Three years ago, she saved a man at the docks and hummed a few bars of Mu Guiying.
Three years later, she became his fourth concubine, singing Mu Guiying to him in the manor every night.
He asked if she had ever saved anyone.
She said she had. At the docks. A soldier who was nearly dead.
He asked what she had sung.
She said Mu Guiying.
He asked if she still remembered what the man looked like.
She said she didn't.
Every word she said, from beginning to end, was true.
She simply hadn't told him everything.
She was afraid he would thank her.
She didn't want his gratitude. She wanted his love.
Later, she was falsely accused of being a spy, and he personally exiled her.
Dressed as Consort Yu, she climbed the city tower and sang the final line:
The King has lost his spirit...
Her voice broke, and she fell.
In her hand, she still clutched a water sleeve embroidered with his name.
Three days later, he returned to the city and searched through her belongings. He found:
The prescription from the docks three years ago, the burn marks on her sleeve, and the two characters embroidered on the water sleeve:
Tingchuan.
The benefactor he had searched for over three years had died on the day he went to war.
Even as she died, she had been singing opera for him.
This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.
