Extra Story: Wangshu (2)

She also did not have to pay respects to Grandmother and the Empress. No outside turmoil could enter Jingren Palace.

She read, tended medicinal herbs, and played with me. Whenever Father came to Jingren Palace, she would quietly share a meal with him.

Virtuous Consort once told me, “Wangshu, you must grow up like your mother. Whatever you do, don’t stray from that path.”

I knew she was scolding Father. She was always criticizing him in roundabout ways.

Father loved me dearly.

On the Golden Hall, he held me in his arms while we listened to the civil and military officials discuss state affairs.

Whenever he flew into a rage in the Imperial Study, the eunuchs by his side would come to Jingren Palace to beg Mother for help, asking me to go calm him down.

As soon as I arrived, Father would dismiss the people kneeling on the ground, then take my hand and teach me to write.

When I was seven, Father had his second child: Concubine Wang gave birth to a boy.

During that period, whenever I went to Cining Palace to pay my respects, there were always irritating people buzzing in my ears.

Mother said that only the incompetent were quick to lose their temper.

Not long after, Father named me Princess Yuanjia, and those irritating voices disappeared.

Father explained the meaning of the title to me.

He said the character “Hui” in his name meant darkness.

Mother was the bright moon fate had sent to illuminate his life.

My name, Wangshu, meant that I was the clear moonlight Mother had brought, making Father’s life brighter still.

And Yuanjia was the auspicious new beginning for me as a princess.

02

When I was eight, I noticed that Mother had changed a little.

She began asking the Department of the Imperial Household to bring court bulletins to Jingren Palace and invited me to read them with her.

With bodyguards protecting us, she took me outside the palace. We looked at shops selling goods, farmers tilling the fields, and laborers working at the docks.

She said that the lifeblood of a nation, in prosperity or decline, lay in the people’s livelihood.

She also asked Virtuous Consort to explain the northern frontier and military organization to me. Whenever she got excited about something, Virtuous Consort would slap the table, leap up, and wield her spear so powerfully that the wind whistled.

In my heart, I had a vague understanding of Mother’s intention.

I did not think anything was wrong with it.

Throughout my childhood, I had never felt that there was anything I was unworthy of.

No one had the right to push me off the throne I had been able to sit upon since I was three.

I worked even harder to observe, listen, learn, and absorb everything the world had to offer.

I knew that Mother still carried a knot in her heart.

It was hidden in every family letter that arrived from Lingnan, and in the other half of my bloodline I had never met.

I asked her, “Why can’t Grandmother and the others return to the capital? Father could pardon them with a single imperial decree.”

Mother smiled at me. “Being pardoned is not the same as having been innocent in the first place.”

“For some questions, the answer does not lie in the present.”

03

When I was fifteen, Grandmother fell gravely ill. After many years, Mother went to Cining Palace once more.

Apart from Mother, Grandmother was the wisest person I knew.

She was silent for a long time by the sickbed, then finally said, “Everyone had their own difficulties back then.”

Mother answered gently, “Mingyue understands.”

In her final moments, Grandmother made Father promise one thing: he could reopen the Cheng family case only after her elder brother had died.

Tears glimmered in her clouded eyes. “Though you are not my own child, I have long regarded you as one.”

“He did indeed do wrong, but without the Duke’s household and me, he could not have done those things.”

“Let merit and fault balance each other.”

“He does not have many years left. I don’t care about his reputation after death. I only hope you will let him live out the rest of his life.”

Father agreed.

As Grandmother lay dying, she gripped his hand tightly.

Father choked out a single word: “Mother.”

Half a year after Grandmother passed away, Father issued an imperial decree naming me Crown Princess.

The court debated for more than a month, but in the end everyone accepted it.

In the harem, the Empress said nothing. Worthy Consort, on the other hand, nearly broke down. She ran to Jingren Palace, pounded on the door, and shouted for Mother to come out.

It was nothing more than a clown’s performance.

As Crown Princess, I accompanied Father to court and listened to discussions of state affairs.

His methods grew increasingly decisive. He showed no mercy in dealing with the imperial relatives, and censorial officials had remonstrated with him repeatedly.

Mother told me, “Wangshu, remember the path your father has prepared for you. And remember how, in the future, you should choose among and balance the different powers.”

She looked at me with eyes as deep as a clear pool. “Wangshu, you can move forward without carrying any burdens.”

I respected Father, but Mother was the person I loved and cherished most in this life.

04

When I was twenty-five, Father abdicated in my favor.

I chose Yuanjia, my title as a princess, for my era name. The transfer of the throne to the new reign went smoothly and steadily.

In the second year of my reign, Chen Wang died of illness, and the Cheng family case was reopened.

Clearing their names went more smoothly than expected.

Mother had memorized every word of the original draft that had been burned years ago.

Following its contents, we only needed to find two or three witnesses and pieces of physical evidence to establish the case.

After suffering wrongful accusations for more than twenty years, the Cheng family could finally begin again.

I had not seen Mother cry since I was eight, but the day the decree clearing the family’s name was issued, she wept.

She said that her whole life had been led by fate, and from then on, she hoped to live according to her own wishes.

That was only right.

She was my mother, and I had the ability to give her everything she wanted.

I named her Lady Yuanhui and ordered the historians to record her merit in supporting the sovereign, and the fact that she had aided two generations of rulers.

Mother gradually grew tired of living in the palace. When she wanted to visit Lingnan or travel through Jiangnan, I let her do as she pleased.

Father wanted to accompany her, too.

I had never fully understood the feelings between them.

Mother said it was because I had never been moved by anyone myself.

I had taken an interest in this year’s top scholar, Ning Yuanshan. He was handsome and learned, and he was willing to enter the palace.

I had always been decisive in matters of state, but in this one matter I hesitated.

Mother told me not to hurry. Take it slowly, and look a little farther ahead.

See whether he could bear the gossip about a woman outranking a man. See whether a man of such talent, nearly in the position of a live-in husband, would grow resentful. See what he would choose and what he would give up when caught between difficult choices.

Mother did not have to live up to my expectations, because she had always exceeded every expectation I had of her.

05

Her last wish was to be buried beside her favorite lake in Jiangnan.

I took her to choose a suitable place, a picturesque landscape.

After she died, Father seemed drained of all vitality. He quickly became haggard and withered.

Father wanted to be buried beside her.

How could that be allowed? The imperial family had its rules, with the ancestors of every generation watching over us.

Father closed his eyes and accepted it. On a life’s road full of things one must accept against one’s will, he reserved his final compromise for himself.

A hundred years from now, anyone who opens the history books will learn the legendary story of Mother and me.

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