chapter 3

chapter 3

The Crown Princess looked nothing like the stern middle-aged woman in my dream. She was very young, though covered in jade, and her face retained a childish quality. When she saw me, she even looked slightly embarrassed. The senior maid behind her, however, glared at me with great severity.

I performed every salute properly, accepted the gifts, completed the entire ritual, and sat with folded hands, feeling inwardly awkward.

I was the Eastern Palace’s first Talented Lady. I was a novice concubine, and she a novice mistress.

The Crown Princess asked first, “How old are you, little sister? When is your birthday?”

“This concubine is sixteen. Thank you for asking, Your Highness. My birthday is the third day of the fourth month.”

Then there was nothing else to say. I considered myself talkative, but what could I say to this person in this place? Sorry I stole your husband, but I’m a victim too—shall we join hands in revenge and overthrow the feudal dynasty? Or perhaps: You don’t know this, but you stole my boyfriend; I am the true first wife, so shall we see which time period’s lawful wife has the harder fist?

It was too confused, too absurd. I lowered my eyes to the floor and could not help noticing the tiny tips of the shoes beneath her skirt.

I shuddered inwardly.

The Crown Princess said, “His Highness and I have been married for years without happy news. It is good to have someone new. Producing heirs must always come first.”

She sounded so earnest that one believed she truly meant it. I replied, “It is this concubine’s blessing to ease Your Highness’s burdens.”

“Good that the Talented Lady understands,” the senior maid said. “Her Highness is benevolent and has always treated her inferiors generously. From now on, you must care for your health and not be ill one day and aching the next.”

I froze. In my dazed condition a few days earlier, Jiang Shen had probably casually reported me ill. The women who depended upon him had to break apart and chew over the excuse he invented, and they had evidently concluded I was spoiled by favor.

“Enough,” the Crown Princess said mildly. She looked at me as though she both hoped I would defend myself and feared I might not. If I had truly been sick, this was merely a successful warning. If I really was arrogant with favor, she would have to rouse herself to deal with me.

In an instant, I understood everything in her mind. I nearly felt ashamed of my intelligence in such matters.

I thought I should kneel, and in the next moment my knees landed naturally on the cold glazed tiles.

My face burning, I murmured that I came from poverty and, newly arrived at the palace, had carelessly overeaten and upset my stomach. It would not happen again. Silence fell, as though everyone was shocked by my candor, followed by soft laughter. I raised my head and looked at the Crown Princess in embarrassment. Contempt lay in her gaze, but she nevertheless relaxed.

She affectionately pulled me up. “Now that you have come to the Eastern Palace, I shall treat you as my own sister. You will never suffer again.”

I obediently squeezed a little moisture into my eyes.

Now host and guest were truly delighted, and even the old maid’s expression softened. Holding the Crown Princess’s cold hand and looking at her smiling face, I felt I touched nothing, as though an opaque pane of frosted glass divided me from the world.

Then I remembered this place had no glass. Light filtering through gauze windows was never clear. Without jewels to illuminate them, human faces always looked dim. In this crowded room, only the Crown Princess’s face seemed distinct. Everyone else lowered their heads, wore ashen expressions, or stood shrouded in shadow.

“Little sister, what are you thinking?” she asked.

I smiled. “About the earrings Your Highness just gave me. This concubine has never seen anything so fine.”

Dicui came to tell me, her face radiant, that the Crown Prince would visit tonight. I was embroidering and pricked my finger. Dicui cried out and lunged to inspect it. I said my skin was too thick for the needle to pierce; if blood stained the frame, I would have to start over. Dicui insisted no embroidery frame mattered more than the Talented Lady’s precious body.

I merely gazed at the half-finished picture of a hundred sons and a thousand grandsons in my hands. Mother had taught me this pattern, and it was the one I knew best.

Not because I liked it or found it easy, but because it sold best. Mother sold her embroidery through a broker. She secretly told me that if anyone discovered she had borne only one daughter in her entire life, no one would ever buy her pictures of a hundred sons and a thousand grandsons again.

Mother’s love for me was genuine, far exceeding that of most mothers in this age. Yet it was also true that failing to bear Father a son filled her life with guilt and regret.

Perhaps human beings were simply this complicated.

Steam curled as Dicui washed and dressed me again.

A commoner cleanses herself before an audience with the sovereign, and a consort does so before serving him in bed. Yet standing on the very threshold between those two positions, I had noticed nothing.

“Dicui, how long have you been in the palace?”

“This servant entered in the twenty-ninth year of Qianyuan, four or five years ago.”

“Have you served another master?”

Had there been anyone as foolish as me?

Dicui told me about her former mistress, Noble Lady Li, younger sister of Consort Shu. Consort Shu enjoyed imperial favor but had no children, so her family sent her younger sister into the palace to bear a child for her. At first the emperor favored Noble Lady Li, and even servants like Dicui lived well.

“What happened afterward?” I asked.

For some reason, Dicui said, Noble Lady Li showed little enthusiasm for imperial favor. She seldom visited even her own sister and instead grew close to Consort Xian. Consort Xian often visited, and they would dismiss their servants to talk alone. No one knew what they discussed, only that Noble Lady Li regarded Consort Xian as her dearest friend. Then Consort Xian suddenly exposed Noble Lady Li’s illicit love to the emperor. Before entering the palace, Noble Lady Li had exchanged vows with an outsider and nearly pledged herself to him for life; even afterward, she could not forget him.

“What became of her?”

“They reported she had consumption and shut her in the Cold Palace. She died soon after, they say. Consort Shu and the entire Li clan fell with her. Fortunately, this servant was not yet a personal attendant then. That is why I lived to enjoy the blessing of being assigned to you.”

Dicui looked like a disaster survivor. Without thinking, I clasped her hand.

“Did I frighten you, Talented Lady? What a mouth I have. A strange woman like Noble Lady Li appears perhaps once in decades. You will certainly live steadily and long.”

I was afraid you were frightened. Looking into Dicui’s expectant eyes, I could not say it. I merely patted her hand. Perhaps she took this to mean following me would bring prosperity, for she worked with renewed vigor.

I was still embroidering when Jiang Shen arrived. “I didn’t know you’d learned this.”

How else was I supposed to eat?

I looked up, uncertain how to face him. When he was absent, I could continue my role-play smoothly. The moment he appeared, enormous absurdity filled me.

He approached naturally and took my work away. “It strains your eyes.”

He often said that in our student days because I liked bending over my desk to do homework, then closing my eyes and sleeping when I tired. The moment our homeroom teacher’s head appeared at the front door, Jiang Shen would pretend to drop a pen to wake me. My upper body slid expertly down the desk as though retrieving it; one second later I was awake, sitting straight and writing furiously.

“Why not have a servant do it?” he asked.

The remembered classroom collapsed. I stared at him, then suddenly smiled. “It is for Her Highness the Crown Princess. How could I not make it myself?”

Jiang Shen paused. “Did she make things difficult for you?”

Once the servants were dismissed, I said, “How could she? You are the one troubling us. Her Highness and I are in the same boat, working together to spread your branches and continue your line.”

His expression was remarkable. “Lu Yi, don’t talk like that.”

“How would Your Highness like me to speak? I can perform any role.”

The palace was magnificent, and both of us dressed with splendid dignity. Yet facing one another, we looked desolate.

I asked whether he had deliberately stayed away so I could adapt by myself and spare him the trouble. If he stayed away a few more days, would I start fearing the loss of favor and seek him out to win it back?

Jiang Shen shook his head, almost pleading. “No. Don’t think that of me.”

He drew a plan from his clothes and spread it on the table. “Look.”

It was the plan of a residence on the capital’s most prosperous western avenue. Pointing to one room, Jiang Shen said it would be Father’s study. He had engaged a great scholar to teach Father and help him pass the licentiate examination. He explained every room: a cool summer chamber for my parents, a hot spring, special designs for their aging legs, and servants. Because Mother enjoyed bustle, he had even built a stage.

I swallowed. “Is this what you’ve been doing these days?”

“Among other things.” Jiang Shen exhaled. “But it is all settled now. I wanted to come see you at once.”

He looked at me eagerly, indeed dusty from travel.

“Jiang Shen, I am not ungrateful. I could never accomplish in a lifetime what you’ve done… I am grateful.”

I dropped efficiently to my knees and kowtowed in thanks. Jiang Shen scrambled to pull me up. “What are you doing?” he asked, voice trembling.

I completed the kowtow and rose unsteadily.

“But… I originally had a chance to care for my parents myself. Do you know that?”

The words were arrogant. How would I have cared for them? By sharing humble food in a miserable lane? By marrying one peasant after another and never giving my parents a comfortable day? How could anyone demand both material comfort and freedom?

Jiang Shen might have attacked me that way. I almost wished he would, to ease my unease at receiving such an enormous gift and still being unable to forgive him.

I was poor. What right had I to principles? Wang Yinyuan’s bowl of meat broth; Jiang Shen’s silks and delicacies. What exactly was I defending? Dignity, or mere arrogance born of favor?

But he only said, “I know.”

He seemed defeated by those two words. The light in his eyes slowly dimmed.

After a long time, he said, “We can’t go on like this, can we?”

He raised a hand as though to take mine. Our fingertips touched and immediately parted.

I drew a deep breath. “Jiang Shen, I will remain beside you as you wish. But now…”

I truly cannot go on loving you.

I did not say it, but we had been together too long and knew each other too well. He understood.

Jiang Shen’s deep-lake eyes held mine. Once, seeing those eyes, I had abruptly believed myself returned to our original world.

But they reflected me in palace dress and the warm glow of glazed lamps.

He forced a smile. “That is enough.”