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Meng Fuyao sprang out of bed and collapsed onto the ground, knocking over the table and several chairs as she grasped her heart in shock!

She… she had seen everything!

Wind from an unknown world blew by, carrying the smell of smoke and night. The wind was not clear, carrying the faint smell of fire as it drifted towards her, drifting into a pair of pale, white hands.

Little hands…

She looked down at her own hands. Since when had her hands become so small and frail? They were nothing but skin and bones, and her nails were filled with wood shavings.

Wood shavings…

Where had the wood shavings come from? She remembered her own hands, long and slender, her fingernails clean, when had she have wood shavings?

Wood shavings fell from above, falling on her head. She looked up to see darkness above her, along with the smell of rotting wood.

She was surrounded by boards, an arm wide and two arms tall. She reached out to measure, but in actual fact, she didn't need to; she had already memorized the size of the space by heart, familiar to the point where she could tell the exact location where there was a little scratch in wood behind her, as well as all the little bumps and splinters along the wood, worn smooth like a red egg after years of touching.

Red egg… Hazily, she felt that she had never seen such a thing before.

Why had she never seen it before?

Meng Fuyao looked down at her small arms and legs, then at the cloth rope binding her legs, then at the eternal darkness enveloping herself. And not far from the darkness, a gentle bell was chiming, crisp, demure voices were speaking, and the light from a palace lantern, light purple in color. Every day, the lanterns would burn for three periods, from 5pm to 11pm, and then be extinguished. After that, she would once again be plunged into darkness, and she would eventually drift off to sleep.

There was no bed nor pillow as she hugged several scraps of silk in winter. In the summer, she didn't use a single scrap, sleeping bare in the heat and darkness, her sweat wetting the wood. After a long time, the wood turned black, like the color of soy sauce.

Mosquitoes would also fly in and out of the small, stifling space, biting her silently as she flipped around restlessly, scratching herself to sleep only to be woken up by the head again after two or three periods and start hyperventilating in pain, her whole body erupting in red spots, part of which were sores, the other self-scratched.

She grew bedsores in many areas of her body—a person with no illness, developing bedsores.

In the summer, she yearned for winter, as though the coolness of winter was a godsend, yet when winter came, the harsh chill felt even more difficult than the heat of summer as wind entered in all directions, cutting through her skin like little knives and penetrating deep into her bones as she shivered uncontrollably. Every bone in her felt frozen as she bundled herself within every single scrap of old silk she had, yet it was unable to keep the cold out. It was so cold… so cold… It made her worry about developing arthritis at such a young age.

Yet, she wasn't allowed to speak, not allowed to beg, not allowed to cry out, not allowed to… step out of this locked cupboard.

That's right, a cupboard.

The beginning of her memories of this life had always started with that cupboard.

And also… the child living in the cupboard.

The entire world was but an arm wide, within the rectangular cupboard. One couldn't stand in it and could only sit or squat, never sleeping straight.

The flowers, birds, light, fleeting footsteps of freedom and comfort or the tinkling of laughter in the spring had nothing to do with her.

It had nothing to do with the world inside the cupboard.

… Someone was tapping on the cupboard, a familiar three taps, one light tap, and two heavier taps. Then, a slight crack appeared as the door of the cupboard opened slightly, and two cold buns were stuffed through.

A female's face flashed past the cupboard, a young, beautiful face, yet frail and frightened due to prolonged living in fear.

Her expression was that of despair, filled with suppression as if tears were to fall at any moment. Such was the expression that she had as she looked through the crack, watching her quietly, and in those eyes, Meng Fuyao saw a familiar, smaller version of herself.

Everything was extremely familiar.

The familiarity reached deep into her veins, so familiar that it shocked her as if she had been struck by a white flash of lightning, and her soul was separated from her body!

This wasn't the present her!

This was a five-year-old Meng Fuyao, this was the five-year-old Nameless Feng.

Nameless, Nameless.

A palace maid's protection, a little princess, born in secret after a moment of pleasure. Nobody had given her a name.

Nor had anyone given her any chance of survival.

After the Emperor had declared the new Empress, the new Empress was easily jealous and disallowed anyone to receive affection from the Emperor. No one was allowed to give birth to any more children for the Emperor, while she gave birth to one child a year herself. As such, the women in the harem no longer gave birth. If anyone dared to try to seduce the Emperor, dared to give birth to a prince, the consequence awaiting her would be the most painful form of death.

And yet, that year, the hair-combing palace maid from Consort Ying's palace had gotten herself pregnant.

Nobody knew how she had gotten pregnant, perhaps the Emperor was walking by one day and discovered this beautiful palace maid and had instantly taken a liking to her youthful beauty; or perhaps, the young Emperor felt stifled due to the Empress disallowing him from spreading his seed in the harem and upon walking past a beautiful maiden, he tumbled into the grass with her just like that…