with a knowing smile, making my heart race all the more.

I kept my eyes down and spoke haltingly.

“This concubine was only thinking that Your Majesty must have spoken such heart-baring words to Consort Yan before?”

“You and she are not the same.”

“What she wants, I see through at a glance.”

He raised my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze.

“What I cannot see through—that is what makes it interesting.”

The warmth of his fingertip traveled through my chin, burning a little, and color rose in my cheeks beyond my control.

Just then, hurried footsteps sounded outside the door.

“Your Majesty, this old slave has an urgent report.”

At that, Xiao Lin gathered his emotions and stepped out of the little room first.

I tactfully withdrew toward a stretch of palace wall nearby, working the stiffness from my bones as I went.

However low the eunuch kept his voice, it reached my ears all the same.

“Your Majesty, this year’s delivery of flower fertilizer is poor in quality; five baskets have already been scattered empty.”

“Of the two baskets left, the men sent yesterday failed to recover one, and the other has gone silent without a trace.”

A chill rose from the soles of my feet, and the familiar feeling flooded back.

Yes. This was how it should be.

Toward Xiao Lin I could feel fear, terror, defense.

Only never pity, sympathy, heartache.

I had barely steadied my heart when a burst of dragging chains came from behind.

With it, the Mirror Abyss Guards’ harsh shouts.

“Stop him! Don’t let him get away!”

It was a man in tattered hemp prison garb, his face caked with filth and wounds.

His muddy eyes were threaded with blood, and he shouted as if possessed.

When the moon is full, the Abyss opens;

seven souls fall into Yong.

Three years and no return—

bones turn to dust, bones to wind.

Three years and no return! Bones to dust and wind!

Bones—turned—to wind!

That final howl entered my ears like a poison-tempered needle.

So this was what the answering of the miracle meant.

Those who stayed in this time always thought that with their foresight alone,

they could realize great ambitions here and live a wholly different life.

The “rebirth” they imagined was only a one-way journey lasting three years.

Yet even with only three years, Xiao Lin—warned by what had come before—would exterminate every outsider.

At the fall of the Mirror Abyss Guard’s blade, the man in prison garb dropped with it and made no more sound.

“Did my beloved consort take fright?”

Xiao Lin’s voice came from behind, stripped of all emotion.

I turned slowly, forcing down the nausea rising in my stomach.

“Who was he?”

“Him? A merchant.”

Xiao Lin flicked a sleeve, his tone light as anything.

“I hear he opened many tea shops and inns in the capital. Quite a hand at business.”

“Then why... kill him?”

“Because he was too clever. He forced his way into the Mirror Abyss Platform. He wanted to go back.”

With that, Xiao Lin glanced at me meaningfully.

“People who are too clever don’t live long.”

His gaze chilled me to the bone. I was just about to speak

when I heard Xiao Lin already turn and instruct the servants.

“Someone—Lady Zhaoyi has been frightened. Escort her back to Changle Palace to rest.”

The imperial physician had barely left Changle Palace when I collapsed onto the soft couch.

Que’er held the pregnancy tonic he had left behind, joy impossible to hide on her face.

“Your Ladyship, you are with child! This is a heaven-sent blessing!”

I had been in the palace only three or four months and had entirely forgotten such a thing could happen.

Now that I carried his child, it had become a thorny problem.

I believed I had not shown the slightest crack; everything in the Mirror Abyss might simply be a test Xiao Lin had staged on purpose.

My fingertip traced lightly across my belly, and a thought gradually grew clear.

Perhaps I could pretend to be like Lin Yan.

To drown in his imperial favor, to long to bear his child.

Only then could I lower his guard and pave the way for the escape on Mid-Autumn night.

At dusk, the courtyard gate of Changle Palace was suddenly kicked open.

Lin Yan signaled the servants behind her to step forward and pin me hard against the couch.

She looked down at me, a nearly twisted smile on her lips.

“His Majesty promised me.”

“No one is allowed to bear a child before me!”

With that, she took the bowl of medicine an old woman held out and moved to force it into my mouth.

“Stop!”

Xiao Lin had already strode in, a terrifying pressure rolling off him.

Before Lin Yan could react, he drove a kick hard into her waist and abdomen.

With a thud, Lin Yan crashed heavily to the ground.

The medicine bowl flew from her hand, black liquid splattering across the floor.

With a commotion this large, how could Xiao Lin not have known?

Yet Lin Yan insisted on the gamble.

Gambling that her long companionship might buy a sliver of indulgence.

Xiao Lin stood over her, not a trace of pity in his gaze.

“You dare touch my heir!”

Lin Yan struggled to reach out and seized the hem of his robe.

“Your Majesty! You promised me!”

She looked up, her face streaked with tears.

“Why may she, and I may not?”

Xiao Lin did not answer. He only spoke coldly.

“Someone.”

“By my decree: Lin is stripped of the rank of Noble Consort, reduced to commoner, and removed to her former quarters under guard.”

Guards stepped forward and took her arms, one on each side.

Her whole body had gone weak, yet she screamed with every ounce of strength she had.

“Xiao Lin! Have you no heart at all?”

“I have stood at your side for nearly three years. I did so much for you!”

“How can you treat me like this?”

Her screams faded with the dragging footsteps, and the hall finally returned to dead silence.

Xiao Lin sat down beside me and swept his gaze over my faintly pale face.

“Rest easy, my beloved. Such a thing will never happen a second time.”

I nodded and, under cover of adjusting my seat, leaned my head onto his shoulder.

Xiao Lin seemed pleased with my docility and raised a hand to pat my back gently, a rare warmth in the gesture.

Lin Yan’s three-year term was nearly up. If she did not go back this year, her end was plain to see.

As for me, I wanted to be neither a chess piece nor a discarded one.

Since my elevation to consort rank, Xiao Lin spent nearly every night at Changle Palace.

By day, after finishing court affairs, he would walk with me in the courtyard.

After the evening meal at night, he would sit on the soft couch by the window

and tell me strange tales from among the people; when the mood took him, he would even speak of key movements at court.

I never deliberately hid my abilities, but I always kept to my proper bounds.

I gave only reasonable answers suited to the moment, following this dynasty’s own logic through the eyes of a well-born lady.

In the quiet deep of night we nestled together like the most ordinary couple on earth.

Since he took such pains to build an illusion of love, I let myself pretend to drown in it.

We two shared one bed and dreamed different dreams, each hiding our own designs.

And so two months passed in uneventful peace.

When the servant came with the summons, I was sitting under the corridor watching Que’er prune a potted plant.

“His Majesty asks Your Ladyship to come to the study of the Hall of Mental Cultivation at once; he says there is important business to discuss.”

My heart sank faintly. This did not sound like good news.

I had barely crossed the threshold when I saw Zhou Yue kneeling before the bright yellow desk.

My steps paused, and I looked instinctively toward Xiao Lin behind the desk.

He was reading a memorial with downcast eyes; seeing me arrive, he had a chair moved to his side.

“Does my beloved consort know the man kneeling in this hall?”

Before I could answer, Zhou Yue on the floor had jerked his head up.

As his eyes met mine, a clear layer of guilt rose in them.

“I did meet Lord Zhou once at the spring hunt.”

“That day Lord Zhou mistook this concubine for an old acquaintance. I explained it clearly at the time, and we have had no dealings since.”

I kept my eyes down, my voice as level as still water.

As the words fell, the hand Xiao Lin had resting on the desk tightened faintly.

“Then is Vice Minister Zhou lying to me?”

Zhou Yue trembled all over, panic across his face.

“Xiao-Yu... I beg you, beg you to tell His Majesty the truth!”

“Sirou only recently gave birth. You are about to be a mother yourself. For the sake of all mothers, I beg you—save our family of three!”

My nails bit quietly into my palms before I could press down the fury surging in my chest.

Then I turned to Xiao Lin with a look of helpless confusion.

“Your Majesty, this concubine is truly bewildered.”

“There is something my beloved consort does not know...”

“Lord Zhou learned somehow that the Mirror Abyss Platform can return a man to his homeland.”

“Today he came to beg me to let him go back, to bring his mother here to spend her old age in comfort and see her month-old grandson.”

Xiao Lin paused, undisguised killing intent flashing through his eyes.

“But my Mirror Abyss Platform has always admitted, never released.”

“By this act Lord Zhou has committed the palace’s gravest taboo. His crime deserves death.”

A faint, playful smile rose to his lips as he looked steadily at me.

“Just now, though, he begged me for one more thing.”

“He begged me, for my beloved consort’s sake, to spare his life.”

Xiao Lin took my right hand, as if examining a rare and delicate object.

“Might my beloved consort tell me whether I should grant him this face?”

At that, Zhou Yue trembled and buried his head lower still.

“I beg my cousin, for the sake of our years of affection, to plead for this humble official before His Majesty!”

The word cousin was sheer mockery.

Knowing one careless step meant death, he was still this eager to lash me to his boat.

If seven years of feeling could be this laughable,

on what grounds did he believe

that an emperor who had known me barely half a year would be the exception?

I hid the coldness in my eyes and spoke with perfect gravity.

“Your Majesty, Lord Zhou’s words are the ravings of a man gone mad.”

“This concubine’s own mother died young, but when she married into the Song family, the three matchmakers and six betrothal gifts were known to court and country alike. The clan has many branches, yet there has never been a marriage tie to any Zhou family—much less any talk of cousins.”

With that, I gently freed my hand from Xiao Lin’s, braced it on the edge of the desk, and slowly rose.

“Long sitting harms the body. I beg Your Majesty’s leave to withdraw first.”

“As for Lord Zhou’s case, however Your Majesty decides to handle it is wholly Your Majesty’s to decide.”

After a moment, Xiao Lin’s calm voice came.

“Permitted.”

I turned, took the servant’s supporting hand, and walked slowly out of the hall.

Behind me, from the study, Zhou Yue’s heart-rending cries still carried.

“Xiao-Yu... I beg you, reason with His Majesty again!”

“Song Yu! You cannot simply walk away like this!”

I looked ahead toward Changle Palace, and desolation spread up from the bottom of my heart.

Years ago, buried in the study of history, my teacher once said

there was no need to regret past choices.

For every choice, right or wrong, was a footnote to a life; and it was precisely these scattered footnotes that pieced together history’s one and only course.

Yet at this moment I regretted beyond words

that for such a man I had personally dialed the registration call that dragged me into this desperate place.

Night fell, and the servants had put out Changle Palace’s candles.

Xiao Lin’s arm curled gently around my waist, his hair still damp from his bath.

“Aren’t you curious how I finally dealt with him?”

“No.” I answered softly, my voice calmer than I expected.

“His life or death has nothing to do with this concubine.”

Having spoken the words, I suddenly felt a weight lift.

I was no saint. I was only an ordinary person trying to survive in this deep palace and get home as soon as I could.

I had neither the time nor the heart to pity a man who had betrayed me.

Only our shallow breathing remained in the curtains. My eyelids were growing heavy when he suddenly spoke.

“Are you Song Yu—or Song Yuheng?”

The words were like a dull knife, lightly slicing through the thin paper we had so carefully maintained between us.

At this point, who I was truly no longer mattered.

So long as I gave the answer he wanted, the deadlock was broken.

I gently took his hand and laid it on my belly, which did not yet show.

No stirring of life could be felt there yet, but it was enough to serve as the steadiest bond between us.

“This concubine can only be Song Yuheng.” My voice was calm and certain.

Xiao Lin’s hand passed lightly across my belly, as if holding something precious.

“I did not kill Vice Minister Zhou.”

His lips settled lightly on the crown of my head, his voice carrying a hoarseness of unguardedness.

“Rest easy. I will not let you become like them.”

The night was still long, but I knew I would sleep well tonight.

Uncle Lin truly had far-reaching means; from somewhere he found a man to bring word.

On Mid-Autumn night they would make a major move, and I must find a way to reach the Mirror Abyss Platform.

The wind of the seventh month already carried a hint of summer heat. I sat staring at a string of jade beads on my wrist

when a servant suddenly reported that Consort Xian, Su Qing, was begging an audience at the palace gate.

The moment she saw me, she forgot ceremony altogether, seized my hand, and pulled me outside.

“Sister Song, you are the only one who can beg His Majesty for mercy!”

She gripped my wrist until it ached; I could only follow with small steps, one hand at the small of my back.

“Sister Su, what on earth has happened?”

“At this morning’s court, my father joined Lord Song in a memorial, asking His Majesty to destroy the Mirror Abyss Platform!”

“They said... said the platform is a source of calamity; keeping it would only let more ‘anomalies’ force their way in and unsettle Great Yong’s foundations!”

“Hearing them, His Majesty flew into a rage on the spot. He said they presumed to debate a divine miracle and sentenced them to the court bastinado.”

“Sister Song, you know as well as I do—they are old bones now. On ordinary days they can’t even withstand a chill. After thirty strokes, what life could be left in them?”

Hearing her out, my steps quickened as well.

Father’s kind face rose clearly before me. He had shielded me, after all; by feeling and by reason, I could not let him die so wrongly.

When Su Qing and I hurried to the Hall of Mental Cultivation, I saw two figures kneeling on the vermilion steps from far away.

“If the ruler bids the minister die and the minister refuses, that is disloyalty.”

“But if, one day, this Mirror Abyss Platform costs us the rivers and mountains the Great Yong ancestors conquered—then I am no minister of a fallen dynasty. You, Your Majesty—you would be the fallen-dynasty ruler!”

Song Huaimin held his spine straight, every word ringing like metal, shaking the ears.

He was only a Minister of State Ceremonial, no powerful minister at all.

In that moment I seemed to see, through history, the upright minister’s backbone praised again and again in the histories.

“Insolence!”

“Song Huaimin! Do not think that because of your support in years past you may run your mouth so before me!”

“You do not understand my good intentions at all!”

Xiao Lin’s voice shot up, carrying the indignation of a man understood by no one.

“Since you are bent on death, I will grant your wish this very moment.”

Seeing this, I hastily knelt on the jade steps, supporting my lower back.

“Calm your anger, Your Majesty! The two lords meant no offense.”

“They only fear for the dynasty, afraid the platform will breed disaster; that is why they lost their sense of proportion!”

Xiao Lin’s gaze slowly settled on my belly, and the fury burning in his eyes gradually lost a degree of ferocity.

“You plead for them—are you not afraid I will turn my anger on you?”

“This concubine dares not ask for full forgiveness. I only beg Your Majesty to remember that my father is advanced in years and has always been loyal and upright, and to pass a lighter sentence.”

Xiao Lin was no tyrant who delighted in killing loyal ministers; the words had been spoken in extreme anger.

And my speaking now gave him a way to descend the steps.

After a long while, he spoke at last.

“Were it not for the dragon heir you carry, and some past merit of theirs, the reckless words ‘fallen-dynasty ruler’ would suffice today to wipe out their entire clans.”

I knew the words were meant for everyone to hear and hastily kowtowed.

“This concubine thanks Your Majesty for your benevolence!”

“By my decree: Minister Song and Vice Censor Su, failing in respect to their sovereign and speaking improperly, ought to be heavily punished. Mindful that their loyalty is not yet dead and their years are advanced, the sentence is commuted to ten strokes of the court bastinado as a warning. Their salaries are further suspended for one year, and they are to shut their doors and reflect for three months, leaving their mansions only by my decree.”

Ten strokes sounded few, but falling on Father’s body they struck like hammers on bone.

The events of years past hung in my heart like a fog. Using the occasion, I asked Xiao Lin’s leave to return to the Song mansion and visit my father.

When I arrived, the steward was already waiting at the gate and led me straight to the study.

“This is the secret key that closes the Mirror Abyss Platform.”

Father’s voice was heavy as he solemnly placed a brocade box in my hands.

Inside lay an object fine as a hairpin, only half an inch long.

It was dark gold all over, carved all over with dense patterns that looked like some kind of talisman script.

Father seemed to read my doubt and went on.

“My instructions to you back then were also a test.”

“If, after entering the palace, you truly lost yourself in imperial favor and exposed what you were,”

“then you were not someone to whom it could be entrusted.”

I raised my eyes to Father.

“But I carry a dragon heir now; I am His Majesty’s favored consort. What makes you think I am not the same kind of person as Consort Yan?”

Father stroked the beard along his jaw, his gaze sharpening.

“Do you think that Lin fellow established himself in the capital and got secret messages to you entirely on his own?”

“If our people had not shielded him, he would long ago have become a ghost beneath His Majesty’s blade.”

So Uncle Lin had their support behind him all along.

Father’s gaze drifted to the window, worry wrapped in his voice.

“We old ministers remember the palace coup of those years all too clearly. The late emperor died amid rebel armies; the imperial clan’s blood flowed like a river.”

“Our soldiers wielded blades and spears; the common people held stone walls and wooden gates.”

“And those people...”

Here his voice abruptly dropped.

“If one day the Mirror Abyss sends not seven, but a thousand-strong army armed with fine weapons—

“how are the people of Great Yong to protect themselves?”

“To use this key early to sever the link between the Mirror Abyss and Great Yong is the only right path.”

After leaving the Song mansion, I went to the most famous jewelry shop in the west of the city.

I deliberately chose an unassuming, inconspicuous hollow gilt hairpin and hid the key inside it.

With these old ministers secretly paving Uncle Lin’s way, I ought to be able to return smoothly on Mid-Autumn.

The carriage jolted over the bluestone road, and I pressed my hand to my belly on instinct.

Through the thin cloth, I could occasionally feel a faint stirring.

After I am gone, what is to become of this body?

What is to become of this child?

Since I was not the true Song Yuheng, I ought not to cling to the people and affairs of this palace.

I quietly comforted myself: stop thinking.

After Mid-Autumn, everything would be over.

The hall was quiet, yet heavy with the stagnant air of a storm about to break.

“Listen. He moves again.”

Xiao Lin’s hand slowly settled on my belly, his voice holding a gentleness I had never heard.

My heart went faintly bitter, but I nodded along with his words.

“Heng’er,”

He suddenly tightened his arms and held me closer.

“Once Mid-Autumn has passed, I will issue the decree and make you empress.”

I opened my mouth, wanting to find words in answer, but my throat felt tight.

The conventional thanks, the perfunctory assent—all stuck at the tip of my tongue; not one word would come out.

After a moment of silence, I still asked the doubt that had circled in my heart for so long.

“Your Majesty is so clear-sighted; surely you know the Mirror Abyss is dangerous and hard to control. Why, then... do you insist on keeping it?”

He raised a hand and smoothed the stray hairs at my temple, his movements gentle as ever.

“That man once taught me that a dynasty falls from the height of its power all because of blind arrogance and sealing the country away from the world.”

“He also said one thing: ‘learn the barbarians’ superior skills in order to subdue the barbarians.’”

“If the enemy has something stronger than ours, we ought to set aside prejudice and learn it—then use those very things to guard our own rivers and mountains.”

“The ministers worry day and night, but have I not my own considerations as well?”

I listened quietly, a wad of cotton wadding in my heart.

As a scholar who had studied ancient Chinese history for years, I knew the tragedy of trying to help seedlings grow by pulling them upward only too well.

History could never be steadied by shortcuts; any leap that skipped its process was in the end dragged back to its starting point by the way things work—or fell even harder.

But whether as Song Yu or as Song Yuheng, I had no standing to admonish Xiao Lin.

Perhaps once tomorrow passed, everything would return to where it began.

Mid-Autumn night.

A round table stood in Changle Palace’s courtyard, set with mooncakes and fruits.

And osmanthus wine Xiao Lin had specially ordered kept warm.

I sat with him beneath the moon; its silver light lent his brows and eyes a touch of an ordinary man’s gentleness.

A deafening explosion suddenly came from the northwest. The courtyard candles lurched; even the fruit plates on the table trembled.

That was the direction of the Mirror Abyss Platform!

The smile vanished from Xiao Lin’s face at once. He called the guards and prepared to inspect it.

“You’ll stay here like a good girl and wait for me to come back, won’t you?”

Just before crossing the palace gate, he suddenly turned his head and asked.

His gaze rested on my face, full of expectation.

I nodded against my heart.

I had watched Xiao Lin leave only a short while when the agent my father had placed in the palace appeared before me.

“Let us go.”

I followed the servant around the covered walkway, taking the shortest route toward the Mirror Abyss Platform.

Uncle Lin had said the platform would light up at the hour of the dog.

There would be only the burning time of one stick of incense—the single chance to go back.

Night wind laced with the pungent smell of nitre forced its way into my nose, and the sight ahead stopped my steps.

The palace wall around the Mirror Abyss had been blown to pieces, broken bricks and rubble scattered across the ground.

“Your Ladyship, we have arrived.”

The servant reached out and parted hanging vines, revealing a hidden door wide enough for only one person.

I was just about to step through when a familiar voice came from within.

“Miss Song. It is me.”

Uncle Lin stepped aside to clear the passage and put an oil-paper lantern in my hand.

“This secret passage was left when the Mirror Abyss Platform was built years ago. It leads straight beneath it.”

“And you?”

I looked up at Uncle Lin. “Aren’t you coming with me?”

Uncle Lin smiled bitterly and raised a hand to pat my shoulder.

“That dog-emperor foresaw today long ago. He tied Yan’er up beforehand to hold me in check.”

“You go first. Once I’ve rescued Yan’er, I’ll come join you.”

I stumbled into the passage. I did not know how long passed before a thread of light finally showed ahead.

I quickened my steps. The exit was hidden in a recess in the stone wall behind the platform.

I concealed myself in a corner. From here I could clearly see the stone steps winding up the platform’s body.

There was no knowing when Uncle Lin and the others would arrive; little of the dog hour remained.

As I fretted, a chaos of footsteps suddenly reached my ears, with the clash of armor: a great crowd was pouring into the Mirror Abyss.

Peering through a crack in the recess, I saw Zhou Yue among the crowd.

“This saves me no little trouble.”

Xiao Lin’s figure walked out from the crowd, the sword at his waist glaring in the night.

“My beloved consort has fine methods indeed. Had you not cooperated so willingly,”

“I would never have known how many at court had grown disloyal.”

His words had barely landed when Lin Yan stepped out from behind a colonnade pillar.

She prettily raised a hand to take Xiao Lin’s arm—not a trace of a woman under duress.

“What can Your Majesty mean? It is this concubine’s place to share Your Majesty’s burdens.”

“These people would destroy the Mirror Abyss and endanger Great Yong’s rivers and mountains. How could I join their filthy stream?”

Uncle Lin stood among those under guard, his gaze fixed on Lin Yan, only utter disappointment and grief left in it.

“Yan’er... why will you simply not believe me?”

“Can you truly not bear to see me live a good life? Will you only be happy when I go back and bury you in your old age?”

I saw Uncle Lin’s straight back collapse in an instant, and the last light in those grief-filled eyes go out.

Just then, a blinding white light suddenly appeared atop the Mirror Abyss, illuminating half the night sky.

“Didn’t you want to go back? The chance has come.”

Xiao Lin’s voice held a thread of nearly cruel laughter.

I hid in the dark, my whole body ice-cold.

At last someone in the crowd could hold back no longer and charged with a howl toward the platform’s steps.

But his foot had barely touched the first step when an arrow out of the air pierced his chest straight through.

“It’s the third year anyway! Die here, die there—it’s all death. Charge!”

Someone in the chaos shouted it, and like a spark it set the dry grass alight.

Men threw themselves forward, shielding the incoming arrows with their companions’ bodies.

The ground became a trampled battlefield in an instant, the clash of blades and the sounds of wailing rising without cease.

Even the air was steeped in a thick stench of blood.

Standing at Xiao Lin’s side, the glamour long gone from her face, Lin Yan said in a trembling voice.

“Your Majesty wouldn’t lie to me, would he?”

“That three-year term they speak of must be false—something made up to frighten people. Isn’t that so?”

Xiao Lin looked down at her, an unreadable smile on his lips.

“Patience, my beloved. In a little while... won’t we know?”

I crawled out of my hiding place. There was no time to hesitate; the quarter-hour was almost spent.

I had barely taken two steps when Uncle Lin’s voice came from behind.

“Miss Song—don’t look back!”

He gripped a broken sword and knocked aside an arrow aimed at me.

“Remember Lord Song’s charge. Don’t let more people repeat this tragedy.”

He was panting, but his eyes were extraordinarily steady.

“I brought this on everyone. This life—let it pay them back.”

With that, he spread his arms and used his own body as a wall behind me.

The sounds of arrows piercing flesh came one after another; I could even feel warm blood spattering my back, burning hot and painful.

I bit my teeth, not daring to look back, and ran up the steps with everything I had.

I had climbed halfway when Xiao Lin’s furious roar came from behind.

“Song Yuheng! Stop! Are you out of your mind!”

Wind howled in my ears; the white light of the Abyss Gate grew nearer and nearer. I rushed on heedlessly.

I could only gamble.

Xiao Lin—I will gamble that once, you felt a thread of true heart toward me.

The next instant, his helpless, conceding voice cut through the chaos.

“Hold! No one harms her!”

The sound of arrows behind me stopped abruptly.

I stumbled up the last step and finally stood before the Abyss Gate.

Looking back, the ground beneath the platform was already a sea of blood.

The few survivors left could only raise their heads and gaze at me with bloodshot eyes.

That gaze held both hope and the despair of resignation.

Xiao Lin gave no further order to stop me. He only watched me calmly, his eyes like a fathomless cold pool.

I took a deep breath, looked at him no more, and crossed without hesitation into the blinding white light.

The Abyss Gate slowly closed behind me, the gap growing narrower and narrower, signaling that time was nearly spent.

I reached toward the slot where the key was to be inserted, then could not help hesitating.

The survivors who remained—was I truly to strip away their only chance at life, seal them forever in this time, and let them quietly await death?

I raised a hand and took down the gilt hairpin at my temple, then stood frozen for a long moment.

Inside the hollow pin there was no key. Only a slip of paper fell out.

As the Abyss Gate shut completely, a sky-spinning vertigo swept over me.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the nearly abandoned open-air parking lot.

The wind slowly unfurled the paper. On it were Xiao Lin’s sharp, forceful characters.

Song Yu—we shall meet again.

To survive within the deep palace, one must learn to endure.

I first learned that lesson when I had just turned six.

My birth mother was a beauty-slave sent by an enemy state to sue for peace; that she managed to keep me alive for six years in the cold palace was already remarkable.

But at that age I still did not know the height of heaven, and I kept hoping that on my birthday my imperial father might look upon me with favor.

The day I sneaked out of the palace gates, I had the misfortune to collide with the Noble Consort’s procession.

Bound by my standing as a prince, she did not strike me herself; she turned and vented her wrath on my mother instead.

With a single charge of “failure to teach her child discipline,” she ordered her beaten to death.

So within these vermilion walls, taking a human life was this easy.

I scraped out a bare existence in the palace until the age of fourteen, when a chance finally came.

That chance came not from my imperial father’s pity, nor from the recommendation of court officials.

It came from a young man who claimed to be from “the future.” His name was Ji Chong.

His speech was full of new words I had never heard, yet he knew the court situation and the arts of war as well as the palm of his own hand.

Full of doubt, I once asked him: of the many princes of Great Yong, I was the one with the least power and the weakest backing—why choose to help me to the throne?

At that he smiled, his tone a touch frivolous.

“Because you are the best-looking.”

“That is the greatest advantage of all.”

At the time I took it for a joke and thought myself the luckiest man alive to have gained such a strategist.

I regarded him as the best brother of my life, the man closest to me and most trusted.

If I truly came to the throne, I would surely keep the seat of Prince Regent for him and share the rivers and mountains of Great Yong with him.

He did not disappoint me. In the chaos of the princes’ struggle, his methods were ruthless; he personally put many of the Xiao clan to the sword.

In the end, of all the princes with a claim to the throne, I alone remained at court.

Yet on the night before my enthronement, he locked me into that narrow cell beside the Mirror Abyss Platform.

He leaned close to my ear, his voice thick with mockery.

“So the ancients really are this naive and easy to cheat? These rivers and mountains were conquered by my own hand—what made you think I would hand them over to you?”

He pinched my chin and forced me to look at him.

“You are fit only to be a pretty vase. If you will submit to me like a good boy, I will let you out.”

I was, for better or worse, of the Xiao imperial blood. However fallen, I would never give myself to a man—at worst, death.

But even death he refused to give me the chance for.

Every day he had men feed me a drugging draft, leaving my whole body without strength, let alone the strength to end myself.

When his mood was good, he would sit in the cell and tell me how the court stood now.

How he humiliated the old ministers who clung to the “imperial bloodline,” how he pushed through his “new system,” how this place would one day become the travelers’ “utopia.”

When his mood was bad, he called me his “little dog” and tormented my body in every way, taking his pleasure in watching my wretchedness.

At first I still raged, struggled, wanted to die.

Later, I no longer wanted to die like that.

The single thought that kept me alive was to kill him with my own hands.

Countless deep nights I lay on the cold ground, picturing his death over and over in my mind.

And so I endured two years, until Song Huaimin and several other exiled old ministers finally rescued me from the cell.

They knelt before me and said I was the last blood of the Xiao line; only I could hold up the rivers and mountains of Great Yong.

I looked at them and felt only irony.

I asked with a cold smile, “Where were the two of you two years ago? Why come to save me only now?”

They hung their heads, their voices trembling.

“That rebel held the palace in an iron grip. Exiled as we were, we could not even enter the capital.”

“Then yesterday, before the whole court, Ji Chong dissolved without warning...”

Dissolved?

I stood stunned for a long while before I grasped the meaning of those three words.

Sword in hand, I stormed the study Ji Chong had used and hacked to pieces every brush and ink he had touched, every robe he had worn, every memorial he had drafted.

By what right? By what right could he die so easily?

By what right, after two years of swallowed shame, was I denied even the chance of vengeance with my own hands?

I looked at the wreckage across the floor, and the killing intent in my heart grew thick.

Those damned time travelers—I would settle the account with each and every one.

It cannot be denied: from Ji Chong I did learn a great deal.

He said a person only truly lives so long as he can produce value.

No sentence could be more fitting for his own kind.

Nothing annoyed me more than the female travelers sent every year, each convinced she was different, her head full of nothing but love and romance.

Once in the palace they scrabbled for favor like clowns on a beam, exhausting every scheme to catch my eye—a sheer waste of the Mirror Abyss’ yearly places.

Better to send more people who could do real things for Great Yong.

For someone as stupid and easy to control as Lin Yan, one in the rear palace was enough.

A pity that in another year she would have no value left.

That old thing Song Huaimin thought that by secretly taking the key from the late emperor’s side, I would know nothing of it.

I had chanced to read a few pages of the Instruction Manual. It said only a traveler could ascend the Mirror Abyss Platform.

He wanted someone to close the Mirror Abyss for him—then I would do as he wished.

The pattern by which travelers descended into this world had always left traces to follow.

Speaking of which, I had the intelligence bureau founded by a man claiming to be from a police station to thank.

How else would I have learned so quickly that Song Huaimin had hidden the news of Song Yuheng’s grave illness three months before?

When I first saw her, the endurance and vigilance in her eyes looked very like myself scraping out an existence in the cold palace years ago.

Other travelers, arriving in Great Yong, could never wait to make a stir, always chasing some “monumental achievement,”

terrified I would fail to notice them.

But Song Yuheng was different. She did nothing at all—only lay low in silence.

A person this clever, who also understood how to hide her edge,

ought to make the perfect chess piece for Song Huaimin to choose and entrust with the key.

A certain wicked whimsy suddenly took me; I did not want to watch her stay so quietly in the rear palace.

So I deliberately stayed the night at Changle Palace.

I had believed I could never again take an interest in the affairs of the bed.

Strangely, that night desire came.

Was it because of the moment—or because of the person?

I would have to try a few more times to know for certain.

Song Yuheng was with child. So I had not lost that capacity after all.

A new life quietly taking shape in her belly stirred something in me I had never felt before.

Could this be what the world called liking?

Most who came to Great Yong through the Mirror Abyss had clear purposes.

But she seemed to have none.

I grew more and more curious what she had come for.

The answer soon delivered itself to my door...

It turned out to be that utterly ordinary, family-laden Vice Minister Zhou.

I had Zhou’s family bound and brought in.

Fearful for the safety of his wife and child, Vice Minister Zhou laid everything bare.

I asked him, on Song Yu’s behalf, the question she surely wanted answered.

“If your heart already belonged to another, why did you make her a promise of marriage?”

He said that in the original world he would have chosen Song Yu without hesitation.

Her family was well-off, her credentials outstanding; she was sure to have a respectable post,

and though life together would be plain, it suited them.

So he had accompanied Lin Sirou on this traveler tour, meaning only to grant her wish, then make a clean break and return to the life he had planned.

Who could have foreseen that by some twist of fate the crossing would be real?

Here he had social standing; he need not run himself ragged for a house or a car; he stood among the finest of the crowd.

Under such circumstances, naturally he chose to stay beside the woman he loved.

Hearing it all, I could not help feeling sorry for Song Yu.

A man this cold and thin was useless kept alive.

Yet the moment my fingertip touched the hilt of the sword at my waist, I suddenly stopped.

Through the three hundred-odd days and nights of his disappearance, every single day had dragged by like a year.

The Instruction Manual also said that the Mirror Abyss crossing was, at its core, an equal exchange of time and space.

To gain the right to exist in Great Yong, one traded away the traces of one’s existence in the original world.

And a body with child, carrying an uncompleted contract, could not close the loop of exchange.

I looked at the dark-gold key in my hand and could not keep from laughing low.

Song Yu—how could things between us simply end like this?

If you ever want your original body back, next Mid-Autumn night.

I shall be waiting—rain or shine.

（The End）