Chapter 5

Prince An had been avoiding me for six full days.

Cicadas droned outside. His windows were open for air, but he was nowhere to be seen.

The evenings were stifling, without a breath of cool wind.

Cook made cold noodles, and we ate in the courtyard.

I’d been shopping that day. Somehow a proclamation had slipped in among the purchases.

Cook held it up, exclaiming, “Mercy! The bounty on that woman bandit’s head is up to ten thousand taels of gold! Just three years, and she’s led her Yellow Turban Army to take ten cities, right under everyone’s noses. At this rate, she’ll be emperor herself!”

The emperor was obsessed with seeking immortality. Powerful clans tyrannized everyone, while corrupt officials preyed on the common people.

The realm had long since fallen into disorder.

The woman Cook meant was Xu Tianming, leader of the Yellow Turban Army.

Uncle Liu’s expression changed. “Watch your tongue!”

Cook realized she’d said too much and hurried to change the subject. “I hear she’s blue-faced, with fangs, and monstrously strong. Terrifying! Blades and spears can’t hurt her, and she cannot die. She takes ten men to bed every night, draining their yang to nourish her yin. A thousand-year-old demoness!”

Head down, I mixed my noodles, privately admiring how well she’d made this soybean-paste sauce.

She’d fried the paste and added minced pork.

Then shredded radish and cucumber, with a little chopped scallion.

One stir of the chopsticks and the fragrance rose to meet you. Perfect for the heat.

Even the broth was made from an old hen, glossy with oil without being greasy.

She’d also dressed a plate of tender celery, crisp and refreshing to bite into.

We sat in the courtyard slurping noodles and listening to her stories about the woman bandit.

Then the usually quiet embroideress suddenly spoke. “Xu Tianming is no demoness! She’s the people’s great benefactor! After she takes a city, she never oppresses or humiliates its people. She takes the good farmland from the great clans and gives it to poor people who have nothing to eat. I’m from Qingzhou. I know better than anyone. Farmers there work hard all year, but after taxes and rent, they haven’t a peck of grain left. They end up owing the landlord more. Then they have to pledge their children away to get money for next year’s seed. Year after year, they work themselves to the bone and pay for it with their money and their lives.”

After Xu Tianming captured a city, she never stopped people coming and going freely.

The embroideress’s marriage had been arranged earlier. Not long after her family received land, she married and left.

But the conversation had reached a point beyond which it absolutely could not go.

To change the subject, Cook sighed. “I’ve been here five years, and these last six months have been the quietest and most secure. That damned fat bastard used to rule the kitchen, saying women had no place in it, that no good cook in the world was a woman. I wouldn’t accept it. I didn’t want to spend my life as his helper. Part of why I stayed was to prove him wrong—to come into my own and cook proper meals for His Highness someday.”

“Then cooking for rough folk like us must be hard on you.” The servant boy stole a glance at me and helped himself to another bowl. “I only fed the fish in the Wind-and-Lotus Garden before. Good things or bad, none of it ever involved me. Even if I’d run away, where could I have gone? Life’s good now, with Her Highness. No fear of a beating for a mistake, and three satisfying meals every day.”

Cook glared at him. “Rough or refined, what do I care? I, Zhang Chunhua, am no snob who changes the menu according to who’s eating!”

The gardener was still mourning the old hen he’d raised. Studying the drumstick in his hand, he murmured, “Seems I’m not a useless old fool who can only grow flowers. I raise chickens well, too. Look how plump this leg is.”

He took a bite and marveled, “Tastes good, too. Feeding them herb seeds was the right idea.”

Then he trailed off and stared blankly. “If only my wife were still here to taste a chicken I’d raised.”

His obsession with flowers had consumed his entire fortune and left him destitute.

He refused to sell them, believing flowers had spirits.

Later, when his wife fell gravely ill, he couldn’t even afford her medicine.

Apparently the prince had happened to pass the apothecary and paid for her treatment.

When she recovered, she left without a word.

The gardener came to work at the residence, tending flowers and moping all day.

But the embroideress raised her head, her eyes red. “If your wife were still with you, you’d still be a fool who thought of nothing but flowers! You men only know regret once you’ve lost someone!”

As she spoke, she covered her face and ran away crying.

Cook—Auntie Chunhua, that was—went to comfort her.

Uncle Liu lowered his voice. “Yingniang’s former husband was spineless. His mother and elder sister bullied her constantly, so badly she miscarried. Yingniang seems meek, but she’s strong inside. She asked to end the marriage. Her mother-in-law wouldn’t let her go, though. She couldn’t bear to part with the dowry. It went before the local court, but the magistrate turned a blind eye. His Highness happened to be traveling that year and interfered. He brought Yingniang back here as an embroideress. Later…”

The servant boy wiped his mouth on his sleeve, eyes shining. “I know this part! Her former husband came to the capital and made a scene. He tricked Yingniang into leaving the residence, intending to drag her home. His Highness was so angry he broke the bastard’s legs and had him thrown out of the capital. Everyone started saying the prince had stolen another man’s wife. A censor impeached him, and the emperor gave him a terrible scolding.”

Dinner and gossip over, everyone went to work.

Vegetables needed watering, chickens and ducks needed driving into their coops, and manure needed shoveling from the pigsty.

Before long, I was the only one left.

The moon hung high. The clouds had scattered, and the breeze was clear. How pleasant.

I smiled. Well, well. What a collection Zhao Xiguang had gathered under his roof.

Auntie Chunhua was a cook missing a finger, the gardener a fool, Yingniang a clam, and the servant boy young but full of chatter.

No wonder that of the hundreds who’d once lived here, only these few idiots remained after his downfall.

Zhao Xiguang had a softness of heart rare in the imperial family.

I knocked on his door. He didn’t answer, but stood by the open window.

Six days apart, and he was thinner. In a pale blue-green robe, he looked wonderfully graceful.

He looked at me without speaking.

“I cut down your green-calyx plum. Will you accept a blossom that never fades in return?” I brought out the gift I’d prepared.

The silk plum blossom gleamed in the moonlight. It was beautiful.

He stared at it for a while. Instead of taking it, he asked, “Does that guard Lin have one, too?”

“Yours is the only one.” I climbed through the window and leaned gently against him. “The wound medicine you used the other day came from Guard Lin. I bought him some candied fruit to thank him, that’s all. Don’t be angry. There’s nothing between us.”

He took the silk flower and snorted. “As if I care whether there is.”

“I misunderstood you when I hit you before.” I brought up the beating and abuse.

He looked at me, puzzled.

I paused, then said quietly, “You’re not as rash and helpless as I thought. Killing that wicked priest—you were also making use of the situation, weren’t you?”

When I’d gone out that day, word was everywhere.

Since the priest’s death, the emperor had secluded himself to pursue immortality.

Consort Xian had taken charge of the palace women and even begun governing from behind the curtain.

For a long time, Prince An said nothing.

I thought he wasn’t going to answer.

At last he spoke, sadness in his voice.

“I’m not as reckless as people think. I killed him because he said the child Consort Xian was carrying was a sage reborn. If the emperor cooked and ate it, he would… live forever.

“She had decided she would never give birth to that child. After the miscarriage, it was already formed. He still committed that monstrous act. She traded a child for control of the inner palace. And Noble Consort Cui is pregnant. If she wants to protect her child, she’ll need Consort Xian’s protection. Soon the Cui family will quietly push the emperor to let my elder brother return from the frontier.”

His elder brother was the legitimate son of the emperor and the late empress. After her death, he had been sent to the frontier.

As for Noble Consort Cui, she was the princess consort’s maternal aunt.

I hadn’t expected Prince An to understand matters so deeply.

I stared for a moment, then said quickly, “Why tell a rough commoner like me all this?”

“Cui Yao and I are married, but we’ve never consummated it. There’s no affection between us.” He strayed further from the subject, looking at me. “Once my brother returns and my confinement ends, I’ll divorce her. Then I’ll ask Consort Xian to preside over our wedding.”

He handed me his family jade pendant and tentatively took my hand. “Let tonight mark our pledge. From now on, call me Zhao Xiguang. I don’t even know your name. The steward only ever calls you ‘rotten girl.'”

Never had I imagined that getting this pendant would be so easy!

“My name is… Xu Yecao.” I clasped his hand in return.

He frowned. “What sort of name is that? Your parents were far too careless.”

I didn’t like the name, either.

So later, I’d given myself another.

Xu Tianming. Ordained by Heaven, granted long life and enduring prosperity.