Chapter 3
Edward Quan ·
“Tell me what I need to do now.”
“There's a green jade paperweight on the imperial desk.”
He lowered his voice.
“Turn it over, with its underside facing up. When my people see it, they'll know I'm still alive.”
I nodded solemnly.
Behind me, movement came from the imperial bed. Zhao Chengyao seemed about to wake.
I restored Pei Wujiu's chains to their original position.
Just as I was about to close the hidden door, I remembered how many hurtful things I would have to say next.
Across the small space between us, I made a gentle motion as though clasping his hand.
“If you hear me saying cruel things, don't believe a single word.”
He looked at me and nodded hard.
“And you—after enduring all these years to reach this point, don't lose your head again if he makes you choose because of me.”
“Say what needs saying. Make the choice when the time comes. Don't think only of protecting me.”
My nose stung, but I spoke earnestly.
“Pei Wujiu, you and I have been on the same side from the beginning.”
He was too stubborn. I feared he would ruin years of planning for my sake.
Thinking it through, if I hadn't suddenly entered the maze, the palace might already have been turned upside down.
...
Until the hidden door closed, he kept smiling at me.
Separated by a veil of darkness, we remained silent for a long time.
7
By the time Zhao Chengyao woke, the morning audience had long since ended.
I acted willful, wrapping my arms around his waist to keep him in bed, deliberately pouting.
“It's all your fault.”
“I hurt everywhere, and now you want to leave me for those old men outside?”
As expected, it pleased him.
He liked my dependence. He liked destroying the person his brother loved even more.
Knowing I loved Pei Wujiu, he wanted to watch wealth and rank turn me cruel and ugly, until his brother could no longer love me.
“That's easily settled. I won't go today.”
I lifted my face and smiled brightly.
“Aren't you afraid of spoiling me into a wicked consort?”
He raised an eyebrow and leaned close.
“If you're willing to be one, why shouldn't I play the foolish ruler again?”
He really did leave the petitioning ministers waiting outside.
He summoned court musicians and held me in the brightly lit hall, drinking and listening to music.
Reclining in his arms, I deliberately made trouble for an elderly minister kneeling outside.
“That old man keeps looking at me. Could we gouge out his eyes?”
The terrified official kowtowed and begged forgiveness.
Zhao Chengyao laughed all the more delightedly.
“If that's what you want, gouge them out.”
I looped my arms around his neck and sweetly changed my mind.
“Never mind. All that blood would spoil the music.”
He agreed at once.
“If the Noble Consort doesn't like it, we won't.”
The hall went silent.
But I knew I had found the desire driving him.
To indulge me into ever greater wickedness, he refused to attend court for several days.
His so-called favor was merely pushing me into a darker abyss.
Memorials piled on the imperial desk. He didn't glance at them. In a good mood, he even took some down to put beneath my fruit plate.
Leaning against his shoulder, I asked with a smile, “Does Your Majesty like me this way?”
His eyes darkened briefly. He stroked my face.
“Of course. But think, my consort. Would the man from before... Pei Wujiu... like you this way?”
I blinked and answered with complete conviction.
“He would love me whatever I became!”
I paused deliberately, then sighed in disappointment.
“Though...”
“What he loved most was my kindness and soft heart. If he saw me now, perhaps... he really would be disgusted.”
Sure enough, Zhao Chengyao's eyes lit up. He happily kissed the top of my head.
The smile stayed on my face, but my gaze slowly chilled.
That night, he ordered warmed wine and more calming incense than usual.
First, I placed the antidote from the maze beneath my tongue. I drank a few cups with him, then pretended to fall deeply asleep when the drug took effect.
I coaxed him onto the bed, judged the moment, and pressed his pressure point again.
Only when his breathing settled did I smudge my makeup and pinch suggestive red marks into my cheeks, so others would think I had truly received his favor that night.
When he woke, he studied me for a long time, visibly satisfied.
A little later, a faint sound came from behind the hanging scroll, followed by chains dragging across the floor.
Zhao Chengyao led Pei Wujiu to the bed, as pleased as someone showing off a trophy.
“Look closely, Brother.”
“She clings to me every night, keeps me from court, and begs to be my wicked consort. She's forgotten all those old dreams of leaving the palace for a quiet life.”
After a long silence, Pei Wujiu's cold voice came.
“If Your Majesty likes her, keep her.”
“An old acquaintance who covets power isn't worth summoning this servant to see.”
Zhao Chengyao laughed.
“But the blood from your palm is almost dripping onto her bed.”
My hand clenched beneath the quilt. I dared show no reaction.
Zhao Chengyao brushed my hair aside, his voice strangely tender.
“Brother, women will betray you sooner or later.”
“Mother did. She will too.”
“I'm the only person in the world who will never leave you.”
He touched the chains at his brother's wrists with satisfaction.
“When I tire of her, you can return to serve me.”
“She'll be my Noble Consort. You'll be my shadow. The three of us will stay trapped in the palace forever. Wouldn't that be good?”
At last, Pei Wujiu looked up.
“Why must Your Majesty always treat living people as objects?”
Zhao Chengyao tilted his head and smiled, innocent and cruel.
“Because people run away. Objects don't.”
“I'll break her legs and make her our shared captive lover. Then she won't escape. Wouldn't that be good?”
Pei Wujiu didn't answer for a long time.
I could feel his heavy gaze on my face, cold and hopeless as moonlight falling into a dry well.
At last, he sighed.
“Your Majesty, why will you never grow up?”
A cold hand passed over my forehead.
The familiar touch almost made me cry.
I knew that this was the man I loved.
8
The next day, I deliberately sat on the imperial desk and folded unread memorials into paper boats.
The empress dowager entered the bedchamber without a sound.
The middle-aged woman was still beautiful, with long brows and autumn-clear eyes, noble as Guanyin reflected in water.
But she was a false Buddha with a poisonous heart.
Pei Wujiu had told me that the dynasty considered royal twins taboo. Of two brothers born together, only one could be kept to inherit the ancestral line.
The empress dowager chose the healthy Zhao Chengyao.
The other child had his face ruined and was hidden beside his younger brother as a nameless shadow.
She gave her younger son endless love, yet never taught him what family meant. Again and again, she told him that everything his brother possessed rightfully belonged to him.
One child lost his face. The other was raised into malice.
Neither had truly known a mother's love.
I hated Zhao Chengyao, but I knew where the root of this disaster lay.
...
Seeing paper boats strewn across the floor, the empress dowager raised her hand to strike me.
As her junior, I could hardly dodge.
But before the blow fell, Zhao Chengyao caught her wrist.
I looked up in delighted surprise, then deliberately lowered my eyes in disappointment.
Seeing her son protect me enraged her further.
“This woman was already carrying on with a eunuch. Now she bewitches the sovereign and throws the palace into disorder! By law, she deserves to be beaten to death!”
Instead, I grew calm.
If she truly put me in prison, Pei Wujiu's people would have a chance to rescue me. If she didn't dare, this resentment would drive deeper between mother and son.
I covered my chest and actually laughed.
“When it comes to throwing the palace into disorder, how could I compare with Your Majesty?”
Silence fell. Her face turned white.
“You wretch! What nonsense are you talking?”
I nestled into Zhao Chengyao's arms, smiling with a seductive cruelty.
“When I served in the Palace Service Court, Your Majesty said yourself that without you, the emperor could never have reached his present position. Have you forgotten?”
Zhao Chengyao abruptly turned to me.
The empress dowager had never said that openly.
I was gambling that her first instinct would be to claim credit.
Sure enough, she hurried to explain.
“Yao'er, everything I did was for you!”
Zhao Chengyao slowly released her wrist.
“If everything is for me, why must you kill anyone I like?”
I added fuel.
“Before, Your Majesty managed the government for him. Now you decide who should die for him.”
“Will you sit on the dragon throne for him next?”
The last warmth left Zhao Chengyao's face.
Furious beyond reason, the empress dowager blurted, “Without me, do you truly think you could hold the throne?”
She froze the moment she said it.
His voice turned icy.
“So everything you gave me can be taken back whenever you wish?”
Mother and son faced each other, neither willing to yield.
I approached the imperial desk and pretended to drop the green jade paperweight in alarm, leaving it with its underside upward.
A eunuch sweeping outside looked up, saw it, and lowered his head as though nothing had happened.
A little later, the faintest sound of chains came from the hidden chamber.
At last, I breathed more easily.
I took Zhao Chengyao's arm and comforted him softly.
“Don't be sad, Your Majesty. I will always stand by you.”
In the end, the mother yielded first.
She glared at me over her son's shoulder, then could only sweep away.
9
Unable to kill me, she tried another method.
She had my parents and younger sister brought under guard from the imperial tombs.
Father's first words on seeing me were an order to kneel.
“Qinghe, how could you do something so shameless for wealth and rank?”
Mother held my sister and urged me through reddened eyes.
“Confess to the empress dowager. Don't drag the whole family down for your own sake.”
Their rules for me had never changed.
As a noble daughter, I had to yield to my sister in everything.
Reduced to a palace maid, I naturally had to bear the whole family's suffering.
Now I was Noble Consort, and they still thought my life should be exchanged for their peace.
I didn't argue.
I only asked Father, “Where is the half of the shops you promised me?”
Embarrassment flickered over his face.
The excuses were the same as years before.
“Your sister isn't strong. We have to leave her more property to depend on.”
I laughed. My chest was so calm that I no longer felt any pain.
My family had chosen other people over and over until abandonment had left me numb.
So I turned and openly nestled into Zhao Chengyao's arms.