Everyone in the household mocked the general’s legitimate daughter as an “illiterate good-for-nothing,” but no one knew she never forgot a thing she heard. She even remembered exactly when the Empress Dowager changed her tea. The emperor brought her into the palace as a hostage, thinking she would be easy to bully. She played the fool for five months, then used a single apricot blossom to make the Empress Dowager issue an edict to mobilize troops “with her own lips,” saving her father from certain death. But with the Fourth Prince, who carved words for her and took a blade in her place, she could never tell whether each step closer was a scheme or sincere affection. In these palace walls, people who give their hearts never live long.
