The empress lost her consciousness and her body fell down on the cold floor once again as soon as Eunuch Yu made his way into the secret room through the roof.
The empress dowager's eyes are nailed at the eunuch. Eunuch Ye Feng was dead many years ago yet some of his facial features remained and stayed the same when he was still alive. The only difference is that he was overflowing with life back then and now, his face contains no emotion at all.
Memories start to flash in the empress dowager's mind.
Back in her younger years, she often met him in the night market. Ye Feng came from a family of merchants and she on the other hand came from a clan of cultivators. They move in different worlds and they could only meet at night where the Ye family opens their business and when she's on her way back from hunting.
If there's one thing they have in common, it's the love for music.
She still remembers how the garden in Xue Sect looked like in the old times. The garden isn't much special than any other garden. In fact, it only has non-flowering herbs growing around. What's the attraction here is the pond in the middle of the medicinal garden with numerous carps swimming on it. In the center of the wide pond, a small pavilion was erected above its waters. This pavilion is called the Pavilion of Serenity.
A harmony of guqin and dizi can be heard inside the Liaodong Xue Sect's Pavilion of Serenity. The beautiful melody seems to be carried by the wind towards the entirety of the garden as the breeze blows. A young lady looks elegant as her fingers pluck the strings of the guqin. On the other hand, the young man playing the flute looks calm. Suddenly, the young man stops blowing.
"What?" The young lady demands an explanation. Her eyebrows knitted, showing her annoyance. The elegant aura that surrounded her a while ago vanished. It got replaced with a strict appearance. However, the young man on the other hand seems not to care about it. He's very much used to how this young lady of the Liaodong Xue Sect behaves.
With a calm voice, he said with a little smile on his lips. "Young Lady Xue, you are a half note late."
The young lady's eyebrows knitted, even more, creating wrinkles in between. Her face shows how displeased she is. "You dare insult me?"
The young man's smile instantly disappears. He shakes his head and said. "I dare not!"
Despite hearing this from the young man, she still is upset. "Then why are you laughing?"
"Laughing?" Confused, he explained himself. "I am not laughing, young lady."
"Aiyah." The eighteen-year-old young lady of the Xue Clan rises from her seat and steps out of the pavilion. "This really can't keep going."
Although the young man is confused he still follows the young lady.
"Young lady, where are you heading to?"  He asks.
"Where else? To my father! I want a new music teacher." She said without even turning her head to him.
"Young lady! Please don't!" He pleaded. He needs the money that the Xue Clan's head gives to him as compensation after all.
Ye Feng, a son from a poor family of merchants. At the age of sixteen, because of poverty, he accepted the Head of the Xue Clan's offer to become the youngest teacher in the Liaodong Xue Sect. However, he does not teach martial arts or anything related to cultivation. Cultivating isn't part of his fate either. He only managed to get himself inside the said sect because of his talent in music. Ever since his earliest memories, he's already been into music. He could play from percussion instruments to string instruments and wind instruments. Throughout his profession inside the Xue Sect, he teaches only one student, and it is the young lady of the Liaodong Xue Sect, Xue BaiHua.
Xue BaiHua, a strong candidate to be the destined highness at that time, is unfriendly, pampered, and prideful. Ever since his father hired the young man to be her personal teacher for music, she's always agitated. She always felt like she's losing her face for having a teacher younger than her for two years. She hates it whenever Ye Feng corrects her mistakes. She thought, how come the younger one can tell if the elder one is right or wrong? This is too humiliating on her part.
She's been ignoring the clumsy young man who keeps on following her but she can't take it anymore. She halted her steps and turns to face the one behind her.
She yells, "Why are you following me?!"
The young teacher gives him a small smile, more like a bashful one, and replies, "Young Lady Xue is really good and a fast learner. You just started playing guqin so it's not strange if you make some mistakes. I believe, if someone not familiar with musical instruments listens, that one wouldn't notice that you are a little late." He pauses to silently breathe deeply.
He's nervous. Although he's familiar with the young lady's attitude, he still doesn't want to offend her and have misunderstandings. He continues speaking with sincerity showing in his eyes, "In fact, I am amazed that you learn too fast. I've been into music since my earliest memories so I can sense if something's wrong with it. But really, I think a little more practice will make it perfect, young lady."
Xue BaiHua averted her eyes. With a low voice she asks almost whispering, "Do you really mean it?"
Ye Feng nods as a response. Even after receiving such a reply, she's still not fully convinced.
"You're not mocking me?" She asks in a soft voice, hoping for a positive response.
"Of course not!" Ye Feng immediately covers his mouth after realizing that he didn't calculate the volume of his voice properly. It's like he's shouting at the young lady. In a low voice, he speaks again. "I would never mock you, young lady. I'd say, you're more like praiseworthy. A genius of music!"
"Flatterer." She turns her back and starts walking again.
The young man can't see but a little smile forms on her lips. Her knitted eyebrows slowly go back to their normal place. Her heart seems to be a little more fluffy than usual. This is the first time someone has praised her. Since her childhood, all she received are criticisms for her mistakes. No one gave her any credit for her achievement and good deeds.
She thought, "So this is how it feels to be praised."
"…" The young man thinks she's still upset. Without knowing what to do to make her feel better, he still follows her. He only has one friend in his hometown but the child is also a boy. Ye Feng doesn't know what pleases young ladies. Then he remembered he has plum blossom candies with him. Girls love sweets, right?
He smiles and called out to the young lady. "Young Lady Xue, I have some plum candies with me. Would you like to have some?"
"Plum candy?" She stops walking again and turns her head to look at the young man behind her. "What does it taste like?"
"It tastes like… plum?"
The young lady glares at him. Now he's confused once more. He thought, it indeed tastes like plum. Why would she be upset again?
He gives her a sweet smile and handed her several tablets of plum candies. "Taste it yourself."
She gives him a suspicious look before taking one tablet to her mouth. In the first second, her face looks confused, then her expression becomes complicated as time passes. She spat the candy on the ground with a sour face.
"That tastes terrible!"
Now, it's Ye Feng's turn to be confused. "Terrible? It tastes good! It's my favorite fruit candy!"
"Then your taste is terrible."
The young man let out a sigh of defeat, "Fine. Can I have those back, young lady?"
"What?" Xue BaiHua looks at the candies in her hand. She looks back at the young man and said, "No. You already gave this to me. Why are you getting it back?"
"…"
Ye Feng is a pleaser, Xue BaiHua is short-tempered and wants attention. It wouldn't be surprising if the two didn't take much time to finally get along with each other. Before the young lady knows it, they're already more like friends than that of a teacher-student relationship.
Then the time when the imperial palace announced the chosen destined highness. And it's not the young lady of the Xue Clan. This enraged the elders of the said clan. They all blame her for not being good enough. They say she did not study the six arts seriously. That she's not lady-like enough. That she's always fooling around. They even partly blamed her only friend. Saying, instead of teaching her music, Ye Feng is also playing around. Of course, she defended him and took the whole blame. Well, who else should they blame? She's the only one who failed here and Ye Feng didn't. He never failed to play his part as her teacher. In fact, he even managed to be her friend at the same time. He did more than enough. He's not responsible, not even a little, for her failure.
Xue BaiHua did not only got scolded countless times, but she also got a slap from her mother, saying she's such a disappointment. Although she's selected as an imperial noble consort, just a step lower than the empress, her clan is still unsatisfied. Very unsatisfied to put it into words.
Xue BaiHua cries until she falls asleep. When she wakes up, she starts crying again. The painful insults, the cold stares she gets from her family, the disappointment. It drives her crazy. She thought, did she really not do her best? Or is it that her best isn't enough? All her life, everyone around her expected her to be the destined empress... but she just can't. There's someone else who's better than her.
What's making her upset even more is that Ye Feng isn't around anymore. His father sent him back to his hometown. Ye Feng didn't want to part their ways yet but what can he do? He's only a man who has nothing but the love for music. He got no power nor wealth. What can he possibly do against an entire sect? He regrets to leave but before he left, he could only see the young lady and comfort her for a very short time. He didn't even get to see the wounds in her heart heal and turn into scars. However, for someone as lowly as him, it's more than enough. He can't ask for more.
The departure of her only friend pains her however, there's no way she could stop this. His job as her teacher is done after all. And in addition, she doesn't want him to be blamed for something that's out of his hands. He must not be involved with her family again.
Although she didn't become the empress, as an imperial noble consort, she still has to leave Liaodong to live inside the imperial palace to carry out her duty. While living in the palace, she witnessed how the emperor and the empress love each other. Perhaps her majesty is chosen because his majesty truly loves her. Now that she thinks about it, she wonders if this woman is indeed better than her.
Because of this, she secretly investigated the background of the empress. Turns out, this woman comes from a family that isn't well-off. In fact, the Xue Clan is much wealthier compare to the empress' family. Her family doesn't even have connections with the government. Meaning, her family doesn't have a political influence. She also learned that this empress didn't even have an academic foundation.
The findings she gathered ignited the hatred in her core. She's been through a lot just to become the destined highness. And when she failed, her own family can't accept her anymore. Then this woman just showed herself in front of his majesty and becomes the empress with her hands down? This is so unfair! She thought, she must have done something to catch the eye of the emperor.
Now, if she's going to play dirty, the imperial noble consort is also willing to risk and get her hands dirty to get rid of her. But how will Xue BaiHua do that? The plan must not fail. If it does, she will kill herself. Why? Well, for what reason must she live for? Since she was young, she never aimed for anything except for her and her family's goal to become the destined highness. If she still fails to carry out the plan of getting rid of her, her life will have no purpose by then.
Later on, she discovered that his majesty's mother is not happy with her son marrying a nobody. The empress dowager wants her, the young lady of the Xue Clan, to become the empress. Turns out, the old empress comes from the same clan too, but the two are only distant relatives.
Knowing that they have the same interest, the empress dowager and the imperial noble consort became allies. They plot their dark plans together against the empress.
And then one day, something that cheered up the imperial noble consort happened. His former teacher and at the same time her friend, Ye Feng, entered the palace as a eunuch.
"Young lady Xue." Ye Feng calls out.
Hearing a familiar voice, Xue Baihua immediately turns her head in the direction where the voice came from. Her heart beats faster and her hands turn cold. She can't believe she got to see him again. He may be wearing the eunuch's uniform now but the comforting aura around him remained the same.
"Ye Feng!" Xue BaiHua runs towards her old friend. Ye Feng on the other hand is just standing in his place, smiling as she waits for her. With a smile, he opened his arms.
For some reasons that she can't explain, her heart begins to ache. Isn't she supposed to be happy? She doesn't know why her eyes start to get watery. By the time she reached Ye Feng, she buried her face on his chest, not wanting to let the other see her face.
He smiled gently and enveloped her in his embrace. He also carefully strokes her hair at times. Even though she didn't say anything, he understands her by heart.