The candle flame quivered once.   With a muted scoff, Jiang Kui ignored it, arms crossed as she leaned against the windowed wall within. Facing away from each other with only exquisite lattice between, wandering starlight from without met wavering lamplight from within. Two silent shadows overlapped amidst intermingling cold and warmth.   Considerably taller,…

Xie Wuyang’s entire body stiffened. He remained motionless without turning back or making a sound.   The girl’s breaths echoed in his ears, tinged with faint panting. Her warm exhales brushed past his cheeks, lifting a few strands of hair to tickle him.   They were pressed close together, one in front and one behind.…

How could Master Zhu Liu be absent?   He was injured at the mausoleum that day.   Could it be his wounds haven’t healed, confining him from even leaving home recently?   But those seemed merely superficial external injuries. She remembered he didn’t even appear pained. On the brink of leaving he even teased her…

As night deepened, Imperial Consort Pei Yue descended the festooned barge holding an emerald lamp.   Many crafts still glowed upon the waters where makeshift bamboo rafts crisscrossed, rising and falling between undulating waves.   Illuminations dimmed on the ornamented barges as guests gradually dispersed. Remaining figures traversed parallel bamboo floats towards moored boats, scattering…

Jiang Kui’s heart tightened as she whispered urgently, “Father flew into a rage?”   It was her third elder brother, Jiang Yuan who came rushing anxiously over from another side of the decorated barge, squeezing through crowds to sidle up to his little sister. Face customarily serene now taut with tension, he pulled an exaggerated…

“Who is she?”   “The youngest daughter of the Jiang clan in Bailing, young miss of the General’s Residence, fiancee to the Crown Prince, precious daughter of Grand Marshal Jiang, betrothed to His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince…”   Murmured discussions arose from all seated around the festooned barge, yet no one could explain why…

When Jiang Kui spotted Xie Wuyan on the festooned barge, she was feeling vexed by the crowds around her.   At banquets she previously attended as the frail youngest daughter of the General’s Residence, she would often quietly shrink into a corner alone with her tea. But tonight, attending as the fiancee of the Crown…

Pushing open an ornately carved wooden door inlaid with peach blossoms, one enters the Rongyi Hall.   Jiang Kui took the excuse of the Consort having words for her, and quietly slipped away from the earlier fortune-telling session. Xie Yao was still clinging to Xie Kuan, asking him to divine her peach blossom luck, while…

Eastern Palace   Sandalwood scented the secluded hall.   Wisps floated over the ebony floor, lingering and undulating within the silence.  Billowy veils of mist curdled amidst the cloying fragrance.   “Creak—” Xie Wuyang pushed open the door, tearing his collar down as he stripped the bloodstained robe, haphazardly wadding it underfoot.   Clad only…

The ground gave way beneath them with a thunderous rumble!   A violent maelstrom swept up the debris, cycloning shards in a miniature tornado around the two still clutched together as the fractured slab plummeted down, wind whistling loudly past their ears.   The swirling storm carried endless gravel and dust. In its eye stood…