Chapter 6
The beauties the prince consort personally selected were delivered to the emperor’s bed.
He never consulted the princess. Only after it was done did he go to see her.
She met him with a vicious slap across the face.
Afterward, she lashed her whip hard across my face too. “So! Even a wretched servant like you dares keep things from me? You were all in it together, weren’t you?”
My face was torn open. My clothes became bloody rags.
If she kept whipping me, I would die.
But after a while she stopped, tossed the whip aside, and sank into a chair.
“Does Your Highness’s palm hurt? Allow your servant to apply medicine.” Dragging my bloodied body forward, I took out a clean handkerchief and wiped the blood from her palm.
Her skin was too thin. Her hand had broken open.
This was the extreme effect she had sought.
But I did not pity her. I simply would not allow any part of her to be damaged before I skinned her.
Her skin was the finest fabric, reserved for me long ago.
As I cleaned her wound, I reasoned with her.
“What does it matter if those women are younger? More than a dozen of them together cannot match a fraction of Your Highness’s beauty. Even with Your Highness pregnant, His Majesty would surely never turn his affections elsewhere or touch them. Those women will have no chance to bear imperial sons.
“They’re all vulgar creatures. They must have learned nothing but crude tricks of the bedchamber to entice their master. How could they compare with the true love between Your Highness and His Majesty?”
The more I spoke, the more the princess’s expression changed.
She understood men. She knew what the beauty of young women meant to them.
Panic seized her. She caught my hand and ground out through clenched teeth, “I won’t let them succeed. I’ll destroy their faces!”
Destroy the faces of more than a dozen beauties… Only she would resort to something so brazen.
And she did exactly as she intended.
She had them poisoned.
It was too blatant, however, and she was found out. Furious, the Empress Dowager ordered her confined.
She merely played with her hair in disdain. Being discovered did not bother her. To her, human lives were worthless, so long as she remained beautiful and kept her place in the emperor’s heart forever.
Her husband fared badly. Having ruined the splendid task his aunt entrusted to him, he could no longer hold his head up in his clan.
When he came to demand an explanation, the princess was trying on clothes.
She did not so much as glance at him when he entered, only sneered.
“What has that to do with me? Allowing you to become my husband was already a blessing bestowed upon your Chen clan.
“One Empress Dowager Chen is annoying enough. Who do you think you are?”
He left with a dark expression. As he turned back, he cast the princess a sinister look.
She yawned and ordered me to fetch the emperor.
I pretended to agree and followed her lead. “Your Highness has been hurt. Your servant will ask His Majesty to come and see you.”
Having changed, she turned in satisfaction and ordered the emperor summoned.
“What does confinement matter? As long as I’m beautiful, I have plenty of ways to bring my imperial brother here.”
She gazed at the dewy skin of her reflection, entranced.
She had no idea how much blood others would pay for that beauty.
The emperor’s fondness for her came from the childhood they had shared, his admiration for her beauty, and feelings he dared not reveal. For these reasons, he indulged her.
To conceal those feelings, she married the lame prince consort of the Chen family, and the emperor accepted beauties as Empress Dowager Chen instructed.
But now she had ruined her husband’s task, openly quarreled with him, and publicly invited the emperor to her residence. She was putting the emperor in an impossible position.
After her message arrived, he hurried straight to her residence as soon as court ended.
She embraced him joyfully, about to pour out her troubles. But he spoke first, apologetically. “Ah Jie, I know you’re unhappy about those women… But do not touch them again.”
She had had them poisoned, but it was discovered in time, and they escaped harm.
The princess did not know this.
“The Empress Dowager and the court are both raising objections to you,” he said wearily.
Her clothes slipped down, revealing her alluring skin. But she had no thought of enticing him now. Her face had gone stiff.
With tenderness, he said, “Ah Jie, you’re the most beautiful woman in the world. No one can compare with you.”
He went on holding her and murmuring many sweet words.
But I knew the bitterness had taken root in her heart.
Sure enough, once he left, anger filled her face. She beckoned the maids to kneel again.
She ordered them to undress, glanced lightly over their skin, and smiled. “If I cannot touch them, I’ll deal with you wretched servants. Mutilate yourselves. Only when I’m satisfied may you leave.”
She specifically warned them not to splash blood on her skirt.
With trembling hands, the maids picked up the broken porcelain she had scattered on the floor and cut into their faces, arms, legs… inch after inch of skin.
Those young women who had once been beautiful became blood-soaked figures beneath the princess’s lovely, elaborate skirts.
At last, her anger subsided. She invited me into the inner chamber to moisturize her skin.
This time, however, I applied the ointment to her face.
Holding her bronze mirror, she touched her smooth, delicate skin and marveled again and again.
“This cream of yours is a little dark, but it actually grows more fragrant. How vexing.”
I smiled without speaking. Watching her greedily apply still more, I wanted only to laugh coldly.
Of course fat rendered from corpses was dark.
I had gone to considerable trouble seeking advice on how to conceal its stench of decay.