Beginning Fortune Palace

Beginning Fortune Palace is A'Zi’s residence in the Liao capital, bestowed on her after Yelu Hongji made her Beginning Fortune Princess. Its rooms serve as a secluded setting for her control over You TanZhi and for the secret martial-arts training she conducts with venomous creatures. The palace’s significance lies less in its political function than in the way A'Zi turns it into a private stage for concealment, dependency, and dangerous experimentation.

Residence and status

Yelu Hongji granted A'Zi the title of Beginning Fortune Princess and bestowed the palace as her residence. The gift situates her within the Liao court’s hierarchy, while the name of her new status and home marks a change in her circumstances: she now has a household and attendants who can carry out her instructions.

That household becomes instrumental to A'Zi’s plans. She directs the captain of the room attendants to arrange You TanZhi’s iron mask, then asks about his condition each day, at first concerned that he might not survive. When she learns he will live, she is pleased that the effort has not been wasted. The palace therefore functions as a base from which she can monitor and manage him, rather than merely a formal reward.

You TanZhi under A'Zi’s control

When A'Zi learns that Xiao Feng is going to the southern outskirts to inspect the troops, she has You TanZhi summoned to the palace. The timing matters: she wants the mask to hide his identity from Xiao Feng, whom You TanZhi regards as his enemy. Seeing the finished mask, A'Zi is confident that even if Xiao Feng stood beside him, he would not recognize him. She praises the attendant’s work and awards the blacksmith another fifty silvers.

The mask is not simply a disguise. Its narrow mouth opening makes eating difficult, and A'Zi explicitly connects it to preventing You TanZhi from biting her. He asks whether she wants him to stay nearby and serve her; she refuses to trust him, warning that he might try to harm her. When he says that his enemy is Xiao Feng, she answers that harming Xiao Feng would also harm her, because Xiao Feng is her brother-in-law. You TanZhi falls silent. His hope of proximity to A'Zi thus coexists with her continued suspicion and with his hostility toward the person she protects.

A'Zi reinforces that dependence by threatening to have You TanZhi’s left hand cut off unless he kneels and kowtows. The episode makes the palace’s private space a setting for her exercise of authority over him: he remains near her by permission, while his safety and dignity are subject to her commands.

Seclusion and martial-arts practice

After returning to the palace from a mountain valley, A'Zi orders the guards to arrange lodging for You TanZhi beside it. He is delighted because he expects to see her often. The following morning she summons him into the main hall and closes the door, leaving the two of them alone. This controlled separation from the palace’s public household allows her to reveal what she has been preparing.

A'Zi opens a clay urn containing a large centipede they caught the previous day. She brings out a rooster prepared in advance, removes its beak and claws, and places it in the urn. The centipede climbs onto the bird and feeds; the rooster dies from the poison, and the centipede swells. A'Zi watches with evident satisfaction and says that the martial-arts method can now be completed. You TanZhi realizes that she had traveled to catch the centipede for training, though he does not know the method’s name.

Narrative significance

The palace links A'Zi’s new courtly status to a private world of calculated control. Its attendants and guards make her commands effective; its rooms allow her to conceal You TanZhi’s identity and keep him close; and its closed hall becomes the setting for a training method based on a poisonous creature. These uses contrast with the palace’s official standing as the residence of a princess. For A'Zi, it is both a protected household and an operational space where authority, secrecy, and martial ambition converge.