Chapter 8
Edward Quan ·
Jingze answered openly, standing perfectly straight.
His smug expression said: None of you will make me acknowledge some bastard.
“The imperial physician prescribed it. I took it for half a year before it worked.”
“Hui is all I need in this life. Why would I collect a mess of unwanted rubbish?”
“You… you fool!” The Emperor struck the armrest. “Why didn’t you say so sooner?”
“You never asked.”
“Besides, if I’d said it sooner, how would I have discovered who would slander me today? Who would use a child of unknown origins to come between my son and me?”
He turned to the ministers who had just been kneeling in such anguish, looking at them one by one.
“You’re all so heartbroken. Anyone who didn’t know better might think the child belonged to your own families.”
Several faces went from green to white.
One man gritted his teeth and persisted.
“Your Highness, even so, you cannot rule out the possibility…”
Jingze cut him off.
“If you still don’t believe me, have the imperial physician bring the prescription. Take it yourself—or give it to your son or grandson—for half a year. Then see whether any more children appear.”
The hall fell utterly silent.
The musician was already trembling all over. The child in her arms cried harder.
The Emperor waved a hand and ordered her taken away for questioning.
The investigation eventually revealed that the Sixth Prince had put her up to it.
He thought Jingze was foolish and confused. If he could divide father and son, perhaps he would have a chance to rise.
The Emperor asked Jingze how he wished to deal with him.
“Send him to guard the imperial tombs. Since he tried to confuse the imperial bloodline, let our ancestors deal with him.”
Within days, the Sixth Prince was escorted to the tombs.
18
After the Emperor died, Jingze ascended the throne.
His was the shortest reign in our dynasty.
On his first day, he frowned and argued with the ritual officials over whether morning court could begin one double-hour later.
They stopped him with, “Ancestral rules must not be violated.”
On the second day, he fell asleep over the imperial desk. A censor accused him of improper conduct.
By the third day, he didn’t want the job anymore.
People kept urging him to take more women into the harem and expand the imperial family.
He ignored them.
So others submitted memorials against me, accusing me of jealousy, monopolizing imperial favor, and being an enchantress of an empress.
After reading one, Jingze turned to me.
“An enchantress is enchanting. They’re saying you’re beautiful.”
“Do you really think that’s what they mean?”
“Ask Hui.”
Standing beside us, Hui nodded.
“I think so too.”
Exactly one year after his accession, Jingze, unable to wait any longer, finished drafting his abdication decree and thrust the imperial seal into Hui’s arms.
Hui was nineteen that year.
Jingze patted his shoulder.
“Son, the throne is yours. I’m off.”
Then he took me, his mother, and a few loyal guards out of the city that very night, heading straight for Jiangnan.
“Whoever wants to attend court can go. I certainly don’t.”
“Jiangnan, here I come!”
During Hui’s reign, he reformed the bureaucracy, reduced taxes and levies, improved waterworks, and dug three canals to carry grain from Jiangnan directly to the north.
He commanded two major campaigns: one drove the northern invaders far back into their own lands, and the other cleared the coast of pirates.
He also compiled an immensely thick legal code, giving every matter a law to follow.
Throughout his years on the throne, the realm was peaceful. People lived securely and prospered.
The historians wrote:
The people knew no war; the years knew no famine.
Jingze and I might be timid and useless.
Our son was extraordinary.
And we loved him very much.
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