My name is Meili. I was once the freest mermaid in the South Sea, but for the sake of a man, I willingly gave up my magic and traded my tail away. I became Consort Li, the envy of everyone in the Great Jing imperial palace.
He is Xiao Che, the emperor I once saved, who promised to give me a peaceful life. When I first entered the palace, he rebuked officials and defied powerful clans for me. He spread the fine sand of the South Sea across the courtyard, promising that I would always be able to see a glimpse of home.
But I forgot that an emperor’s love is always mixed with calculation. When Noble Consort Su withheld my charcoal, he protected me. When someone framed me with a little wooden figurine at a palace banquet, he punished the culprit but let the mastermind go. Then, when I became pregnant with his child, a bowl of safflower soup left me bleeding without end. He watched me collapse in a pool of blood and didn’t even say a word to hold anyone accountable.
The most laughable part is that only at the very end did I learn he had kept me not out of affection, but because Su Wan told him that a mermaid’s heart could grant eternal life.
When he walked into my palace with a dagger in his hand, his eyes filled with a greed I had never seen before, I finally understood: what had trapped me in this imperial harem wasn’t my body, but my ridiculous obsession.
A broken mermaid pearl cannot be mended, and a dead child cannot be brought back to life. So I will tear down these rotten palace walls with my own hands and make him and his empire pay for my love with their lives!
