Old Tales from Hazel Garden

Born into wealth, yet envied by all. The nobles laugh and jest, but death is only a step away. Xia Fuzhi grew up with this doggerel from a mad monk. She was the “child born into wealth,” the one “envied by all,” but she did not die in that clash of politics and women. Instead, her grandmother, the Princess of Lin'an, took her back to the family's ancestral home in the northwest. Far from the hustle and bustle, far from wealth and splendor, she grew up safe and sound until the age of seven. Sitting in a carriage that creaked and rattled along, little Fuzhi couldn't quite make sense of her feelings. Today she was heading to the capital. After traveling all the way from the northwest, it would be a lie to say she felt no joy at all. Snowflakes drifted past the window. Her grandmother had said they would live at Zhen Garden, and might never return to their ancestral home in the northwest. Thinking of all that wealth and splendor, even her three cousins traveling with her couldn't hide their delight. But little Fuzhi could never have imagined that the capital held not only her parents and siblings, but endless troubles as well. She endured, yielded, and backed down. She wanted nothing more than to be an aimless nobody, but one by one, they all refused to give her the chance. She fought, struggled, and pushed forward. She threw those rules aside and began acting out, and suddenly they were all paper tigers, stripped of their fearsome airs. She crossed one threshold after another and overcame one hurdle after another. Looking back at those who had once stood by her side, she saw that none of them were the same as before... Theme: