often broke down and it was common to have power failure. Puyi didn't live with his Empress or his Consort, so I had to live alone in the spacious Changchun Palace. The nights were so long and so horrible, and the loneliness in my heart was hard to be got rid of. I lit a candle and faced the lonely lamp, waiting until the candle was burned most. When the wick became longer and the light shadow began to swing, I would take a pair of scissors to cut the wick shorter. A spell of indescribable mawkishness ran through me and I thought: I was just like this half-burned candle whose tears would run out soon and whose life would be turned into a smoke. Was this place really a palace of magnificence? Maybe it was just a macabre grave!" Life in Tianjin Along with Puyi and Empress Wanrong, Wenxiu left the Forbidden City in 1924, and moved to the Zhang Garden (张园) in the Japanese Concession of Tianjin. Later they moved to the Jing Garden. According to Puyi, Wenxiu and Wanrong were during this period both obsessed with luxury and material possessions, specified by the fact that as soon one of his consorts was given a gift, the other one demanded to be given the same. Wenxiu reminisced on her time at the Zhang Garden (their first home) in Tianjin, recalling: "Puyi and Wanrong lived on the second floor, and I lived in a room next to Puyi's parlor on the first floor. Though we lived in the same building, we didn't visit each other if there was nothing important. We seemed to be strangers with each other in the street. Wanrong put on airs of being an empress all day round and was arrogant. Puyi always believed what she said and they both showed the cold shoulder on me. The feelings between Puyi and me disappeared gradually day by day." Wanrong noted in her diary that on 14 August 1931, Wenxiu had seen her from a window in the act of smoking opium, and called out (to Wanrong): "Why should you take opium? You'd better stab your belly. Why could you still be alive but not kick the bucket? Why wouldn't you jump from the high building or jump into the river? Why just follow my steps to have a drink? I have survived so many times... I