Chapter 1: 1

Tuoba Yan kept a cold, firm face as she knelt in front of the shrine with her back straight. If it weren’t for her grey Buddhist robe, no one would have thought that she was practising Buddhism with her head unshaven1, chanting sutras and praying for those who were “killed” by her. 

[TL: (带发修行) dài fā xiū xíng= submit to be a Buddhist discipline while still having one’s hair.]

In the small Buddhist shrine, there was only a table and a gilded Buddha, as well as a shabby and cold putuan2. Tuoba Yan knelt on the putuan, feeling the pain on her knees and numbness of her legs. She looked at the gentle appearance of the buddha, as if the eunuch next to her, Dai Jinzhong, that brought in the imperial edict, did not exist. 

[TL: pútuán is a praying mat made of woven cattail.]

“Tuoba Yan, receive the imperial edict.” Dai Jinzhong knew that the former Great General who once guarded the North and the former Empress of the world, who was once the mother of rites, scorned upon the eunuchs the most. The contempt in his eyes was never concealed. Not to mention the high-ranking imperial concubines, even the emperor, would try to please him and call him “Dai Neixiang”.

Tuoba Yan didn’t pay attention to him. But what about that? Wasn’t she going to die by her own hands?

Dai Jinzhong repeated, “Née3 Tuoba, the imperial edict has arrived.”

[TL: Née is used to indicate the maiden name of a married woman]

The former Empress lowered her eyes and made a standard salute to Dai Jinzhong, “This guilty woman receives the edict.”

Dai Jinzhong glanced at Tuoba’s small back wrapped in the Buddhist robe. This was his last chance to compete with her. He had a sense of superiority in his heart as he ignored Tuoba Yan for a long time, and then slowly opened the bright yellow imperial edict.

“By the grace of the God4, Zhen5 has decreed that the former Empress, née Tuoba, is an iniquitous and jealous woman. She was a beauty with a hollow6 as she had killed Zhen’s concubine’s heir. Feeling that née Tuoba had done a lot of good deeds in the past, Zhen couldn’t bear for her to be executed. Zhen shall give her a pot of poisonous wine and leave her whole body to be buried in the imperial mausoleum. Here it is.” 

[TL: by the grace of God, often used to begin an imperial edict.] [TL: (Zhen) used by emperors in ancient china to address themselves.] [TL: handsome exterior but hollow inside, a beauty with no honesty.]

Dai Jinzhong gave a sneaky smile, “Née Tuoba, please accept the decree.”

The former Empress took the edict respectfully and unfolded it to read.

Dai Jinzhong was unable to see Tuoba Yan’s ugly state and felt uninterested. He waved his hand and beckoned Xiao Huangmen, who was waiting outside the door, to come in, “The poisoned wine.”

Xiao Huangmen came in with the poisoned wine. Dai Jinzhong swept his horsetail whisk as he said, “Please drink this, Empress.” He deliberately added the word “Empress”.

The sharp eyes of Tuoba Yan fell on Dai Jinzhong’s face, and the eunuch stepped back as he screamed, “Bodyguards, bodyguards!”

The bodyguards immediately rushed in to surround Tuoba Yan. Although she had not led the army to fight for more than ten years as she had been in the palace, as the Great General who once guarded the North, who once let the Huns hear the news and lose gall7 and could stop the children crying at night, the bodyguards dared not despise her.

[TL: terror-stricken at the news.]

Tuoba Yan didn’t bother to see Dai Jinzhong who escaped from the shrine. She read the imperial edict again and closed her eyes.

In those days, when she was fighting in the battlefield, she ate hungrily with all the soldiers and thirsted for the blood of the Huns. The common people in the border area had even set up her memorial tablet. When she returned back to the capital, she was almost killed by the fruits thrown by the people along the way.

The fatuous and self-indulgent emperor listened to the slanders and tabooed her meritorious. He even called her back to the capital to wed her as his queen.

As newlyweds, there had been sweet times in their relationship, but their feelings slowly grew apart. Tuoba Yan didn’t know how to flatter her husband so she could only watch as he walked away with the other beauties and pampered other concubines.

Fortunately, later, she got pregnant and gave birth to a child, making the fatuous Emperor very delighted. He immediately named him as the legitimate son and crowned him as the crown prince. The prince became the world of Tuoba Yan’s.

Unfortunately, her child died before he even turned one year old. His death wasn’t clear; in the morning, he had smiled happily in his mother’s arms, but in the afternoon, his body became ice-cold.

Tuoba Yan grieved and became so distressed that she went insane. She investigated one of the highest ranking imperial concubines, Princess An Xian, and confronted the woman with indignation. While doing so, the Fourth Prince, under Princess An Xian, had bitten Tuoba Yan’s leg, to which she shook him off in pain. 

However, in the imperial garden that the palace servants maintained and trimmed everyday, sharp stones appeared on the ground. The Fourth Prince’s head hit on the stones and fainted as he bled. When he woke up, he became a fool.

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Tuoba Yan wanted to defend herself and say that she didn’t mean to kick the Fourth Prince, but the Emperor had slapped her severely before she could even say a word. The Emperor said, “How can a vicious woman be an Empress and the model of all women?!” 

Then, her position as the Empress was abolished and she wasn’t allowed to go out of the Buddhist Hall after her exile.

After thinking about this, Tuoba Yan opened her eyes. She looked around as she sneered at the bodyguards around her and easily grabbed a sword.

She held the hilt of the sword and raised her head proudly as she sneered, “There is no need to spend such poisoned wine on me.”

She settled the sword on her throat and slit her throat, committing suicide.

The bright red blood sprayed the gilded Bhuddha in the shrine.

…

Tuoba Yan had seemed to come to a very strange place in a trance. The buildings around were square and upright. The short ones were three or four stories high while the taller ones went straight into the sky. It was frightening. She touched her neck, which was still intact, and her grey Buddhist robe had changed into the old armor she used to wear.

The passersby were wearing extremely exposed clothings; the whole thigh portion of the girls’ skirts was exposed, some even had a short top, showing their white dazzling chest. Tuoba Yan looked and quickly turned away, thinking how there could be such wild women, and remembering those foreign girls at the border who also wouldn’t dress like to this extent of exposure.

But the streets were full of people wearing exposed clothes, and Tuoba Yan was lost for words. 

She stood blankly on the ground and gradually found that the passersby around her couldn’t see her. She deliberately stood in front of a girl but the girl had walked through her body without any change in her expression and had continued to move forward.

Tuoba Yan discovered that she may have become a ghost.

Tuoba Yan wandered all day without any aim. When it was dark, she reached a large building. A strange iron car with red and blue light flashing atop, was parked near the building. Some people in white clothes and masks carried out a girl who was unconscious and bloody.

Tuoba Yan glanced at the girl unintentionally and was shocked—

That girl resembled herself!

The only difference was that the girl looked like her old 17-years-old self but skinner, with sunken cheeks and waxy skin; she was like a refugee during the famine.

Several people in white clothes pushed the little girl’s wheeled stretcher fast forward, and a middle-aged woman in a shawl kept crying, “YanYan! YanYan!” It was probably her mother.

YanYan? Tuoba Yan’s face flashed with surprise. Her nickname was also YanYan.

Tuoba Yan felt that there seemed to be some kind of power driving her to follow the little girl deeper into the building. It was more brighter inside and the floor under her feet was smooth enough to reflect. Tuoba Yan practically watched as the wheelbarrow proceeded forward.

It seemed that the doctor in white quickly stopped the bleeding for her. He used a shining iron bar to light the little girl’s eyes. Then he said, “Her condition isn’t good. Prepare for the operation.”

Outside the operating room, Qiao Chunyi was crying. She was sitting alone on a strange chair. Her red swollen eyes continued to shed tears non-stop. 

Qiao Chunyi sobbed and said to herself, “Mom is sorry for you, Yanyan, mom is sorry. It’s all mom’s fault, just focusing on work and letting you take the medicines… Yan Yan, What about mother?”

Tuoba didn’t want to worry about why such precious steel was used to make chairs and why streak-free transparent glasses without bubbles were randomly inlaid on the door. She looked at the crying woman sympathetically. She was also a mother, and naturally knew how it felt.

For a while, Tuoba Yan’s heart was heavy. She went through the glass door and all the way into the innermost room. The little girl was lying in the middle of the bed, motionless, with a strange transparent cover on her mouth. Several doctors in green clothings concentrated on dealing with her bloody wrist. A bag of bright red blood in a transparent bag flowed into the little girl’s body through a thin tube.

All of a sudden, the glittering iron box around the room rang out. Tuoba Yan only heard someone exclaim, “The patient’s breathing has stopped.”

Tuoba Yan didn’t feel well. She felt like her bones were being crushed, she felt like she was being crammed into something like a narrow pathway, and then she soon lost her consciousness.

The author has something to say: This brain hole should be recognized! Really! Write! Trying to save the manuscript~~~~~

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