The moment Shen Weiwan opened her eyes, she had transmigrated into a palace-intrigue novel as the disgraced empress, destined to spend twenty-seven years confined in the Cold Palace and eventually die of illness. The history books had already written her ending: a bitterly cold palace, an emperor who had turned against her, and everyone waiting to watch her wither away in despair. But she refused to sit back and await her fate. Her gaze fell on the dusty books in the Cold Palace’s frigid halls, and she found a spark of hope in her desperate circumstances: copying books.
For twenty-seven years, she welcomed spring alongside fading plum blossoms, listened to the night rain in summer, swept fallen leaves from the steps in autumn, and huddled around a chilly brazier in winter. She brushed away the dust, repaired damaged volumes, and painstakingly copied every book in the Cold Palace, from the classics and histories to medical texts and miscellaneous notes, from poetry and lyrics to rare, one-of-a-kind manuscripts. The once-dilapidated Cold Palace became her refuge, steeped in the scent of ink. Through the words she copied, her resentment faded, replaced by a calm and composed heart.
When the new emperor ascended the throne, he granted a general amnesty. On the day she left the Cold Palace, seventeen ox carts carried ten thousand volumes of handwritten books, creating a sensation throughout the court. The court historian recorded: “The former empress, a certain Lady Shen, left the palace with ten thousand volumes and disappeared without a trace.”
She quietly returned to her home in Jiangnan and opened the Wanqing School, accepting only girls from poor families and teaching them to read, understand their hearts, see the world, and know themselves. Someone once asked whether she had hated her twenty-seven years in the palace. She ran her fingers over the yellowed pages and said softly, “Those twenty-seven years were spent with the books, not in that palace.”
Copying books saved her and helped her become who she was. Palace walls could not imprison a heart nourished by words. She never won the palace intrigue, but she wielded her brush and ink like a blade, breaking free of the fate written for her. She taught and inspired others, passed down the classics, and secretly investigated the old case involving the Shen family. Amid the ordinary comforts of daily life, she became her own light.
