Chapter 3
Chapter 3
With the emperor and empress fighting like that, someone escorted Liu Cong to a side hall and summoned the imperial physician.
The physician arrived quickly, but instead of examining Liu Cong first, he hurried over to take my pulse.
My dowry matron’s surname was Ruan, and her disposition was every bit as hard as her name sounded. She asked coldly, “Is Her Majesty injured?”
The physician studied my rosy complexion, bright spirits, and entirely uninjured body. After a long hesitation, he said, “Her Majesty has suffered a fright, but it is nothing serious. I will prescribe a tonic for two days, and she will recover.”
Matron Ruan stared at him without a word.
Beads of sweat formed at his temples. “Er… Her Majesty’s vital energies are also constrained. She will require two months of careful recuperation.”
Matron Ruan snorted.
The physician sagged with relief and went to write the prescription, stopping along the way to examine the considerably more battered Liu Cong.
The emperor and empress had brawled so loudly in Kunning Palace that word flew to the Empress Dowager in the middle of the night. The physician had barely withdrawn when an attendant announced her arrival.
Liu Cong’s birth mother, Lady Li, had been the late emperor’s first wife. Her health failed after she gave birth to Liu Cong, and she died soon afterward.
The late emperor then made her younger kinswoman, the second Lady Li, his empress.
That second Lady Li was now the Empress Dowager.
Supported by her chief palace maid, she hurried inside. The gold ornaments trembling in her hair betrayed her anxiety.
She looked barely past thirty, a delicate beauty with a gentle, ethereal air. She sat at my bedside, clasping a handkerchief, and asked in a spring-soft voice, “Were you hurt, A-Yue?”
Before her beauty could lure anything strange out of me, Matron Ruan cut in. “Your Majesty, His Majesty attacked the empress on their wedding night and left her energies grievously constrained. Even had the empress been at fault—which she was not—both Your Majesty and the marquis stand above her. There was no need for His Majesty to punish her with his own hands.”
The Empress Dowager stiffened. “His Majesty was indeed at fault, but what married couple never quarrels? A-Yue, for my sake, could you let the matter pass?”
I was about to say of course. I had beaten Liu Cong one-sidedly; what complaint could I possibly have?
Matron Ruan refused to relent. “Her Majesty is magnanimous, naturally. But when she returns home on the third day of marriage, who knows how the marquis will react upon seeing his beloved daughter so wronged?”
I stared at her. She had nerves of steel, threatening the Empress Dowager in broad daylight. Xiao Chuo’s power truly differed little from an emperor’s.
The Empress Dowager’s eyes misted. She swallowed a sob and opened her mouth.
I interrupted first. “That is enough. I am fine. Your Majesty should go see His Majesty instead.”
She blinked, then smiled gratefully and hurried away to the side hall.
Matron Ruan frowned at me. “Your Majesty, do not forget your position.”
I sneered. “Matron, do not forget yours either.”
Anger flared in her eyes. “Do not forget the marquis’s instructions.”
“I have committed Father’s instructions to memory, but I do not recall him ordering me to obey your every word.” My voice was cool with mockery.
She froze. Furious though she was, she did not dare answer back.
Matron Ruan and I were not on the same side. Neither were my so-called father and I.
I had not volunteered to sacrifice myself for him or the Xiao clan.
Liu Cong believed a traitorous minister had forced him into marriage. In truth, I had been forced as well.
I transmigrated into the body of Xiao Lingyue after she died of illness at six. I then spent ten long years on a country estate in Jiangnan. The people who cared for me there, whom I regarded as family, were Aunt Fang and Wenzhu.
Before I was brought back to the Xiao household, I had not even known I came from such an illustrious clan or had such a powerful father.
As the daughter of the Marquis of Wuting, I should have been born and raised within a grand estate.
Instead, because Xiao Lingyue was born in the second lunar month and an abbot of the Dayan Temple divined that she would bring misfortune to her parents, she was cast off to a distant Jiangnan property before she was a month old.
Her august father, Xiao Chuo, had not even bothered to give the child a name.
Fifteen years later, the Dayan Temple somehow divined from a thousand miles away that Xiao Lingyue was a baleful star destined to harm her husband and sovereign.
My superstitious scoundrel of a father thought he had found treasure and sent men to bring me home.
I should have remained a carefree farm girl in Jiangnan. Because of one baseless prophecy, I became a puppet on the empress’s throne—Xiao Lingyue.
I tried to run away. When I failed, I was punished under clan law, and Xiao Chuo imprisoned Aunt Fang until I learned how to be a properly obedient daughter.
Through every unbearable punishment and threat, I made a silent vow.
Xiao Chuo, since you schemed so hard to put me on this throne, I will scheme just as hard to deny you yours. You will never wear the imperial crown. That is the price you will pay for imprisoning me for life.
Of course, being unilaterally at war with Xiao Chuo did not mean I would automatically choose Liu Cong. There was hardly any bond between us.
If I behaved, Xiao Chuo might make me a princess after usurping the throne.
But if Liu Cong reclaimed real power, I would be the first person he killed.
My best chance was to keep them evenly matched and unable to defeat each other. Only then could I survive a little longer.
That balance would last another decade at most.
Since I was clearly destined to die young, I might as well live as outrageously as possible while the clock counted down.
So I beat Liu Cong one moment and rebuked my father’s closest agent the next.
As for my daily life as the greatest master of reverse fence-sitting in Great Liang, I had only one thing to say: it felt fantastic, and I intended to keep it up.