By an imperial edict granting a wedding meant to bring good fortune, she is forced to marry into the Prince of Nanjing’s household. The groom, Xiao Duo, is rumored to have lost the use of both legs, with poison in his bones, and not to live past the end of the year.
On their wedding night, she spills a cup of poisoned wine onto the ground and uses three silver needles to rouse the prince, who has been pretending to be disabled. She also lays bare the rot festering throughout the imperial capital:
• For ten years, he has mistaken the wrong woman for his savior and protected her elder sister instead.
• His mother was poisoned to death, and her unborn baby boy died in the womb.
• She is the true princess, but her identity was switched, and she was branded a “bastard.”
The Tiger Tally is split in two; one ring of a bronze bell means death.
Her brother spills blood on the palace steps for her. She seizes the tally from a sea of flames, cuts ties atop a cliff, and writes in blood:
“I will never enter the palace in this life, nor become empress. I only wish for a world without injustice, where no mother or child must suffer loss.”
The throne changes hands, and the empress’s seat remains empty.
After three years at the Unreturning Medical Clinic, when they meet again, a little child grabs hold of two men who hold all the power in the world:
“Which one of you is my father?”
The whole world is waiting for the empress to return. Only she knows this:
What she has always wanted is not the phoenix throne, but a world where no one is sacrificed for having a lowly status.
