On the evening of her birthday, Li Gu sent General Hu ahead carrying a pot of peony blossoms.
“This flower is for you,” he said — then added, as an afterthought: “Quite beautiful.”
Xie Yuzhang’s eyebrows rose with interest. “This is the Silver Scale Jade Pearl variety — where did you find it?”
Li Gu said, “Just wandering around. Spotted it on the street.”
What he did not say was that he had gone through the entire imperial treasury without finding a single treasure that felt right — nothing that was what he truly wanted to give her. So he had wandered through the eastern and western markets, and noticed a crowd gathered around a flower stall, because someone had brought this pot to sell. It was a rare variety, and several flower enthusiasts were bidding against one another, each determined to have it.
The moment Li Gu saw the flower, he thought of Xie Yuzhang. Delicate yet proud, graceful and aloof above the mass of common blooms — it was exactly like her.
He had claimed it on the spot.
“This variety is hard to come by,” Xie Yuzhang said. “I once had two plants, growing in Zhaoxia Palace. They were terribly difficult to tend, and one of them died in the end. The remaining one, I had someone care for very carefully. But when I came back, they were both gone — someone had replanted the whole thing. It nearly broke my heart.”
Li Gu asked carefully, “Do you like it?”
Xie Yuzhang smiled brightly. “Of course I do.”
Li Gu let out a quiet breath of relief and said cheerfully, “I’m hungry.”
Xie Yuzhang had guessed he would come and had prepared accordingly.
Luo Garden was famed first and foremost for its grounds. Xie Yuzhang had the evening meal set out in a water pavilion. When you turned your gaze outward, you could see the setting sun casting light across the pond, the surface shimmering like a scattering of gems.
Li Gu ate more slowly than usual, and even so, he finished well before Xie Yuzhang.
Xie Yuzhang set down her chopsticks. They rinsed their mouths, the dishes were cleared away, and tea was brought.
Xie Yuzhang said, “You’ll need to head back today, won’t you? Then leave early — the mountain road is no good after dark.”
Li Gu said “mm” but did not move.
Xie Yuzhang studied his expression curiously. “Is there something else you want to say?”
Li Gu made another sound of assent, but still said nothing.
Xie Yuzhang blinked. “Does His Majesty wish to stay the night?”
She had put a deliberate weight on the words “stay the night,” so they carried a particular implication.
Li Gu caught it immediately. “Don’t get the wrong idea.”
Xie Yuzhang said, “The way you’re sitting there with something on your mind and won’t say it, not leaving when you should — what else am I supposed to think? If His Majesty has something to say, then say it. What can’t be said between the two of us?”
Li Gu still said nothing.
This was genuinely unusual behavior from him, and Xie Yuzhang found herself surprised. She waved the maids out of the room and softened her voice. “All right. It’s just the two of us now. Whatever is on your mind — tell me. What is there between us that cannot be spoken?”
Li Gu looked at her for a long moment. She seemed gentle-eyed just now, perhaps in a more receptive mood.
He finally said: “Yuzhang, I wish to honor you with the position of wife.”
Xie Yuzhang turned on him at once. “No!”
Li Gu had anticipated this — it was only his refusal to give up without trying that had brought him to ask. He was about to say more, but Xie Yuzhang stopped him. “Your Majesty, say no more.”
Li Gu said, “Yuzhang!”
Xie Yuzhang said, “If Your Majesty insists on speaking, then allow me to speak plainly as well.”
“Your Majesty has favored me for more than a few days. Since my return from Mobei, quite some time has passed — why only now think of honoring me with the position of wife?” she said. “Let’s not dance around it. The answer is plain: it’s because Xiaoyao Manor is gone entirely, isn’t it?”
Li Gu could not sidestep the question. “Yes.”
Xie Yuzhang said, “Although Your Majesty is kind, you could not control the hearts of everyone in Xiaoyao Manor. Their status and bloodline spoke for themselves. The Gao Family this time failed in their attempt, but if they had succeeded — whoever fled south in the aftermath — the situation would not be as uncomplicated as it is now. Because you had long since foreseen this kind of scenario, and feared that one day we might become enemies — you as the man who killed my father and destroyed my clan — your affection for me deepened as the years went on, and yet you still never dared honor me with the position of wife. For a wife is not merely a new consort to warm the bed. Your wife is also the Empress.”
“When Your Majesty takes a wife, it is not a private matter — it is a matter of state. Your Majesty has never been one to let private feeling override public duty; in great matters you have always kept a clear head and done what was right. And so, until now, Your Majesty had never once truly considered making me Empress.”
“But Your Majesty and I have come far together, and it is fair to say we know one another. You hold me in genuine regard, and because of that, you no longer use your power to compel me. You are willing to let me live outside, to live my own comfortable life. Why can you not simply let that intention continue?”
Xie Yuzhang said, “Xiaoyao Manor is no more. The great mountain that stood between us has crumbled. Your Majesty feels the weight lift, and naturally you speak now of making me your wife and Empress. If you do, I imagine the opposition and pressure from the court would be considerable — are you willing to bear all of that, to take it squarely on your own shoulders?”
Li Gu said, “All of that is mine to handle. You need not concern yourself.”
But Xie Yuzhang said, “And has Your Majesty considered that if I became Empress, I would very likely choke on my own blood trying to manage everything and work myself to death?”
“I spoke with Your Majesty about the inner palace long ago. You know that your wife is also the Empress — it is a matter of state. And yet in how you treat the inner palace, you have always treated them as family.”
“At present, you have no wife in name. And yet in your heart, you have a wife. The two Noble Consorts and three Consorts differ in rank, but none of them is the Empress — so why does Your Majesty treat the two Noble Consorts so differently from the three Consorts? Because in your heart, the Deng woman and the Cui woman were both once your wives.”
“What Your Majesty wants now is to make me Empress — to go manage your wives.”
“It is not so very difficult to be an Empress. I am confident I could manage it. But what an Empress ought to manage is the Four Consorts, the Nine Imperial Concubines, the twenty-seven Attendants, and the eighty-one Companions — not the Emperor’s wives.”
“Your two wives — no, three wives — all come from families of consequence. Your four sons all have maternal relatives to contend with. Your principle of maintaining public and private distinction has never been applied to the inner palace. Whoever becomes your Empress is in for a wretched time! I refuse to have that miserable fate foisted onto me!”
If you care for a woman, you should honor her with the position of wife.
Anyone with half a brain understood this. Li Gu was no fool — he understood it perfectly well.
But understanding something and being able to act on it are often different matters. Many things in this world do not go the way you wish them to.
Today he had summoned his courage and made one attempt — and been thoroughly dressed down by Xie Yuzhang.
Only because everything she said was true.
“You, honestly…” Xie Yuzhang said. “You can be called deeply devoted — and in the same breath you can be called completely heartless. I have had little to do with the three Consorts, but if I try for even a moment to put myself in their shoes, the resentment is enough to make me grind my teeth. What makes the two Noble Consorts deserving of such extraordinary favor?”
Li Gu’s gaze dropped to the table. After a long moment, he slowly told Xie Yuzhang: “People have to go on living. Have to keep surviving. Back in Hexi, after you sent that message through Zi Peng, I had heard it, taken it in, and resolved to take a wife. My elder sister had been searching everywhere on my behalf. The family she had set her heart on was the Huan Family of Hexi. The Huan Family was no more than a second-tier clan — by now, they couldn’t even get close to me. But back then, I was no more than a frontier general in the northwest, with no parents, no distinguished ancestry or background. The great clans didn’t look at me twice.”
“That young woman was only a distant branch of a cadet line of the Huan Family, from a fallen household, quite impoverished. Even so, my elder sister had run herself ragged on my behalf, and they still hadn’t given a definitive answer. And then suddenly everything turned upside down, and what happened next was nothing I had foreseen. But by the time I found myself at that point, with the opportunity right in front of me, I couldn’t let it go.”
“The Huo and Wang clans had conspired with the second Li prince and murdered my superior officer. I hated them bitterly and wiped out their entire households. By then, killing had gone on so long that I had become numb to it. The situation was volatile; even negotiations were conducted with a blade in hand. All of Hexi was in upheaval, and with ambitious men competing for supremacy across the land, this was a critical moment when Hexi could not afford further instability. I wanted to stabilize the region as quickly as possible. Killing everything was not impossible — but Hexi would be left badly weakened. When all the strongmen of the realm were scrambling for the throne, falling one step behind meant falling further behind with every step after. So when the great clans proposed marriage alliances, I agreed. Only, they had all been frightened of me by then, and to show good faith, they sent their legitimate daughters — which I had not expected.”
“Wan Wan and Ying Niang are both fine women, far above what a man of my rough background deserved. They were married to me under force of circumstance, just as you were sent away to a political marriage — nothing more and nothing less than the four words ‘no say in one’s own fate.’ Looking at them, I saw you.”
“When a man takes a wife, I thought, it should be done properly. What’s more, I could not change your fate then, but I became the one who decided theirs. I made a vow to myself that I would treat them well. At the time, there was truly no way of knowing what the future would bring, what heights I might reach.”
“And then it was one step at a time, until we had entered Yunjing and I sat upon the throne of Hanyuan Hall. Only the vow I had once made to myself — I had already broken once. As you say, my wife is also the Empress. Neither of them was suited to be Empress. I had pitied them for being unable to take hold of their own fates — just as you could not — and yet the one who turned their fates in his palm and kneaded them as he pleased was me.”
“As you say, they were once my wives. With those two, I truly cannot bring myself to treat them as I treat the three Consorts.” Li Gu looked up. “I know how an Emperor ought to behave. But in the inner palace, I have carved out a space for myself — a space that does not belong to the Emperor, that belongs only to me as a man. Within that space, I act as a man. And they, within it, are simply people.”
From the way Li Gu treated the three Consorts, Xie Yuzhang had understood long since that Li Gu was not, at heart, a soft-hearted man. Yet this person had, in the very inner palace of an Emperor, carved himself a little home. He gathered those he considered family within it and tried to shelter them.
Xie Yuzhang forced back the ache in her heart and gently urged him: “I have no wish to be your wife. You should establish an Empress without delay. Yunjing is full of accomplished women — there is no shortage of those who could serve well as Empress. I trust you can find a suitable one.”
But Li Gu looked at her and said, “There may well be those who are fit to be Empress. But as you say — my wife is also the Empress. An Empress is also my wife. They are… not the one I wished to take as my wife.”
The corners of Xie Yuzhang’s eyes stung.
“You, of all people…” she said. “Sometimes you are tender and constant — and sometimes you are utterly without feeling. I’ve had little enough to do with the three Consorts, but just trying to imagine standing in their place makes me want to bite through my teeth with resentment. What gives the two Noble Consorts the right to such exclusive devotion?”
Then her voice shifted: “Forget it. Don’t drag me into any of this. I have the life I have now, and it didn’t come easily. That mess of yours — I’m not wading into it. It isn’t worth it!”
Li Gu looked at her steadily and asked, “Yuzhang — what would it take for you to feel it was ‘worth it’?”
Xie Yuzhang said, “You don’t know, and I don’t know either. Perhaps there is no such day. If one ever comes — you won’t need to ask. I will come to you gladly and tell you myself: I want to marry you. I am willing to marry you. I am willing to take on all that mess for you. But don’t hold your breath — I’m telling you now, that day is not coming!”
Li Gu said, “Then I simply won’t take a wife at all. Let the line go extinct — so be it. The inner palace will go on as it is, with my elder sister managing it.”
Xie Yuzhang said, “Then let Li Zhenzhen keep managing it — but don’t ever raise this matter with me again!”