Zhao Yen lay on the innermost side of the bed, hearing a series of rustling movements.

She could not tell how many people Wenren Lin had brought, nor whether he carried Father Emperor’s imperial edict. She only heard that steady and familiar sound of footsteps gradually approaching, stopping beneath the carved latticework moon gate.

“Peace to the Consort.”

Wenren Lin gave the Empress a slight salute.

Empress Wei calmly lowered the curtain, rose, and faced the visitor directly: “It is already the hour of palace curfew. How is it that Prince Su still has leisure to stroll here?”

“The Consort jests. This prince, unworthily holding the post of Crown Prince’s Grand Preceptor, is not bound by the palace curfew when entering or leaving the Eastern Palace in order to assist. Even lodging here overnight would not be improper.”

Wenren Lin accepted the tea offered by the palace maid and brought it to his lips, yet did not drink. He spoke casually, “This prince came here in passing, for the matter of the Hegui Pavilion today.”

At once, Zhao Yen inside the curtain pricked up her ears.

Was Wenren Lin about to expose her secret?

In the silence, Zhao Yen’s body grew ever more rigid. It was as if a bright sharp blade hung over her head, about to fall in the next instant.

After it was pierced through, how should she respond?

If she could not escape death, then it was better to shoulder all the responsibility herself, at least not to implicate other innocent people.

Zhao Yen drew in a deep breath, striving to calm the tumult of her heartbeat, already prepared for the worst outcome.

“The Hegui Pavilion was bestowed upon this prince by the Son of Heaven as a place to lodge. The number of government affairs handled there by imperial command is so many that even I cannot recall. Today the Penglai Court held a banquet, the guards were insufficient, thus the Crown Prince, having drunk too much, mistakenly entered and slept soundly within.”

Wenren Lin paused, his voice quite low, as if deliberately meant for someone to hear: “Fortunately his palace maids discovered it early and immediately retrieved the Crown Prince. Otherwise, if spread abroad, with a hat of ‘probing the Sacred Intention, overstepping with usurpation’ pressed down, and the Censorate impeaching, the Crown Prince’s position would likely not be preserved.”

The storm of bloodshed she had expected did not arrive. The taut strings in Zhao Yen’s heart suddenly loosened, dissolving into boundless bewilderment.

Wenren Lin’s words appeared to be admonition and warning, yet upon close pondering, it seemed as if the Crown Prince had merely drunk and mistakenly entered the Hegui Pavilion to sleep, and was “immediately retrieved.” But the crucial matter of the medicinal decoction and the detoxification process—he had not mentioned a single word…

How did it sound more like he was shielding her, excusing her?

No, Wenren Lin would not be so kind.

Zhao Yen braced herself again, only all the more holding her breath and restraining her spirit, continuing to listen.

Empress Wei was also weighing Prince Su’s intent, but the young man in the candlelight remained expressionless, bearing a certain air of upright grandeur.

As though he truly was only a gentleman of integrity, who had come deliberately to remonstrate.

Fortunately, those in high positions were most adept at maintaining harmony on the surface. Empress Wei could not fathom him, so she followed the thread of his words: “My son is still young. For a moment spring scenery was intoxicating, and he was greedy for drink. May Prince Su be lenient. When the Crown Prince awakens from wine, this palace shall punish him myself.”

“That is unnecessary.”

Wenren Lin cast his gaze toward the silent curtain, fingers lightly rubbing, and said, “This punishment, no doubt His Highness has already received.”

Through the heavy curtain, Zhao Yen still felt his gaze fall upon her back, weighty and chilling.

Yes, was it not already “punished”? At present her waist and legs were still sore and aching!

Zhao Yen bit her lip in indignation.

“This hangover medicine, when His Highness awakens, be sure to drink it.”

Wenren Lin drew a small medicine vial from his sleeve and set it upon the table, tapping it lightly with his finger, carrying a meaning of its own, and said no more.

He actually rose and departed just like that.

Zhao Yen turned her head to look at the medicine vial beyond the gauzy shadow of the curtain, lightly furrowing her brows. Her heart fell from midair to the bottom all at once, unable to tell whether it was the joy of surviving a calamity or the lingering dread of a danger unresolved.

What exactly did Wenren Lin’s visit this time… mean?

Zhao Yen could not fathom it, feeling as if her head would soon explode.

Outside the Eastern Palace, the lanterns upon the carriage swayed with the wind, the drifting fragrance of flowers rising and sinking.

From the fall of night, Zhang Cang’s behavior had been most peculiar.

At times he would draw his sword three inches from its sheath, using the blade as a mirror to glance at his rough bronze-colored cheeks, at times his brows would knot like rope, sighing and groaning.

Right Vice General Cai Tian crossed his arms leaning against the palace wall, looking at the brother beside him whose brows refused to smooth, and at last could not help but ask: “What on earth is wrong with you? Ever since leaving the Penglai Court, you have been burdened with thoughts.”

Zhang Cang indeed had worries.

Earlier, when he delivered the medicine, he happened upon the Prince in the midst of poison attack, holding someone in his arms. Because that person’s build was slender, and the Prince covered tightly with his sleeve, he instinctively thought it was some young lady who had attended the banquet. Only, that glimpse of shallow-crimson garment corner looked ever so familiar.

Until Zhang Cang watched with his own eyes as the attendants of the Eastern Palace, upon hearing the news, came and supported the Crown Prince back from the Hegui Pavilion, did he slap his forehead in realization: no wonder it looked familiar—was that not precisely the Crown Prince’s robe!

Once he came to, the great man eight chi tall, Deputy General Zhang, could not help but be shocked.

No wonder the Prince, already in his twenties, had never had a woman! Setting aside the dancing girls at banquets, even beauties offered up below, he never cast an extra glance, but had them all sent away.

So it turned out their attentions had been wrongly directed—what the Prince liked was the dry kind.

A thousand-year-old fox daring to deceive a dragon—that kind of audacity, tsk!

Zhang Cang, though shocked, had followed Prince Su for so many years, and his mouth was still tight. Yet with such a great secret pressed upon his heart, if stifled too long, it was easy to fall into wild fancies.

He stroked his chin, bent his arm to compare the sturdiness of his muscles, and asked Cai Tian: “Do you think I look handsome?”

Cai Tian looked at his unshaven face, the corner of his eye twitching, and said with a blank expression: “Have you seen the Zhong Kui¹Zhong Kui (钟馗 / 鍾馗): A legendary figure in Chinese folklore, known as the Demon Queller. Typically shown with a dark, bearded face, sword in hand, sometimes accompanied by small demons he has subdued. painted on doors? He is your blood brother.”

Zhang Cang wanted to refute, drew in a breath, then let out a heavy sigh: “You do not understand!”

“How is it I do not understand?” Cai Tian found it strange.

“Then I ask you, though you have followed the Prince for even longer years, why is it that the Prince insists on keeping me at his side in service?”

“Because your limbs are developed but your head is dull, unfit for errands of message or espionage, so you can only remain by the Prince’s side as his long-time attendant?”

Cai Tian could not help but speak the plain truth. Zhang Cang naturally refused to accept.

“See, you do not understand! It must be that I am more stalwart and handsome than you, thus all the more pleasing to the Prince.”

Saying so, Zhang Cang seemed to discover a new problem. His raised brows instantly drooped, and he sighed up toward the moon: “Yet I only like big-bottomed women, I fear… I must disappoint the Prince’s deep favor.”

“…”

Cai Tian turned his head aside with a “heh,” rolling his eyes clear to the back of his skull.

Just then the side gate of the Eastern Palace opened. Wenren Lin, figure tall and upright, stepped slowly out beneath the moonlight and shifting flower-shadows.

The lamps beneath the palace wall were so bright, yet they cast no warmth upon his frost-pale face.

The very same Zhang Cang, who moments ago had sworn to “disappoint deep favor,” immediately rubbed his hands as he went forward, diligently setting down the carriage stool: “Will the Prince be lodging at the Hegui Pavilion tonight, or returning to the Prince’s manor?”

Lifting his boot to step onto the carriage stool, Wenren Lin suddenly halted, raised his hand to cover his lips, and let out a very low cough.

When he lowered his hand a moment later, his pale palm already bore a small patch of dark red blood, striking to the eye.

Cai Tian’s expression changed slightly. He quickly shifted position to block the line of sight of the Eastern Palace guards not far away, and asked in a low voice: “Did Your Highness fail to rest properly after taking the antidote, how is it you suddenly suffer thus?”

Zhang Cang said: “His Highness already toiled for half a day, then at night rushed to the Eastern Palace—where would there have been any rest?”

Wenren Lin himself, however, remained very calm, as if the blood he had just spat out were not his own.

He lightly curled his knuckles, expression unchanging, stepped into the carriage, drew from his bosom a soft piece of cloth to wipe his palm, and said slowly: “Return to the manor.”

There was a gauze lamp within the carriage. Borrowing its light, Wenren Lin looked down, only to find that the cloth used to wipe the blood was not some handkerchief at all, but a strip of chest-binding he had cut away that afternoon.

The neatly severed edge of the chest-binding still bore that diluted pale red, now mingled with the thick dark red he had just coughed up, together forming a languid, decadent, and gorgeous spring scene.

Before tidying the bed earlier, by some strange impulse, he had folded this piece of cloth and slipped it into his bosom.

In his eyes spread a trace of resplendent amusement. His pale lips, tinged by blood, gained a hint of vivid color. He changed his mind: “To the Hegui Pavilion.”

The days to come are long—may the little princess not disappoint.

…

Zhao Yen was weighed with thoughts, tossing and turning sleepless.

At last, when she closed her eyes, she was always startled awake by bizarre and lurid nightmares: at one moment the scene of Zhao Yan’s death, at another the panic of her identity being exposed.

By the latter half of the night, her lower abdomen began to ache faintly. Rising to look, she found that her monthly water (menstruation) had come a ten-day early.

Liuying immediately took the soiled garments away to secretly burn, then attended Zhao Yen in wiping and changing. By the time it was all done, the candlelight was dim, and the sky outside already showed dawn.

With a night of sleeplessness added to physical discomfort, Zhao Yen’s spirit was truly not good.

Liuying brought clean clothes, looked at her mistress’s complexion for a long time, and could not bear it: “Should Your Highness perhaps rest two days? This servant will ask Imperial Physician Zhang to testify and request leave for Your Highness.”

Sitting at the bed’s edge, Zhao Yen held her belly with one hand and supported her chin with the other, frowning as she shook her head.

“Father Emperor entrusted the Eastern Palace to preside over the banquet for the first time. If before it is properly handled I at once feign illness, what will Father Emperor think?”

Zhao Yen drew a deep breath, took up her clothes and, with difficulty, put them on, ordering: “Have Li Fu bring the memorials already approved. Prepare the sedan chair for the Taiji Palace.”

Liuying knew her mistress was forcing herself for the sake of the greater situation. Though distressed, she could not dissuade her, and could only go make arrangements.

The manpower-borne sedan was not as stable as a carriage. What was ordinarily a leisurely swaying bump, at this moment, to Zhao Yen, was no different from torture.

Her waist was already sore, and with the monthly water, the soreness doubled.

What was harder still to speak of was that place, exceedingly uncomfortable, the jolting making it all the more swollen and aching.

Zhao Yen leaned against the carriage wall, twisting her body to raise one hip slightly, then after a while switched to the other, attempting to lessen the pain somewhat, yet with little effect.

Liuying saw her mistress’s forbearance, slipped a wrapped hand-warmer into her hands, and said softly: “We will arrive at once. Your Highness may first warm your belly with this.”

She then lifted the curtain and instructed the sedan-bearers: “Walk more steadily.”

At last, upon reaching the gate of the Taiji Palace, when she descended, Zhao Yen nearly collapsed to her knees. Fortunately, Liuying’s quick support steadied her, and she barely regained strength.

It had rained that morning. Mist-like vapors splashed across the steps, damp and heavy.

Holding the memorials in her arms, Zhao Yen waited outside the Taiji Hall for two cups of tea’s time before the old eunuch who delivered the message finally came out, bowing with apology: “Your Highness the Crown Prince, His Majesty is at this moment sitting with the National Preceptor, discoursing on the Dao. It may… still be some time.”

Zhao Yen gritted her teeth, yet spoke with good temper: “It is no matter. I shall await Father Emperor’s summons here.”

Another half an hour passed. Outside, the rain grew from light to heavy, then from heavy to fading. Zhao Yen shifted her weight from one foot to the other several times. Just as her waist ached and her abdomen pained unbearably, behind her came those light and familiar footsteps.

Zhao Yen did not even need to turn her head. Merely by that faint, cold wooden incense scent, she knew who had arrived.

At once she straightened her body in haste, bowing her head all the lower.

Wenren Lin, seeing Zhao Yen there so early in the morning, was somewhat surprised.

His gaze brushed past Zhao Yen’s trembling lashes, fell upon her pale fingertips clutching the memorials, paused slightly, then he strode past her.

He needed no announcement, but directly entered the great hall.

Zhao Yen fixed her eyes upon her own toes, not knowing whether to feel relief or wariness.

While her thoughts were in confusion, the old eunuch again came out, this time with a much deeper smile upon his face: “Prince Su spoke on Your Highness’s behalf. His Majesty has specially ordered this old slave to invite the Crown Prince to enter the hall.”

Zhao Yen pressed her lips together, collected her mood, and said: “Many thanks.”

The Emperor was blending some sort of elixir, with bottles and jars spread before him.

When he saw the Crown Prince enter and give obeisance, he did not lift his eyes, only said: “Prince Su has already told Gu of the banquet of Flower-Pinning.”

What did he say?

Did Wenren Lin reveal something disadvantageous to Father Emperor?

All was unknown.

She suppressed that instant of unease, and with a composed smile said: “This child has especially brought the memorials recommended by each ministry, for Father Emperor to review.”

The Emperor slightly lifted his hand. The old eunuch at once inclined his head in acknowledgment and went to receive the memorials from the Crown Prince.

Before he could reach her, a cold white slender hand stretched obliquely, taking the memorials from the Crown Prince’s grasp.

The eunuch started in surprise. Zhao Yen too was stunned.

Wenren Lin, clad in crimson official robes, stood upright. His fingertips, whether intentionally or not, brushed against hers, as he held the memorials and casually remarked: “This banquet was organized most thoroughly by His Highness the Crown Prince.”

Only then did the Emperor raise his eyes, accept the memorials, glance through them, and nod: “Though the approvals are somewhat raw, there are also points worth commendation.”

Finishing, he set the memorials carelessly upon the desk, and raised his gaze to the young man before him: “And you? I ordered you to select a consort—have you someone in mind?”

Wenren Lin bent slightly, his eyes passing beyond the candle flames upon the wooden stand, falling upon the “little Crown Prince.”

Zhao Yen suddenly stiffened, feeling as though the smile in Wenren Lin’s eyes had deepened somewhat, carrying a hint of mischievous teasing.

“There is indeed—one who is rather interesting,” he said.

Footnotes

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  Zhong Kui (钟馗 / 鍾馗): A legendary figure in Chinese folklore, known as the Demon Queller. Typically shown with a dark, bearded face, sword in hand, sometimes accompanied by small demons he has subdued.