Chapter 15

Before she could finish, I was on my feet, pointing and spewing abuse. “Have you been chewing old foot-binding cloths? Everything coming out of your mouth is sour and foul. You old fossil! You dare criticize Her Majesty? You look like a squash. You’re not worth one of her toes.”

“If you love childbirth so much, why don’t you have a baby yourself? You’re still young enough. Shall I find you a Lao Ai?”

The old fossil was nearly enraged to death. She cast a summoning spell, calling in a group of old matrons to slap me. “Insolence! Teach her some manners!”

Wei Qinghe immediately rose to shield me. “Mother, that isn’t what she meant!”

The empress dowager’s eyes widened in fury. “Does the empress wish to join her?”

I swept Wei Qinghe behind me. “I take responsibility for my own actions. This has nothing to do with Her Majesty. If you’re so capable, execute my whole clan! Go on!”

Only once the room had dissolved into chaos did Murong Su stroll in.

He stood in front of us and smiled. “Mother, you’re getting on in years. You should stop troubling yourself with these matters. Empress, take Consort Mei home. As punishment, neither of you may pay Mother your respects until the Mid-Autumn banquet.”

I gasped. “What a harsh punishment. It’s such a pity I can’t pay my respects to Her Majesty. I’ll go home this instant and reflect on my failings.”

With that, I grabbed Wei Qinghe and ran.

We ran quite a distance before stopping, breathless.

The sunshine was brilliant, though unfortunately far too hot. We were both drenched in sweat, our hair disheveled. We looked at each other and couldn’t help laughing.

“You look mad,” she said with a laugh.

“So do you,” I shot back, grinning.

Her servants brought sedan chairs. We took one each and headed back at a leisurely pace.

“Don’t be so rash again,” she said. “Defying the empress dowager is a capital offense. How many heads do you have to lose?”

“Your priority now is to conceive an imperial heir. Only then will you have something to rely on in the palace.”

I laughed softly. “Human lives are thinner than paper here. Nothing is dependable. I won’t have a child.”

I stopped looking into her eyes and raised my face to the blue sky and white clouds. “I’m going to leave. I want to leave, Sister. It’s so boring here, so lonely, so suffocating. Isn’t it?”

“Don’t you want to leave?”

I had no interest in competing for favor, and even less in staying in the palace.

I planned to escape during the Mid-Autumn family banquet.

The plan was to get Murong Su drunk, set fire to my courtyard while he was off guard, and use the chaos to slip into the departing princes’ family entourages and get out.

It was a rough plan, but eminently workable.

Lately, Murong Su had been endlessly kind to me. I usually just smiled and said nothing.

Because I felt guilty.

The day before the banquet, he helped me make mooncakes.

As we worked, we began fooling around. Flour stuck to his face. I laughed heartily.

Not to be outdone, he smeared flour on mine.

After a while, he suddenly locked his arms around my waist and held me tight. Deep feeling filled his voice. “Qingqing, would you like a child of our own?”

My smile froze.

“If it’s a boy, I’ll make him crown prince. When he’s three, I’ll make you empress. If it’s a girl, I’ll grant her a fief and a title. She’ll be the most honored princess of our dynasty.”

It felt like someone was whispering a horror story into my ear.

“I don’t want one.” I pushed, but couldn’t move him. Only then did I notice how dark his eyes had become.

He gazed at me. The smile still lingered at his lips, but it chilled me. “Then what would make you stay willingly?”

“When I was fat and ugly in your eyes, you wanted to go. Now that I look normal to you, you still want to go. When I wasn’t with you, you wanted to go. Now that I’m with you every day, you still want to go.”

He resented me. His voice held a fierce unwillingness to accept it, a bitterness he couldn’t suppress.

“Can’t I keep you here?”

“Don’t you feel anything for me?”

“Why do you—”

I raised my eyes. “I do.”

The rest of his words caught in his throat.

I gently brushed the flour from his face. “I have feelings for you. I love Wei Qinghe too. But that doesn’t stop me wanting to leave. I want freedom.”

Our eyes met. I spoke honestly. “You find the palace boring too, don’t you? It’s so stifling and dull. You can’t leave. That doesn’t mean you don’t want to.”

“If I could, I’d take you both out with me. If this place could stand empty and never trap anyone again, if we could all pursue our own lives… wouldn’t that be wonderful?”

At last, Murong Su blinked. His long lashes fluttered. For one instant, emotion surged; in the next, it was hidden.

I felt a little regret for them, but I didn’t pity them. That was life: to gain some things, you gave up others. Everyone had to answer for their own choices.

By choosing to leave, I was risking execution and destitution.

I gently cradled his face and spoke more softly than I ever had before. “I am going to leave.”

His face was expressionless. He released me, his movement as light as letting go of a cloud, allowing it to drift away.

He left.

I went on making mooncakes.