Extra Chapter One: Asking You About the Magnolia Blossom, You Say It Has Already Faded. (1)

I was born into the distinguished Lu clan. My father was the Imperial Chancellor, and my husband was the Crown Prince.

I was the youngest daughter in the family. Everyone said that my father doted on his youngest far more than he did on his eldest legitimate daughter.

But I knew that rumor was not entirely true.

On the day before my wedding, my mother, worried for my future, wept until her eyes were swollen red, caring nothing for the dignity expected of the wife of the Chancellor of the Lu household on the following day.

Even so, my father had agreed to the marriage without the slightest hesitation.

Yes. In order to secure his position as Imperial Chancellor, my father had struck a bargain with the Empress. He would send me to the Eastern Palace to become the Crown Prince’s secondary consort.

The Lu clan was a family of lofty prestige; the imperial household, however, possessed power vast enough to shake the heavens.

Unfortunately, His Highness the Crown Prince was an exceedingly difficult man to deal with.

Though born to the most exalted station, he was violent-tempered, took no interest in governing, and delighted in defying his imperial father. Worse still, he had a beloved whom he could never forget.

Most importantly, that beloved was a young man—a fact known throughout the imperial capital.

For this reason, although the Crown Prince had long since passed his twentieth year, he had yet to take a principal wife.

The Empress sent painters across the empire to search for a woman of beauty, virtue, and talent. At last, the search bore fruit.

While all the noble ladies of the capital, myself included, were still sighing over the unfortunate fate awaiting the new Crown Princess, an imperial decree suddenly arrived, betrothing me to the Crown Prince as his secondary consort.

After seeing the eunuch who had delivered the decree out, my mother began to weep.

“My poor child, my poor child! Your life is over!”

She was only my father’s second wife and had always obeyed him in everything. With little say in the family, she did not dare make a scene. All she could do was hold me and sob quietly.

I had heard that on the night of the Crown Prince’s wedding, he had not even entered the Crown Princess’s bridal chamber. The next day, he had left the Crown Princess behind and gone to the palace alone, humiliating her before all the imperial relatives and noblewomen.

I was terrified, but so that my mother would cry a little less, I pretended to be calm.

My mother told me that I could no longer count on the Crown Prince in this life, but that I could still live peacefully alongside the Crown Princess. After all, perhaps two unfortunate women, both deprived of their husband’s affection, could support each other and keep one another company until old age.

She did not wish for my husband and me to live in harmony, growing old together with our brows raised in mutual respect. She wished only that I might reach old age in safety, free from illness and disaster.

Sadly, even that simple wish was not granted.

The day after I entered the Eastern Palace, I met the Crown Princess. She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman—gentle and virtuous, with every frown and smile touched by the unique grace of a woman from the southern waterways.

I liked her very much.

And she liked listening to me play the qin.

There was one Crown Princess, two secondary consorts, and one palace lady in the Eastern Palace. After half a year, the four of us had grown entirely comfortable with one another.

That was because His Highness the Crown Prince liked none of us—not even Lady An, whom he had chosen himself.

The Crown Princess was generous and kind, which made my mother very happy. She asked whether I got along with the other two women, Lady Cheng and Lady An.

She said that Lady Cheng came from an illustrious family and had grown up with the Crown Prince. Surely, in the presence of women who had entered the palace halfway through his life, she would be somewhat overbearing.

I wanted to tell her that this was not the case.

I had discovered that Lady Cheng’s attention was not on the Crown Prince at all. She never caused trouble before us. Her only concern was the Crown Princess’s daily routine and habits.

So long as no one disturbed her, she could stare at the Crown Princess’s face for half a day at a time.

I thought perhaps she, like me, had never before seen a woman so beautiful.

His Highness did not like the Crown Princess, but she herself was deeply attentive to everything concerning him. Whenever I entered the palace to pay my respects to the Empress, I was consumed by anxiety, yet the Crown Princess always wore a gentle and proper smile. For that reason, the Empress liked her very much.

I thought that, apart from His Highness the Crown Prince, there could be no one in the world who disliked the Crown Princess.

The old lady of the Duke of Cheng’s household passed away, and I accompanied the Crown Princess to offer condolences. When we passed the former residence of the Marquis of Wu Jing, the Crown Prince stopped for a long while. I explained to the Crown Princess the connection between the former Marquis of Wu Jing’s household and the Duke of Cheng’s.

After hearing me, the Crown Princess’s expression grew grave. She seemed deeply sympathetic toward the misfortunes that had befallen the Marquis’s family.

Of course, there might have been another reason as well.

The young man who lived forever in the Crown Prince’s heart, the beloved he could never forget, was named Pei. He had been the young heir of the former Marquis of Wu Jing.

During my first year in the Eastern Palace, I accompanied the imperial party on the winter hunt. Snow lay thick and high upon Nine-Dragon Mountain. The Crown Princess feared the cold, yet she forced herself to sit on the viewing platform for several days.

Many things happened during that brief winter hunt. First, His Highness the Prince of An, the Emperor’s nephew, fell from his horse and was injured. The Emperor flew into a rage and sternly rebuked several of the princes.

A few days later, Prince An was sent back to the capital. Then an assassination attempt took place at the hunting grounds. The Emperor was unharmed, but the Crown Prince was injured and remained unconscious for several days.

The Crown Princess caught cold while caring for him, and I spent every day in a state of dread.

What would happen to me if something happened to the Crown Prince and Crown Princess? I even thought of those imperial wives who, despite their youth, had been sent away to temples. I was terrified that my fate would be the same as theirs.

I was walking outside the tents, silently shedding tears, when I heard voices raised in argument.

It was Lady Cheng and her fourth uncle, the Duke of Cheng, who commanded two hundred thousand troops on the northern frontier.

“Uncle, if anything happens to His Highness, what am I supposed to do?”

“You never loved him in the first place. Why grieve so bitterly? The Empress forced you to marry the Crown Prince. Your uncles never agreed to it. If something happens to him, I will beg His Majesty to let you return to the Cheng family. We will support you.”

I dared not listen any longer and wandered back to my own tent in a daze.

I wondered whether, if something happened to the Crown Prince, my father would beg the Emperor to let me return to the Lu family.

And what of the Crown Princess? As the principal wife, she could never return to Jiangdong.

Fortunately, the Crown Princess recovered, and the Crown Prince survived the ordeal.

He remained in the Eastern Palace recuperating until the spring of the following year.

It was after that spring that I began to notice a gradual change in his attitude toward the Crown Princess.

Everyone said that the Crown Princess’s eyes were astonishingly like those of the young heir of the Marquis of Wu Jing. I had never seen the young heir, but Lady Cheng had. I had heard that the two families had once nearly arranged a betrothal between them in childhood.

I thought I perhaps understood Lady Cheng’s feelings toward the Crown Princess.

But Lady Cheng was a woman who clung stubbornly to reason. The young heir had been a man, while the Crown Princess was a woman. How could the two possibly resemble each other?

One day, the three of us were gathered in Lady Cheng’s quarters, gossiping about the romantic scandal between Prince An and an actor. The Crown Princess accidentally ate a piece of chestnut cake.

Lady Cheng, who had always been gentle and magnanimous, harshly reprimanded the palace servants. I had never seen her so furious.

All because the Crown Princess had once said that she hated chestnut cake?

From that day onward, there was something increasingly strange in the way Lady Cheng looked at the Crown Princess.