Chapter 19

Chapter 19

I watched his retreating back for a long time. At my side, Youchun said, “He upset you, Princess. Let’s find a way to kill him.”

“No,” I said. “I promised to repay every pain he inflicted on me tenfold. I haven’t done nearly enough.”

Perhaps believing their true master had returned, the Northern Qian officials grew increasingly bold. The relief officials were particularly brazen, ridiculing and excluding every southern minister.

That state of affairs did not last long.

Lord Dulu, the man in charge of flood relief, died.

He was found in his own residence, his heart torn from his chest and blood pooled across the floor.

The blood of southerners and northerners, it turned out, was red all the same.

Danchi then appointed the deputy official, Zhang Beili, to take charge of relief efforts. The northern ministers erupted. They nearly came to blows in the throne room.

“Dulu was a first-rank military officer, and his residence was heavily guarded. No ordinary person could possibly have reached him. There must be a conspiracy! We beg Your Majesty to investigate thoroughly!”

Danchi merely closed his eyes in exhaustion. “We will. After the disaster has passed.”

“But Your Majesty, whatever else happens, a southerner must not be allowed to succeed him as relief commissioner!”

I smiled. “Northerners live such short lives. Must southerners be barred from office as well? Take you, my lord. If you die tomorrow, do you expect to keep occupying your post?”

The Northern Qian courtiers recoiled, then began shouting abuse. “You demon – ”

“Silence,” Chen Dong said suddenly.

Danchi had already lost patience. He waved a hand. “Enough. Court is dismissed.”

I rose with the others. From the corner of my eye, I saw Chen Dong staring fixedly at me, like a beast driven to the end of its tether.

Lord Zhang was a scholar who had even placed first in the imperial examinations, yet until I began employing him, he had lived as a beggar. He had a brilliant head for figures and was ideally suited to relief work. Surrounded by a chamber full of threatening Northern Qian generals, however, even he found it difficult to act freely.

That did not matter.

The next day, the Northern Qian minister who had argued with Danchi at court died at home, bleeding from every orifice.

On the third day, Chen Dong stationed troops around the homes of every northern official involved.

On the fourth, another Northern Qian minister who disagreed with Lord Zhang died.

…

At last, the relief effort proceeded without obstruction.

One day, in excellent spirits, I gathered a great armful of autumn hibiscus and carried it back with me. The moment I entered my chambers, however, I sensed something was wrong.

I drew aside the bed curtains with a smile. “What is His Majesty sulking about this time – ”

A hand clamped around my throat and slammed me down onto the bed.

It was Chen Dong.

“Tell me! How did they die?” he demanded through clenched teeth, each word bitten off separately.

“What do you mean, how? The victor slaughters the defeated. It is the natural order of things.” I struggled for breath, yet smiled with genuine delight.

“You – ”

His grip suddenly tightened.

Reflexive tears blurred my sight, but the sight of his bloodshot eyes filled me with boundless pleasure. Was losing a few comrades truly so painful? He was the man who had killed my last living relative before my eyes, then asked why I should grieve.

So you can feel pain too.

All at once, he let go. I rolled aside, gasping, my chest heaving violently. Even then, I did not forget to taunt him. “Weren’t… weren’t you going to kill me? What’s wrong? Can’t bring yourself to do it?”

He said nothing.

My lips curved. I reached up and stroked his cheek. “Could the general still be in love with me? I was your first woman, after all.”

I whispered into his ear like a lover. “You thought I didn’t know, didn’t you? You named your son Donglin after the first book I ever read to you, Anecdotal History of Donglin. You kept it against your body and never allowed anyone else to touch it…”

He threw me down. My long hair spilled across the bed.

His powerful body pressed close to mine, yet it trembled. Two flames seemed to burn in his eyes. “Shut up. A vicious woman like you has no right to speak Xiaoxi’s name.”

Then Danchi’s voice came from beyond the curtains. “Empress, are you asleep?”

Chen Dong went rigid. I held his gaze and answered softly, “No.”

Then I reached out and opened the curtains, smiling faintly. “How does Your Majesty find the leisure to visit me today?”

“Naturally, I missed my empress…”

I folded my arms and leaned against the bed, studying him. The wolf king of old had aged. The flesh of his face sagged; eyes yellowed by wine and excess peered from above a back bent almost imperceptibly with time.

I laughed. “Then I will sit here and let Your Majesty look. Once you have looked your fill, you may leave.”

He rubbed his hands, wanting to speak but not daring. At length, he said, “Empress, might We have… a little extra Hibiscus Powder today?”

“Hibiscus Powder harms the body. You mustn’t take too much. If it ruins your health, those ministers of yours will blame me again.”

He forced an awkward laugh, exposing yellow-brown teeth. “Then We will kill them! Anyone who dares blame the empress – We will kill him!”
I rose and slowly circled him, smiling. “Did Your Majesty imagine I would not know who ordered the First Prince recalled?”

He shrank from my gaze.

“If Your Majesty means to move against me, you cannot fault me for breaking my promise.”

Danchi’s eyes rapidly filled with blood. He clenched his fists and trembled all over.

Then, with a thud, he dropped to his knees before me.

“We won’t dare again. Never again. Please, give Us the Hibiscus Powder! We will do anything you say!”

I glanced toward the bed curtains and smiled. “Including executing the First Prince?”

“Execute him! He should have died years ago! Cut him to pieces! What is he but a wretch who dares covet my throne?”

At last, I laughed. My bright, clear laughter echoed through the sleeping chamber with a chill that raised gooseflesh.

I went to him and lifted Danchi’s face. It was streaked with tears and mucus, filthy beyond words. “Then what is Your Majesty?”

“We are no man. We are a northern dog. We are the empress’s dog.”

“Then bark for me.”

Still sobbing, he began barking loudly. “Woof! Woof! Woof!”

“Kowtow while you do it.”

He knocked his head against the floor again and again, so violently he nearly split his forehead open.

“What a good boy His Majesty is.”

I took a small packet of powder from a box and handed it to him. He poured it into his mouth at once, and his eyes quickly lost focus.

“Now that you’ve had it, get out.”

“Yes…”

His voice was the murmur of a sleepwalker.

After Danchi left, I turned toward the bed curtains. “Well? Did you enjoy the show?”

Chen Dong looked as if his soul had been torn from him. He sat there for a long time before asking hoarsely, “What did you give him?”

I walked over to the autumn hibiscus I had gathered and smiled. “Five Minerals Powder, with one additional ingredient: autumn hibiscus. His Majesty likes to call it Hibiscus Powder.”

Many years ago, on the first night I attended Danchi’s bed, I discovered he was impotent.

The scores of beauties around him existed only to satisfy his appetite for cruelty. His unpredictable rages also stemmed from that affliction. Of all his sons, only Chen Dong possessed the ability to inherit the throne. Danchi hated him as every old wolf king hates the young strength rising within the pack. Yet he could father no more children. He could only wait in despair for death and for Chen Dong to replace him.

But Five Minerals Powder could make him young again in bed.

It was a palace prescription used by Southern Xu nobles in their pursuit of pleasure. My brother had been very fond of it in his youth, and I vaguely remembered the ingredients. After countless trials, I finally reproduced it – with one rather interesting improvement.

Adding one qian of autumn hibiscus doubled its effects. Of course, it also doubled its addictive power.

“At first, he took it only in hopes of siring another child. But no woman in the harem conceived except me. After I lost my child, he began taking twice as much, then twice as much again. And that is how he became what you saw tonight – a moving lump of…” I let the final word fall with deliberate malice. “Flesh.”

The instant I finished, Chen Dong sprang up and slashed at me. I twisted aside, and his blade smashed the folding screen to splinters.

“If you kill me, Danchi will die from his hibiscus addiction. Then, I promise you, the Northern Qian court will descend into chaos. The realm you exhausted yourselves conquering will shatter – just like that.”

Chen Dong finally broke. He hacked wildly, again and again, until everything in my chamber lay in ruins.

“What do you want? What in the name of heaven do you want?” he roared like a madman.

Standing amid the wreckage, I answered one measured word at a time. “I want the people of the south to live and work in peace. I want tranquility beneath heaven and peace across the seas. I want everyone who wishes to live to be allowed to live. Is that so very much?”

The chamber fell silent. Only his ragged breathing remained.

A guard called from outside. “Your Majesty, do you require our protection?”

I bent and looked into Chen Dong’s eyes, smiling. “You committed an outrage in your imperial mother’s chambers. If I raised my voice even slightly, you would die without a grave. But I did not. Northern Qian’s factions are complicated, and I need you alive to hold them in balance. That is the difference between you and me. It is also the difference between northerners and southerners.”

A person can see the lofty peaks and mist-wreathed ranges.

A dog sees only the bone before its nose.

He did not look at me again. He stumbled to his feet. When he reached the door, his strength seemed to desert him, and he caught himself against the frame.

“One day, I will kill you.” He said it calmly.

My answer was equally calm.

“Your father said the same while my men were breaking his bones inch by inch. And now he is a dog.”

He walked away without looking back.