Shen Changyin quietly gazed at the cherry blossoms. The sunlight by the window slowly warmed her skin.
"Shen Changyin—!" Xie Yu called to her from the main hall, sounding excited. "Let's go. We still have to go to South Mountain today."
South Mountain was where generations of Xie dynasty empresses were buried. A large ancestral temple stood at the summit, tended daily by several high priestesses.
Today was the engagement banquet. According to imperial custom, the two of them had to go to South Mountain to honor the ancestors and pray for blessings, hoping to receive the protection of those who came before them.
Shen Changyin hesitated for a moment, then finally reached out and plucked a cherry blossom. She opened her collar and tucked the flower neatly inside.
She truly did not believe in Huayue's "luck-bringing" traditions, but since she was going to the ancestral tombs of the Xie family today, she definitely wouldn't receive their ancestors' blessings. She would only be cursed.
She hoped this cherry blossom would at least do something.
She turned around and walked out, saying to the overly excited Xie Yu, "I'm coming."
Xie Yu had been bouncing around since early morning, not at all like someone about to enter a political engagement. She looked more like someone heading out for a picnic.
After getting into the carriage, Shen Changyin discovered that Xie Yu had already stuffed several baskets inside. When she lifted the lids, she saw food and drinks of all kinds, both sweet and savory.
Shen Changyin laughed softly. "Third Princess, do you think you'll have any time to eat today?"
Xie Yu froze. "No? But today is still my birthday. Is it really going to be that miserable?"
She had been thinking that it wasn't an emperor's coronation, nor was she climbing a mountain to issue an edict of atonement. She was just an unfavored princess getting engaged. How solemn could it be?
So she had prepared everything according to the modern Qingming Festival rituals she used to follow.
Before she transmigrated, she would go sweep the ancestral graves with her family.
It was usually a Qingming much hotter than expected. Relatives working out of town would return home. They'd eat a good lunch together, then in the afternoon walk to the graves to burn paper offerings. The atmosphere was always relaxed and lively, with people chatting about gossip along the dusty paths.
She had been the leader of the kids, responsible for herding the wild little children who ran like crazed puppies, taking them to the dry ditch to play or pick tender sweet grass blades to eat.
"If you were getting engaged today to some unknown clan member or the daughter of an ordinary official, maybe things really would be that relaxed."
Shen Changyin sat very straight and tapped her own chest with her finger. "But you are getting engaged to me. Today will not be easy. Please be very cautious."
Sure enough, when they were still fifteen kilometers away from South Mountain, the atmosphere began to change.
The imperial guards had cleared the surrounding area early. On the official road, a guard stood every hundred meters, the red tassels on their helmets painfully bright under the sun.
Xie Yu lifted a small slit of the carriage curtain to look outside, then finally gave up the last trace of fantasy. She sighed and pulled out two tiny kites made of tender bamboo strips and rice paper.
"I spent so long making these yesterday. Now they're wasted."
She reluctantly put the kites down and prepared to get off the carriage with Shen Changyin.
As soon as the carriage door curtain was lifted, Minister Zhang from the Ministry of Rites was already there to greet them. She bowed. "Third Princess, Lady Shen, I am here to lead you to the ritual grounds."
Xie Yu jumped down from the carriage and casually asked, "Where's Minister Guo? Doesn't she always show up with you?"
Minister Zhang's gaze flicked quickly toward Shen Changyin as she stepped down. Her bow grew lower and her voice more deferential. "She embezzled public funds from the Ministry of Rites and used government property for private purposes. Someone exposed her, beat the grievance drum, and reported her all the way to the Court of Judicial Review. The evidence was conclusive and she has already been convicted. Third Princess, you didn't attend court the past few days, so you didn't know she has been removed from office."
"The elder members of the Guo family were furious, lamented their failure in raising her properly, and sent her to guard their ancestral hall in the north. To show their remorse to the court, all Guo officials of fourth rank and above resigned to stay home, cultivate themselves, and correct their conduct."
Shen Changyin stepped down and stood beside Xie Yu. Only then did Minister Zhang finish her bows to both of them. She straightened, glanced at Xie Yu, and then bent down in an even deeper bow.
"Third Princess, the matter of the invitation and the Mingyan House incident was due to my own poor conduct. I made baseless assumptions out of personal judgment, and because my own moral conduct was lacking, I projected my thoughts onto others, leading to Your Highness experiencing danger. I have already submitted a memorial, requesting demotion by one rank and a year's forfeited salary. Please forgive me."
Xie Yu opened her mouth, but for a moment didn't know what to say.
"Two ranks, three years." Shen Changyin waited for her to speak, and when she didn't, she addressed Minister Zhang herself. "Minister Zhang, how could you forget the contents of your own handwritten memorial?"
Minister Zhang stiffened. Her bow deepened. She forced a smile. "Yes. My guilt overwhelms me, and no punishment seems enough to make up for my offense toward Your Highness. I was so distraught that I even remembered the memorial incorrectly. I will request demotion by two ranks and forfeiture of three years' salary."
Xie Yu sighed. "You can get up first."
Honestly, compared to her admitting fault herself, Xie Yu would have preferred to punish her personally.
But today was supposed to be a good day, and the setting wasn't appropriate.
She decided she would write this person's name in her little notebook after she returned home.
There would be plenty of time to decide how to get some payback.
Once Minister Zhang stood up, Xie Yu asked, "But that invitation card is used by many restaurants and teahouses in the capital. How were you sure I would go to Mingyan House? Did you bribe the staff of every establishment?"
Minister Zhang paused. "There are two places in the capital famous nationwide for food. One is Tianxiang House, renowned for gathering the essence of all regional cuisines. The second is Mingyan House. They have no famous chefs and do not serve grand dishes, yet their drinks and snacks are unmatched. Especially during Huayue, their use of fresh flowers is taken to the extreme."
Xie Yu blinked. "Hmm?"
Minister Zhang gave a helpless smile. "The Ministry of Rites has visited your residence many times to prepare for your engagement banquet with Lady Shen, bringing various ceremonial items. Most of the time, you would not participate. But whenever we brought the imperial chefs to confirm the banquet dishes and asked you both to taste them, you participated from start to finish."
Xie Yu choked. She felt like she was being called gluttonous yet had no rebuttal.
She also thought, No wonder novels always say emperors don't have favorite foods, to prevent poisoning. So that logic was real.
She quickly waved her hand. "Just lead the way."
Minister Zhang extended her arm toward the distance. "I will bring you both to the ritual grounds. The other princesses have arrived, but Her Majesty is not here yet."
South Mountain wasn't tall, but it sat among a long chain of peaks.
The ritual grounds were an open field at the mountain's entrance, essentially a large flat meadow enclosed by wooden fencing. At the center stood an enormous incense table already laden with offerings and several ancestral tablets.
Opposite the grass field stretched a long line of stone steps leading directly up the mountain, disappearing into the clouds.
Minister Zhang brought them to the entrance of the ritual grounds and stopped. "Before the ceremony begins, ordinary officials cannot enter the grounds. I can only escort you both this far."
Only then did Xie Yu notice that many officials and clan members who had arrived before them also lacked the right to enter. They all stood silently outside the fence.
They gathered together without speaking, heads lowered, dark and heavy like a forest.
From the mountain came an eerie bell tolling. By the time the sound traveled through the bamboo and trees to reach them, it was faint yet piercing, making one extremely uncomfortable.
Xie Yu shivered and tried to shake off the sensation. She stepped onto the grass with Shen Changyin.
"So," she said, bringing up Minister Guo again as she tried to piece things together, "you got hold of the Guo family's evidence, used Minister Guo as the example, and proved to the Guo clan that your evidence is real."
"They were afraid you'd reveal their other crimes, so all the high-ranking Guo officials resigned. Let me guess, the positions they vacated were filled by your people."
Shen Changyin said, "The Third Princess is truly perceptive."
"Of course." Xie Yu stopped, turned toward her, and lifted her fist beside her cheek. She felt like she looked a little like a beckoning cat.
"What's that for?" Shen Changyin didn't understand.
"A fist bump." Xie Yu pushed her fist forward. "I can't stand Minister Guo. And I know you couldn't stand her either. We took down someone annoying, and the whole family was awful too, and they were bad people. Doesn't that victory deserve a celebratory fist bump?"
"Third Princess, wives do not fist bump each other."
"If you bump fists with me now, then they do." Xie Yu insisted. "If you don't bump fists with me, I'm not putting my hand down."
Shen Changyin nodded and continued walking toward the center of the ritual grounds. "Then Shen wishes the Third Princess all the best."
"Hey!" Xie Yu couldn't believe it and chased after her. "Hurry and bump fists with me! Hurry, hurry, I want to put my hand down!"
Shen Changyin remained unmoved. "You can actually put it down right now."
"I already promised. You fist bump me, and then I can put it down." Xie Yu refused to embarrass herself that quickly.
"Hurry—! Those people over there are looking. If they see me like this, how embarrassing is that?"
She was referring to the princesses waiting quietly at the center of the grounds.
"Shen Changyin." She grabbed her sleeve with her free hand and shook it repeatedly, acting shamelessly and refusing to let her walk away. "It's my birthday today. Respect the birthday girl."
"And we're getting engaged today! We agreed this was a political marriage where you're the powerful one and I'm the spoiled, pampered partner. Where is my pampering?"
She seemed possessed by an actress, inventing all kinds of reasons to whine.
Seeing the other princesses approaching, Shen Changyin had no choice. She quickly lifted her hand, formed a fist, and lightly tapped Xie Yu's.
Xie Yu was satisfied. She lowered her hand and then turned with complete composure to greet the other princesses.
The First Princess approached with long steps and stopped half a meter away. She cupped her hands politely. "Happy birthday, Third Sister, and congratulations on your engagement."
Xie Yu returned the gesture.
The other princesses also stepped forward one after another to congratulate her. Even the Second Princess—who had been forbidden by the Ministry of Rites from wearing red today—reluctantly came forward and muttered, "Congratulations on your engagement."
Once the greetings ended, a distant eunuch's voice rang out.
"Her Majesty arrives."
The bright yellow imperial carriage, inlaid with countless treasures, stopped outside the ritual grounds. The Empress stepped down and strode toward the center of the field.
As she entered, the other officials and members of the imperial clan finally gained permission to enter as well. They followed behind her in a grand, impressive procession that truly gave her the air of a ruler with the bearing of ages.
This woman—who was nominally Xie Yu's mother—was already nearing seventy, yet her stride was steady, her aura strong.
If Xie Yu didn't know this woman was devoted to witchcraft and sorcery, she really might have asked her for health tips.
She came to stand before Xie Yu and nodded. "Third."
Xie Yu nodded back without expression. "Empress."
The attendant beside the Empress instantly stiffened at this address. She looked as though she wanted to scold Xie Yu but held herself back.
The Empress herself, however, showed no reaction. She walked straight to the incense table and, with crisp authority, commanded the waiting Daoist priest:
"The time is nearly here. Begin."
Standing behind her, Xie Yu and Shen Changyin exchanged a glance.
The Daoist began chanting long strings of blessings Xie Yu barely understood, catching only one line clearly:
"Honoring the Nine Celestials. Offer the first incense."
The Empress took the incense from the attendant, lit it over the flame below the burner, lifted it above her head, and held it there for thirty breaths to express reverence to the heavens.
Xie Yu and Shen Changyin followed suit.
"Honor the Earth. Offer a cup of sacrificial wine."
This part required pouring half the millet wine from a bronze vessel onto the ground as respect to the earth deity, then drinking the remaining half oneself.
"Honor the ancestors. Perform the three bows."
The incense for heaven had been a large, thick stick. The incense for the ancestors was three thin, short sticks. One held them between the palms against the forehead, bowed three times, then placed them into the burner.
During all of this, Xie Yu moved stiffly, her waist barely bending, so much so that the Ministry of Rites officials grew anxious and sent someone to ask if she needed the imperial physicians.
The Empress inserted her incense into the ashes and, returning, overheard the question.
"The head of the Imperial Medical Institute is with me today. Let her examine you."
Xie Yu blinked. Something felt off.
Her stiffness was only because she was an atheist—at least someone without a defined religion. She could accept things like visiting graves during Qingming or wearing sachets on Dragon Boat Festival, but she had never performed formal incense rituals before. It made her uncomfortable.
Feeling uncomfortable made her movements awkward. Hardly a big issue—yet the Empress's reaction was… strange.
Ever since transmigrating, Xie Yu had known this Third Princess wasn't favored. The Empress had sold her off, ignored her, and her actions made that clear.
But something didn't add up.
The day she transmigrated, during a key moment of the rebel siege, the Empress had still mobilized enormous manpower to search for her.
On the day of court, she publicly beat the Second Princess, directly challenging imperial dignity—yet the Empress hadn't punished her, hadn't even rebuked her properly.
Today, her movements were merely stiff, and the Empress wanted the top physician to check on her.
This hardly seemed like the same woman.
Xie Yu shook her head. "No need. I just slept poorly last night."
The Empress looked at her deeply. "Your body and skin are gifts from your mother. If you harm yourself, you cause your family worry."
Too gentle.
Xie Yu suspected the Empress had taken some kind of pill at dawn and wasn't in her right mind.
She didn't want to dwell on it. "Let's move on to the next step."
Though it was called a betrothal ancestor ritual, most of it concerned only the imperial family. It had little to do with Shen Changyin.
The Daoist simply asked the two "newly bonded" women to offer tea to heaven and earth twice, after Shen Changyin was asked to step to the second row. Xie Yu would perform the remaining ritual steps.
"Bloodline unbroken, forever continuing." The Daoist, wearing a tall crown and voluminous robes, spoke strange phrases while taking out two jade bowls.
The bowls were thin, nearly translucent. The Daoist scooped a small amount of incense ash from the just-used burner into each bowl.
Then she poured ritual wine into them, turned toward Xie Yu and the Empress, and said:
"Eat the ash of your ancestors; remember the root of your life."
She offered the bowls forward.
It took Xie Yu two or three seconds to process the meaning—incense ash from a ritual burner symbolized ancestral ashes. Drinking it meant "consuming the ancestors," remembering one's origin and bloodline.
Realizing this, Xie Yu immediately stepped back a full pace.
This was too bizarre—beyond the scope of Daoism, straight into full-blown superstition. The dark kind.
She declared firmly, "I would rather die than drink that."
She glanced back. Shen Changyin nodded slightly and made an imperceptible hand sign toward the right side of the forest.
Old Jin was stationed there with soldiers, ready to break in at any time.
Xie Yu calmed slightly and faced the Daoist again.
The Empress, seeing the stalemate and Xie Yu's unwavering expression, didn't argue. She simply picked up her own bowl and drank it.
"Let her be. Continue."
The Daoist returned Xie Yu's bowl to the table, produced two new white jade bowls, and filled them with tea. Two child attendants each took one bowl and held them out to Xie Yu and the Empress.
Xie Yu thought, Tea is fine.
She did not expect what happened next.
The Daoist withdrew a sharp dagger from her sleeve.
A flash of silver.
"Like the crow returning its parents' care, like the lamb kneeling to nurse. With my blood, I honor my mother."
"Third Princess." The Daoist turned to her. "Please let your blood fall into the tea, to present it to your mother—who is also the mother of the realm, our sovereign."
Xie Yu stepped back again, nearly colliding with Shen Changyin.
"I would rather you die than let me cut my own hand."
Drinking human blood—way too evil.
She felt like she'd been tossed back to a primitive tribe, covered in leaves, hanging from vines, dancing around boulders wearing skull crowns.
That level of primitive evil.
Shen Changyin stepped up beside her. "Today is an auspicious day—our betrothal, and Her Highness's birthday. No blood should be spilled."
The Daoist, who had been hunched with her head down all this time, slowly lifted her head.
Xie Yu realized—her skin was ash-gray, her pupils pale, almost corpse-like. Uncanny, eerie.
Her whole body tensed like a serpent ready to strike.
She sensed Shen Changyin was also poised—one signal from her and Old Jin would storm down from the mountain.
As the three stood in silent confrontation, it was the Empress who broke it.
"I said, let her be."
She drew her own dagger, sliced her own fingertip, and let her blood drip into the tea meant for her.
Then she carried the tea to the ancestral tablets, lifted it in offering, and poured it into the incense ash.
That effectively meant feeding her ancestors her own blood.
Seeing the ritual finish so cleanly, Xie Yu exhaled.
Fine—believe whatever dark, ancient nonsense you want. As long as you don't force me.
She turned to tell Shen Changyin to relax when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a gray figure lunge at her.
A flash of silver. The Daoist's pale pupils filled her vision. A wave of primal horror rose behind her like a giant moon over a prehistoric forest.
Then—searing pain shot up her fingertip.
The Daoist—who looked like she'd been dead for three months—was unexpectedly strong, grabbing her hand and forcing her blood to drip into the remaining bowl of tea.
Xie Yu watched her own bright blood bloom into the liquid, turning it a rusty red.
The Daoist released her hand, cleared her throat, and apologized:
"Third Princess, I only act for the safety of our sovereign and the stability of the realm. Please forgive me."
Forgive your **$%#&%**/*
Xie Yu swore violently in her heart.
Shen Changyin's expression darkened; her fingers trembled.
But when the Empress took the bowl from the attendant, Xie Yu became strangely calm. She grabbed Shen Changyin's wrist to stop her.
She watched the Empress drink every drop of the blood tea.
Then said aloud, without avoiding anyone's ears:
"I have never regretted not having an infectious disease more than I do right now."
Several attendants darkened visibly. Imperial guards loyal to the Empress put hands on their sword hilts.
Xie Yu released Shen Changyin. Shen Changyin stepped forward, scanning the surroundings.
The Empress lifted her hand and pressed downward, signaling everyone to stay calm.
"Since the rite is complete, go up the mountain. Pay respects at the ancestral shrine, then come back down. Your betrothal banquet awaits in the capital."
She finished. Both sides slowly backed away, watching each other closely.
"Let's go."
Xie Yu grabbed Shen Changyin and headed straight up the mountain path. She didn't bother avoiding the Empress—she deliberately bumped into her while passing.
She kept a perfectly calm expression, saying nothing. Only after they climbed the stone steps did she suddenly speak:
"If you ever decide to get rid of her, her end had better be terrible. The kind of terrible drenched in blood and misfortune."
Shen Changyin stopped walking and looked at her. Her tone stayed calm yet carried a deep solemnity. "You have my word."
—
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