Chapter 1

I was born with the power to make my words come true.

On the day I was born, a wandering Daoist priest burst into our marquis’s residence. Pointing at me in my swaddling clothes, he declared:

“This girl speaks with the authority of Heaven. A single utterance can decide life or death. But she may speak only three times in her life. After the third, Heaven and Earth will seal her voice.”

No one believed him. Then, when I was five, Father marched north to Xiangbei. Everyone at court said defeat was certain.

I put my arms around his neck and said, “Father will win this battle.”

Half a month later, news of his victory reached the capital. With three thousand battered soldiers, Father had routed twenty thousand enemies and taken eight thousand heads. The entire court was stunned.

The winter I turned seven, my stepmother refused to give me a padded coat. Shivering, I said:

“For the cold I suffer today, Mother will suffer a hundred times the pain.”

The next day, chilblains covered both her hands. The sores ate down to the bone and took three months to heal.

She never dared touch me again.

When I was nine, my stepsister Shen Qinghe snatched my bracelet. I couldn’t be bothered to fight her for it.

“It looks so lovely on you, Sister. From now on, those hands can be purely ornamental.”

The following day, while trimming plum branches, Shen Qinghe accidentally severed the tendons in her hands. She could never play the qin again.

She cried until she fainted. My stepmother wept to Father that I was a demon.

After some thought, he moved me to a remote side courtyard and forgot about me.

I had spoken three times. Now I had no voice.

Weeds grew tall behind the courtyard’s high walls. No one came.

Until the night of my elder sister’s wedding. My stepmother brought in a bowl of osmanthus tangyuan. I sensed something was wrong, but I couldn’t force out a word.

Sure enough, half an hour after eating them, my sister died in my arms.

Later, my stepsister married in her place. Father died of illness. A wall in my courtyard collapsed and buried me beneath it. No one came looking.

When I opened my eyes again, I was five. My elder sister was still alive.

And I hadn’t spoken a single word yet.

Father was about to march off to war. I kept silent. Half a month later, he came home with one ruined leg.

My stepmother denied me warm clothes. I endured the cold without a sound.

At last, I made it to the year I turned ten. My sister’s wedding day.

My stepmother brought out that bowl of poisoned tangyuan again.

And finally, I spoke for the first time.

……

When I woke, my elder sister, Shen Qingyue, was sitting beside my bed embroidering a handkerchief.

Her eyes curved into little crescents when she smiled.

“You’re awake, Ayuan? Up you get. Mother is taking us outside the city to offer incense today.”

I looked at her and suddenly saw her dying in my arms in my previous life.

I said nothing. I only reached out and touched her warm cheek.

This time, I wouldn’t let her die.

Father went to Xiangbei just as he had before.

Everyone at court said he was certain to lose. The enemy had twenty thousand elite troops. He had only three thousand battered men.

Before leaving, he came to my side courtyard. He crouched down and stroked my head.

“Ayuan, if I don’t come back, you’ll have to take care of yourself.”

My lips moved. The words “Father will win this battle” almost slipped out.

I held them back.

In my last life, that promise had brought him home in triumph. It had also made the court fear him. In the end, once he’d outlived his usefulness, they’d cast him aside.

This time, I would rather he lost.

At least he would live.

Half a month later, a courier brought the dispatch.

Father’s three thousand battered soldiers had faced twenty thousand enemy troops. After three days of desperate fighting, with no food or reinforcements left, an arrow struck his right leg. He fell from his horse and was captured.

His deputy risked his life to get him back, but the leg was ruined.

The day Father returned, I watched from the entrance to my courtyard.

They carried him into the residence. His face was ashen. Blood-soaked bandages wrapped his leg from the knee down.

My stepmother wailed. My sister followed behind them, her eyes red.

Then my stepmother spotted me and shrieked:

“You little curse! This is your doing! Your father lost his leg because he looked at you before he left!”

Qingyue stepped in front of her. “Mother! What has any of this got to do with Ayuan?”

I stayed where I was. I didn’t try to defend myself.

It didn’t matter.

I was a curse, after all.

But this time, only those who deserved it would suffer.

Once Father was crippled, the court stopped giving him important duties.

The household declined by the day, and my stepmother’s temper grew worse with it.

Winter came early.

Frost covered the ground in the beginning of the tenth month. I didn’t even have a thick quilt.

My stepmother said money was tight. The allowance for my courtyard was cut in half.

I curled up in a corner of my bed, hugging my knees, and watched the paper over the window rattle in the wind.

In my last life, I’d spent a whole winter freezing like this before saying that Mother would suffer a hundred times my pain.

This time, I clenched my teeth and made no sound.

All I wanted was to last until spring, three years from now.

That was when my sister would marry.

Her betrothed was the heir to the Marquis of Zhenbei. She could have had a good life.

But on her wedding day, my stepmother had brought out a bowl of osmanthus tangyuan. I would never forget it.

This time, I would keep her safe.

……

At last, my tenth birthday arrived. My sister’s wedding had been set for the eighth day of the third month.

My stepmother was run off her feet, spending every day rummaging through the storerooms for things to put in the dowry.

Whenever my sister had a free moment, she came running to my courtyard with treats she’d sneaked out of the kitchen.

“Look at this fabric, Ayuan. I had the seamstress cut you a new outfit.”

She spread a length of rosy red silk over my bed, her eyes bright.

“When you’re older, I’ll find you a good husband.”

I watched her smile, and my chest ached.

She had no idea what would happen on her wedding day.

I couldn’t tell her.

I could speak only three times. I had to make each one count.

In my last life, I’d wasted one on Father, one on my stepmother, and one on Shen Qinghe.

When my sister needed me, I hadn’t been able to force out a single word.

This time, I would save all three for the people who deserved them.