In the tenth year of Qianlong's reign, I became the Qing Dynasty's first living Imperial Noble Consort to be granted a title. I also died on the very night the decree was issued.
People said the Gao clan's daughter was the most favored woman in the palace. But after my death, this favor sent three generations of the Gao family to ruin, and Empress Fuca died during an eastern tour three years later.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the night Yonglian lay critically ill.
The medicine the imperial physician brought tasted just as bitter as the one I drank before I died.
In my previous life, I knelt before the Buddha and recited sutras for three hours, only to hear that my child was dead. In this life, I smashed the medicine bowl in front of everyone, then saw the Gao family's seal on the medicine pouch.
Empress Fuca did not stop me.
She placed an old ledger with missing pages before me.
That night, we decided to save the child first, then find out who was using the Gao family to lead us, step by step, to our deaths.
I thought saving Yonglian would be enough to change fate.
Only later did I understand that the hardest things to save were not a child, but a family spoiled by favor, an empress trapped by her reputation for virtue, and me, a woman who had never lived for herself.
