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Summary
At a palace banquet, I reached for a piece of yellow-pea cake with my chopsticks.
Pei Zhi struck the back of my hand, hard.
In front of every minister at the feast, he said, “Noble Consort Shu has morning sickness. All she wants is a bite of yellow-pea cake.”
“I had this made especially for her. If anyone else touches it, she won’t eat it. You’re the empress. Surely you can indulge her this once instead of fighting over food.”
Perhaps because I remained silent for so long, he pushed a plate of mung-bean cakes toward me with an indifferent air.
“Have these. They’re the same.”
He had forgotten that I disliked the taste of mung beans. For years, the imperial kitchens had made no dishes with them.
Yet he remembered everything Cui Lanzi liked and disliked, even after all those years.
She liked pale celadon gowns. She liked dangling hairpins inlaid with kingfisher feathers. She liked yellow-pea cake…
And so the cloud brocade sent as tribute from Jiangnan, the hair ornaments delivered by the imperial silversmiths, were always in the styles Cui Lanzi preferred.
In my first life, I swallowed that humiliation for a lifetime.
Cui Lanzi and I fell gravely ill at about the same time. As death drew near, Pei Zhi chose to stay with her.
He cradled her, carefully kissed her snow-white hair, and coaxed her to drink the medicine the imperial physicians brought, one spoonful at a time.
So when I was given a second life, when the empress brought out pots of flowers for the noble young ladies to choose from, I did not choose the one that belonged to Pei Zhi.
I had no wish to be that kind of empress again…
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