The year Shen Zhaoning came of age, the Marquis of Anyuan’s residence was still the most powerful household in Chang’an.
Three years later, her father was thrown into prison and the family’s estate confiscated. She fell from the clouds into the mud, forced to live in a drafty shack where she had to think twice before spending even a coin on charcoal.
Everyone said that the former greatest beauty of her generation probably wouldn’t survive the winter.
On the sixteenth day of the twelfth month, heavy snow sealed off the city.
Prince of Zhenbei Pei Ye stood before her, snow dusting his black cloak, his eyes as cold as blades tempered in ice.
He was the youngest prince with a different surname in the court, the son of the Grand Princess and the emperor’s own nephew. He inherited his title at twelve, defeated the enemy at fifteen, and became a great general at nineteen. There was no one in all of Chang’an he couldn’t keep under lock and key.
He shut her away in a courtyard called Snowfall.
There were old plum trees, a heated pavilion, brushes and inkstones engraved with her name, and traces left behind by someone from her past.
He never explained why, and she never asked.
Every snowy night, he would stand outside her window for a long time, then leave.
She thought he simply wanted to tame a little bird.
Until someone else appeared.
Xiao Yizhou had returned. The boy who had promised to take her to Jiangnan to see the apricot blossoms ten years ago was now the top-ranked scholar and a close aide to the emperor.
Standing in the snow, holding an old umbrella painted with apricot blossoms, he said to her, “Zhaoning, come with me.”
One wanted to keep her locked away; the other wanted to take her with him.
One said, “You are my life,” while the other said, “I’ve waited ten years for you.”
