My half-sister poured muscle-relaxing powder down my throat and tried to force me to serve the notoriously cruel Nine Thousand Years. I smiled and agreed. “Perfect,” I said. “I’ve been needing a foot-washing servant.”

My half-sister thought I had lost my mind from fear. She sneered viciously.

“Don’t blame me, little sister. Father offended the Eastern Depot.”

“The Nine Thousand Years said — send you to him as his companion, and the Marquis’s household will be spared.”

“One person, in exchange for the whole family’s safety. It’s worth it.”

My body limp, I was shoved into a broken-down sedan chair.

Passing through the Eastern Market, I saw the city wall lined with severed heads — all people who had crossed the Eastern Depot.

My half-sister laughed through the sedan curtain. “See that? That’s the work of the Nine Thousand Years. Once you’re inside, serve him obediently. Don’t drag us down with you.”

I leaned against the sedan wall and suddenly smiled.

The Nine Thousand Years’ methods?

When he knelt before me years ago, kowtowing until his face was a bloody mess, begging me to grant him death — he hadn’t looked nearly so fearsome then.

1

The sedan chair delivered me not to a torture chamber, but to a quiet courtyard deep in the Eastern Depot compound.

The architecture was refined. Bamboo groves. A koi pond. Someone with taste had designed this space.

Two young eunuchs helped me out of the chair.

“The Commander will see you when he returns from the palace,” one said, not unkindly. “Rest here for now.”

Commander. That’s what they called him — the Commander of the Eastern Depot, the Nine Thousand Years. His real name had long been eclipsed by his title.

“How long until he returns?”

“Unknown. Palace matters are… unpredictable.”

I nodded. The muscle relaxant was wearing off. Soon I would be able to move freely again.

I sat in the courtyard and waited.

The afternoon sun filtered through the bamboo. Koi drifted lazily in the pond. It was peaceful — disarmingly so. Not at all what one imagined from the most feared man in the empire.

As dusk fell, I heard footsteps in the corridor. Quick, urgent. Multiple people.

Then a voice. Low and cold, accustomed to command.

“Where is she?”

“In the inner courtyard, Commander.”

The footsteps approached.

I didn’t stand.

The door opened, and he walked in.

He was tall. Dressed in the crimson robes of his rank, embroidered with the four-clawed python of high imperial favor. His face was pale and angular, handsome in a sharp, dangerous way. His eyes held the flat, assessing gaze of someone who had seen too much and trusted too little.

Those eyes found mine.

And stopped.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

Then I smiled. “It’s been a long time, Pei Yuan.”

He went pale.

The Nine Thousand Years. Commander of the Eastern Depot. The man whose name made ministers tremble. He stood frozen in a doorway, staring at me like he’d seen a ghost.

Because he had.

To the world, I was supposed to be dead.

2

“The Zhaoyang Princess… died in the palace coup five years ago.”

Pei Yuan’s voice was barely a whisper. The cold commander had vanished, replaced by something older and rawer.

“The Zhaoyang Princess did die,” I said. “Lu Minghua survived.”

Lu Minghua. The name I’d taken when I walked away from the imperial clan, from the power struggles, from everything. My mother’s surname. A new life.

“But your half-sister—”

“The Marquis’s household thinks I’m his bastard daughter from a servant. An inconvenience. Disposable. Something they can offer up to the Eastern Depot to save their own skins.”

Understanding dawned in his eyes. Then something darker.

“They sent you.” His voice turned deadly quiet. “As a plaything. To the Eastern Depot.”

“I believe the term my sister used was ‘companion.’”

The temperature in the room dropped.

In the silence, I could hear the soft rustle of bamboo leaves outside. The gentle splash of a koi breaking the pond’s surface.

Pei Yuan stood rigid, his jaw tight. When he spoke, his voice was carefully controlled — the voice of a man holding back an ocean of fury.

“Who else knows you’re alive?”

“No one. Just you.”

He nodded once.

Then, to my surprise, he did something no one had seen the Nine Thousand Years do in five years.

He knelt.

“The Zhaoyang Princess saved my life when I was nothing — a condemned prisoner awaiting execution. She gave me a reason to live when I had begged for death. Everything I am, everything I’ve built — it began with her.”

He looked up at me.

“I am still hers to command.”

3

The story of how Pei Yuan became the Nine Thousand Years was not a pretty one.

His family had been destroyed by political enemies. He, the sole survivor, was thrown into the imperial prison as a boy of sixteen, sentenced to die for crimes he didn’t commit.

The Zhaoyang Princess — the emperor’s youngest sister, barely eighteen at the time — had been reviewing cold cases in the Ministry of Justice. She’d found his file. Investigated. Cleared his name.

By then, he’d spent two years in prison. Two years of torture, starvation, and despair. When she finally pulled him out, he was a skeleton with eyes — broken in body and spirit.

She’d arranged for him to serve in her household. Given him purpose. Treated him not as a servant but as a human being.

And when the coup came — when the old emperor fell and the palace ran red with blood — she’d faked her own death to escape the slaughter.

Pei Yuan, left behind, had done what he had to do to survive. He’d joined the Eastern Depot. Climbed. Killed. Schemed. Built an empire of influence and fear.

All the while believing the one person who’d ever shown him kindness was dead.

Until now.

4

“Your half-sister,” Pei Yuan said, his tone conversational but his eyes glittering with something hard. “What would you like done with her?”

“Nothing. Yet.”

“Nothing?”

“I want to see how far she’ll go. She thinks she’s won — sending me here to die or be broken. Let her enjoy her victory a little longer.”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. It was the first expression I’d seen on his face that wasn’t cold command or raw shock.

“You’ve become patient, Your Highness.”

“I’ve had five years to learn.”

He studied me for a moment, then nodded.

“As you wish. But I’ll assign people to watch the Marquis’s household. For your safety.”

“Fine.”

“And I’ll have the guest quarters prepared—”

“No.”

He paused.

“The servants’ quarters,” I said. “That’s where a ‘companion’ would stay. If I appear in the guest quarters, rumors will fly.”

“You want to maintain your cover.”

“For now. I have no interest in returning to imperial politics. Lu Minghua is a much simpler life.”

Something flickered in his expression. I couldn’t quite read it.

“The servants’ quarters, then. But I’ll ensure they’re comfortable.”

5

Life in the Eastern Depot was nothing like the horror stories.

The compound was efficient, disciplined, and surprisingly quiet. The eunuchs and guards treated me with exaggerated courtesy — clearly warned by their Commander about exactly how to handle this mysterious “guest” without revealing her true importance.

Pei Yuan visited my courtyard almost every evening.

At first, it was under the guise of security. Then reports from his spies in the Marquis household. Then, gradually, it became simply… conversation.

He would tell me about court politics. The schemes he’d navigated. The enemies he’d outmaneuvered. He spoke of it all with a detached weariness, like a chess player describing a game he’d long since won but was still required to play.

I told him about my five years as Lu Minghua. The ordinary life I’d built. The freedom of being nobody.

“Freedom,” he repeated one night, as if tasting the word. “I don’t remember what that feels like.”

“You could leave.”

He looked at me. “Could I?”

“The Nine Thousand Years could do whatever he wants.”

“Not this,” he said quietly. “Not unless…” He trailed off.

I didn’t press him.

6

Three weeks after my arrival, my half-sister sent a messenger.

She wanted to know if I was dead yet. If the Nine Thousand Years had tired of me. If the Marquis household was safe.

Pei Yuan read the message before I did. His expression as he handed it over was carefully blank.

“Your sister seems eager for news of your demise.”

“She always was.”

“Would you like to respond?”

I considered. “Yes. Tell her I’m doing well. Very well. The Nine Thousand Years treats me with… special favor.”

Pei Yuan arched an eyebrow.

“She’ll hate that,” I explained. “She sent me here expecting me to suffer. If she thinks I’m thriving — if she thinks her plan backfired — it will eat at her far more than any direct revenge.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“I am. I spent too many years at the imperial court not to appreciate a good scheme when I see one.”

He laughed. Actually laughed. It startled both of us.

It was a nice sound. I realized I’d never heard him laugh before — not in the years he’d served in my household, not in the weeks since I’d arrived. It changed his face, softening the sharp edges.

“You should do that more often,” I said.

“What?”

“Laugh.”

He looked away, but not before I caught the faint color rising to his cheeks.

7

The Marquis household responded to my message with confusion and growing unease.

My half-sister sent increasingly frantic letters. Why wasn’t I dead? Why was the Nine Thousand Years treating me well? What was happening?!

I dictated pleasant, noncommittal replies that revealed nothing and implied everything.

Pei Yuan watched this correspondence with poorly concealed amusement.

Eventually, my half-sister couldn’t stand it anymore. She demanded an audience at the Eastern Depot, claiming urgent family business.

Pei Yuan granted it.

She arrived dressed in her finest clothes, clearly hoping to make an impression. She was escorted through the compound to a reception hall where I sat beside Pei Yuan — not kneeling, not standing behind him like a servant, but seated at his side with tea in hand.

Her face went through a remarkable series of expressions.

“Lu Minghua! What is the meaning of this? You should be—”

“Sister.” I set down my teacup. “Welcome to the Eastern Depot. I trust your journey was pleasant?”

“You—” She looked from me to Pei Yuan, who was watching her with the flat, cold expression of the Nine Thousand Years. It was a completely different face from the one he wore in our courtyard.

“Sit down,” I said.

She sat.

8

“Let me explain how things actually stand,” I said.

“Five years ago, when I first arrived at the Marquis household as an unrecognized daughter, I kept a low profile. I had my reasons. But you mistook my discretion for weakness. You bullied me. You used me as a scapegoat. And when Father offended the Eastern Depot, you drugged me and sent me here as a sacrificial offering.”

“That’s not—”

“I’m speaking. You’re listening.”

Her mouth snapped shut.

“What you didn’t know — what none of you knew — is that the Commander of the Eastern Depot and I have a prior acquaintance. A significant one. So rather than torturing and killing me, as you so clearly hoped, he has been an exceptionally gracious host.”

I took a sip of tea.

“Now. As for the Marquis household’s offense against the Eastern Depot — I’ve discussed it with the Commander. He’s willing to be lenient. But there is a condition.”

“What condition?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“You will sign over the deed to the family estate. To me.”

Her face went white.

“But— that’s the family’s ancestral—”

“The family that sent me here to die. Yes. That family.”

I smiled. It was not a nice smile.

“Also, you will personally apologize to me, in writing, for every single instance of mistreatment you’ve inflicted since I arrived. I have a list. It’s quite detailed.”

9

She signed.

She apologized.

And I moved back to the Marquis household — not as the unrecognized bastard daughter, but as the lady of the estate, with an Eastern Depot guard contingent to ensure my position.

The household was thrown into chaos. My father, who had never bothered to learn my name, suddenly found himself deferring to me. The servants who had sneered at me now bowed.

I didn’t particularly care about the estate or the power. But I wanted them to understand what they’d tried to throw away. What they’d tried to destroy.

Most of all, I wanted my half-sister to wake up every morning in a house that belonged to me, knowing she was there only because I permitted it.

Some revenges are served cold.

This one, I served with tea.

10

But the Marquis household was only a temporary stop.

The imperial court had noticed the Nine Thousand Years’ unusual attention to the Marquis family. Questions were being asked. Old enemies were sniffing around.

“I should leave,” I told Pei Yuan one evening. “Before someone pieces together who I really am.”

“Where would you go?”

“South. I’ve always wanted to see Jiangnan.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“I could come with you.”

I looked at him. “You’re the Commander of the Eastern Depot.”

“I’m tired of being the Commander of the Eastern Depot.”

“Pei Yuan—”

“I’ve served the court for five years. I’ve done terrible things. Necessary things, but terrible. I’ve built a fortress of fear around myself so strong that even I can’t find my way out of it.”

His voice dropped.

“But when I’m with you, I remember who I was before. I remember that I wasn’t always a monster.”

“You were never a monster.”

“I was becoming one. You stopped that.”

He reached out and took my hand. His fingers were cold — the hands of someone who spent too much time in the shadows.

“Let me come with you. Not as the Nine Thousand Years. Not as your servant. Just as Pei Yuan. Just as the man who has been lost without you for five years.”

Outside, rain began to fall, drumming softly on the bamboo leaves.

I looked at our joined hands.

“The south is very different from the capital,” I said. “Warm and rainy. They eat sweet food and speak softly.”

“I can learn to speak softly.”

“Can you?”

“I can try.”

I smiled.

“Then let’s go.”

Epilogue

Jiangnan in the rain was everything I’d imagined.

We bought a small estate outside Suzhou. Pei Yuan handled the accounts with the same ruthless efficiency he’d once applied to imperial politics. I planted a garden.

People in town knew us as a retired merchant and his wife — a cover story so simple it was almost absurd. The fearsome Nine Thousand Years, now bargaining with fishmongers over the price of carp.

One afternoon, I found him in the courtyard, covered in dirt, trying to transplant a camellia bush.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m told these bloom beautifully in spring.”

“Since when do you garden?”

“Since I have a garden.” He wiped his forehead, smearing dirt across his face. “Though I may need instruction.”

I laughed and knelt beside him.

That evening, he made yanduxian — a Jiangnan pork and bamboo shoot soup — from a recipe the cook had written down for him. He burned the first attempt. The second was too salty. The third was almost right.

“This is terrible,” I said, eating it anyway.

“I’ll improve.”

“I know you will.”

The rain returned after dinner, pattering against the roof tiles. We sat in the main hall, the doors open to the courtyard, watching the water stream down from the eaves.

“The Zhaoyang Princess’s era is over,” I said quietly. “From now on, there is only Lu Minghua. And her steward who can do accounts and kill people and handle trouble — and who is also learning, somewhat clumsily, to tend flowers and make soup.”

Said steward, sitting beside her, seemed more and more human with each passing day.

This life, she thought — it wasn’t bad at all.