chapter 4
chapter 4
After the morning greetings ended, Chu Yingqiu followed me into the inner hall with obvious reluctance.
The baby girl was easy to care for. She did little besides eat and sleep, and now she slumbered soundly in her swaddling clothes.
Suiyue respectfully presented a book. Chu Yingqiu took it and began to read.
Less than an hour later, her voice had grown hoarse.
I personally handed her a cup of water. “Sister Chu is so learned. With you reading beside her, the little princess sleeps even more soundly.”
She accepted the cup. “Your Majesty did not summon me merely to read to the princess, did you?”
I smiled. “Before you entered the palace, you were one of the capital’s most celebrated scholars, able to quote the Four Books and Five Classics at will. I heard you once disguised yourself as a man to take the imperial examinations and placed eighth in the second class.”
“Few women in the entire realm have ever passed those examinations. With your great talent, you might have entered court and risen to the highest ministries. Yet here you are, trapped in the harem, reading beside a cradle. What a pity.”
I shook my head and sighed but said nothing more.
Chu Yingqiu’s face paled.
Scholars took pride in their backbone. She considered herself a cultured intellectual of uncommon learning and had once declared that she would help set the realm in order.
Instead, she had become the emperor’s concubine, caged within four palace walls.
Her father led the upright civil officials. Mine stood at the head of the military.
If the two of us ever lived in peace, Pei Yangxi would be the one with cause to fear.
That was why we had become unspoken enemies from the moment we entered the palace. Until today, our battles had been no more than verbal skirmishes that never touched our true interests.
When I appeared to compromise and handed her a portion of my authority, suspicion had flashed in her eyes.
That told me she, like me, had been performing for Pei Yangxi.
Today’s test offered two outcomes. If she accepted my proposal, I gained an ally. If she refused, then I had merely kicked her while she was down and struck deliberately at her sorest wound.
It was her choice.
Chu Yingqiu met my eyes. “What does Your Majesty propose?”
I placed the decision in her hands.
“You may spend the rest of your life reading to children in the harem, or you may stand in the imperial court and speak your mind before the realm.”
After she left, Suiyue asked anxiously, “Does Your Majesty not fear that Lady Chu will betray you?”
Of course I did.
From the moment I learned the truth, Pei Yangxi and I could only end with one of us dead.
I tossed and turned that entire night. The next morning, I ordered Chenyue to contact our hidden agent inside the Jade Hibiscus Palace. Through that agent, I arranged for Xuanye, Chu Yingqiu’s senior maid, to discover certain clues. The Chu clan’s own people would follow the trail and uncover the rest.
Thus Chu Yingqiu learned of Pei Yangxi’s plan.
His former devotion was nothing but a flower in a mirror, the moon reflected on water. Awakening to discover that she had always been meat on another person’s chopping block must have felt worse than death.
She had once been his secondary consort and enjoyed endless favor. She had believed she would become empress, only to watch Pei Yangxi take the throne and appoint me instead.
Now, as noble consort, she had become the conspicuous target he used to hide his true intentions. Who could say he would not discard her once she had served her purpose?
Our alliance was inevitable.
There are no eternal enemies, only eternal interests.
She was clever. If she failed to keep our secret or tried to play both sides, I would drag her down with me when I fell.
Anyone would know which choice to make.