Story of Yanxi Palace, Chapter 1: Splitting the Coffin

The door of the charity mortuary was pushed open, and a paper lantern was thrust in from outside.

The lantern brought with it a pair of feet.

Looking closely at those bow shoes—delicately curved like three-inch lotuses, white soles embroidered with twin lotus flowers—they walked slowly among the rows of coffins, pausing here and there, until finally stopping in front of a thin, shabby one.

“Look at what kind of people are here,” came a choked voice. “Strangers who died far from home, paupers with no money for burial, murdered prostitutes… Sister, how could you and I meet again in a place like this?”

Life as thin as paper—so even in death, there was not even a decent thick coffin.

The dilapidated charity mortuary held row after row of drafty, thin coffins. Still, better than nothing—better than just a straw mat, at least this way the body wouldn’t be eaten by insects and rats before burial.

“They all say you don’t deserve to be buried in the ancestral grave, that you can only lie here with these people.” A pallid hand rested on the coffin lid, gently tracing it for a moment before murmuring, “I don’t believe what they say, sister. I want you to tell me the truth yourself…”

Bang!

Chaotic footsteps approached from afar, and then the mortuary door was violently shoved open.

What met their eyes was a raised axe.

“Yingluo! Stop!” a middle-aged man cried out in alarm.

Bang!

The axe came down without hesitation, cleaving open the coffin in front of her.

“You—what are you doing?!” The middle-aged man stood stunned for a long moment before his lips trembled. “This… this is your sister’s coffin…”

A woman in white stood with her back to him, back to everyone.

She casually let the axe fall from her hand, then bent down and carefully lifted the person inside the coffin, supporting her.

“First they told me my sister died of illness, then they said she did something shameful in the palace and killed herself because she couldn’t face anyone… Look.” She slowly turned around and gave everyone a faint, eerie smile.

The woman from the coffin now rested against her shoulder. Around her neck was faintly visible the mark of a pair of black butterflies.

Only upon closer inspection did she realize they were bruises left by two large hands. The spread-open hands resembled a pair of black wings, silently proclaiming a death named murder.

“Have you all seen it?” The woman in white—Wei Yingluo—embraced the woman in the coffin and smiled at the crowd, as if she had finally uncovered the truth and wished she could announce it to the entire world at once, wished she could immediately clear her sister’s name for all to hear. “Look at the handprints on her neck. Tell me—how exactly is a person supposed to strangle herself to death?”

No one could answer her question.

No one even dared to meet their eyes.

Two faces that were almost identical.

Wei Yingluo and Wei Yingning—because of their exquisite beauty and lotus-pure grace—were known as the Twin Lotuses of the Wei clan.

Now one lotus was dead, one lived. The one in the coffin, somehow still retaining almost all of her former loveliness even in death—perhaps thanks to some miraculous elixir she had taken while alive—wore the same clothes she had on when she left the palace. She leaned softly and weakly against her younger sister’s shoulder, wearing that half-smile that made her look almost alive.

Yet the living one had eyes like a corpse. Her pitch-black and stark-white pupils stared so intently that everyone felt a chill crawl over their skin.

“Could it be that a vengeful ghost took possession of her sister’s body to demand justice?” More than one person secretly thought so.

“Father.” Wei Yingluo’s gaze swept across the crowd and finally settled on the middle-aged man’s face. The smile disappeared from her lips. “Who is the murderer who killed my sister?”

“It’s…” The middle-aged man seemed about to say something, but after a brief hesitation he gritted his teeth and said, “What murderer? She committed suicide!”

At that moment the others finally came back to their senses and began talking over one another.

“That’s right, she killed herself.”

“A woman expelled from the palace, unchaste and unclean—if she didn’t kill herself, would the whole clan have to suffer disgrace along with her?”

“She died well, died well!”

“Your elder sister had no virtue, and this younger one isn’t much better—daring to split open a coffin like this. Wei Qingtai, what a fine job you’ve done raising them!”

Hearing this, the middle-aged man—Wei Qingtai—stiffened. He hurriedly stepped forward to Wei Yingluo, raised his hand, and slapped her hard across the face.

“It’s all my fault—I failed to discipline them properly!” After the slap, he groveled toward the crowd while simultaneously slapping the back of Wei Yingluo’s head. “Hurry up and kneel! Kowtow and apologize to all your uncles and elders!”

When she didn’t react, he slapped the back of her head again, harder. “Kneel!”

But Wei Yingluo stood rigid like a stalk of bamboo, refusing to bend, refusing to kneel, simply standing there motionless.

“Kneel!” Under so many watching eyes, Wei Qingtai felt his face burning with humiliation. In a rage he lifted his foot and kicked the back of her knee. “Are you deaf?”

Wei Yingluo was kicked down to her knees, but she quickly climbed back up.

“Father, all you know how to do is make me kneel.” One hand braced against the ground, the other supporting her sister, she slowly rose. Jet-black hair fell down both sides of her face, hiding her expression at that moment. Only her voice came out, cold as a winter spring. “But do you know? I knelt to Wei Ruhua, and she still stole the hairpin Mother left me before she died. I knelt to Wei Xuedong, and he still disregarded that we are cousins and tried to touch me inappropriately… It was my sister who got the hairpin back for me. It was my sister who drove Wei Xuedong away…”

“…It’s just a hairpin, isn’t it?” Wei Qingtai frowned. “Gold-plated, worth almost nothing. No need to ruin your cousinly relationship over something so trivial. And Xuedong… he was only joking. Your sister took it too seriously and even broke his head open.”

“…So you knew all along.” Wei Yingluo slowly turned her face toward him. On that face—pure and lotus-like—were a pair of wet, tear-filled eyes. The teardrops hung trembling at the tips of her lashes, like dew on flower petals, heartbreakingly beautiful. “You knew everything, yet you still wanted me and my sister to kneel and apologize to them.”

The one who was robbed was her.

   The one forced to kowtow and apologize was still her.

   The one who was molested was her.

   The one forced to kowtow and apologize was still her.

   “I did it all for your own good,” Wei Qingtai said stiffly. “Do we really have to make a big deal out of such a small matter…”

A small matter?

“No, the only one who’s ever been good to me is my sister!” Wei Yingluo sneered coldly, cutting him off. “Let me tell you—I’ve been waiting for my sister to come back all this time. Before she entered the palace, she promised me that she would definitely return. She said she would take me away from this Wei family, away from you, to a new place, to start a new life, so that I would never again have to kneel to anyone for no reason…”

“The palace is a place where you have to kneel at any moment, anywhere!” This time it was Wei Qingtai who interrupted her.

The imperial palace.

   Once you enter the palace gates, it’s like stepping into an abyss as deep as the sea. Just as mountains have their heights and waters their depths, the women in the palace are divided into those who stand and those who kneel.

   The Wei family was hardly some grand noble clan—just a bondservant household. No matter how peerlessly beautiful his sister was, once she entered the palace she could only begin by serving others—which is to say, she began by kowtowing to others.

   “Kowtowing to someone is still kowtowing. Might as well choose just one person and only ever kowtow to him.”

That “him”—was it a man… or was it a “her”?

Two different worlds inside and outside the palace. Wei Yingluo had no idea what her sister’s circumstances were inside the palace, nor did she know to whom her sister had chosen to kowtow. She only knew that her sister had entered in the season of warm spring and blooming flowers, and had returned cold as ice.

And along with her came the black handprint around her neck.

The owner of that handprint… who exactly was it?

   “…I’m going to enter the palace.” Wei Yingluo closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, there was an unyielding determination in her gaze. “Since you won’t tell me who the murderer is, fine. I’ll go into the palace myself and find out the truth, clear as day!”

“Nonsense!” Wei Qingtai was so furious his beard trembled. “Are you determined to follow in your sister’s footsteps and meet the same end?”

Wei Yingluo reflexively glanced at the shoulder she was leaning against—her sister.

From childhood, her sister had always been smarter, more resourceful, and braver than her.

By comparison, she had only ever been the little shadow who hid behind her sister, always needing her protection.

If even her sister could not survive in the palace, then what about her? Could she possibly live to the end, uncover the truth… and ultimately avenge her sister?

“…Enough. This matter ends here.” Wei Qingtai softened his tone somewhat and reached out toward Wei Yingning, who was resting against Wei Yingluo’s shoulder. “Let your sister rest in peace.”

Rest in peace?

   Just as Wei Qingtai’s hand was about to touch her, a sudden, piercing scream erupted inside the mourning hall—shrill, bone-deep, as if someone had plunged a knife into their chest and brutally ripped it out.

   “Aaaah—”

Several members of the Wei clan felt their scalps go numb. They instinctively raised their hands to cover their ears, terrified that if they didn’t, blood would pour into their heads along with that scream.

Wei Qingtai, being closest, stumbled back several steps in fright. Then he stared at Wei Yingluo, who had let out that long, terrible wail, and stammered:

“Y-you… what’s wrong with you now?”

“Rest in peace? She can’t rest in peace…” Wei Yingluo clutched her sister’s ice-cold body—already beginning to give off the faint stench of decay. Her voice was hoarse after the scream, and she wept as she spoke. “Sister can’t rest in peace… and neither can I…”

In front of everyone, she cried and screamed, repeating the same words over and over.

“I’m going into the palace.” Wei Yingluo sobbed and shouted. “I must take revenge… so she can rest in peace… so I can rest in peace.”

Since they were twin lotus flowers growing from the same stem, they were born together and should die together.

You have already departed. Even though I still breathe, I am nothing more than a walking corpse slowly rotting away.

Only when you are finally at peace can I too find peace.

“Madness, pure madness! Rather than letting you enter the palace in this deranged state and bring disaster upon the whole clan, it would be better to…” An elderly member of the Wei clan stepped close to Wei Qingtai, covered his mouth with his hand, and whispered something into his ear.

Wei Qingtai’s expression was complicated. After listening to the end, he finally let out a soft sigh and nodded gently.

Immediately afterward, several figures arrived beside Wei Yingluo.

She raised her head and looked at them somewhat blankly. “What do you want to do?”

Several large hands reached toward her at the same time.

Several days later.

A wine flag fluttered in the wind. Fresh white liquor was poured into new cups, accompanied by several small plates of appetizers. One person was drinking alone when he suddenly said, “Whose family is marrying off a daughter down there?”

Several drinkers leaned half against the railing, looking down at the street from above. On the long street, a grand red wedding procession slowly advanced amid the crackling of firecrackers.

Atop a tall, sturdy horse sat a groom beaming with pride.

Behind him followed a small flower sedan chair.

A gust of wind lifted the curtain. One of the drinkers let out a surprised sound and raised his hand to rub his eyes.

“What’s wrong? Wind in your eyes?” the person next to him asked.

“Probably drank too much—seeing things.” The drinker lowered his hand, looking a bit dazed. “Just now when the curtain blew open a little, I saw the bride… she was tied up with five-flowered rope.”

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