Late spring rain mixed with willow catkins dyed the vermilion walls of the Changle Palace a hazy, dark indigo. Shěn Qīngrú knelt on the cold bluestone pavement, her nails digging deep into her palms, listening to the shrill voice of the chief eunuch pierce through the rain curtain: "The Imperial Edict has arrived—the Prime Minister's daughter, of the Lin family, is virtuous and graceful, a fitting exemplar for the six palaces. She is hereby appointed Empress, and an auspicious day shall be chosen for the grand wedding..."
The copper bells at the eaves chimed in the wind, and in a trance, she was back to that year of apricot blossoms in a drizzle. The sixteen-year-old Crown Prince, Xiao Jingyan, shielded her beneath the corridor, his dark robes stained with the rogue powder she had flusteredly rubbed off on him, the amusement in his eyes more scorching than the warm spring sun: "Qīngrú, the day I ascend the throne, the phoenix crown and ceremonial robes shall surely be yours. The most honorable position in this world has always belonged to you."
Back then, she always loved to wear light blue ru skirts, playing the zither beneath the pear trees in the Imperial Garden. Xiao Jingyan would quietly pick magnolia flowers dripping with morning dew, tucking them into her hair, saying this color made her eyebrows and eyes look even gentler than the spring waters of Jiangnan. They had once drank together under the moon; he held her hand and wrote "a lifetime, a single heart, a pair fo…
Chapter 248