"I, receiving Heaven's mandate, rule over all lands. Yet of late false masters have bewitched the throne, usurped power, clouded the court, and caused the people to live in fear."
"Now Shen Changyin of the Shen clan, a loyal minister and fine general, has taken up arms to protect the state, raised the banner of righteousness to clear those beside the throne, turned back the tide at its breaking point, and supported the collapsing halls."
"She is hereby granted the title of Regent Princess, entrusted with assisting the nation, honored for her loyalty, and her army is bestowed the name 'The Valiant Guard,' protectors of the realm."
The Qinzheng Hall was more than sixty meters wide, twenty-five meters deep, and nearly ten meters tall. Majestic and vast, the attendant reading the edict was the Empress's personal eunuch. She was used to proclaiming decrees, her voice crisp and resonant, echoing through the hall.
Xie Yu tilted her head, listening with difficulty until she finally understood.
Although I, the Empress, believed in Daoists and neglected state affairs, it was all the Daoists' fault. Also, admitting I was forced into a palace coup is too embarrassing, so this is simply loyal ministers offering counsel and cleansing those around the throne. Although Shen Changyin is taking plenty of power, I'm giving it to her myself, she's not taking it. I am still the supreme Empress.
"The Daoists who misled the throne have gravely sinned. They are to receive poisoned wine and be executed today."
If you claim to cleanse the court, someone must die. You Daoists can go die now.
Xie Yu looked at the group of Daoists tied up together. They wore exquisite, expensive Taoist robes, broad sleeves and flowing hems, with the bearing of people detached from worldly affairs. But now, each face was pale with fear.
She looked behind Shen Changyin. A young eunuch carried a tray with a large pot of poisoned wine and a dozen small cups.
Shen Changyin moved her fingers slightly. The rebels—no, the Valiant Guard—stepped forward to escort the Daoists out. Palace eunuchs presented poisoned wine to each Daoist in turn.
"Impossible, Her Majesty trusts me the most. Her Majesty would never do this to me. It's you! You forged the decree!"
One Daoist suddenly struggled wildly, trying to escape, but was still pinned down and force-fed the wine. Within ten breaths she began foaming at the mouth, blood seeping from the corners of her eyes. Within thirty breaths she was dead, lying motionless on the ground.
Another large, muscular Daoist saw this and began laughing hysterically.
"Oh Huang, oh Huang, what is there that Her Majesty wouldn't do just because you were once Her Majesty's most favored Daoist, what of it Now you're still branded a deceiver of the throne!"
Then she turned to Shen Changyin, speaking with venom. "Shen Changyin, what kind of sage do you think our Empress is even if you've negotiated cooperation with her now, what of it you're bargaining with a tiger. Do you really think your end will be better than ours"
"You led troops in a palace coup, and you really think she'll spare you. You'll die even worse than us."
"I'll be waiting for you in the underworld."
Facing such intense hatred, Shen Changyin only raised the corner of her lips. Her gaze swept past Xie Yu for a brief moment before returning. "My safety needs no concern from you."
"Please continue reading, Eunuch Wei."
Eunuch Wei, who was reading the decree, looked conflicted and turned her gaze to Xie Yu.
Xie Yu felt dread rising. She saw the tray still holding several cups of poisoned wine and subconsciously backed away.
The decree wasn't finished
The Second Princess' words echoed in her mind.
Surely… this poisoned wine wouldn't be for her
She looked at the corpse of Daoist Huang on the ground. Still warm, yet never to open her eyes again. His body would soon grow cold, stiff, rot.
In almost eighteen years of life, she had encountered danger before, but never had she stood so close to the shadow of death. From her fingertips to her whole body, she began to freeze with cold.
The clear, icy wine rippled faintly in the white jade cups, harmless to the eye. But if it entered her mouth, slid into her stomach… what then
She knew all humans must die someday, but some part of her believed she never would.
She could run ten kilometers with weights. She could do one hundred and thirty-seven pull-ups. She never got sick, not any season of the year.
Could someone like her also die, lying on the ground, breathless, rotting…
"Shen Changyin is admirable in both appearance and conduct. She is hereby granted marriage to Our third daughter, to join hearts forever and unite our houses."
Xie Yu jerked her head up.
Join what Unite what
Join hearts forever. Unite their houses.
She was going to marry Shen Changyin
Marry Her
Old Empress, you're selling your daughter!
And to Shen Changyin! How is this better than poisoned wine
Before everyone's eyes, instead of stepping forward to receive the decree, Xie Yu instinctively shook her head and took another step back.
An attendant opened her mouth to urge her to kneel and accept the decree, but Shen Changyin raised her hand to stop him.
Xie Yu stepped back. Shen Changyin stepped forward. She walked until she stopped three steps before Xie Yu and smiled gently. "Your Highness, I look forward to your guidance."
Now whenever Xie Yu saw Shen Changyin smile, she felt terrified.
No one even hit her, but she still felt like her vision went black.
Her future was pitch dark.
—
Late that night, candles burned with bright, teary flames. Shen Changyin sat at the table, listening to her subordinate's report.
"We've taken the Northern Camp's grounds, so the Sixth Battalion has already withdrawn south from the capital."
Shen Changyin nodded. "Remember, we hand things over only when they give us something first."
Her subordinate said, "There's also news from the palace. The Third Princess spent the entire day confined in her own quarters. She has already extinguished the lamps and gone to sleep."
Shen Changyin said, "Mm. You may go."
Her subordinate left. A maid entered with a bowl of medicine and placed it on the desk. "Your calming medicine."
Shen Changyin looked at it. The bowl of medicine was like a small lake. She let out a barely audible sigh. "Leave it there."
The maid obeyed, stepped out, and closed the door. Passing by the indoor plants, she smelled the stronger scent of medicine and slowed her steps.
Night had deepened. The room grew silent again. Shen Changyin didn't rush to drink the medicine. She picked up the documents on the desk and began approving them one by one, ink falling silently onto paper.
Then she heard a familiar voice in the room. "Why am I engaged to her again"
Shen Changyin didn't look up, pretending not to hear.
The voice grew louder. "Why am I engaged to her again"
Shen Changyin finally set down her brush and raised her head, looking at the figure standing beside the potted greenery in the corner. "It's I who am engaged to her. You are nothing but an illusion."
An illusion from her past life.
The figure had the exact same face and voice as hers, wearing white robes drenched in blood, even thinner than she was, eyelashes thick and dark with a ghostly air. Her wrists were covered with dozens of unhealed wounds.
After being reborn five years ago, Shen Changyin began suffering from auditory and visual hallucinations.
"You, me, all of us were ruined by her. Why would we still end up engaged to her?"
The illusion's voice seethed with resentment.
"Have you forgotten? Forgotten how we were stripped of our official robes, erased from the records, reduced to a tool to prolong her life? Every bit of our suffering came from her!"
Shen Changyin said, "I haven't forgotten."
How could she ever forget that day?
The air had been thick with choking medicinal scents. White curtains symbolizing grave illness overlapped with the red curtains symbolizing marriage. Court physicians and attendants walked in and out. Behind the curtains, the person lying there had been unconscious for days, occasionally letting out pained groans.
And she herself, dressed in the exquisite red wedding robes of the imperial family, had knelt before the curtains with her entire future destroyed.
Except—
Shen Changyin reminded it, "She died that very night."
In the following three years, when she became a living medicine vessel, when they drained her blood, when she was betrayed by everyone she knew… Xie Yu had already turned into a small urn of ashes.
"Oh, right. She died early. My short-lived former wife who left me quite a bit of money."
With the reminder, the illusion seemed to recall something. Its expression softened for an instant… then twisted into viciousness again. The wounds on its body tore open, blood welling out as it shrieked:
"Then she deserved to die!"
"It was her mother and her sisters who committed the crimes! If she had lived, she would have done the same to me!"
"If her birth characters hadn't matched mine, if we hadn't been a fated marriage, the Xie family would never have found me!"
Shen Changyin watched her own illusion go mad with cool indifference, as though looking at a stranger. Even when the illusion dug its fingers into the bleeding wounds on its own wrists, she didn't react.
Everything before her was simply a play she had once acted in — one she had long since grown tired of.
She disliked her own hallucination. Too venomous, too filled with resentment, lacking reason, weak, incompetent.
People blinded entirely by hatred were exactly the ones destined to fail at revenge.
And she was the type who would succeed.
She continued reviewing official documents. The illusion raged for a while, then finally grew calm and approached her desk.
"Why won't you look at me?"
Shen Changyin switched to another memorial regarding military agriculture.
The illusion suddenly asked, "Do you like her?"
Shen Changyin let out a brief laugh.
Even if it was her own hallucination, she still found the question absurd. "Of course not."
"Do you still hate her? Will you spare her?"
Shen Changyin said, "I don't hate her. And no, I won't spare her."
"Has she caught your interest?"
"This isn't some romance script. Clear your mind."
"Then… do you enjoy teasing her?"
Shen Changyin paused.
The illusion seemed to sense a crack, pushing further. "Do we like teasing her?"
Shen Changyin reached out and downed the entire bowl of calming medicine on the table.
After a while, the illusion slowly faded.
She exhaled, closed the memorial, and lay down.
Sleep didn't come easily. She was used to it. She simply rested with her eyes closed through half the night.
At dawn the next day, she adjusted her wrist guards and stepped outside.
Spring light was gentle. The old Chancellor's manor was filled with flowering trees. The late cold of early spring was almost gone, and tiny buds the size of rice grains were beginning to appear.
Shen Changyin looked back at the room where she had slept last night. Abandoned for years, its cinnabar-painted windows were faded, though the fine sandalwood frames still held their luster.
This residence was excellent.
If she had not been reborn, the Empress would renovate it a year later and grant it to the Third Princess as her personal palace. The Third Princess would choose this very room as her bedroom — and three years after that, Shen Changyin would be stripped of her rank and forced into wedding robes, made to kneel here like a decorative object.
This had once been the place of her helplessness. Now it belonged to her.
Everything that had once defeated her would eventually live or die by her decision. Everything she once couldn't have, she now possessed.
This residence. The Third Princess.
Her subordinate approached. "We found the families of the children at the river last night, but they insist on seeing the Third Princess to confirm she's unharmed before going home."
A faint smile tugged at Shen Changyin's lips. "Then take them safely and soundly to meet our kind-hearted Third Princess. Let her see what fate befalls children who fall into the hands of a demon like me."
"When you return, report every detail of the Third Princess's reaction. Leave nothing out."
—
A/N: Notes to prevent misreading
1- Xie Yu's dream is related to Shen Changyin, but it is not Shen Changyin's true past life.
2- Shen Changyin didn't slaughter the imperial family immediately because even with three years of preparation, her strength wasn't enough to conquer the realm outright. Killing the imperial family would trigger the "feudal lords" to launch a crusade.
3- Essentially, Shen Changyin used this palace coup to gain more power.
4- From a pragmatic point of view, the marriage alliance is like a joint statement with the imperial family — a kind of political contract. In extreme situations, such a contract can be torn apart, but signing it puts everyone at ease. Though the "contract" itself is not willing.
—
T/N: If you're enjoying this translation, consider supporting me on Patreon. You can read ahead with early access and daily updates. Thank you for reading!
If you're enjoying this translation, consider supporting me on Patreon. You can read ahead with early access and daily updates. Thank you for reading!
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