Volume One, Chapter 1: Reborn at the Start, Drugged with Aphrodisiac

The candlelight swayed, bathing the room in crimson.

In the bridal chamber, a woman clad in a scarlet wedding gown lay bound hand and foot upon the bed, her brows knitted tight, her lips murmuring, "No... no..."

In her dream, the flames danced before her eyes. Drops of molten wax fell upon her scar-ravaged face, searing with a pain that was nothing compared to the agony raging within her body.

A virulent poison coursed through her, its toxins gnawing at her organs with every passing moment, wringing cold sweat from her skin and scattering her consciousness to the wind. Yet today, with rare and terrible clarity, she was lucid — the luminous calm of one on the brink of death.

She had been concealed behind a wall, and through it she heard the voice of her younger brother, Xie Liwei.

His young voice was raw with grief, trembling as he pleaded in feeble desperation: "Your Majesty, I beg you — permit me to bring my sister's remains home."

The Emperor's voice was cold as iron: "Your sister is Our Empress. In death, she shall be interred in the imperial mausoleum. That is the end of it."

"My sister has stood beside Your Majesty since the age of fourteen. She followed you through campaigns south and north, and laid the very foundation of the Great Chen dynasty. Her merits are beyond measure. Can Your Majesty truly bear to leave her alone in that mausoleum, waiting for you through decades of cold silence?"

The Emperor's expression stiffened, and fury flashed across his face. "Xie Liwei! You dare!"

Was the boy implying that he ought to go down and keep Xie Wanqing company?

"This subject would never presume such a thing. My sister loved the warmth of life and laughter. The imperial mausoleum is desolate and cold — she would be lonely there. I beg Your Majesty to grant me leave to bring my sister's remains home." Xie Liwei prostrated himself upon the ground, his voice barely holding together. He could not accept it. He had gone outside the capital for only a few days at the Emperor's invitation, to pursue his studies — and in that short time, word had come that Fengyi Palace had caught fire, and every soul within had perished in the flames.

He wanted his sister's remains — not only to grant her peace in death, but to uncover the truth.

His sister had surrounded herself with masters of unparalleled skill. How could she have died in a mere fire?

The Emperor's rigid features twitched. The reprimand died on his lips as Xie Liwei continued: "The entire Xie clan will willingly withdraw from the capital and return to Chenliu. We will never again concern ourselves with affairs of the court. I ask only that Your Majesty permit me to bring my sister home."

The Emperor drew a slow breath. The Xie family had been the pillar upon which he built his empire, their achievements so great they threatened to overshadow the throne itself. Many in the court heeded no voice but Xie Wanqing's. That was precisely why he had steeled himself to have her killed — so that he might gradually uproot this clan that had come to reign over the court like a hand blotting out the sky.

And now, a single corpse would empty the court of every last one of them. A most favorable exchange.

The Emperor sighed. "We know how deep the bond between you siblings runs. Wanqing herself often spoke of wishing to see her homeland once more. Very well... take her home."

Behind the wall, Xie Wanqing coughed up a mouthful of blood. "No..."

If the Xie family willingly relinquished their power, they would be nothing but flesh on another's chopping block. The Xie clan had stood for a hundred years and produced countless brilliant souls. Would Yuwen Wuji truly spare them?

But she was too weak. Her breath came in threads. The sounds she made could not pass through the wall.

Her body grew colder by degrees, yet the hatred in her chest surged like a great river in flood.

For one promise — that he would share the realm with her — she had poured out her heart and soul to raise Yuwen Wuji to the throne. And he had repaid her with death over a trifling difference in governance.

She was filled with regret. She regretted everything. If she could begin again — why could the Xie family not be the family of the Son of Heaven? Why could she herself not rise as sovereign and empress?

"No!" She cried out and snapped her eyes open. The furnishings of the room slowly came into focus around her, and for a long while she could not quiet the storm within her breast.

She had been reborn.

She had been reborn into the body of a woman named Song Yaozhu. The woman's memories sorted themselves out in her mind piece by piece, and when she saw how Song Yaozhu had been driven to death by her own kin, the fury of two lifetimes' worth of grievances set her very liver and gallbladder trembling.

She had been an empress, after all. Once her thoughts had cleared, she moved swiftly to consider how she might take her revenge, and her emotions gradually settled.

Since she had become Song Yaozhu, she would carry Song Yaozhu's vengeance as her own.

And there was still Yuwen Wuji — the man who had destroyed her in her former life.

Song Yaozhu curled her body and worked the ropes free from her ankles, then crossed to the table nearby, took up a pair of scissors, and freed her wrists. Whoever had bound her had clearly assumed she could not escape, for otherwise they would have tied her hands behind her back.

She surveyed the room, then studied the face in the mirror. Round and luminous as a full moon, with bold brows and almond-shaped eyes — a natural beauty, unmistakably. Yet the cosmetics layered upon her face were far too heavy, lending her a powdered, artificial air that stripped away all girlish vitality.

Most startling of all was that this face bore five or six parts of resemblance to her own face in her previous life.

With no one else in the room, she became aware of a subtle wrongness in her body. Her head was oppressively heavy, her skin faintly feverish, and in a certain private place there was a sensation she could not bring herself to name.

When she had first awakened, she had attributed the discomfort to the aftermath of suffocation. Now there was no longer any doubt — she had been drugged.

The Song family, in their eagerness to preserve their comfortable lives, had shown not a shred of mercy toward this daughter they had never once raised. They had not only bound her hand and foot but drugged her as well.

Song Yaozhu hastily poured tea down her throat. An ordinary aphrodisiac was merely meant to heighten sensation — it should not be enough to rob a person of reason. Yet after drinking down an entire pot of cold water, the heat within her body did not diminish. It blazed hotter, until her mind swam and her vision doubled.

Song Yaozhu collapsed onto the chaise longue, wracked with a suffering so acute she felt she might die from it.

Song family — you old scoundrels. If I do not die today, I will make you pay in blood for every drop of mine.

As she drifted in and out of consciousness, an icy hand caught her by the chin and tilted her face upward.

"She does bear some resemblance to my sister. No wonder Grand Preceptor Song went to such lengths."

Xie Liwei released her with a flick of his wrist, tossing her head aside, then produced a handkerchief and wiped his hand clean.

Song Yaozhu had only known that the coolness of his touch was exquisitely soothing. She could not bear to let it leave her. Acting on instinct, she seized his hand and pressed her face against it.

"Mmm... so nice," she murmured with a small, contented sound.

The old matron standing behind Xie Liwei kept her expression carefully composed, though her aged eyes had gone nearly wide enough to leave their sockets.

Such brazen behavior from the Princess Consort — surely the Prince would fling her aside at once.

The very next instant, Xie Liwei moved to do exactly that. But Song Yaozhu, as though she had anticipated it, shifted ahead of him, evaded the dismissal before it could come, and threw both arms around Xie Liwei's lean waist.

"Release me," Xie Liwei said, his voice glacial.

But one cannot reason with a person who has lost their reason. Song Yaozhu not only refused to let go — she hooked both legs around his as well, hanging from him like a vine clinging to a tree.

"Let me hold you. I'll pay you," Song Yaozhu declared without the slightest shame.

The matron could bear no more of this. She hurried forward to pull Song Yaozhu away.

"My lady! What on earth are you doing!" She tugged twice and could not budge Song Yaozhu in the slightest. She could only look helplessly toward Xie Liwei. "Your Highness, this servant believes the Princess Consort has been given something. That is why she is behaving so. This servant will go fetch the household physician at once. Please, Your Highness, be patient — it is an auspicious day. Please, please do not let there be any bloodshed!"

Xie Liwei's fury was such that he reached up and flung back his trailing hair. "Then go — quickly!"

Song Yaozhu had pulled half his robe open, baring the pale skin beneath.

Just as his rage reached the point where he was prepared to strike her senseless, there came a soft pat — and a small, warm hand pressed itself flat against his chest.

"Oh my, how firm. Let elder sister have a feel. Elder sister has plenty of money, you know~"

Xie Liwei's face flooded crimson. Did she take him for some pretty boy in a pleasure house?

"Outrageous! I will make you wish you were dead!"