The Concubine Who Was Supposed to Die in Chapter Three novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: Xueling's Thread
The golden figure was gone before Zhiyao had finished screaming.
The doorway was empty and the lamp flames stood straight.
Wuyan had already put her behind him and dragged a robe over his shoulders.
"It cannot enter," he said. "It is only the Rite's usher. It speaks and it does not touch."
"It said bring her."
"It meant the Maiden."
"It talked right over my head."
"It could not see you," said Wuyan slowly. He turned and looked at her. "It looked straight through the space where you stand. You have no thread, and so you are not in its book."
She sat down on the rug and began to laugh.
"The cannon fodder is invisible to Heaven."
"The cannon fodder is the one person it cannot write."
"I'm going to put that on my tombstone."
"You are not going to need one," said the Emperor.
Xueling came back the next morning with a pot of tea and a roll of paper.
She sat on the pond's edge with her white sleeves tucked up and her chin trembling.
"You said you'd tell me which line."
Zhiyao unrolled the paper and read the poem aloud.
It was about the moon.
"Line four," she said. "'The moon weeps silver for my sorrow.' The moon doesn't weep. It sits there."
"But it's poetic."
"It's lazy."
Xueling stared at her.
Then she laughed so hard she had to put the tea down.
"No one has ever said that to me. They all say it's like a pearl."
"It is not like a pearl."
"No!" gasped Xueling. "It's not!"
When they had stopped laughing, she wiped her eyes and held up her right wrist.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Concubine Who Was Supposed to Die in Chapter Three are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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