Empress Xu jolted upright in bed like a startled bird, staring over in terror.

A familiar face came into view.

It was the Emperor!

Yet his expression was nothing like the warmth and affection she knew, nor his customary solemn authority. Instead, it was twisted and ferocious, and in the flickering candlelight, deeply sinister.

“Your Majesty!” Empress Xu did not need to pretend — tears had already blurred her cheeks. She scrambled off the bed in a wretched state and fell to her knees, kowtowing repeatedly. “Your subject-wife was foolish for a moment and committed a grave transgression. I beg Your Majesty, in consideration of the years I have faithfully served you, to spare my worthless life! I beg Your Majesty’s mercy!”

She spoke and knocked her head against the floor with force.

Before long, her forehead was swollen and red.

The Emperor watched coldly, without moving.

Empress Xu seemed oblivious to the pain. Her forehead struck the ground heavily again and again until the swollen skin broke and bled, her hair falling into ever greater disarray. She looked utterly wretched, like a stray dog with nowhere to turn.

“I beg Your Majesty’s mercy! I beg Your Majesty to spare my life!”

Empress Xu repeated these two phrases over and over.

She was already finished. But she still had a son and daughter. This matter must never spread. If it did, Princess Changping and Prince Yan would never again be able to hold their heads up in the world.

The Emperor finally opened his mouth. “Now you know to beg for mercy and plead for your life. When you were seeking pleasure with those base and lowly servants, did you ever think of me, your husband? Did you ever think of your own standing as the august Empress? Did you ever think of Prince Yan and Changping?”

Each question was like an arrow, piercing through Empress Xu’s fragile chest.

Empress Xu stopped kowtowing. Blood from her forehead trickled down to her cheeks, mingling with her tears, leaving her in a pitiful state. She wept as she spoke. “Every wrong, every fault — it is all mine. My death would be a small matter. But I cannot die like this. I beg Your Majesty to spare my life for the sake of our son and daughter.”

The rage the Emperor had been forcibly suppressing surged forth again. He laughed out of fury. “Every word from your mouth is about Prince Yan and Changping. Having a birth mother like you will only be a stain on those two siblings that they can never wash clean for as long as they live.”

Yet hearing these words, Empress Xu’s heart stirred with the faint hope that she might yet escape with her life.

If the Emperor had truly intended to kill her, there would be no need for all this lengthy reproach. He could have simply ordered someone to kill her and told the world she had died of a sudden illness. This display of furious rebuke was precisely proof that the Emperor had softened from old sentiment and could not bring himself to act.

With this reassurance in her heart, the panic and terror that had gripped her settled considerably.

She had spent many years in the palace as a consort before rising step by step to become the Empress, presiding over the entire inner court. No one understood the Emperor’s temperament more intimately or completely than she did.

In his younger years, the Emperor had been swift and decisive, his methods ruthless, and yet also amorous and pleasure-seeking, exceptionally gentle and tender toward women he favored. Now that the Emperor was old, he had long since lost the sharpness and resolution of his youth, though his habit of softening from sentimental attachment had never changed.

So Empress Xu knelt and crawled forward on her knees until she reached the Emperor’s feet, prostrating herself before him and weeping. “I entered the palace at sixteen and have remained at Your Majesty’s side all these years, bearing Your Majesty’s children and managing the affairs of the inner court. Even if I have no great merit, at least I have had my share of toil. Your Majesty is occupied with affairs of state and has grown distant from the inner court. The Pepper Chamber — Your Majesty has scarcely spent the night there in these past several years. Your subject-wife says something shameless, but your subject-wife is also a woman, and loneliness is unavoidable. And so, goaded by the servants around me, I committed this terrible wrong.”

“Your subject-wife does not dare hope for Your Majesty’s forgiveness. I only beg that Your Majesty show leniency and allow me to live a few more years. I will fast and recite prayers each day, and pray for Your Majesty, so as to wash away the sins upon me.”

Empress Xu did not know how long she had been kneeling, how long she had been weeping.

Her knees had long since gone past aching to a kind of piercing numbness. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, her voice growing ever more hoarse and unpleasant to hear.

Yet she dared not stop.

The Emperor’s face, which had begun iron-grey with fury, shifted through a complexity of expressions difficult to name, until, quietly, it softened.

Over all these years, he had always been quite satisfied with Empress Xu.

She was gentle and virtuous, managing the affairs of the palace with neat precision so that he, the Son of Heaven, need not be troubled. She was magnanimous and tolerant, never jealous or possessive, sending the beauties around her to his bed without a word of complaint.

Princess Changping was his eldest daughter and his greatest joy. Prince Yan was his youngest son, and he had lavished affection upon him all the more.

Whether out of the old sentiment of their years together as husband and wife, or out of consideration for their son and daughter — he could not bring himself to truly take her life.

But though the capital crime could be pardoned, the punishment could not be entirely escaped.

He, the august Son of Heaven, absolutely could not allow himself to lose all dignity over this affair.

The Emperor breathed deeply and said coldly, “Enough. Stop your weeping and pleading. I will spare your life for now.”

Empress Xu trembled from head to toe and kowtowed repeatedly. “Thank you, Your Majesty! Thank you, Your Majesty!”

“You have occupied the position of Empress for many years. It is time to yield it.” The Emperor said expressionlessly. “As for the matter of deposing you, I will make my own arrangements. From this day forth, you are to remain quietly in this bedchamber and not leave it by so much as half a step. Await my imperial decree.”

Simply preserving her life was already the greatest fortune she could ask for.

Empress Xu did not dare hope for anything more. She immediately received the decree and expressed her gratitude.

The Emperor breathed out slowly, then continued. “What happened last night — I have no heart to investigate further. Let it end here. Half the staff of the Pepper Chamber have already been dealt with. The rest cannot remain either. Send them to the laundry house to work.”

Empress Xu was already struggling to keep herself together and naturally had no courage to plead for anyone else. She acquiesced meekly.

The Emperor’s gaze flickered, and he suddenly raised his voice to call Director Ding inside.

Director Ding had been waiting outside all along. Hearing the Emperor’s voice, he immediately stepped in at a quick pace.

In his hands, he carried a bowl of dark medicinal broth.

The Emperor said gravely, “Attend to the Empress and see that she drinks this medicine.”

Director Ding acknowledged the order and stepped forward, holding the medicine bowl up before Empress Xu. “Your Majesty the Empress, this servant will now attend to you and your medicine.”

What kind of medicine was this?

What would become of her if she drank it?

Empress Xu felt a chill in her heart and stared hard at the bowl.

The Emperor saw her hesitate and curled his lip with contempt. “What? Do you think it is arsenic? If I wanted to sentence you to death, would I need to go to such trouble?”

Empress Xu shuddered from head to toe and dared not hesitate a moment longer. She hastily took the medicine bowl and drained it in one go.

The medicinal liquid was bitter and cold as it slid swiftly down her throat into her stomach, and almost at once she felt a strange, spreading heat.

Empress Xu had not eaten anything in a full day, and had endured a day and night of terror and anxiety. Her mind and body were utterly exhausted. After drinking this unknown medicine, she felt the world spin around her, her vision went dark, and she lost consciousness.

The Emperor looked down at Empress Xu, slumped lifelessly on the floor, with an expression of disgust, and then instructed, “Director Ding, convey Our verbal decree. Empress Xu has been taken ill with a sudden ailment and is unconscious and needs to remain in her palace in seclusion to recuperate. No one is permitted to visit or disturb her.”