The Jade Steps
The jade steps of the Dayin Dynasty were paved with gold bricks and soaked in blood.
Xie Wei remembered how the flames had lit up half the sky that night. The evidence of her father’s “treason” had been flung across the Golden Throne Hall, and the hoofbeats of horses had crushed the cries of her whole family. She crawled out of a sea of corpses and fire, becoming Shen Yuwei, a silent palace maid in the Laundry Bureau. Hidden in her sleeve was half of a bloodstained rubbing of a military tally, the truth her father had given his life to obtain.
The inner palace was a mire. She concealed her sharpness, listening for the wind and rain amid the scent of soapberry in the laundry and uncovering conspiracies through the brushwork and ink of the Imperial Study. Then she met the Seventh Prince, Xiao Che, who was always lingering among paintings and calligraphy. His remark, “The glaze isn’t pure,” saved her, yet also dragged her into a deeper whirlpool. He concealed the empire in his eyes and held a game of strategy between his fingers. Beneath his seemingly carefree smile lay a calculated path to power.
They were allies, and they were rivals. She used his influence to investigate the old case; he used her sharpness to unravel the mystery. Every step on the jade stairs was marked by schemes and tests. But when the warlords’ cavalry trampled the capital, when the Crown Prince’s blade pointed at the throne, and when her identity and his secrets were revealed together, she learned that in the struggle for power, it was never easy to tell where one ended and the other began.
The scent of medicine in the Imperial Medical Academy held the warmth of an old acquaintance; traces of her mother lay buried in the misty rain of Jiangnan. And the token he handed her was warm against her palm. Xie Wei gazed at Xiao Che, the man who had once let loyal subjects be falsely accused for the sake of power, the man who had shielded her during the palace coup
“The Xie family’s injustice must be avenged, and the dynasty’s turmoil must be quelled. But what I want has never been limited to that.”
His fingertips brushed the loose hair at her temple. His voice rang low, like ancient jade striking against jade. “Then what is it you want?”
