From Palace Maid to Grand Empress Dowager

When Lin Dani was eight, her father sold her for three and a half strings of coins. Later, she did the math: at the prices back then, one old hen cost thirty coins. Three and a half strings could buy 116 hens, with five coins left over. In other words, her career began with her being valued at 116 old hens.

Her career motto was simple: learn one more skill, and you’ll have to ask others for one less favor. Looking back on it later, she summed it up this way: In the palace, tears are the most useless thing of all. Instead of wasting time crying, get to work and learn something.

She rose all the way from the Laundry Bureau to the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility, outlasting several empresses and two emperors. She owed it all to three things: a good temper, a tight tongue, and a long life. She lived well into her eighties. As her descendants gathered around her deathbed and asked if she had any last words, she thought for a moment and said, “The red bean paste in the imperial kitchen. The recipe is on page thirty-six of the cookbook. Don’t add too much sugar.”