"I was just like you Xiao Er" Sister Meng stopped talking for a moment to steal a glance at the young girl who was sitting beside her.

"I was a poor young girl trying to seek for a better life in the palace. I was ecstatic to start my new life in this place, thinking that I have improved my living condition." she shook her head.

"Only to find that I was put to serve one of the many forgotten concubines in the inner palace. There were not much people serving her back then. It was only me and another young bodyguard who was assigned for the concubine's daughter." she halted and took a deep breath.

"One young bodyguard and a young maid were not enough to serve a concubine and royal princess. Was the previous emperor hate the concubine?" Xiao Er asked out of curiosity.

Sister Meng shook her head. "Nope. It was because of the previous emperor's lavish spending that caused the budget to be stretched beyond its limit. Hence, most of the time, forgotten concubines would only have one or two young servants for them."

"How long did you live with the concubine?"

"Not long. She was a sickly person. Most of our budget were spent on her medicine thus we had to fend for ourselves to get food. We were so creative back then. Me, the princess and her beloved bodyguard. We would run around the palace and sneak into the royal kitchen all the times to get extra food. No one had ever caught us except for a young servant who worked at the royal kitchen. But he pitied us and began to save some leftover for us. He is now the emperor personal cook" her lips broke into a smile. In later years, the man became her mentor that would teach her everything about cooking and medicine. He had been her shelter for more than ten years.

Directing her eyes to the sky, she began to reminisce the time where she was younger and much more innocent .The memory seemed to be older than she could remember.

                                                                    **********

"Princess wait for me!!" eight year old Meng had difficulty to follow the princess and the arrogant bodyguard. She was a not a strong runner like both of them. Whenever they wanted to sneak into the royal kitchen, Meng would always assigned to be the watcher.

"You are slow" the snobbish bodyguard accused her.

" Meng is an attentive observer. You are suited to be the one to watch our back to ensure that we would not get caught" the princess was much smarter to follow the diplomatic route.

However, today is different. They were not trying to sneak into the royal kitchen for mere food. Instead, they were in mission to save someone's lives. She had never seen the princess in state of agitated like this! She was on the verge of crying! Even her snobbish bodyguard looked so worried about the mistress' health.

They were hastily running toward the royal apothecary. If they were lucky, there would be a doctor waiting for them at the apothecary. Even if they were no doctor there, they surely would send someone to help. The princess and her bodyguard was adamant about that, while Meng remained skeptical.

Even though she had been forcing herself to run after them closely, Meng would be inevitably lagged behind due to her lack of stamina. She lost the sight of both of them as soon as they turned into the corner.

Once she arrived at the apothecary, she saw the princess and the bodyguard were quarreling with the pharmacist.

"We need a doctor! My mother was sick!"

"We are sorry princess, but we are not allowed to leave our post here"

"But she is dying!"

"I will get scolded by the Chief Doctor! Now please leave. I have a lot of work to do!" In the palace, one was not allowed to disrespect the royal family. However, the servant would not abide these rules whenever they interacted with the neglected concubines and princesses. They are the subject of ridicule in the inner palace. No one would bat an eyelashes when a mere servant disregard request from them. As she had expected, the three of them were sent away without any aids or comforting words.

"What should we do now?" tears began to roll down the princess' cheek.

"Let's head to the royal kitchen. Probably the servant who was kind to us would want to lend us a hand" the snobbish bodyguard suggested. Without waiting for princess' respond, he began to sprint to the direction of the royal kitchen. Meng and the princess followed afterward.

As they were nearing the south gate, the princess accidentally knocked over a maid who was holding a pile of clothes. The clothes that she carried scattered on the muddy ground. Some of them were torn as they touched the rough and sandy area of the ground.

"You!!!" the maid scolded them

" I'm sorry but we are in hurry" Meng tried to apologize.

"Hold on right there! What should I do with these clothes? It was all muddy and torn! Concubine Chu gonna get mad at me!" she screamed her lungs out.

"Why are you so loud? What is going on here?" a soft and melodious voice interrupted the squabble

"Concubine Chu!" the maid immediately bowed down to the ground.

"My lady, hear me out. I was properly carrying your clothes just now before this kid knocked me and all of the clothes fell to the ground. Look! They even tore your favourite dress!" The maid held out a beautiful yellow dress that had its end tore into shreds.

The concubine shown no expression toward the maid. She was not perturbed by the incident as the yellow dress was not her favourite. She did not even remember that she owned the dress.

Concubine Chu turned to the kids that were lining up timidly in front of her. "Why are you running around the palace? Did you learn about the rules and regulation in this place?"

"We were in hurry because we need to get help. My mother is sick and she needs a doctor" the princess pleaded pitifully.

"The apothecary is the opposite of this place" The concubine pointed out.

"They refused to help us. Now we are heading to the kitchen"

"Nonsense! What can the people in the kitchen do to help you? Rascal kids like you need to be punished. Servant! Put all of them in the garden's shack. Don't let them out for three days!" she turned away and left.

Three palace guards remained to ushered them to the detention room. Meng, the princess and the bodyguard had been pleading ceaselessly to be given mercy yet nobody would dare to help them because Concubine Chu is the emperor's current favourite and extremely powerful in the inner palace.

Following the instruction from the Concubine Chu, the three of them was locked in the shack for exact three days.

On the day they were released, the princess found her mother's lifeless body on the bed, unattended. She left the world with no one around to comfort her. Starting from that day, the princess was no longer seen with her famous dazzling smile.

Her cheerful and outgoing nature had changed into a more serious and reserve persona.

She rarely playing around and spent most of her time with her head buried into books.

"Why did the princess spent her days studying things that only boys should learn?" Meng asked the bodyguard.

The boy smirked and said " Meng, the current princess is no longer the frail eight year old girl that we had, once ,served. Now, she is a person with clear goal and objective."

"What do you mean by that?"

"One day, you will know" it was a short reply but it felt heavy to her.

Since then, life had continued as usual for most of people in the inner palace. However, there would be several commotion that caused ruckus among the people in the inner palace.

A maid was accused of stealing a valuable collection of jewelry. She was immediately beheaded on the next day. Concubine Chu, who was the emperor's favourite had strings of unfortunate miscarriages. A rumor had spread around the inner place about her being a jinx to her closest kin. The emperor decided to stay away from her. Two years later she was found hanging in her bedroom. It was deduced by the coroner it was suicide.

It was said that she committed suicide due to the fact that she was no longer the emperor's favourite and was extremely shamed by that.

Meanwhile, the royal apothecary was caught in fire destroying medicine worth thousands of Taels. Two apothecary worker were sent to labor camp for being irresponsible while doing their job.

Not only the inner palace, the minister was equally frustrated in the royal court. The once diligent crown prince suddenly show inclination toward excessive consumption of booze and preferred the companions of women rather than attending classes. He was, initially, one of the ministers' favourite candidate . However, his behavioral changed made him loosing the support from the ministers.

The frail second and third prince passed away due to prolong sickness. The empire was silently broiling with state of anarchy with mentally absent emperor and heir.

It was one of the darkest time in the palace…..

                                                                      ***************

"Scary…" Xiao Er squeaked silently.

" Scary isn't ?" Sister Meng vehemently concurred with her statement.

"What a coincidence!!" Xiao Er exclaimed.

"Indeed. So was I though"

"Hmmm?? It was not coincidence?"

"You think?"

" what does that mean?"

Sister Meng scrutinized Xiao Er's perplex expression. She did not want Xiao Er to lost her innocence to this cruel world. However, reality is much more cruel than folktales and she ought to prepare Xiao Er for that.

" The princess grew up to be the empress that ascended the throne almost 16 years ago"

Xiao Er gasped loudly. " Sister Meng, you served the late empress?"

Sister Meng nodded.

"That is so cool. But …..I don't see the correlation about this story and my mistress?Why are you telling me this story?"

"The princess' name was Liu Shi. She was always seen accompanied by her loyal bodyguard-" she paused.

Sister Meng turned her head toward Xiao Er. " ….Gao Wang. The bodyguard's name is Gao Wang"