Chapter 2: Rebirth

A great house in sharp black and white—blue stone paths, red pillars, carved railings blooming with crabapple flowers. Rain had fallen all night. Drops rolled from plantain leaves into the earth.
On the table, a purple-gold censer shaped like a small beast breathed water-wood incense. In early autumn it smelled clean and cool.
Silk tassels hung from the bed corners, bright and new. Two tall maids fanned the sleeper with careful hands.
"She fell into cold water—fever after is no joke. The doctor said she should wake by now. Why no sign?" The maid in blue couldn't hide her worry.
"Guyu—it's been half a shichen. Why hasn't the doctor come?" the purple-clad maid asked.
"Second Madam has the place locked down. It's a disgrace—they're hiding it." Guyu glanced at the bed. "Master and Madam aren't in the capital. Young Master isn't either. Old Madam favors the east wing. Bailu and Shuangjiang went for a physician and haven't returned—maybe someone stopped them. They're trying to kill her! I have to go out—"
Before she finished, a faint sound came from the bed.
"Miss is awake!" The purple maid cried out and rushed over.
The girl on the bed rubbed her brow and sat up slowly.
"Jingzhe…" Shen Miao murmured.
"I'm here," the purple maid said, taking her hand with a smile. "Do you feel better? You slept a day and a night. The fever broke but you wouldn't wake—I was about to fetch the doctor again."
"Miss—some water?" Guyu offered tea.
Shen Miao looked at them, confused.
She had four first-rank maids: Jingzhe, Guyu, Bailu, Shuangjiang—clever girls, every one. In the end, not one survived.
Guyu died in Qin, shielding her from the crown prince's humiliation. Bailu died on the road with Wanyu. Shuangjiang died in the harem, lost in the fight with Lady Mei.
Jingzhe was the loveliest. To help Fu Xiuyi win power, she offered herself as a concubine to a minister—beauty as bait. The minister's wife found an excuse and beat her to death.
When Shen Miao learned Jingzhe was gone, she wept until she nearly miscarried.
Now Jingzhe stood before her, face still painted like a picture. Guyu smiled, warm and alive. Both fourteen or fifteen. For a moment Shen Miao couldn't breathe.
She shut her eyes with a bitter laugh. "Even my deathbed delusions are too real."
"What is Miss saying?" Guyu set the cup aside and touched her forehead. "Are you still feverish?"
The hand was cool—real. Shen Miao's eyes snapped open, sharp as a blade. She looked down at her hands.
Pale. Slender. Nails trimmed neat and round—the hands of a girl who had never known hardship.
Not hers.
Her hands had roughened from ledgers and counsel beside Fu Xiuyi. In Qin they treated her like a servant. In the harem she fought for Fu Ming and Wanyu. In the cold palace she scrubbed laundry. Calluses. Swollen joints. Dark skin. Nothing like these soft, pretty fingers.
"Bring me a mirror."
Her voice was weak. The tone was not.
The maids exchanged looks. Jingzhe fetched a bronze mirror.
In the copper, a round-faced girl looked back—full forehead, large apricot eyes slightly red, small nose, small mouth. Young. Not stunning, but fresh and sweet, timid in a way the imperial family once praised as a "fortune-bringing" face.
The mirror slipped from Shen Miao's hands and shattered.
She pinched herself hard. Tears poured down.
Heaven had not abandoned her.
She was back.
Guyu and Jingzhe jumped. Guyu gathered the shards. "Mind your feet, Miss!"
"Why are you crying?" Jingzhe wiped her face with a handkerchief—but Shen Miao looked half mad, laughing through tears. "I'm back…"
She seized Jingzhe's wrist. "What year is it?"
Jingzhe was frightened, but answered honestly. "The sixty-eighth year of Ming Qi. Miss—what's wrong? Are you unwell?"
"The sixty-eighth… the sixty-eighth…" Shen Miao's eyes went wide.
Year sixty-eight of Ming Qi. She was fourteen. The year she met Fu Xiuyi. The year she obsessed over him, forced her father, begged to marry him.
And in her ears, Guyu's voice: "Don't scare us, Miss. The fever just broke—you're not clear-headed, are you? Eldest Miss was too cruel. She might as well have killed you…"
In her last life Shen Miao spent most of her days at Fu Xiuyi's side. Her years in the Shen manor had little sweetness—but she remembered this.
Shen Qing told her Prince Ding would visit second and third uncle. She pulled Shen Miao to peek from the garden—then shoved her off the rockery into the pond.
They fished her out soaked. Officials were there; the Shen family became a laughingstock. Her crush on Prince Ding had already spread through the capital half a year ago. This only made it worse.
When she woke, she accused Shen Qing of pushing her. No one believed her. Old Madam punished her with seclusion in the Buddha hall. She missed Mid-Autumn. Shen Yue "kindly" let her out and took her to the chrysanthemum viewing at Yanbei Hall—where she made a complete fool of herself.
Shen Miao closed her eyes.
The Shen family had three branches. First branch: Shen Xin, her father—the old general's son by his first wife. That wife died midlife; the general remarried. The stepwife bore second branch Shen Gui and third branch Shen Wan. After the general died, the stepwife became Old Madam. The family did not split; the brothers supported each other—a story the capital loved to tell.
Generation after generation, the Shen served in war. In Shen Xin's time, first branch held the armies; second and third took the civil path. Shen Xin campaigned year-round. Her mother followed him. Shen Miao stayed in the capital, raised by Old Madam and her two aunts.
Raise her they did—into a useless, unlearned girl who clung to any man without shame.
In her last life she thought Old Madam and her aunts loved her. Shen Yue and Shen Qing learned every rule and ritual; Shen Miao learned none. Now she saw it: praise to her face, knives behind her back. A clumsy, obvious trap.
Her parents and brother away—so the manor could play sweet while she grew worse each visit. Her father and mother always left thinking their daughter had simply turned more wild.
This life, she would see how shameless they could be—same tricks, same smiles.
Just then a sweeper girl ran in. "Miss—Second Miss is here to see you."