During the Dazhongxiangfu era of the Northern Song dynasty, undercurrents stir in the imperial harem. Consort Liu De and Consort Li Chen are both pregnant, and Emperor Zhenzong promises, "Whichever of you gives birth to a prince first will become empress." Consort Liu conspires with the eunuch Guo Huai to swap Consort Li's newborn son for a skinned civet cat and accuse her of giving birth to a monster. Consort Li is thrown into the cold palace and later drifts among the common people, blind in both eyes.
But no one knows that the skinned civet cat has a name.
Her name is Ah Heng, and she is a calico cat living in the Nine Lives Temple, tucked away in an alley behind Qingwei Abbey outside Bianjing. The Nine Lives Temple worships neither Buddha nor the Dao, but cats. The old abbot says cats have nine lives, and the temple enshrines the ninth, the life that cannot be lost.
Ah Heng is the ninth kitten born to the Nine Lives Temple's matriarch cat. The old matriarch had nine litters, and Ah Heng was the only kitten to survive the ninth. The old abbot says she was born with nine lives, and anyone who wrongs her will have to pay with their own.
Ah Heng and Feiyan, the deep-red cat later kept in the palace by Emperor Huizong of Song, share a bond forged through life and death. Before Feiyan entered the palace, she once took shelter at the Nine Lives Temple to escape a great danger. Ah Heng protected her from the cat catcher's net. On the day Feiyan left, she left a red cat hair on the temple's doorstep. Ah Heng carried it into her nest and tucked it beneath everything else.
"You've gone to the palace to live in comfort. I'll wait for you at the temple. If you don't come back, I'll come find you."
In the seventh year after Feiyan entered the palace, someone stole one of Ah Heng's kittens from the temple, skinned it, and swapped it for a prince.
Ah Heng cannot speak. But she remembers everything.
She remembers the warmth of her kitten's body, and the soft little purr it gave the last time she licked its ear.
