I’m not supposed to be here…

If you asked anyone… any of the mistresses, any of the stewards… they’d all agree: I should have been sent away long ago. Or worse.

A high-ranked concubine is supposed to be elegance woven into flesh. She glides when she walks. Her voice is as soft as silk. She never slouches, never eats more than three bites in public…

I do… none of those things.

A real favored consort knows how to read the room. She listens more than she speaks. Her beauty flawless and her voice never raised.

Me? I trip. I’ve broken more hairpins than I care to admit. I once laughed so hard at a foreign ambassador’s hat I had to pretend it was a cough.

And yet… I’m still here.

I don’t understand it. The other consorts… those perfect, graceful beings… they whisper when I pass. They titter behind their sleeves. They wait for the day I’ll be cast out for some mistake...

But somehow, the Emperor, that scumbag, keeps calling for me.

I don’t flutter my lashes or sing like a bird. I don’t sprinkle perfume on my letters or compose poetry about the moon. I speak plainly. I ask questions. I scold him when he’s being ridiculous. Once, I told him he looked like a peacock stuffed into too many layers of brocade.

He laughed. Not the polite chuckle he gives at court, really laughed, shoulders shaking, eyes crinkling like he forgot how to pretend.

And he kept calling for me.

I don’t fit into this delicate world of painted smiles. I forget rituals. I fidget in ceremonies. I burn incense the wrong way.

But I’m still alive. Still here. Still favored.

I’m not what a high-ranked concubine should be. I’m too loud, too real, too… me.

And somehow, that’s exactly what he keeps choosing… I even cried and hit him once when he tried to touch me… I don’t understand… why won’t he let me be free ?