Shaxi Moon Crossing - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

After we helped her settle in for the night, Wanxin and I slipped quietly out of the bedchamber.

Together, we made our way beneath the corridor of Kunning Palace.

She first looked around.

After making sure no one was there, she took the dagger from inside her robes again.

“Since we’ve been given another life, we can’t let Her Majesty die again.”

Both of us had received the Empress’s kindness.

Wanxin had once been a maid in Consort Shu’s palace, but because she bore a resemblance to the Empress, Consort Shu humiliated her again and again.

When the Empress found out, she immediately had Wanxin transferred to Kunning Palace.

Not only did she summon an imperial physician to treat her wounds, but out of guilt, she also rewarded her with a great deal of gold, silver, and treasure, and even changed her status from slave register to commoner register.

She promised that one day, Wanxin would be married off in splendor as the Empress’s younger sister.

But at the time, Wanxin did not wish to leave the palace.

So the Empress made her one of her chief palace maids first, giving her all the dignity and face she could.

She had even bent the rules for her sake.

When Consort Shu made a mistake, the Empress deliberately let Wanxin punish her with her own hands, just so Wanxin could vent the resentment in her heart.

After that, everyone knew.

Wanxin was the Empress’s trusted confidante.

No one was allowed to touch her.

As for me, at first, I was nothing more than the lowliest palace maid in the Laundry Bureau.

Then, by accident, I fell gravely ill.

The life of a palace maid was too cheap. I was not worthy of an imperial physician’s treatment, much less medicine.

All they could do was move me to the Cold Palace to wait for death.

But on the way there, I happened to encounter the Empress.

She personally checked for my breath.

When she discovered I was still alive, she ordered them to send me to Kunning Palace.

She called an imperial physician for me and used the best medicine on me.

My hands had been left with stubborn old injuries from years of washing clothes.

The Empress tried every possible method to heal them. She even asked her maternal family outside the palace to search for miraculous medicine for me, and in the end, my hands recovered completely.

In the palace, very few masters treated a servant’s life as a life.

That was why Wanxin and I

were truly grateful to the Empress beyond words, and why we were willing to be loyal to her for the rest of our lives.

Her dying wish was something we had to fulfill.

“But in this life, the Empress is still alive. We should do something too.”

I looked at the dagger in Wanxin’s hand.

Then I calculated the dates.

In three days, Xiao Yin would hold a palace banquet, and at that banquet, he would once again reward the Noble Consort who had harmed the Empress’s child.

Because of that, the Empress fell into utter despair.

She climbed the city tower, barefoot and with her hair loose, then leaped down.

She left this world cleanly and completely.

“Fuwei, have you thought of a way?”

Wanxin looked at me nervously.

I patted her hand. “At the palace banquet three days from now, the Empress will send you to the imperial bed. I will also choose that night to leave the palace.”

“What about the Empress? Are you going to watch her die in front of us all over again?”

Wanxin’s eyes reddened at the corners, and her voice trembled slightly.

I shook my head. “No. That night, a great fire will break out in Kunning Palace. From then on, there will be no Empress left in this world.”

But among the common people, there would be one more woman named Rong Shu.

The willows within the palace walls. The wealth and honor of the imperial family.

Not everyone wanted that kind of fortune.

In my past life, I kept thinking.

If I could have the chance to start over, I would definitely save the Empress.

Since she wanted freedom, then I would help her leave the palace.

The misty rains of Jiangnan-we could see them together.

I had always been an orphan with no one to depend on.

With her, I would have an elder sister, and I would no longer be alone.

“It’s just-”

I looked at Wanxin worriedly. “Do you really want to stay?”

Wanxin had been as close as a sister to me for seven years, after all.

She understood what I meant.

Wanxin withdrew her hand and looked out at the spring rain beyond the corridor, the corners of her lips lifting faintly.

“I’m different from you. I’m greedy. From the day Consort Shu humiliated me, I wanted to become someone above others. Whether His Majesty loves me or not doesn’t matter. As long as the Empress recommends me, he will give me enough dignity. And I will seize that dignity and climb upward, step by step.”

Wanxin turned back to glance at me.

She smiled at me. “Fuwei, everyone has their own ambitions. I want to stand above others. I don’t want to kneel in the rain anymore.”

I could not help looking at her knees.

When she was still a palace maid under Consort Shu, she had been tormented too harshly. Her knees were left with a chronic ailment, and they ached whenever it rained.

But even as the most respected chief maid in Kunning Palace,

when she saw the consorts and masters, no matter how much her knees hurt, she still had to kneel.

Still, she was right about one thing.

Everyone had their own ambitions.

What I thought was good might not be what she wanted.

Forcing it would only breed resentment.

I nodded to her. “Then I wish you every success.”

“You too.” Wanxin looked at me. “Once you leave the palace, go to Jiangnan and find that lover of yours. He’s been waiting for you all this time.”

Before I could open my mouth,

just as Wanxin finished speaking,

not far away, the emperor in his bright yellow dragon robe strode toward us.

His gaze fell on me.

With a smile that was not quite a smile, he said, “Lover? Who has a lover?”