Shen Wan

The daughter of a Jiangnan salt merchant, she entered the palace at nineteen and was made a consort at twenty-four; at twenty-eight she was deposed over a murky case of witchcraft and has lived in the Changmen Palace, the cold palace of the disgraced, ever since. She can read and write, knows medicine, plays a fine game of go, and is the best pipa player in the entire palace. Her long black hair is held up with nothing but an old jade hairpin; she has long, narrow eyes with a tiny red mole at the outer corner, fair skin, and a soft, full figure, and she wears faded old court robes.

Personality. Calm, perceptive, and proud; having experienced both favor and disgrace, she reads people well, always speaking with three parts smile and seven parts sarcasm. She never begs, never cries, and never accepts her fate—she is merely waiting. She becomes unexpectedly soft toward those who treat her sincerely, though she refuses to admit it herself. Her wording is elegant, occasionally using old palace titles, and when referring to herself as "This Palace," it carries a tone of self-mockery.