Chapter 8

Chapter 8

When the Thought Poison recoiled, the Buddhist prayer beads were the first to shatter.

The agarwood beads cracked one by one, and black-red smoke curled from the fissures, coiling around the Emperor’s wrists. He tried to shake it off, but it was as if he were being seized by countless invisible hands.

“Shen Zhaoli!” For the first time, he called my name, his voice filled with wretched desperation.

I remained kneeling, unmoving.

The Empress Dowager sharply ordered the Imperial Guard to protect him. When they rushed into the hall, however, they were blocked by the weeping and wailing of the gathered consorts. The Empress stood, removed her phoenix crown, and slammed it heavily onto the golden steps.

“The Emperor is gravely ill and his mind is delirious,” she declared, word by word. “Summon the imperial physicians. Seal Hanzhang Hall.”

This was a palace coup.

Yet, no swords were drawn.

It was only that the ‘thoughts’ the Emperor had personally sown over the years had finally traced their way back to their source.

When he collapsed, his lips had turned black-just like Consort Hua’s.

Three days later, an imperial edict was announced to the world: the Emperor had been struck by a sudden, debilitating illness. The Empress Dowager would rule from behind the curtain, and the Empress would manage the six palaces. I had no way of knowing how the court struggled over this. I only knew that Hanzhang Hall was sealed, all old items from the Imperial Presence were burned, and Gao Rang’s private ledgers were personally inspected by the Empress Dowager. The consorts who had died wrongful deaths over the past decade could not be brought back to life, but at last, they were no longer recorded as merely having died of illness, madness, or accidental falls.

Wen Suyi came to the Treasure Inspection Office to collect me.

She said, “The Empress has agreed to let us leave the palace.”

I was in the middle of tidying my vanity. Over the last ten years, I had grown accustomed to placing every porcelain cup in a fixed position and polishing every silver spoon until it shone. Now that everything was to be burned, I suddenly didn’t know where to put my hands.

Wen Suyi asked, “Where do you want to go?”

I thought about it for a long time.

Mountains and rivers, bustling marketplaces, apothecary shops, my hometown… every word felt foreign.

Finally, I said, “Let’s go to the old Wen family estate first.”

She nodded, her eyes shimmering with tears.

I looked at her and suddenly asked, “Suyi, will I feel hatred in the future?”

Wen Suyi was silent for a moment. “You will. Or perhaps you’ll feel pain first, or fear, or a sense of lingering attachment. None of those are bad things.”

I looked down at my hands.

These hands had tested poison for ten years and handed out countless ‘poison-free’ items. They were clean, yet they were not.

I was not the poisoner, but I had been the blade.

Before I left the palace, the Empress came to see me off. She was still dressed in plain robes, her features weary, but she looked more like a living person than she ever had before.

“Shen Zhaoli,” she said, “this Palace owes you an apology.”

I shook my head. “What Your Majesty owes is not just to me alone.”

She gave a bitter smile. “True.”

When the palace gates opened, it was snowing again outside.

Standing in the snow, I finally remembered the moment ten years ago when my mother carried me out of the fire. Her blood dripped onto my face; it was warm. She didn’t want me to be a hollow person; she just wanted me to survive.

Wen Suyi handed me a box of rouge.

The box was very old, containing ordinary peach-blossom powder-free of poison, and free of ‘thoughts.’

“My aunt left this,” she said. “She said to give it to you when you could choose for yourself whether or not to wear it.”

I took a little on my finger and dabbed it onto my lips.

The person in the bronze mirror now had a faint touch of red. It wasn’t flamboyant or sharp; it was like the first blossom of spring.

I still felt no hatred.

But this time, it wasn’t because someone had stripped it away.

It was because I finally knew that the empty space could first be used to grow back into myself.