Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Next was Consort Zhao.

After Attendant Li died of illness, Consort Zhao began to lose her grip on reality.

She would often stand by the well, muttering to herself that she had seen Attendant Li’s ghost.

Then, one early morning, she lost her footing and fell into that deep well.

Old Mo raised the alarm in panic and summoned help. They spent half the day fishing around with long poles, but all they managed to retrieve was one of her old shoes.

After the matter was reported, the eunuch steward, already irritated by other troubles, approved it with only two words:

“Fill it.”

They carelessly threw some stones and clods of earth into the well and considered the matter handled.

No one knew that beyond the crack in the well wall, we had long since widened the gap in secret. It led to a drainage culvert that had been abandoned for years.

Consort Zhao had taken her share of the silver and her new identity papers down there the night before her supposed fall.

Following the culvert, she made her way toward the outlet that led to a branch of the moat outside the palace.

Now, I was the only one left in the West Third Institute.

So I began to act even more wildly deranged.

I wept day and night, screamed curses at the top of my lungs, and smashed what few broken bowls remained.

I even attacked Old Mo once when he came to deliver my meal.

Unable to bear the disturbance any longer, Old Mo reported me and requested that I be locked up.

The night I was locked inside the most dilapidated little room, the moonlight was bright.

Using a piece of copper I had hidden long ago and ground down until it was paper-thin, I patiently worked at the latch on the rear window, which we had already tampered with.

With a soft click, the latch came loose.

I pushed the window open, and the cold night wind rushed in.

I quickly stripped off the moldy-smelling palace robe.

Then I changed into the plainest eunuch’s clothes I had and smeared my face and neck with a mixture of soot and mud.

I slung a small bundle over my back. Inside was the last set of identity papers.

The remaining banknotes, a few sturdy coarse-cloth garments, a small packet of preserved rations, and several packets of emergency medicinal powder Consort Zhao had left behind.

I took one last look at the prison that had held me captive for fifteen years, then climbed out the window.

My gaunt figure slipped into the heavy night and the overgrown weeds.

I knew every inch of shadow in this place.

Keeping close to the base of the walls, I avoided the occasional swaying glow of a patrolling eunuch’s lantern.

Like a true ghost, I glided toward the abandoned well that had already been filled in.

I moved aside the stones loosely covering the mouth of the well, carefully climbed down using the protrusions in the wall, and, in filthy water and sludge up to my chest, felt around until I found the crack.

I squeezed inside. Beyond it was a brick-and-stone channel just wide enough for one person to pass through while bent over, filled with a thick stench of rot.

I lit the stub of a candle hidden in oil paper. Its weak glow illuminated the endless darkness ahead and the slick walls around me.

I had to be fast. I had to get through before the darkest hour before dawn passed.

The channel was long and winding, and I nearly lost my way several times.

I moved forward by following the hidden marks Consort Zhao had carved into the bricks.

I did not know how long I crawled. My knees and palms were scraped raw by the rough brick and stone before I finally saw a faint glimmer ahead.

It was the iron grate leading to the outer river, rusted nearly beyond recognition.

We had long ago taken turns using a pair of stolen scissors to saw through two of its bars.

Taking a deep breath, I squeezed myself out.

Outside was a desolate riverbank beyond the city walls. Reeds rustled in the night wind.

In the distance, the sparse lights of the capital flickered in and out of the darkness.

I found the crooked old willow tree we had agreed on. Beneath the third loose stone under the tree, I felt the sign Attendant Li and Consort Zhao had left behind:

Two smooth pebbles stacked together, with a simple arrow drawn beside them in charcoal, pointing south.

Everything had gone smoothly. We would meet in the south.