Zhang San had been on the throne for several years now. The clematis planted in the shape of the letters SOS bloomed anew each year, and wave after wave of new palace women were brought in to serve him. Zhang San knew he could not father an heir. Over these past years he had played the madman and the fool, clashing with the Empress Dowager openly and in secret so many times that her patience with him had all but run out. The moment a prince was born, his career as her puppet would be finished, and by the next day he would turn up dead at the bottom of a well, an unfortunate accident. And yet he could not refuse the selection of new consorts either, because he had no way of knowing which one among them might be the other person like him. He had to pick her out from among the beauties sent by the Empress Dowager to give him a child, by Prince Duan to poison him, and by every other faction hoping to use her to control him. Where was she? When would she show herself? The question hung...
Yu Wanyin was writing a note to the Prince of Duan. The best thing about the cold palace was that it spared her from having to see him in person. The guards outside looked like they were keeping her confined, but in truth they were protecting her, an invisible wall that blocked every prying eye. Inside the gate there was another layer of hidden guards, making the place as secure as the old Noble Consort's palace had once been. Ever since that bloody magic trick, the Prince of Duan seemed to have decided she was a useful tool, and every few days he sent notes in to her. His notes were elegant, the handwriting refined, the phrasing carefully chosen, always full of tender, lingering words. Yu Wanyin read between the lines and found that the whole page really just said "get to work." Her Heaven's Eye sometimes opened quite eagerly, doing its best to help him fight the Empress Dowager's faction. Drawing on the notes Xu Yao had left behind, she could give him precis...