The Empress Dowager sat alone on the daybed in Yongshou Palace, her gaze hollow as she stared out the window at the patch of sky framed by the palace walls. Her thoughts drifted, unbidden, back to her youth.
Back then, she was innocent and kind. She believed that good and evil would eventually receive their due, and she lived with an open heart, never harboring a single thought of harming another.
Yet, even when she did nothing, others pressed in on her step by step, crushing her kindness and innocence until, piece by piece, they forced her to become a vicious woman even she did not recognize.
Chapter 417