On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, Jia You sat in the side room of Xie Yuzhang’s quarters, waiting for her. The two sisters often ate lunch together.
Jia You had been sitting quietly, taking apart a Chinese ring puzzle — that kind of simple, repetitive motion was her favorite thing to do.
At this moment, Xie Yuzhang was in the front courtyard, and all the senior handmaids had followed her there. Outside the side room, the curtain-maid and the tea-maid were whispering to each other.
Their voices were actually very soft, but Jia You had barely spoken these past years, and her hearing had grown extraordinarily sharp.
“Will His Majesty come today?”
“He came the night before last, but not last night. Perhaps he’ll come tonight.”
When she heard the words “His Majesty,” her hands stilled. She silently raised her head.
The handmaid noticed the sound of the ring puzzle had stopped and lifted the curtain to step inside, asking, “Is Nineteenth Young Miss thirsty?”
Jia You nodded, and the handmaid went to fetch a drink for her.
His Majesty — Jia You sipped the warm drink in quiet silence, but her mind was entirely consumed by that title.
Then another handmaid returned from the front courtyard with a message: “The Princess says Nineteenth Young Miss need not wait for her. The estate managers have all come today to offer New Year’s greetings to the Princess, and it’s likely to take quite a while. Nineteenth Young Miss should go ahead and eat.”
Jia You nodded, tucked away the ring puzzle, and returned to her own courtyard.
That day, after nightfall, once dinner was eaten, faces washed, and hair unpinned, a handmaid was combing Jia You’s hair.
Jia You then opened the drawer of her dressing table and withdrew a flat little box, handing it to the handmaid.
The handmaid took it with a curious sound and opened it. Inside were small, delicate gold ingots — plum blossom patterns, begonia patterns, ruyi patterns, all manner of designs. The handmaid said, “Didn’t the Princess give these to Nineteenth Young Miss?”
Jia You nodded, then gestured with her chin toward the handmaids in the outer room and said, “Reward them.”
That Jia You was actually willing to speak startled the handmaid with delight. She thought to herself that tomorrow she would absolutely have to report this to the Princess. She smiled and asked happily, “Shall we share them with everyone?”
Jia You nodded again.
“We were already rewarded once on New Year’s Day, and now again.” The handmaid said cheerfully. “Nineteenth Young Miss is so good to everyone. I’ll go and share them out right now.”
She said this and went out carrying the box.
The handmaids in the outer room gave soft cheers, and everyone went outside to call the others, gathering in the side room to distribute the reward. At this moment, the main room of Jia You’s quarters was left without a soul — Nanny Wanxiu had gone back to her husband’s hometown to celebrate the New Year, and with the festive holiday, the young maids had inevitably grown a little lax.
By the time the handmaid returned to the bedchamber, she saw that the bed curtains had already been drawn down, and she murmured softly, “She’s already asleep?”
Though Jia You never spoke, she also never caused any trouble — she was, in truth, very easy to look after.
So the handmaid extinguished the lamp and withdrew to the side room.
That night, Li Gu came, just as expected.
He had not come the night before, for he knew himself well enough to understand he could not possibly go outside the palace to sleep every single night. So after resting one night at Xie Yuzhang’s quarters, he had stayed in the palace the following day, attempting to fall asleep on his own.
Only every attempt ended in failure.
The Zichen Palace was always kept warm with underground heating, yet it never ceased to feel cold to him. The tallow candles as thick as a child’s arm could not hold back the ink-black darkness that crept in at night.
Each time he failed, he would have to come to Xie Yuzhang’s quarters to make up for sleep. And so tonight, he came again.
Seeing him arrive, Xie Yuzhang knew his latest attempt had failed again.
“Would you like something to eat?” she asked.
“No need. I ate before coming,” he said.
“Then let’s sleep early,” Xie Yuzhang said.
If he had not slept the night before, then it had again been two days without rest.
Xie Yuzhang called a handmaid in to help him wash up.
After the handmaids withdrew, Li Gu still had no desire to sleep. “Talk with me a while.”
Xie Yuzhang was puzzled. “Are you not tired?”
Li Gu said, “I am, but I still want to talk with you for a bit.”
Xie Yuzhang had no choice and sat with him on the daybed.
“The fathers of Cui Shi and Deng Shi have been pleading guilty these past few days. I saw them today,” he said. “I told them that this matter ends here. But I have no desire to lay eyes on them again — I’ve ordered them to get out of Yunjing and go back to Hexi.”
Xie Yuzhang nodded and asked, “There are now three princesses and three imperial princes in the palace, but their mothers have all been demoted to the rank of Talent and no longer have the standing to raise their own children. What do you intend to do?”
Li Gu paused, then said, “I haven’t given it thought.”
Xie Yuzhang murmured an acknowledgment.
Li Gu asked, “What should be done?”
Xie Yuzhang said, “His Majesty may handle it as he sees fit.”
Li Gu said, “Yuzhang.”
Xie Yuzhang could only continue: “To the west, there are the Yanfu Palace and the Yanshou Palace, which sit one behind the other. I’m not sure whether His Majesty has visited them before. Their layout is different from the other palaces. Yanfu Palace was formerly where the young imperial princes lived, and Yanshou Palace was where the young imperial princesses lived. Only those of consort rank and above have the standing to personally raise their children — those of lower rank had their children placed there to be raised together. Each had their own wet nurses and dedicated instructing palace ladies.”
She paused, then continued, “However, the Third Princess and the three imperial princes are all still very young. In any ordinary household, they would still be at an age where they cannot be separated from their mothers. If you are not willing to do things this way, then forget it. But if you do follow through, do not let others know it was I who told you — I don’t need to bring resentment upon myself for no good reason.”
Li Gu had just been considering what she said, but hearing her speak this way, he was mildly surprised. “You are worried about them?”
“How could I not be,” Xie Yuzhang said. “They are all women who have shared your pillow, and they are all mothers to your children. Even if things are not going well for them now, perhaps one day they will regain favor, or rise through the status of their sons.”
“That will not happen,” Li Gu said coldly. “Because I am a petty man who does not forgive easily.”
Xie Yuzhang set the teacup down in front of him: “However petty you may be, can there truly be anyone in this world with a generous heart?”
She picked up her own teacup, and had barely touched it to her lips when she heard Li Gu say, “Yuzhang, you need not worry about anyone. You are a first-rank Princess, a woman of Da Mu — among all women, you are the most honored.”
Xie Yuzhang’s lip was scalded by the tea. She set the cup down and said, somewhat irritably, “Yes, yes.”
Li Gu asked, “You don’t believe it?”
Xie Yuzhang said, “I believe it. Only, don’t say such things again in the future. I am a princess of a different surname. You will still confer consort titles and still establish an Empress in time. If others hear you say this, they will hold it against me.”
Li Gu said, “I will not have an Empress.”
Xie Yuzhang said, “Sooner or later, you will.”
Li Gu said, “If it cannot be you, then I will have no Empress.”
Xie Yuzhang said, “You must be dizzy from exhaustion. You should sleep.”
Li Gu said, “Have you no courage to hear me out?”
Xie Yuzhang said, irritated, “What courage does it take to listen to you ramble?”
Li Gu said, “Then let me tell you — Yuzhang, the reason I have not yet established an Empress is because of you.”
“What is this — I’ve been sitting peacefully at home, and suddenly a great burden falls on me from the sky?” Xie Yuzhang said. “You’ve admitted it yourself — when the Xiaoyao Marquisate still stood, you never once considered making me your Empress.”
“Yes, I admit that,” Li Gu said. “But I am a most laughable man. I knew perfectly well I could not make you Empress, yet in my heart I was unwilling to have another woman hold a rank higher than yours. They kept pressing me to establish an Empress, so I refused.”
“And so I have become the guilty party responsible for this dynasty having no Empress,” Xie Yuzhang said, thoroughly exasperated. “If you’re going to say such things, you might as well take back my Princess title altogether — I don’t want to be this bothersome Princess anymore, I can’t bear this crime!”
“If you no longer wish to be a Princess,” Li Gu actually nodded, “then becoming Empress is also acceptable.”
Xie Yuzhang was speechless with indignation. Was this man not “slow to speak”? How had he suddenly become so unrestrained with his words?
Li Gu looked at her and said in a low voice, “Yuzhang, you once accused me of ‘having a wife in my heart.’ My heart now holds no one else — only you. I wish to take you as my wife and establish you as Empress. Yuzhang, say yes.”
His expression was grave, and between his brows was nothing but sincerity.
Xie Yuzhang said, “I…”
She lowered her eyes.
Li Gu held his breath.
Xie Yuzhang raised her gaze and looked at him for a moment, then said, “I… like you.”
Li Gu was taken aback.
“I like you as a person,” Xie Yuzhang said. “And I know that you know I like you. I also know that you like me too. So the two of us right now — isn’t it wonderful? I know what you think, you know what I have in my heart.”
“Because I know you like me, I dare say anything.”
“Because you know I like you, you trust that everything I do is for your sake.”
“Just like this — isn’t it wonderful? Why must we change how things are now? I just want — I just want things to keep going like this. I only fear that once things change, it will never be this good again.”
Li Gu looked at her for a long while and said, “You are a coward.”
Xie Yuzhang smiled readily, “I am.”
But Li Gu understood in his heart. When all was said and done, what it came down to was this: Xie Yuzhang felt he was not worth what she would have to give up — this comfortable life she had now — in order to face the challenges that came with being Empress.
To bear responsibilities and fulfill duties, to manage the inner palace for the Emperor and educate the imperial sons and daughters — the difficulty of that was incomparable to being the mistress of a single household.
Seeing the shadow of disappointment cross his face, Xie Yuzhang’s heart softened again.
She stepped down from the bed and went to his side, tugging at his sleeve. “Sleep now.”
She spoke to him in this tender, gentle, coaxing way, and Li Gu’s heart grew all the more desolate.
He gave a low sound of acknowledgment and was just about to rise when a handmaid’s voice came from outside the door, announcing, “Your Highness, someone from Nineteenth Young Miss’s courtyard has come to report something.”
Nineteenth Young Miss was Xie Yuzhang’s younger sister, formerly a small princess. She was a young woman with difficulties — she was nearly incapable of speaking, stemming mostly from some kind of shock she had suffered. One occasionally saw such people in an army as well.
For someone to come at this hour, there was certainly something wrong.
Li Gu said, “Go.”
Xie Yuzhang released him and went out. Very soon, Li Gu heard some commotion outside, growing more and more distant, as if moving away from the main room.
It seemed she had gone to her sister’s quarters.
Li Gu waited for Xie Yuzhang in the room. He propped an elbow on the small daybed table, rested his head on his hand, and closed his eyes.
Someone pushed open the partition door and walked in lightly.
The handmaids would not dare enter without first announcing themselves. Could it be that she had returned? So quickly?
Li Gu opened his eyes, and what he saw was a young girl with a face as pale as snow and frost.
Jia You had been hiding in the darkness all along.
The winter night was cold, but she could endure it.
By her sister’s rules, after she went to bed, a handmaid was to check on her bed curtains every half-hour and tuck in her covers — mainly out of fear that she might be frightened in the night.
In truth, it was unnecessary.
Jia You still remembered when she had first come here, and could only fall asleep with a night-luminescent pearl to light the darkness. She had also been afraid of firelight in the night.
But gradually, under the tender care of this sister, she had slowly come to sleep peacefully.
This sister was very kind to her, yet there was another sister she could never forget for as long as she lived.
Their mothers had both been of low rank. From childhood, she and Sister Fukang had lived together in the Yanshou Palace. Her sister had looked after her more attentively than any wet nurse or instructing palace lady.
The two of them had kept each other company, and so they never felt lonely.
On that night of blood and fire and blades, her sister had pushed her behind a water vat, then ran outside herself, drawing away the rampaging soldiers.
Her sister’s final silhouette, glimpsed in the glow of the flames, had burned itself into her pupils — and could never be erased.
Jia You had not let herself dwell on those flames for a very long time.
But today, she had heard the title “His Majesty,” and it had brought it all back.
Wait a little longer, just a little longer, and the handmaids will discover she is not in bed at all. They will certainly come to report to her sister.
Jia You endured the cold that had frozen her to ice, lurking in the darkness.
At last, her handmaid came to the main room in a state of panic. Very soon, her sister left the main room with hurried steps, taking many people with her.
Jia You seized the opening and slipped inside.
The old woman guarding the door was still standing at the base of the steps, watching Xie Yuzhang and her entourage leave, unaware that behind her, Jia You had crept along the base of the wall and slipped into the main room.
The man who had become Emperor did not keep the handmaids in the room to serve him — which suited Jia You perfectly.
She pushed open one partition door. The side room had no one in it.
She pushed open the second partition door. There he was, sitting on the daybed, head propped in his hand, resting with eyes closed.
Jia You walked to stand before him.
The man opened his eyes.