Chapter 41 - 1#
Jingzhe’s attempts to get the booklet back were unsuccessful. He was out half a copper tael, and was now being asked by Rong Jiu which position he’d found most appealing.
Jingzhe kept his face expressionless. “None of them.”
Rong Jiu had confiscated the booklet with perfect composure — one glance had apparently been enough, and none of it had disturbed him in the least. But the look he was giving Jingzhe now was deeply suggestive, and it made Jingzhe want to crawl out of his own skin.
If he tried to explain himself, it would seem like he cared too much.
If he said nothing, he’d end up leaving the impression of being some kind of overeager lecher in Rong Jiu’s mind.
Jingzhe was beside himself.
Rong Jiu patted him on the head and said, with perfect calm, “Don’t overthink it.”
Then, mirroring Jingzhe’s own manner, he let his gaze drift downward for a moment before returning it to Jingzhe’s face.
“I know you don’t want to.”
Entirely matter-of-fact. And yet somehow Jingzhe felt deeply provoked.
…Well. Technically speaking, even a eunuch could manage something.
And he wasn’t even a real one.
Even with the booklet surrendered, what he’d read remained perfectly clear in his memory.
But one look at Rong Jiu’s face and the fight went out of him.
Better not to contest anything right now. That way lay getting pushed flat.
It was terrifying, honestly. The idea of two men doing — that. He couldn’t get his head around it no matter how long he thought about it.
Since he couldn’t figure it out, he decided not to think about it.
He was feeling a little deflated. Better to let Rong Jiu stay, cough, composed.
Perhaps this was simply not something he was cut out for.
*
The smell of medicine had settled thickly into Shòukāng Palace, heavy enough that any newcomer would likely feel dizzy just walking through the door. The attendants inside had grown so accustomed to it they no longer noticed.
For the past several days, Shòukāng Palace had been closed to visitors. Anyone who came — consorts claiming they wished to attend to the Empress Dowager in her illness — was turned away at the door by the lady officials. Those paying close attention had already noticed that the guards posted outside were not the same ones as before.
The old guard — the Empress Dowager’s own — were gone.
Piecing this together with everything that had happened recently, those sharp enough to notice had thought better of pressing further. The instinct for self-preservation won out. Even if the mood in Shòukāng Palace seemed to have shifted, no one wanted to risk their life on it.
The Emperor had never been the type to spare anyone out of sentiment.
The others could avoid it. Noble Consort De could not.
She and the Empress Dowager were related, and with the Huang family now unable to reach the Empress Dowager directly, they had been doing everything in their power to get word to Noble Consort De instead.
Even sick in bed, she had no choice but to pull herself together and make the walk to Shòukāng Palace.
Her illness was, in truth, something fear had given her.
After witnessing what had happened in Shòukāng Palace that day — the things she had seen — how could anyone come away unaffected? The Empress Dowager herself had been struck down by it. Noble Consort De kept waking in the middle of the night from nightmares soaked in red. She could not yet look directly at the Emperor’s face — that cold, beautiful face that had come to look to her like something clawed up from the underworld, blood and all.
She was not a fool.
Her relationship with the Noble Consort had never been warm. But Huang Yijie had been one of the few women in this palace with whom she could have a real conversation — someone whose background and rank were close to her own.
They both came from good families. Even without the Emperor’s favor, a life in the inner palace was comfortable and secure enough. Why would either of them ever want to assassinate the Emperor?
For all that she and the Noble Consort were nominally the Empress Dowager’s people, their futures still depended on the Emperor. Killing him gained them nothing.
The true grievance against the Emperor was the Empress Dowager’s. No one else’s.
But that was beside the point now. Whether Huang Yijie had been acting under orders or on her own, it no longer mattered.
She had been the one who moved against him.
Attempted assassination of the Emperor. That was treason.
Having failed, with the evidence laid bare — Huang Yijie had at least escaped by dying. The rest of the Huang family had not.
When Huang Qingtian had first been imprisoned, the others in official positions had either shut their doors and gone quiet or been suspended from their posts, with no avenue left to work. After the assassination attempt became public, every member of the Huang family’s main branch in the capital had been arrested.
Even the old Huang matriarch, well into her eighties, had been caught up in it.
“Cough, cough…”
Noble Consort De stepped into Shòukāng Palace, coughing softly. The lady official beside her tightened her grip, afraid she might stumble.
Noble Consort De shook her head faintly and walked forward at an unhurried pace.
Heavy powder and rouge concealed the sallow cast of her skin. She still looked composed from a distance — only the dullness in her eyes and the tiredness underneath it told a different story.
The attendants inside Shòukāng Palace moved as quietly as ever, emerging to receive her without a sound and leading her through to the inner chamber.
One look at the Empress Dowager and Noble Consort De’s chest tightened.
The Empress Dowager’s dark hair was nearly half white. A span of just a few days, and this kind of change. She was sitting up against the headboard, her face somewhat pale. She glanced at her visitor and said lightly, “No formalities. Sit down.”
Noble Consort De was helped into a seat, and coughed again involuntarily. The Empress Dowager asked after her health in a tone that was warm and unhurried — a stark contrast to everything pressing in from outside.
Noble Consort De couldn’t hold back. “Your Majesty — are you aware that the Huang family has already—”
“The main line. All taken into custody.” The Empress Dowager cut her off with the same mild tone. “Whatever news you have, I will have received it before you.”
The entire guard of Shòukāng Palace had been destroyed in one night. But that did not mean the Empress Dowager had lost all of her reach.
Noble Consort De said, with barely concealed anxiety, “Aunt. If one step goes wrong here, it could mean the execution of the entire family.”
“Huang Yijie only carried the Huang name. Even if the full sentence were carried out, it would rarely extend to a married-out daughter’s maternal family,” the Empress Dowager said, unhurried. “Unless the Emperor invokes extermination of nine generations — which he won’t — they will be fine.”
Noble Consort De was momentarily confused. “Huang Yijie wasn’t a Huang?”
“Her mother was a married-out daughter who took the Huang name afterward,” the Empress Dowager said, with a trace of impatience. “She was never even entered in the clan registry. If one traces the line properly, the original family name is Chen, not Huang.”
Chen. That was Huang Yijie’s birth name.
Noble Consort De murmured, half to herself, “So you prepared for this.”
Even if everything went wrong, as long as the worst could be avoided, the Huang family’s foundations would remain intact.
The Empress Dowager looked at her sharply and said, with deliberate gentleness, “Noble Consort De. I have always said — this inner palace needs someone who will look after it properly. No number of noble consorts could replace you.”
Noble Consort De lowered her head. She had nothing to say to that.
Was the Empress Dowager wrong?
Not exactly.
The Empress Dowager had only ever used Huang Yijie — from her elevation to a high position the moment she entered the palace, to the careful management of the surname question, to the planning that must have gone into her entry from the very beginning. Noble Consort De should perhaps consider herself fortunate that the Empress Dowager’s feelings toward her were at least something resembling genuine care.
But thinking of how Huang Yijie had been used and then wrung dry, every last drop — the thought alone made her skin crawl.
False. All of it had been false.
“Your Majesty. What do we do now?”
“We wait.”
The Empress Dowager said it coldly.
Noble Consort De frowned. “Wait for what… surely you don’t mean — you’re waiting for Prince Rui to come to the capital?”
The Empress Dowager didn’t answer. But the silence said everything.
Noble Consort De instinctively shook her head. “Aunt. If he returns at a time like this, he’ll be walking straight into a trap. He cannot come back.” Both she and the messages that had been smuggled in from the old Huang matriarch were in agreement on this: Prince Rui must not enter the capital.
He had barely gotten out last time — he had been carried back to his fief half-dead. If he came back now, what price would he have to pay to leave again?
Worse still — there might be no leaving.
“Aunt,” Noble Consort De pressed, “if Prince Rui comes to the capital now, the Emperor will certainly — do you really want to see him suffer in prison?”
The Empress Dowager said serenely, “That is not your concern.”
Noble Consort De’s frown deepened. She could not fathom what the Empress Dowager was thinking. This time, the Empress Dowager had made a dangerous gamble and lost — one mistake leading to the next. If she continued down this road, there would be nothing left.
“Noble Consort De,” the Empress Dowager said suddenly, her brow creasing slightly, “do you think the Emperor knew what I was planning from the very beginning?”
“Why do you say that?”
“The Hall of Ancestral Worship burned.” The Empress Dowager’s expression darkened. “And those gu-repelling incenses — if there had been no preparation in advance, where did they come from?”
Noble Consort De went still, and then cold.
…Yes. If the Emperor had been caught off guard, where had all that incense come from?
The repairs to the Hall of Ancestral Worship had begun months ago. Long before any of this — had the Emperor already known?
*
News of the assassination attempt on the Emperor traveled at speed, reaching Prince Rui’s hands only a few days behind the capital itself.
He summoned his strategists and convened the full council. In his own fief, far from the capital, there was no need for the careful concealment that had governed every meeting in the city — Hèlián Duān could speak freely.
Bi Xintian sat among the group, unremarkable in appearance. Behind him sat a quiet, watchful man — Axing. The two of them had made it to Prince Rui’s fief through considerable difficulty, reinvented themselves, and taken on new identities.
Even so, they were still outsiders, and could not compare to advisors like Chen Xuanming and Wang Zhao, who had been with Prince Rui for some time. They said little in these gatherings.
When the news from the capital had been laid out, Chen Xuanming spoke first. “Your Highness. The Empress Dowager wants you to return to the capital, but this you absolutely cannot do. The capital is the most dangerous place in the world for you right now. The assassination failed — the Emperor will be laying punishments. If you go back, you may not come out again.”
The last time Prince Rui left the capital, the journey had nearly killed him. To return voluntarily now would be to walk into the trap himself.
“The Empress Dowager has been reckless,” another advisor said, stroking his beard with a troubled look. “The Noble Consort carried the Huang name — even if the original surname wasn’t Huang, the family will suffer for it. Minister Huang will not escape imprisonment this time.”
Wang Zhao, the most hot-tempered of them, raised his voice. “Imprisonment would be manageable. With a crime this serious, the whole Huang line might be dragged down with her.”
None of the strategists approved of what the Empress Dowager had done.
Prince Rui was even less pleased.
Before leaving the capital, he had warned her against exactly this — he had begged her, again and again, not to act impulsively, to consult the old Huang matriarch on every decision. Less than a year and a half later, it had come to this.
Thinking that the Huang family might be entirely destroyed because of this incident, Prince Rui regretted not having stopped the Empress Dowager from sending Huang Yijie into the palace to begin with.
In his previous life, and in this one, Prince Rui had known of Huang Yijie’s existence.
But winning the throne was supposed to be done properly. Underhanded methods like these would never earn the respect of those who followed. And so even knowing the power that a gu practitioner could wield, Prince Rui had rarely intended to make use of it.
Besides, in his previous life, Prince Rui had always had a nagging feeling that the circumstances surrounding the Emperor’s death — the events just before it — might have had something to do with the Empress Dowager.
Those memories weren’t clear. Only fragments. The agony of burning had consumed most of what he might have remembered about the moments before his death.
But he remembered the Emperor’s laughter.
Wild, carried on the flames — as if the blazing color consuming everything wasn’t human lives but paint on a brush, sketching some vivid and exuberant picture.
“I will not go back to the capital,” Prince Rui said.
However much the Empress Dowager might want him to return, Prince Rui would not set foot in the capital again — not for his own survival. The concerns his advisors had raised were precisely his own.
Liu Mingxu raised his voice: “Your Highness — what if the Emperor deliberately allowed the Empress Dowager to make her move?”
Prince Rui turned to look at this advisor. He was young — someone Prince Rui had once helped out of a difficult situation — and he was not among the most distinguished of the group. But he had his moments of illumination, and when he spoke, he had a way of shifting how you saw a problem.
“Deliberately?”
Chen Xuanming repeated the word. Something seemed to occur to him, and his expression changed. “The gu practitioners’ methods are formidable — a surprise attack should have left the Emperor dead or gravely injured. But there has been no word of either… the Emperor was prepared in advance?”
Prince Rui’s voice was low and certain. “If the Emperor had advance warning, then the Empress Dowager walked directly into a trap he had set. And the trap was not about anything else — it was about destroying the Huang family.”
Why else would the timing have been so perfect?
The impeachment of Huang Qingtian had preceded the assassination attempt by precisely the right amount. Had that impeachment been what finally drove the Empress Dowager and the Noble Consort to act — or had the entire impeachment been designed to nudge, or even compel, them into making their move?
Prince Rui turned his jade pendant over in his fingers. He had to concede it was entirely possible.
The Emperor was, after all, the kind of madman who liked to play with fire.
As for what would have happened if the gamble had gone wrong and he’d been killed in the process—
Well. If anything, the Emperor might have found that more entertaining.
Thinking of the Emperor’s true nature, Prince Rui’s face took on a slightly greenish cast.
“Your Highness should not return to the capital,” Bi Xintian said slowly. “But the Huang family — may still be worth salvaging.”
He rarely spoke. When he did, the others listened.
The heavyset middle-aged man wiped his forehead and continued: “If the Huang family is completely destroyed, Your Highness will lose a considerable asset.”
Whether Huang Qingtian’s charges had been manufactured entirely for Prince Rui’s benefit was hard to say — but to allow the Huang family to fall without a fight would be to surrender a significant piece of support.
This was precisely why Prince Rui found the Empress Dowager’s behavior so deeply frustrating.
Her methods were always too violent. It had been that way when she moved against Empress Dowager Cisheng years ago, and it was the same now in moving against the Emperor.
Always so blunt. So brutal.
It made Prince Rui wonder — had the Emperor’s birth father, their late emperor, truly known nothing about the circumstances of Empress Dowager Cisheng’s death?
That father of theirs had been far more watchful than the Empress Dowager gave him credit for.
*
Summer arrived in a blink. The fierce sun pressed down on the courtyard plants until they drooped; the gardeners were forced to water them early in the morning and again in the evening.
Cicadas called from the treetops, intermittently.