Your Majesty is Poisonous – Chapter 13
by Little PandaThe Empress Dowager is Terrifying
After a few cups of wine, Emperor Ming Cheng grew more talkative. He saw Wan Bi as an ally who shared a common secret, so he could only speak to her about the many worries he could not voice to outsiders.
He wasn’t afraid Wan Bi would tell anyone, either. For one, Wan Bi was even more tight-lipped than he was. For another, Wan Bi had no friends; even if she wanted to talk, she had nowhere to go.
“Sigh, We have it so hard!” Emperor Ming Cheng let out a long sigh, his fingers tugging at Wan Bi’s cuff. In his daze, he seemed to want to use her wide sleeve to wipe his tears.
Wan Bi swiftly snatched her sleeve back into her arms and moved to a different stool, putting a good distance between herself and the emperor. She knew he was about to start his drunken antics. His tolerance for alcohol was astonishingly poor, yet he insisted on drinking. And whenever he got drunk, he loved to pester her for a chat, rambling about everything from his unhappy childhood being ignored by the Late Emperor to the common folk of the realm being tormented by natural and man-made disasters.
“Empress Dowager, you tell me, among all the civil and military officials, why isn’t there a single one willing to sacrifice for the people and share Our burdens? They’re all bloodsuckers!” Emperor Ming Cheng pounded the stone table in fury. “As taxes move from the hands of the commoners to the National Treasury, they skim off layer after layer. From the National Treasury back to the hands of the commoners, they still skim off layer after layer. We are troubled by a deficit of over two million taels—who wouldn’t laugh if they heard? The great Daxing nation can’t even produce two million taels to build river dikes… We have it hard! So hard!”
The sound of crying from the direction of Jingling Palace never ceased.
“Empress Dowager, do you hear that?” Emperor Ming Cheng asked, his head spinning.
“What?” Wan Bi replied perfunctorily.
“The crying.” Emperor Ming Cheng poured himself another cup of wine and drank it.
Nonsense, I’m not deaf, Wan Bi thought, her mind in a bit of a turmoil. Even sitting here, she could hear the cries and vividly feel that little castrated donkey’s terror. She hoped Yao Xi would find that painting soon, and she also regretted hiding it so well. If she had known that slave was such a scaredy-cat, she would have put it in a more obvious place.
“That is the cry of the common people!” Emperor Ming Cheng lamented. “They cry of Our incompetence!”
Get lost. What ‘cry of the common people’? It’s clearly the cry of that little castrated donkey, Yao Xi. Wan Bi shot Emperor Ming Cheng a forceful glare. Just how drunk was he… She simply pushed the pot of wine in front of her over to him. “If you want to drink, then drink!” Better if he drank himself into a stupor. Then he could hurry back to his own palace and sleep, and stop nagging her endlessly.
She wanted to have Tang Huaili and the others waiting outside escort Emperor Ming Cheng back right now, but she was worried he might blurt out some nonsense in his drunken state. If some things that shouldn’t be said were overheard by the Eunuch Faction, it would be trouble. So, she planned to get him completely plastered before having him sent back.
Emperor Ming Cheng continued to ramble on about his many difficulties, while Wan Bi propped up her head and listened, bored out of her mind.
Her thoughts were all on Jingling Palace. That little castrated donkey was scared to tears again, begging for mercy from the non-existent ghost-consorts. From the sounds of it, he had already reached the west wing-rooms of the rear courtyard. Sigh, when will that little castrated donkey find the painting and complete his task? When will my ordeal finally end?
Yao Xi clutched the oil lamp in her hands for dear life. This lamp was the only light in her world, the source of all her courage at this moment.
The drum for the third watch1 had just sounded. For the past two hours, she had been cycling through hell, from fleeing in terror to weeping bitterly to kneeling and begging for mercy. Her spirit was being tempered in this hellish cycle, and now, all her panic had transformed into rage.
A white figure was hanging from an old tree in the rear courtyard. Its reflection shimmered in the pond water, making it seem like there were two ghosts.
Yao Xi, holding the oil lamp, picked up a broom that was leaning against the courtyard wall.
“Come on! Come down here if you’ve got the guts! Let’s see who’s tougher—you ghosts who only know how to scare people, or the stick in this master’s hands!” Yao Xi brandished the broom and advanced menacingly, battling and slashing at the air, continuously taunting, “Fly for this master to see! Look at how capable you are, why don’t you ascend to the heavens if you’ve got the skill!”
Yao Xi had completely lost her mind. Fury masked the fear in her heart, but her shivering body and the ceaseless tears were clear proof that she was terrified. It was precisely because she couldn’t bear the fear that another emotion called anger was born, as a way to alleviate the terror in her heart.
Wan Bi also heard the sounds of Yao Xi fighting and cursing all by himself. Though there was only that little castrated donkey in Jingling Palace, he was somehow capable of making a racket like a thousand-man army. An uninformed observer might really think he was bravely battling a fierce ghost. In reality, he was just fighting his own inner fear, taking his frustration out on the air when he couldn’t win.
Yao Xi entered a room and started poking things apart with the broom, searching for the painting. She simply didn’t have a free hand; she couldn’t let go of either her light or her weapon.
Drip…
Yao Xi froze.
Drip… drip…
A cool liquid was dripping from above her head. The Capital City had been sunny for the past few days; it couldn’t possibly be rainwater leaking through.
Yao Xi didn’t dare to think about it, much less touch it with her hand. She was afraid the liquid would be red. Her mouth fell silent as well. She no longer dared to speak harsh words threatening the ghosts, afraid she would provoke them into appearing and fighting her to the death.
Those few drops of unknown liquid knocked Yao Xi, who had just managed to crawl out of hell, right back in. The cycle began once more.
Yao Xi felt a little nauseous. Her stomach was suddenly unsettled, churning uncomfortably. She sat on a stone stool under an old scholar tree, staring hopelessly at the white figure hanging from its branches. The Zi Hour2 had passed; could the Chou Hour be far behind?
She had searched the front and rear courtyards, every inch of them. Where was this supposed painting? Yao Xi suspected this was just a joke the Empress Dowager was playing on her—throwing her into the Cold Palace to scare her, then using her failure to find the painting as an excuse to have her executed.
From the moment she offended the Empress Dowager, she should have understood that there was no hope of survival.
“Ghost-consort, do you know where the painting is?” After staring at the hanging figure for a long time, Yao Xi found she wasn’t so afraid anymore. She even found this ghost-consort a little cute, hanging herself so high up. She must have climbed the tree to end it all. She climbed so high! Yao Xi seemed to have truly gone mad, her focus shifting to very strange things.
The pomelo-consort naturally did not respond.
“It doesn’t exist at all, does it? Because the Empress Dowager never planned to let me go from the start.” Yao Xi gazed at the pitch-black, silent Cold Palace, and suddenly the fear that made life worse than death vanished. She realized that she would soon become one of them, a member of the ghost legion. Since they would be kin, what was there to be afraid of?
When Wan Bi heard Yao Xi asking a ghost for the painting’s whereabouts, she was amused enough to laugh out loud. But then she heard him say she never intended to let him go, and she grew a little displeased.
Wan Bi had always considered herself a most benevolent master. Although many slaves had died in Ning’an Palace, only a few had died by her hand. Take that little castrated donkey Yao Xi in Jingling Palace, for example. If it had been some other ill-tempered master in the palace, they would have had him beaten to death with rods long ago.
That little castrated donkey was still muttering something to the “ghost-consort,” but Wan Bi couldn’t hear clearly, as Emperor Ming Cheng was once again pouring out his grievances to her. He had said he wanted to chat with her for a while, but in reality, he had come to vent his frustrations at her.
He was a man in his thirties, yet he still cried easily after drinking. His handkerchief had been soiled earlier when he used it to wipe up spilled wine, so Wan Bi could only take her sleeve and walk to his side to wipe away his tears. “What are you crying for?” Wan Bi’s tone softened considerably. Only when Emperor Ming Cheng got drunk and vented his troubles to her did she truly feel like a mother.
“Qian’er, call me Mother Empress,” Wan Bi said, taking advantage of his state to get something she wanted. Longyi would never call her Mother Empress. Empress Zhu’s calls, no matter how sweet, were always a case of feigned compliance.3 Most people in the world feared her and hated her; only the emperor was genuinely grateful to her. “Qian’er?” Wan Bi patted Emperor Ming Cheng’s face forcefully. “Be good. Call me Mother Empress.”
Emperor Ming Cheng was so drunk he was slumped over the table. He mumbled deliriously, “Mother Consort…”
A sharp pain pricked Wan Bi’s heart. So His Majesty is thinking of the Grand Consort. A birth mother was a birth mother, after all. Even when drunk and sleepy, in his dreams he would only recognize the Grand Consort as his mother. Wan Bi took the brocade quilt hanging on the pavilion railing and covered Emperor Ming Cheng with it, patting his back gently.
“His Majesty is drunk. Send him back to his palace to rest,” Wan Bi summoned Tang Huaili and instructed.
Yao Xi didn’t want to search anymore. She was convinced there was no painting with a red tassel in Jingling Palace. The oil in her lamp had burned out. Yao Xi threw the lamp away, threw the broom away, and walked out, utterly dejected.
The hanging ghost, the eerie sound of bells, the dampness on top of her head…
None of it frightened Yao Xi anymore. Her entire being seemed to have been reborn,4 and she walked slowly toward the palace exit, calm and fearless. That soft patch at the entrance still nearly made Yao Xi trip and fall, but this time she didn’t panic. She reached out and steadied herself on the left door panel.
There was a strange sensation in her palm.
It was the feeling of silk threads and a wooden scroll.
Yao Xi looked behind the door and, in the dim light, saw a scroll hanging right there, a red tassel wrapped around its roller. She didn’t feel wild with joy; instead, a sudden wave of powerlessness washed over her.
The painting was here the whole time? Just hanging by the door?
What had she gone through this whole night?! Yao Xi hugged the scroll tightly, feeling wronged. The painting was behind the door. Naturally, she wouldn’t have seen it when she pushed the door open to walk in. If she hadn’t tripped just now and had instead walked straight out, she would have missed it. She was thoroughly impressed by Empress Dowager Wan. That master’s methods for tormenting people were truly formidable.
Give you hope, then make you despair, and finally, when the answer is revealed, make you feel that all your previous struggles were utterly futile. Yao Xi dragged her exhausted body toward Ning’an Palace. As long as the Empress Dowager kept her word, she could return to the Bureau of Imperial Gardens after reporting back with the painting before the third quarter of the Chou Hour. From then on, she would have nothing more to do with Ning’an Palace.
Yao Xi was still thinking about going to serve Beauty Xu. She would ask Zheng Dayun to put in a word at the Directorate of Palace Attendants, and then beg Hanqiu-gugu to say a few nice things to Beauty Xu. It just might work out.
The eunuch keeping watch near Jingling Palace saw Yao Xi exit and hurried to Guanhe Pavilion to report to Yuanqian.
Yuanqian entered the pavilion and reported, “Your Highness, Yao Xi has come out. He’s holding the painting.”
“Take the other path back to Ning’an Palace.” Wan Bi stood up, taking Yuanqian’s arm for support. Her body was a little stiff from sitting for so long. She finally let out a sigh of relief. Since that little castrated donkey had found the painting, she could reasonably spare him. Deep down, she even felt a trace of guilt toward him. The wails from Jingling Palace tonight had been far more miserable than those from the Ministry of Justice Prison. Several times, she thought that little castrated donkey had been scared to death in there, but then she would hear sounds from him again after a short while.
Wan Bi took a shortcut back. She had already reached Ning’an Palace and changed her clothes, but Yao Xi still hadn’t arrived.
“Send someone to check. See if he died on the way or got lost again,” Wan Bi said, worried Yao Xi would miss the deadline. She had specified the third quarter of the Chou Hour. If he didn’t arrive at Ning’an Palace by then, she couldn’t very well go back on her word and spare that little castrated donkey’s life in front of so many people.
Footnotes
- The third watch (三更, sān gēng) is an ancient timekeeping period, roughly 11 PM to 1 AM.
- The Zi Hour (子时, zǐshí) is the first of the twelve traditional two-hour watches, from 11 PM to 1 AM. The Chou Hour (丑时, chǒushí) follows it, from 1 AM to 3 AM.
- The original is 阳奉阴违 (yángfèngyīnwéi), an idiom meaning to outwardly obey but inwardly defy.
- The original is 脱胎换骨 (tuōtāihuàngǔ), an idiom that literally means “to shed one’s mortal body and exchange one’s bones,” signifying a complete transformation.
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