At three o'clock in the Yin hour, there was even more noise.
I woke up from a long nightmare, my shirt soaked in cold sweat. In front of me are not the dilapidated beams and pillars of the cold palace, but the familiar crocodile silk tent roof in the boudoir of the Hou Mansion. The gilt incense ball hanging at the corner of the tent is spitting out the last wisp of styrax.
"Miss, are you having a nightmare?" Bizhu, the maid who was keeping watch at night, lifted up the tent to take a look, her young face illuminated by the candlestick in her hand.
I stared blankly at her—the face that was beaten to death for begging for a bowl of hot soup during the third year of my imprisonment in the cold palace. The fingertips dug into the palm of the hand, and the pain was real.
"What year is today...?"
"Why did you forget, Miss? Today is the seventh day of March in the seventeenth year of Yongchang." Bizhu pursed her lips and smiled, "In three days, it will be your wedding to His Highness the Third Prince."
Yongchang seventeenth year. The seventh day of March.
