On My First Day in the Palace, the Empress Asked My Gaokao Score

The day I entered the palace, I had my excuses ready for the interrogation.

But the empress asked, "What score did you get on the gaokao?"

I said 628.

She still remembered me bragging in the dorm that I'd score 630.

My roommate, who had been missing for ninety-two days, had become the empress and was raising a seven-year-old daughter. She said she'd already been living here for eight years.

She wanted to stay. I wanted to go home.

We could argue about the past later. For now, we had to find out where that fragment of blue-glazed pottery had come from and what clues were hidden in the two old platforms.