Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Mother said the Xu family defended its own: once family was involved, they would stir up three parts trouble even when reason gave them none.

After Father arrived, Noble Consort Zhao wept, acted out every grievance with Little Twenty-Nine, and aimed every accusation at Mother—forgetting me, the actual victim.

Father had been emperor for years and found the heart of the matter. “You say Consort Liang raided your palace. Why?”

Mother sighed before Zhao could answer. “Ruyu fell into the water avoiding Ruyun’s shove. Who knows how heartbroken her grandfather will be? My mother may fall gravely ill. Father’s return to the frontier may be delayed again, and he cannot bear seeing her sick. Who knows what my elderly parents might do in their distress?”

With each sigh, Zhao trembled harder. She knew exactly how fiercely the Xu family protected its young.

The Empress Dowager was eventually drawn in. She liked neither Mother nor me: Mother’s tongue was poisonous, mine clumsy, and she already had more granddaughters than she needed. Yet even she had to respect the Defender-General.

The frontier was always in danger, and Grandfather’s eight sons were all formidable commanders. If he abandoned his post, who could control them? If Grandmother fell ill because I nearly drowned, that wife-fearing old warrior might storm into the palace and crush Little Twenty-Nine. Her death mattered less than the impossibility of explaining it to him.

Grandfather was famously impervious to reason, and every attempt to estrange him from Father had failed. So long as he did not want the throne and Mother stayed peacefully within the harem, Father could sleep soundly.

Thus everyone who disliked us still came to visit.

Noble Consort Zhao and her daughter knelt outside the Palace of Eternal Spring for all to see. Little Twenty-Nine’s face was bloodless with hatred.

The Empress came with the Empress Dowager. She did not mind us; I was merely another girl, while she had three sons.

“Poor child. Thank goodness little Ruyu is sturdy, or she would have fallen dangerously ill.” The Empress must have rubbed ginger on her handkerchief, for tears came far too easily.

The Empress Dowager sighed and offered comfort. I had awakened hungry, stuffed myself, and now lay under the blankets pretending weakness, with nothing worse than a little ringing in my ears.

Mother wisely remained silent, since one sentence from her might have suffocated half the room.

Consort Shun nevertheless pleaded for Zhao. Since I had survived, why not let them rise? So many people were passing by, and so on.

Mother stood to leave.

“Where are you going?” the Empress asked.

“To throw Little Seventeen into Consort Shun’s pond, then fish her out and rinse her.”

“Consort Liang, you wouldn’t dare!”

“So you ache when your daughter falls in water, but mine is supposed to forgive the culprit? Did your mother teach you that logic?”

Consort Shun had no answer, and everyone else swallowed their pleas.

After that, though I remained unfavored, no one bullied me. Mother was simply too dangerous. If someone hurt me, she hurt them back. No hitting children? That phrase did not exist in her dictionary unless I had started the fight.

Before the Empress Dowager, she demonstrated a throwing knife and sliced off a lock of Noble Consort Zhao’s hair. Zhao shrieked like a slaughtered chicken and fainted, becoming the palace joke.

Little Twenty-Nine avoided me thereafter. Father understood Mother’s strength so thoroughly that he no longer dared spend nights at our palace, lest she awaken displeased and punch apart his imperial head.

Everyone had assumed her martial accomplishments were exaggerations from a spoiled general’s daughter. Now Mother and I could practically walk sideways through the palace.

Invincibility was lonely.

Still, Mother reported punctually to the Empress and Empress Dowager, fulfilling every duty of a consort.

Grandfather gave no public reaction to my drowning. Instead, he slowly gathered evidence of the Zhao family’s crimes. When everyone had forgotten the incident, he presented it all at court.

Father’s rage fell not on Grandfather, but on the Zhaos. He had thought Noble Consort Zhao wronged and spent many nights giving her face—only to learn her family sold offices and bragged that no favor was beyond the emperor’s “in-laws.”

His in-laws were the Empress’s family. Who were the Zhaos?

The Zhao clan fell, and Noble Consort Zhao’s warmth at court cooled with it.

I asked Mother why a quarrel between children had become a conflict between clans.

She stroked my head as if petting a dog. She had believed that living quietly and refusing to compete would avoid trouble. Bearing the Defender-General’s name, she did not want to disgrace her forebears.

But people took restraint for weakness. Zhao Yaru had repeatedly allowed her daughter to push and humiliate me. Even Father knew. How could Zhao not?

“I refused to quarrel because you are both His Majesty’s daughters. That made Ruyun bold enough to call you an idiot and shove you beside a deep pond. Had they pulled you out a moment later, I would have lost you.

“She thought I could do nothing. How naïve. Remember this, child: when trouble comes, gather every piece of evidence, then strike once and finish it. Otherwise people will climb onto your neck and foul you from above.”

Her words enlightened me—and led to Mother forcing me to train in martial arts.

I was seven. I did not want to become a mountain of muscle. Mother thought I had already started too late.

Every morning became torment.

Consort Shun secretly complained to the Empress that Mother practiced violence in the rule-bound palace and even trained me, heedless of the poor flowers and trees.

“Then tell Consort Liang yourself,” the Empress said.

“I don’t dare.”

The Empress thought, Neither do I. My own mother warned me to avoid Xu Jinyue. You may be foolish, but do you think I am?

Seasons turned. Mother trained away my baby fat. The plump, fair, innocent child became dark, lean, and no longer particularly adorable.

Mother was delighted. “Now that is a fine daughter of the Xu family.”

I could have sworn my surname was Ji.