She caressed her crystal-clear arms, looking at the blue veins beneath her skin, thinking that even without the princess title, the blood flowing in her body still came from Gaozu and Taizong. In the past, Empress Wu Zetian had also been trapped in Ganye Temple, isolated and helpless, yet she persevered and made her comeback. Now she herself was trapped in Cuiwei Temple, and she still had more hair left than Empress Wu had.
Her blood came from the most noble Li Tang imperial family, and also from the most unyielding Wu Zhou bloodline. How could she just surrender and wait for death when encountering setbacks?
Thinking more carefully, this matter might have been aimed at Prince Shao. Though the succession issue was temporarily set aside and her brother had been demoted to Youzhou, there were still several very influential ministers in court who secretly supported him. With the crown prince position still undecided, a reversal wasn’t necessarily impossible.
She took out a jade-backed comb from her jewelry bundle and combed through her hair. She had always been proud of her thick, luxurious hair – no matter how towering and complex the hairstyle, she never needed false hairpieces for padding.
Now without maids by her side, she couldn’t even manage to gather her hair together. When she grasped the left side, the right side scattered; when she arranged the right side, the left became messy. Finally she could only simply twist each side into a simple knot, braiding the remaining mass of hair at the back into a single plait hanging down her back.
Yesterday she had been kicked hard by an Imperial Guard. At the time, in her rage and desire for death, she felt nothing, but today while combing her hair she felt a burning pain under her ribs. Quietly loosening her silk skirt to examine herself, she saw a patch of purple bruising that made her gasp with pain at the slightest touch.
Shisan Lang peeked in from the doorway and said happily: “You’re finally awake. I checked on you several times during the night, afraid you might do something rash and grow cold.”
“Children speak without restraint,” the princess scolded gently, not thinking of how yesterday she herself had been seeking death and crying to heaven.
“Here, Senior Brother went to the city last night and bought some medicinal plaster for you. I’ve heated up a stone – you can warm the plaster and apply it yourself.” He used iron tongs to bring over a stone heated to charcoal black, and handed her a medicinal formula spread on oiled paper.
Princess Wangshou had been lively and active since childhood. When playing polo or hunting for pleasure, she had certainly been injured before, but then she had crowds of imperial physicians and servants caring for her meticulously, with parents and brothers all coming to visit. She had never needed to prepare and apply medicine herself.
Now things were different from before – having medicine available was already fortunate. Her nose grew sour and her eyes heated up, but she quickly cast aside such thoughts, taking the plaster and carefully warming it on the stone until it softened. While warming it, she thought that the Wei boy was cold-faced but warm-hearted, and sharp-eyed too – she herself hadn’t noticed this kick, but he had seen it despite the crowd of people between them.
After applying the plaster and dressing in her silk skirt, the princess saw Wei Xun’s dagger still stuck in the pillar and casually pulled it out.
This dagger was about eight inches long with a rhinoceros horn handle, looking quite old. The blade was forged from some unknown material, presenting a strange gray-black color that looked unremarkable at first glance. Examining it closely in the sunlight, she could see the blade had faint, sinuous water-pattern markings integrated with the metal, though they felt smooth to the touch without any raised texture, quite antique in style.
Near the handle were carved two characters in ancient script. Though she was skilled in calligraphy, she didn’t understand ancient bronze and stone studies, and could only vaguely make out one character meaning “fish.”
Yesterday when Wei Xun stuck the dagger in the pillar, it seemed to require no effort at all. The princess tried waving it a few times, but before she could cut anything, Shisan Lang hastily called out: “Careful! This dagger is extremely sharp – you might not even notice before parts of your body fall off.”
“It can’t be that exaggerated.” The princess thought Shisan Lang didn’t want her touching his senior brother’s things. She applied force trying to stick the dagger back in the pillar as before, but it slid in silently all the way to the hilt, making her realize his words were true – this unremarkable dagger was indeed a sharp weapon.
Shisan Lang was in no hurry to leave, sitting in the corridor doorway chatting with her.
“Does your senior brother have a horse? How did he get to Chang’an and back so quickly?”
Shisan Lang chuckled: “Poor people like us don’t even have a tile over our heads – how could we possibly have a horse? Senior Brother has excellent stamina – when he says he’s going, he goes, and when he says he’s coming back, he returns.”
The princess recalled her humiliation at Anhua Gate yesterday. The more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed, and suspicions began to arise.
She questioned: “He claims to be a wandering person without registration – where did he get travel documents to enter the city? Moreover, the capital has a curfew. After the evening drums, both city gates and ward gates close, and Imperial Guards patrol the streets. Where did he buy the medicinal plaster?”
“Well, cats have cat ways, rats have rat ways.” The boy spoke vaguely, trying to muddle through.
The princess wouldn’t let it go, grabbing Shisan Lang’s monk robe and angrily saying: “Go call your senior brother!”
“Present. What are the princess’s instructions?”
Wei Xun appeared silently behind them. The young woman was so startled her heart skipped a beat. After steadying herself, she questioned: “You clearly know ways to enter the city without travel documents, yet you watched me be bullied by that gate officer. Why?”
Wei Xun looked innocent: “The methods I can use, the princess cannot.”
The princess objected: “What methods can you use that I cannot?!”
“At midnight, after the guards on the city wall change to the second watch, climb over the wall barehanded and slip in directly. Or slightly more troublesome – strip naked, hold your breath, and swim underwater through the Yong’an Canal into the city.”
Princess Wangshou’s almond eyes widened, her lips pressed together, speechless. Both methods sounded utterly preposterous, yet his tone was extremely sincere.
Still angry, she questioned Shisan Lang: “Can you also climb walls and hold your breath?”
Shisan Lang quickly waved his hands: “This little monk cannot. My dharma name is Shanyuan, I have monk registration, and I’m attached to Baotai Temple in the city. I usually wander for alms, and my travel documents allow me to move freely within the twenty counties of Jingzhao Prefecture.” He then pressed his palms together and chanted Buddha’s name in one smooth sequence.
Princess Wangshou suddenly understood – this was what “cats have cat ways, rats have rat ways” meant! No wonder a layman traveled with a young monk, yet they called each other senior and junior brothers. This monk identity was legal cover for the thieves.
Seeing her quite angry, Wei Xun stopped joking and said seriously: “I truly didn’t know you couldn’t enter the city gate – I wasn’t deliberately standing by and watching. If there’s anyone trustworthy in the palace, I could deliver a message.”
The princess’s eyes sharpened as she fell into thought.
Did she have trustworthy people? Naturally she did.
Most reliable was her blood brother Prince Shao Li Yuanying, who had recently left Chang’an to serve as governor of Youzhou by imperial decree. Next was her blood younger brother Li Yuanyi. When their mother died in childbirth, he was still a newborn baby and had always lived with his sister in Qifeng Palace – their relationship was extremely close. But he had just turned seven, and though granted the title Prince of Anping, he was certainly unable to handle such weighty matters.
Her uncle Xue Wenyao had once served as prime minister, but was both greedy and cowardly. After the noble consort’s death, fearing he might meet the same fate as Yang Guozhong, he had claimed illness for years, staying home and avoiding political affairs. Her male cousins were all high-ranking playboys – fine for banquets, cockfights and dog racing, but she dared not entrust her life to them.
Thinking it over, the most appropriate choice would be her two trusted female officials.
So she said to Wei Xun: “I have two reliable female officials in the palace – one is a Director of Dress named Xianyu Jing, the other is a Director named Xia Fangchun. But they’re both in the inner court and inconvenient to contact. Please take a letter to Xia’s family home in Chang’an’s Yonghe Ward and have her family pass it on. By the way, is there paper and brush here? As soon as she sees my handwriting, she’ll understand immediately.”
Wei Xun didn’t move or respond, just looked at her with a complex expression that held a trace of pity.
The princess couldn’t help feeling uneasy – had he changed his mind about helping again?
Wei Xun asked: “Were those two female officials serving by your side? Do they have any distinguishing physical features?”
The princess was puzzled, thinking that even if you knew their appearance, you couldn’t deliver letters directly to the imperial palace. But she described them truthfully: “Both are quite attractive. Xianyu Jing is two years older than me, extremely fair-skinned, with a red tear mole under her eye. She loves wearing green silk skirts and styling her hair in a drooping horse topknot. Director Xia is over thirty, full-figured, with a coin-shaped burn scar on the back of her neck.”
Wei Xun lowered his eyes and pondered for a moment, as if recalling something, then said with a gloomy expression: “I’m afraid this letter can’t be delivered – I can’t get to the underworld right now.”
Hearing him say this, the princess stood up in shock: “What do you mean?!”
Wei Xun hadn’t wanted to tell her about the people in the tomb being executed for burial, but having spoken this far, he had to tell the truth.
“You were the only living person in the underground palace, but there were forty-two dead ones. Judging by their clothes, they were maids and eunuchs from your retinue. Both the woman with the tear mole and the one with the neck scar were among them.”
The princess opened her mouth wanting to wail, but something blocked her throat. For a moment she felt dizzy and weak, slowly sinking to the ground.
Dead? All dead?
The registry of palace maids and eunuchs belonging to Qifeng Palace totaled over three hundred people, but only fewer than fifty were qualified to enter the palace and serve her and Li Yuanyi closely – the rest were low-level servants not permitted inside. In other words, everyone close to her had been completely eliminated.
She had read history books and occasionally heard of disasters where serious crimes led to collective punishment and clan extermination, but this time she personally experienced the sinister despair of being driven to a dead end. Those who had accompanied her more constantly than blood relatives, whose voices and smiles seemed still before her eyes, were now separated by life and death in a single night. These past few days she had constantly thought of returning to the palace and immediately resuming her normal life – now it seemed this had been a fool’s dream.
Tears filled the young woman’s eyes, crystal teardrops spilling from their sockets. When they died, had they also bled out like her mother?
Wei Xun stood up and gestured to his junior brother, planning to let her cry alone for a while.
But the young woman wiped her tears forcefully and called out through her sobs: “Don’t go! I won’t return to the palace!”
Wei Xun turned back in surprise: “What?”
The princess thought it over and made a painful decision, speaking to them both with the resolve of a warrior cutting off his arm: “I want to go to Youzhou to seek refuge with my brother. You two escort me, and when it’s accomplished, I guarantee you both a lifetime of wealth and honor.”
Wei Xun asked seriously: “From Chang’an to Youzhou is two thousand li. It’s not the peaceful scene from before the An Lushan Rebellion – bandits run rampant everywhere, and the journey would be full of hardships. Do you really want to go?”
The young woman’s eyes held tears as she nodded with determined expression.
“I still have a brother from the same mother in the palace who just turned seven a few days ago. The conspiracy behind my murder runs deep – I absolutely cannot implicate him.”
Thinking of Li Yuanyi, she said sadly: “Mother died in childbirth, so my little brother’s birthday is our mother’s death anniversary – he’s never had a single happy celebration. He grew up by my side, and every year I’ve been the one to celebrate his birthday with him. Now that I’m gone too, he must be very sad all alone.”
Wei Xun suddenly asked: “So a few days ago was the noble consort’s death anniversary?”
The princess nodded: “May nineteenth.”
Wei Xun made a sound of understanding.
“Speaking of which, this twelve-strand flower tree hairpin was used by my mother when she was alive. I don’t know why it was placed on my head when I was buried – quite strange.” The princess took out the gorgeous jewelry from her bundle, holding it in her hands and gently caressing it.
The hairpin had a gold lotus as its base, with twelve pin-like branches densely covered with countless flowers made from thin gold sheets, pearls and gems for stamens, and gold wire for stems. It had both shy, restrained buds and flowers about to bloom, but mostly fully opened large blossoms. When a breeze passed, the gold wire swayed, like a tree of golden flowers shimmering brilliantly in a prosperous age.
This was both an exquisite treasure crafted by skilled artisans and an official ornament displaying the status and rank of a noble lady. Imagining the noble consort wearing this flower tree hairpin years ago, her stunning beauty at palace banquets, no poet in Chang’an could resist inspiration, writing as if divinely guided.
Shisan Lang asked curiously: “Is it palace custom to bury a mother’s belongings with her daughter?”
The young woman shook her head: “How could it be? According to rank, only an empress can use twelve ornaments – I could use at most nine. Mother enjoyed empress-level treatment while alive and was posthumously granted empress title, so naturally she could wear it. My using this would exceed my status.”
Though seven years had passed, the scene of her mother’s death was still vivid.
The baby cried loudly while the noble consort lay in a pool of blood, her raven-black hair and pearl-lustrous fingernails all soaked with her own blood. She wanted to touch the child’s cheek but was too weak to lift her hand. The room was filled with sobbing, with the emperor crying most pitifully, sitting on the bed asking for her last words, but she could no longer speak.
Li Yuanyi – remembering his most beloved woman.
As the poet Bai Juyi wrote, “Most heartless of all are imperial families.” After her mother’s death, she had fallen to such circumstances – could such deep love also be forgotten?
Shisan Lang pressed his palms together and recited several lines from the Blood Basin Sutra specifically for women who died in childbirth to comfort her.
The young woman forced herself to rally, wiping away tears: “This hairpin cannot fall into others’ hands. Take the rest and sell them in the city for money as travel expenses.”
The young woman carefully set aside her mother’s flower tree hairpin, then took out a jade-backed comb for daily use from the bundle. She wrapped up the other hairpins, necklaces, bracelets and armlets together and handed them all to Wei Xun.
*Many scholars claim the “Blood Basin Sutra” is a false scripture fabricated by monks in this business to make money from women. As non-professionals, we dare not speak rashly and merely mention it in passing.