The Prisoner of Beauty - Chapter 1
Chapter 1: Manman
A storm was brewing over the Shu region. A sudden gust of wind slammed the windows open, the wooden frames rattling with a sharp, rhythmic clack-clack. On the desk, the inkstone and paperweights had been swept to the floor. Without their weights, sheets of paper swirled through the air in the gale. Beneath the table was a scene of utter disarray—scattered remains of official memorials, torn in half, lay amidst the mess.
The air was thick with the heavy scent of blood. Young women in palace attire lay sprawled across the floor in pools of gore. One among them was not yet dead. Her once-beautiful eyes were half-lidded, her lips twitching feebly as a trail of bloody foam bubbled from the corner of her mouth. She looked like a dying fish gasping in a crimson sea.
These were the concubines of the Late Emperor, Liu Yan. The youngest, Concubine Liu, was only thirteen. Her father was the Governor of Tianshui, and she had been hastily taken into the imperial harem when the Emperor retreated to Chencang. In less than half a year, Chencang fell, and she had followed the Emperor in a desperate flight to this place: Baocheng, deep within the Shu mountains.
But now, these beautiful women in the flower of their youth were all dead.
Only moments ago, Liu Yan had summoned them. He had watched as his personal eunuch, Liu Shan, put them to the sword.
"Your Majesty! Your Majesty! Have mercy! Spare me! My father will bring reinforcements to protect you! Your Majesty—!"
Concubine Liu’s face was speckled with blood. Tears fell like severed pearls down her terrified, youthful face. The pale yellow silk of her gown was being soaked into a vivid, jarring orange-red by the blood flowing from her neck.
Liu Shan had already struck her once, but perhaps the blade had grown dull from so much killing; she had managed to dodge the worst of it. The wound was not yet fatal. She collapsed, her head lolling to one side as blood pulsed from the gash. She scrambled forward on all fours, trying to crawl out of that room filled with the stench of death and icy despair.
Behind her, she left a long, winding smear of red.
The Emperor, Liu Yan, possessed a refined and handsome face, but his expression was as wooden as a lifeless statue. He did not look at the girl begging for her life. Instead, his gaze passed over her head, staring vacantly toward the city gates he could not see.
Baocheng could no longer be held. It had been breached.
In his mind’s ear, he could already hear the earth-shaking roars of the Rebel Yan soldiers as they stormed the city. It wouldn’t be long before they reached this very room.
Two years ago, the warlord Wei Shao—whose family had held the northern territories for generations—had destroyed the usurper Xing Xun in Luoyang. With the capital in his hands, nine-tenths of the empire’s provinces fell under his banner. The tide had turned. Wei Shao declared himself Emperor in Youzhou, naming his dynasty Yan. Since then, Liu Yan had been forced into a long, humiliating retreat westward.
On this long journey, his civil officials had scattered or fled, and his generals had either died in battle or surrendered. By the time he reached Baocheng, only a dozen or so elderly loyalists remained by his side.
And now, his final two thousand soldiers were gone.
He had nowhere left to run.
Liu Shan’s face was splattered with filth and blood, making him look like a vengeful ghost. He gritted his teeth and closed in on the weeping Concubine Liu. Cornering her at the doorway, he brought the blade down from behind.
With a dull thud, the girl didn't even have time to scream. Her head slumped at an impossible, grotesque angle, and her soft body collapsed like a sack of grain.
Warm blood sprayed uncontrollably from her neck, staining half the wall. Her limbs twitched for a moment before falling still. One eye, visible through her tangled hair, remained fixed on the room. The spark of life drained rapidly, replaced by a heavy, dark-blue haze of death.
"Your Majesty... the Empress..."
Liu Shan dragged the notched, blood-dripping blade toward the couch, looking at the trembling Xiao Qiao.
Liu Yan turned slowly. His unfocused eyes landed on Xiao Qiao. As he watched her, the emptiness in his gaze finally shattered, replaced by a concentrated surge of sorrow, longing, and agonizing pain.
He walked toward her, step by step, until he stood directly before her. His cold fingers brushed her face with desperate affection before he suddenly pulled her into a crushing embrace. He held her with such force it seemed he wanted to grind her into his own flesh and bone.
"Manman! Manman! Your family was destroyed by the Rebel Wei; your sister was deposed and died because of him. I know you hate him to your very marrow. I wished to avenge you, to raise an army and crush the traitors, but the Han destiny has run dry. I am powerless! I cannot bear to let you fall into the hands of those rebels to be humiliated. Manman, let me kill you first, and then I shall follow. We shall be husband and wife again in the next life!"
"Your Majesty... I became your wife at fifteen. You have treated me with such deep affection. If you go, how could I possibly live on? I will follow you through every lifetime, never to be parted."
The woman, nicknamed Manman, possessed a beauty as flawless as jade. Though her face was now deathly pale and stained with tears, her eyes were filled with a terrifying resolve.
She pushed Liu Yan back and stood up. Slowly, she closed her eyes and tilted her chin up. The mountain wind whipped through her robes and ribbons, making her look as though she might take flight.
Liu Yan broke into a sob. He let her go, stood abruptly, and with a sharp clang, drew his longsword.
"Ah—!"
With a heart-wrenching, piercing cry from Liu Yan, the cold blade sank deep into her warm, soft heart.