Headache.
It felt like someone had driven nails into my temples, or like someone had stuffed my whole head into boiling water and boiled it. I opened my eyes with difficulty, and what I saw was a patchwork of blackened beams. The air was filled with a damp, musty smell, mixed with the bitter smell of inferior herbs.
I propped up my body and pressed my palms on the hard straw mat beneath me. The rough grass stems made my palms ache.
Where is this?
A memory that did not belong to me suddenly came up and rushed into my mind like a flood that broke a dam - Shen Jinglan, the little princess of the cold palace, thirteen years old, the daughter of the abandoned queen forgotten by the emperor. The memories are full of images of being hungry, being beaten, and being bullied by palace maids. Even a full meal is a luxury.
Wrong.
I frowned and pressed my temples hard, and another, clearer memory emerged in my mind - a nine-star Feng Shui master who changed fate against the will of heaven, used the celestial phenomena as a chess piece and the earth veins as a game, and was finally besieged by a group of guys who claimed to be the law enforcers of heaven, and he blew himself up to death.
Am I alive?
No, I came through it.
