You Once Shone Like a Swan, Yet Kept Me Captive for Years

I had been Prince of Zhennan Xiao Yu's concubine for three years. As promised, he brought an imperial decree to secure my elder brother's release.

I bowed to the ground in thanks. He looked down at me from above.

"Crawl over here and receive the decree."

I knew he was punishing me for not greeting his favorite concubine yesterday.

It didn't matter, as long as my brother could live.

To collect the decree, I still needed his order to release the prisoner.

He didn't even raise his eyes. "Kneel in the courtyard. When the snow stops, I'll issue the order."

Wearing the gauzy dress he had bestowed on me, I walked out into the twelfth month's blizzard.

The cold bit through my knees, and I remembered that ten years ago, on a snowy day just like this, I had rescued him from the palace. Burning with fever and half-conscious, he had whispered in my ear, "Thank you."

By dawn, the snow had grown heavier, and coquettish laughter drifted out from the hall.

The steward summoned me inside.

Xiao Yu finally deigned to glance at me. He pushed a plate of crab meat toward me. "Yiyi is giving you this."

I'm allergic to crab. Even a taste makes me gasp for breath. He had discovered that for himself and found it amusing.

I obediently swallowed it, and before long, terrifying red marks spread across my body.

Laughter rang out from the couch, and the release order was tossed at my feet.

I reached for it, but everything went black before my eyes.

"Pathetic," he sneered. "You faint already?"

He was right. I was pathetic.

Just like last night, when I learned that my brother would never live to see the snow stop.

At midnight, he had died by suicide in prison.