Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Once, a young eunuch came to us in a panic.
He said a rare bird from the Western Regions, which he was responsible for feeding, had suddenly died.
His Majesty was rather fond of that bird. If anyone looked into it, the boy’s life would be forfeit.
Drawing on Consort Zhao’s medical knowledge, we determined that the bird had likely eaten the seeds of some common poisonous plant in the courtyard by mistake.
Then we instructed him to toss the dead bird near that plant and create the appearance that it had died from accidental poisoning.
Afterward, the young eunuch sent us a generous token of thanks.
Another time, a Talented Lady who had long fallen out of favor wanted us to find out what book His Majesty had been reading lately, so she would have something to talk about if she happened to run into him.
Through the eunuch who managed the library, we learned indirectly that His Majesty had recently been reading Commentary on the Water Classic quite often.
So we had the Talented Lady appear in the imperial garden by chance, carrying a carefully annotated copy of Commentary on the Water Classic.
She did not regain his favor right away, but His Majesty did stop to ask her a few gentle questions.
Among the gifts she sent us in thanks was a rare set of colored inks.
These successes were like thin streams, trickling into the parched ground of our survival.
With the silver we traded for, we secretly bought more necessities through the old imperial guard’s little general store:
Thicker quilts, sturdier cloth shoes, practical tools, and even a few old street novels and copybooks.
It seemed there was finally something to hope for.
But we all knew the ice beneath our feet was thin.
Every transaction was a walk across a tightrope. One misstep, and we would be doomed beyond redemption.
The true crisis came in the winter of the fourth year of our “business.”
During one of Cui’er’s routine trips to the abandoned garden to gather firewood, a managing matron from the Imperial Consort’s Palace caught sight of her.
They searched her and found a jade pendant she had been asked to pass along.
Cui’er was detained on the spot and dragged to the Imperial Consort’s Palace.
Old Mo brought the news back, stumbling and crawling the whole way.
He gestured frantically, his face deathly pale:
Cui’er had been beaten, but she insisted to the end that she had stolen it herself and did not give us up.
But the people in the Imperial Consort’s Palace did not believe her. They had already begun tracing the people Cui’er had been in contact with recently, along with the favors she had received.
The day our courtyard gate was smashed open, the sky was dark and heavy.
The chief eunuch from the Imperial Consort’s Palace burst in with several ferocious matrons.
Without a word, they began wrecking everything.
Cracked jars and broken tiles, the paper and brushes hidden inside the kang bed cavity, the herbs Consort Zhao had set out to dry, Attendant Li’s embroidery frame and silk threads…
Everything we had painstakingly saved and carefully hidden was dug out, thrown into the courtyard, trampled, and torn to shreds.
We were forced down onto our knees in the freezing mud.
The chief eunuch picked up the account book covered in footprints and narrowed his eyes at the scrawled symbols and abbreviations inside.
“What is this?” His voice was as shrill as a knife.
“It… it’s a prescription.”
Consort Zhao spoke first, her voice warped by fear.
“This common woman… this criminal woman suffers from an old illness. I often have fits of hysteria and scribble nonsense to ward… ward off evil…”
“A prescription?”
The eunuch gave a cold laugh and jabbed a withered finger at one line.
“This looks rather like a person’s name, doesn’t it? And with notes beside it?”
My heart sank.
It was indeed an abbreviation-the name of a palace maid in the Imperial Consort’s Palace who was quite influential. Beside it, Consort Zhao had marked in code that the maid was having an affair with one of the guards on duty.
I could not panic.
I suddenly raised my head, split my mouth into a grin, and let out a strange, rasping laugh as drool ran down the corner of my lips.
“Spirits of heaven… spirits of earth… fox spirit, show your true form… Your Highness, spare me! Your Highness, spare my life!”
As I babbled nonsense, I abruptly broke free and crawled toward the eunuch on all fours, trying to grab his leg.