In the autumn of the 19th year of Yongchang, Ah Heng, the most humble maidservant in Huanyi in Yeting, was carried into Jingyang Palace with an imperial edict. No one in the Jiuchong Palace knew that this mute girl with a silver lock around her neck was the only daughter of Taifu Xie who was executed three years ago. Under the red butterfly birthmark on her wrist, there is also the mark of an official prostitute who was erased during her exile.
In the dark night, the new regent Xiao Zhixuan pinched her chin and sneered: "You little liar who pretends to be deaf and mute, the weight of the heartbroken grass you added to my tea cup is far from enough." Sparks flew from the gilt incense burner, and his fingertips ran across her trembling spine: "The injustice of the Xie family contains the secret of the national jade seal. Why do you think the Queen Mother spared your life?"
Murder is everywhere inside and outside the red wall. The abandoned concubine in the cold palace hangs on the beam late at night, the secret door in front of her disappears, and the koi carp in the imperial garden suddenly turns up its blood-red belly. Ah Heng touched half of the bloody soldier talisman beside Xiao Zhixuan's pillow, and suddenly remembered the young man in white who sent her to the palace on a rainy night, with the same incomplete tiger talisman hanging on his waist.
On the night when the beacon was lit at Chengtian Gate, she finally unlocked the blood book that had been hidden in the silver lock for eighteen years. On the yellowed silk, my father's last words were as sharp as a knife: "Heng'er, you are..."
