Chapter 30
Chapter 30
[Prince Consort, the Princess Has Been Beaten to Death – 29]
The Idiot Prince Consort had been found, and Emperor Gaozu had not even needed to lift a finger. His daughter had dealt with the man swiftly and cleanly herself.
Delighted, Emperor Gaozu drank several extra cups. Afterward, he went to the Imperial Study to attend to state affairs. Halfway through the memorials, he came upon the one submitted by the Patriarch of the Lü Family. His brow twitched. He picked it up, glanced over it, and could not help laughing as he cursed, “That old fox.”
It was a memorial begging forgiveness. The Patriarch confessed that the Lü Family had served the princess disgracefully and that the Prince Consort had shown disrespect to the Imperial House. Blaming himself for failing to raise his son properly, he declared himself unworthy to remain at court and requested permission to resign his office, along with all the customary phrases.
“He certainly knows which way the wind is blowing. No wonder the Lü Family will endure for another thousand years. Even under his leadership, they survive an age of chaos without falling.”
With Lü Xiuzhen dead, the Lü Family would certainly not escape unscathed. Emperors were creatures who, if offended for a moment, could make the offender miserable for a lifetime. Far better to lower oneself and display humility. An emperor might then decide one was not entirely without redeeming qualities.
Emperor Gaozu had been wondering how to handle the Lü Family. Now that he had seen the patriarch’s response, he knew there was nothing more to worry about. He picked up his brush, wrote a single word-Approved-and ordered the reviewed memorial sent back down.
After her son was taken away by people from the Princess Manor the previous night, no further word had arrived. Madam Lü spent the entire night waiting at home in torment. By early the next morning, she could bear it no longer. She went to the study to find her husband, intending to visit the Princess Manor with him and learn how matters stood.
A young page stood guard outside. On seeing her approach, he hurriedly bowed. Madam Lü asked, “Is the master inside?”
The page answered, then announced her from outside. Madam Lü pushed open the door. One sweep of her gaze around the room gave her a fright.
Her husband sat alone behind the desk, wrapped in an air of bleak desolation. In the space of a single night, more than half of his once-black hair had turned white. He looked like a man past sixty.
Madam Lü cried out in shock. Overcome with distress, she repeatedly ordered the servants to fetch a physician, only for the Patriarch of the Lü Family to stop her. “We have already reached this pass. Even Hua Tuo himself could not set matters right.”
With that, he braced his hands on the desk and slowly rose. He instructed the page outside, “Go and pack our things. After what has happened, I fear we can no longer remain in Chang’an. But perhaps that is for the best. Fallen leaves return to their roots. It is no bad thing to go back to the ancestral lands and be reunited with our kin.”
His words filled Madam Lü with unease and genuine terror. “What are you talking about? You are frightening me!”
The rain had passed and the sky was clear, the daylight outside dazzlingly bright. After spending the whole night in the study, the Patriarch of the Lü Family found the glare painful when he stepped into the light. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, then looked back. “My lady.”
Madam Lü answered shakily, “Yes?”
“You have never been willing to take my words to heart. Now that disaster is upon us, even I cannot protect you. I have only one last thing to say. Whether you heed it is entirely up to you.”
Sorrow clouded the patriarch’s eyes, and his spirit seemed crushed. “If you truly still care for your children and grandchildren, and if you wish to preserve your natal family’s reputation, then take your own life.”
Madam Lü recoiled in horror. “Take my own life? What madness are you talking about? How could I-”
The Patriarch of the Lü Family sat on a low stool beside the study door and slowly rubbed his painfully aching knees. “Yesterday, the princess came to the Lü Residence and had Lady Gao beaten to death with enormous commotion. Did you imagine that could be hidden from anyone? In the middle of the night, men came to summon Xiuzhen. Did you imagine that was good news? After such an uproar by day, if the matter had truly been resolved, would Xiuzhen not have sent someone home to put us at ease? Even if the rain made travel difficult last night, it is broad daylight now. The clouds have scattered and the rain has stopped, so why has no messenger come? Do you know that Princess Qinghe entered the palace early this morning and has yet to emerge?”
Madam Lü’s legs trembled beneath her. Unable to remain standing, she collapsed to the floor and said with a bloodless face, “No. Surely not?”
“Surely not?” The patriarch’s smile was desolate. “The wrath of Heaven is unfathomable. Did you think that was a jest? The Reigning Emperor holds absolute power. Life or death hangs upon a single thought of his. If you take your own life, the gravity of the affair will lessen by one degree, as will its effect on your children and your natal family. If you refuse and the Reigning Emperor later orders your execution, what then? Could you still enter the Lü Family Ancestral Temple? How would your descendants make offerings to you in years to come? Your natal family has long since declined, and now it has produced a guilty woman loathed by the Imperial House besides… I have said all there is to say. Think it over yourself.”
He slowly rose, opened the door, and walked out, leaving Madam Lü alone in the study, drenched in cold sweat and trembling with a pallid face.
The Patriarch of the Lü Family did not go far. He merely sat for a while in the garden. Rain had fallen all night, and the peach blossoms lay scattered in drifts across the ground.
This spring truly seemed colder than those of years past.
About an hour later, the steward approached to report with great caution. In a low voice, he said that Madam Lü had taken her own life.
The patriarch shuddered. He closed his eyes and let the tears stream down his face.
Seeing how frail and aged he looked, the steward could not hide his concern. “Master, you…”
The Patriarch of the Lü Family raised a hand gently, cutting off the words to come. He smiled bitterly. “I am all right. With the Lü Family in such a state, how dare I collapse? Leave me. Let me be alone for a while.”
…
Once Princess Qinghe entered the palace, Consort Xian of the Han Clan naturally learned of it. She went to Fengyi Palace as usual, only to hear, together with Empress Miao, a story so dreadful that it chilled the blood.
Kindhearted and gentle by nature, she was inevitably horrified when her daughter said that Lü Xiuzhen had been beaten to death. Her first thought was that the Prince Consort’s crimes had not merited such a punishment. Then she recalled the neglect and humiliation Lü Xiuzhen had inflicted upon her daughter and watched the girl kneel on the floor, weeping as she recounted all she had suffered in that nightmare. He had deserved death after all. Yet afraid that the Empress might condemn her daughter, Consort Xian dared not speak. She could only gaze at her with aching tenderness, grieving that her daughter had entrusted herself to the wrong man.
Compared with Consort Xian of the Han Clan, Empress Miao saw more layers to the matter.
Years ago, Princess Qinghe had saved Lü Xiuzhen, and he had given her a jade pendant. Several years earlier, the Emperor had also seemed to ask Empress Miao to look for a pendant. Comparing the timing and everything else…
Then there was Princess Qinghe’s nightmare. A realization slowly dawned on Empress Miao. Could the Emperor have had the same dream?
If so, all his warnings and precautions before the princesses married made perfect sense.
Coming back to herself, Empress Miao quickly urged Princess Qinghe to rise and drew her down to sit beside her. In a gentle voice, she said, “Good child, do not cry anymore. It is all over now. Did your Imperial Father not tell you to put it out of your mind? We are the Imperial House, after all. Better that we come out ahead than let others take advantage of us.”
She also knew that Consort Xian of the Han Clan had always been mild and yielding, and that this affair had surely frightened her badly. After making a point of soothing her with a few words, Empress Miao told Princess Qinghe to go and rest. She then sent someone to Taiji Hall with an invitation for the Emperor to dine at Fengyi Palace at noon.
Before Emperor Gaozu’s decree had even reached the Lü Family, another message arrived from them. Madam Lü, it said, had recognized the weight of her crimes and already taken her own life in fear of punishment. The family awaited His Majesty’s instructions on all that was to follow.
Madam Lü’s suicide benefited both the Lü Family and the Imperial House. It signified an admission of guilt, and in the eyes of outsiders it also greatly diminished Princess Qinghe’s role in the affair.
Emperor Gaozu’s brow eased. “Revise that decree. Say only that the Prince Consort was granted death for serving his princess disgracefully. There is no need to mention his mother.”
The attendant withdrew with his orders. Soon another palace eunuch came to deliver Empress Miao’s message from Fengyi Palace. Emperor Gaozu judged the hour, set his state affairs aside for the moment, and departed for the Empress’s palace.
A suspicion had taken root in Empress Miao’s mind, and she naturally could not contain it. As soon as she dismissed the eunuchs and palace maids, she asked impatiently, “Did Your Majesty foresee what happened today? That jade pendant you asked me to find several years ago…”
At this point, Emperor Gaozu saw no need to hide the truth from her. He casually spun a lie about receiving a warning from Heaven, then said regretfully, “A pity we never found it in the end. Jingrou was still fated to suffer this ill-starred bond with Lü Xiuzhen.”
Empress Miao had originally thought Princess Qinghe went too far in ordering Lü Xiuzhen beaten to death. Now, hearing the Emperor describe that former life, her eyes widened in disbelief. “Did Lü Xiuzhen borrow the heart of a bear and the courage of a leopard? How dared he have a princess beaten to death!”
Emperor Gaozu sneered. “If I had not taken every possible precaution, do you think him incapable of such a thing?”
In this life, Princess Qinghe enjoyed such favor, and before her wedding Emperor Gaozu had warned the Prince Consort again and again. Yet Lü Xiuzhen had still dared behave as he did: four months into the marriage, his concubine was already three months pregnant. Had it been the former life, with the real Luan Zhenghuan here, would Princess Qinghe have survived at all?
Empress Miao recalled how Princess Qinghe had wept not long ago while describing the events of her nightmare, and terror gripped her heart. She murmured “Amitabha” several times before declaring with hatred, “His death was well deserved! Such a vicious beast could not be allowed to live!”
She herself had suffered from the havoc wrought by a concubine. At her lowest, she had even been driven from the palace. Yet despite everything, she had remained the Empress in name. Noble Consort Qin and the others still had to bend their knees and pay her respects whenever they met. But what of Princess Qinghe?
Lü Xiuzhen had openly ordered her out of the principal courtyard and moved Gao Yanyan into it. When she fell ill, there had been neither medicine nor physician; in daily life, she had lacked adequate food and clothing. In the end, he had even struck the killing blow and ordered his lawful wife beaten to death…
By custom, princes, nobles, generals, and ministers were not humiliated even in death; their execution amounted to no more than a cup of poisoned wine or a length of white silk. Yet Lü Xiuzhen, venomous and pitiless, had subjected a princess of the Imperial House to such a brutal punishment. He had been utterly deranged!
Empress Miao said angrily, “Lü Xiuzhen acted as he did in part because his mother encouraged and indulged him. She absolutely cannot be spared!”
“The Lü Family has already sent word,” Emperor Gaozu replied. “That woman has taken her own life in fear of punishment.” He then explained how he intended to handle the matter.
Emperor Gaozu was shamelessly partial, and of course he meant to protect his own daughter. He declared, “My daughter is gentle, virtuous, dignified, and gracious. How could she possibly be at fault? Lü Xiuzhen must be the villain! Lü Xiuzhen and Gao Yanyan are both dead. Mm, his mother is dead too…”
He frowned in thought for a moment, then said, “We will say that the Lü Family took in Lady Gao, a fugitive criminal, as a concubine, harbored wicked designs, flouted the law, and then sought to attach themselves to the Imperial House by petitioning for a marriage to a princess. Lady Gao grew jealous of the princess and, believing her pregnancy gave her leverage, went mad and castrated Lü Xiuzhen. After the wedding, Lü Xiuzhen repeatedly refused to consummate the marriage. The princess sensed something amiss and reported it to the palace. The Empress, in her wisdom, investigated and uncovered the truth, then had Lü Xiuzhen and Lady Gao executed as a warning to others!”
Empress Miao: “…”
Emperor Gaozu looked enormously pleased with himself. “Flawless, is it not?”
Liu Che displayed every quality expected of a first-rate comedic foil. “Nailed it!”