Everyone in the surrounding villages knew that Nuan Tang, the ugly, simple-minded girl from Tingxue Alley,
was covered in burn scars and blind in one eye.
Every day, she stared at the crabapple tree at the end of the alley. No one knew what she was looking at.
“When the flowers bloom... my husband will come for me... but I can’t keep my promise anymore...”
Her words came in fits and starts, but I still heard the name that sent a chill through me:
Jin Zhao.
The new emperor of the neighboring kingdom, who had murdered his father to seize the throne.
After ascending the throne, he defied all propriety and took the previous dynasty’s imperial consort as his empress. That rumor had circulated through Tingxue Alley for days.
Later, twenty-three girls from Tingxue Alley were slaughtered. Only she and I escaped.
She took a knife to the abdomen while saving me.
As consciousness slipped away, she struggled to open her one good eye.
She looked at me, yet seemed to be gazing at somewhere far away.
“Have the crabapple flowers bloomed?”
