In the third year of Yong’an under the Great Liang dynasty, Noble Consort Jiang, the emperor’s most favored consort, was cast into the Cold Palace overnight. There was no interrogation, no chance to defend herself, and not even a final meeting with the emperor. A forged secret letter accusing her of treason sent her tumbling from the clouds into the mire.
For three years in the Cold Palace, she suffered frostbite on her hands and wasted away to skin and bone. What she received was not the emperor’s return to her side, but a bowl of “warming soup” laced with arsenic.
Yet she had one rare skill that no one else in the world possessed: breath control.
She staged a perfect fake death and escaped the palace walls right under everyone’s noses. After traveling thousands of miles to the frontier, she assumed a new identity as the proprietress of the Wanggui Inn. She brewed three kinds of wine: Beauty’s Intoxication, Moon Over the Frontier, and Waters of Lethe. Each cup held the story of her heart, which had died and been reborn.
She thought she could disappear under an assumed name and leave all her pain behind. But when the imperial mausoleum collapsed, the secret passage she had used to escape was exposed. Emperor Chu Qi’an personally pursued her to the frontier, just to see her one last time.
At last, the truth emerged: he knew the letter was forged. He knew she was innocent. He had simply needed her to “sacrifice” three years of her life to help him bring down a powerful minister.
He thought she would wait. But in the Cold Palace, she had waited until her heart died, until she faked her death, until she no longer wished to turn back.
When they met again at Yongning Temple, she neither cried nor made a scene. She simply looked into his eyes and said calmly, “You are not me. You don’t know how much it hurt when they slapped me in the Cold Palace.”
She chose freedom. He chose the realm.
Years later, when word came that he was on his deathbed, she did not go to see him one last time.
It was not hatred. For some people, not seeing them is the best way to say goodbye.
There is no brainless water injection, the plot is compact, and the further you go, the more you get to the top.