Chapter 2

From that day on.

Her cruelty grew worse by the day.

On the surface.

She treated me better than ever.

She rose before dawn every morning.

Cooking broth and pastries for me with her own hands.

Something new each day, more delicate than anything from the Imperial Kitchen.

A few times she cut her hand while chopping.

And still she fed me with the cloth wrapped around it.

When His Majesty heard of it, he rewarded her on the spot with twelve jade scepters.

She sewed my clothes herself too.

Every inch embroidered with twining lotus.

Dressing me up until I looked lovely.

And to everyone she met she would say.

“Princess Rosalind is my own daughter!”

“Seeing her all dressed up makes me happier than being decked out in finery myself!”

But behind closed doors.

The methods she dreamed up grew more vicious one after another.

She wrapped me tight in a thick quilt.

So I couldn't move a hand or foot.

Then she snatched up a broad plank of solid wood.

And beat it down onto the bedding, blow after brutal blow.

“Go on, cry. Cry out loud and I'll spare you!”

The pain bored deep beneath my skin.

Yet not a single red mark showed on the outside.

She took wet sackcloth.

And clamped it hard over my mouth and nose.

Then held my head down and poured water over me from above.

This was the so-called first of the Ministry of Justice's ten great tortures, the water torture.

The cold cloth drank its fill of water.

Then forced it through every gap into my mouth and nose.

I choked until my chest burned like fire.

Unable to draw a single breath.

In that moment I truly knew the despair of dying.

She watched me suffocate and smiled coldly.

“Heh. A child with no mother is like a weed!”

“You deserve to be trampled by me!”

“Hahaha, so being a monster feels this good!”

She destroyed my mother's things too.

The white jade hairpin Mother had left behind.

She picked it up, and with a sharp crack she smashed it.

“The sight of that dead woman's things disgusts me!”

Then she ran to His Majesty.

Knelt down with false tears and wailed.

“Your Majesty, Princess Rosalind broke the Late Empress's jade hairpin by accident!”

“It was my fault for not watching over her. I beg Your Majesty to punish me.”

“Please, do not blame Princess Rosalind!”

How could His Majesty bear to punish her?

He praised her kindness instead.

“She's only a child, she doesn't know any better. You've gone to such trouble.”

I stood off to the side.

Watching her perform in silence.

Not only did Letitia Chavez not know I was cultivating the Vow of Silence.

She had no idea the Vow of Silence was a deep and profound inner art.

Those needle jabs, plank beatings, water tortures.

Every time the torment came.

A warm current would rise on its own in my core and circle through my meridians.

The pain all turned into vital essence that nourished those channels.

Tempered day by day, settling deeper with each step.

When the five years were up and the art was complete.

I would be remade, bone and flesh, immune to every poison.

The more she tormented me.

The more perfectly my Vow of Silence took shape.

There was one time.

She was in the middle of beating me with the plank.

When Lola Finch, the Empress Dowager's attendant, suddenly burst in.

One look at the scene and her face went white with fear.

“Consort Chavez, what are you……”

Letitia Chavez didn't so much as change color or skip a beat.

She set down the plank and said with a smile.

“You've misunderstood, Lola. I'm only playing with the princess.”

Lola Finch left, half believing her, half not.

And that very night, word came out.

Lola Finch had "lost her footing" and drowned in a well.

Letitia Chavez even ran to His Majesty and cried thief to hide her own crime.

“Your Majesty, Lola Finch was abusing the princess.”

“I caught her at it, and when I meant to report her, she took her own life out of guilt.”

His Majesty believed it.

And rewarded her with a great many things again.

I clenched my small fist.

My nails dug into my palm.

Just you wait, you wretch.

When my fifth birthday comes.

I will make you wish you were dead.