A group of light, cheerful voices were to be heard behind a heavy door inlayed with gold and silver. A commoner would have thought that he had walked on on an assembly of immortals. Beings detached from earthly worries. They lived in a world where there were no wars besides the wars of jealousy. They lived in a world where there were no generals besides those they liked to mock. They lived in a world where there were no lives besides those they took for their pleasure.

Emperor Xinlong’s court ladies were the most beautiful monstrosities the mortal world could bear. Crammed up in the Empress Consort’s hall, they had come to pay their respects to the Imperial Wife. Most of them were silent. Thus, it would have been easy to believe that at least one of the sing-song voice was the Empress Consort’s. A wrong surmise.

The Empress Consort, personal name Liugui, was a women of few words. At twenty-four, she was already too old to be loved. So society would have said. And yet, she enjoyed the supreme favor of her ruler, whose only legal wife she happened to be. Well, this was wrong. There was one Imperial Noble Consort Huihuang with whom she had to share such an honor. But whomever knew said Imperial Noble Consort also knew that she was not a woman to share what she loved. Which implied that she did not love the Emperor.

Such single-mindedness in a court lady was not pleasing. But that was one thing Imperial Noble Consort Huihang could not have been accused of. Pleasing.

“And then, his wife hung herself on a tree by their slum”, Noble Consort Qin screamed in a bout of hilarity.

Noble Consort Qin had a high-pitched voice. Some eunuchs said that whenever the Emperor visited her, he demanded that a cloth be shoved into her mouth. Because her shrill screams distracted him during …

The other court ladies were left in a dilemma. Whether laugh at Noble Consort Qin’s words and thus flatter her. Potentially earning the hatred of Imperial Noble Consort Huihuang. The words Noble Consort Qin had spoken were bound to make their way to her. They could also keep their tongues between their teeth and earn themselves Noble Consort Qin’s displeasure. They all knew what earning her displeasure implied.

Thankfully, the Empress Consort was a woman of tact and delicacy. And the mother of four princes and a princess. The Emperor’s only children. Their Inner Palace was renowned for its frequent miscarriages and child deaths. Only the Empress Consort’s pregnancies had been spared. One wondered why and how. Thus, the Empress Consort, though a gentle and lenient woman, held much power. Supreme power. When she spoke, everyone listened. Even Noble Consort Qin.

“Little Sister should not mock a woman of worth. There is something pleasing in the virtue that a woman expresses by following her husband in death. However, inelegant her means of joining him may appear to us. We are all women, we are all weak. We all, here present, know the hardships of women. What other choice did that poor soul have?”

“Big Sister is wise”, Noble Consort Qin retorted, biting her full lips in frustration.

Such simple words that had made Noble Consort Qin’s elegant spine straighten. Who did Liugui want to fool?! It was not the Emperor who favored her. But Imperial Consort Huihuang. And what Imperial Consort Huihuang loved, the Emperor was obliged to respect. This had held until now. Until now. But even the great Imperial Consort Huihuang’s reign had had to come to an end. She had been arrogant. And she had been tyrannical. She had managed the harem the way the Emperor managed his court. With elegant cruelty, with inflexible discipline.

It was said that law was supreme in the Palace and that the Emperor’s favor was supreme in the harem. Indeed, a woman favored by the Emperor could kill, could steal, could torture. She would never be accused of anything. Or so it should have been. However, Imperial Consort Huihuang had changed the laws of the Inner Palace as soon as she had stepped foot into it.

The written laws of the harem that no one enforced, she had enforced. She had chosen the women of the Emperor and presented them to the Empress Consort. She had coerced the Empress Consort into taking her rightful place. She had climbed the hierarchical ladder of the Inner Palace.

From concubine to consort. From consort to noble consort. From noble consort to imperial noble consort.

Though she had been the commoner daughter of a drunkard. Though she had been borne by a lowly dancer who had been given to a general after having been owned by a myriad of men. Though she had lived in slums, been whipped by the cold winds of the steppes, associated with Hūna merchants, ran around with boys of doubtful origin, swam in filthy rivers. Though she had not known poetry, been barely literate, had no talent on the zither. In short, she had had nothing to commend her.

Nothing to explain the great favor she enjoyed, the great affection Emperor Xinlong rained upon her daily. For all of her inadequacies, for all of her strong-headedness and vulgarity, he had still made her Imperial Noble Consort Huihuang.

Every time her father had conquered an Hūna stronghold, she had conquered a harem stronghold. She had been the daughter of Protector General Liang. The sister of Older Lieutenant General Liang. The twin sister of Younger Colonel Liang. The one woman whose name was not to be spoken in jest.

And everything she had achieved, everything she had ever had, had been because of a father who now was dead.

Whomever knew the games that were played in the Inner Palace also knew that the wolves had smelled blood. And that the reign of one Noble Imperial Consort Huihuang was about to come to an end.

But women in the harem had seen death more than once. Women in the harem had danced with demons. Been worshipped by murderers. And a hardy little steppe wench such as Liang Miaolan would not go down without a struggle. Just that the enemy she had chosen herself was not a handful of insignificant little court ladies.

No. The Liang Miaolan who was at that very moment lazily lying on her bed awaited an enemy much greater, much more powerful than a mere court lady. Ah-Li would come to demand his due. She knew him. Their tacit agreement had come to its end with her father’s death. He would want to drink her blood, at the very least.

The last battle between the two of them was about to begin. The winner would be the last on standing.