On the seventh day of every month, the emperor had me, the son of a disgraced consort confined to the Cold Palace, flogged.
“Thirty lashes, to atone for your mother’s sins.” As beads of blood bloomed on the snow, he laughed with particular relish.
I endured the punishment in silence. No one knew I had once trained in the Imperial Guard’s covert corps, where I could cut down ten men with a single sword stroke.
Until the night of a snowstorm, when a prince was ambushed and I saved him by snapping the assassin’s neck with my bare hands.
The emperor eyed the blood dripping from my sword and sneered. “Not bad. Just like your mother.”
In the deathly silence of the hall, he stroked my bloodstained sword and murmured,
“You are, after all, her son…”
It's very beautiful, with clear logic and delicate emotions.