Your Majesty is Poisonous – Chapter 143
by Little PandaThe Empress Dowager Refuses
“This slave-girl will have a palanquin prepared at once,” the palace maid said frantically.
Wan Bi stopped her with a sharp command. “Prepare a palanquin for what? Prepare a carriage!” A palanquin would be too slow — it might be dark by the time they reached Qianqing Palace.
Dealing with those Eastern Depot people was only a matter of time. The urgent priority was rescuing Yao Xi. She planned to go straight to Qianqing Palace and have the Emperor issue a decree summoning Meng Delai to the palace for consultation, then capture him the moment he entered and force him to hand over Yao Xi.
Summoning Meng Delai into the palace was something only the Emperor could do. Yao Xi was her person — if she issued an imperial decree summoning someone, Meng Delai would definitely suspect something, and once he grew suspicious, he might kill Yao Xi and destroy the evidence. That would be disastrous.
“Hurry!” Wan Bi strode onto the carriage and urged the driving palace maid. But when she rushed there in a whirlwind, a eunuch at Qianqing Palace informed her that the Emperor had just left.
“Where has the Emperor gone?” Wan Bi asked offhandedly. It didn’t matter if the Emperor wasn’t here — as long as the imperial seal was here, she could at worst forge a formal decree to trick Meng Delai into the palace. Actually, wait — she didn’t even need a formal decree. She could just fake an imperial verbal decree1.
The eunuch replied, “Reporting to Your Highness. Something has happened at the Third Princess’s Palace, and His Majesty has just gone there.”
Wan Bi couldn’t be bothered to go to Third Princess Feng Zhen’s residence to find Emperor Ming Cheng. She pointed at the eunuch who had answered her and said, “You go to the Eastern Depot Yamen immediately. Say you’re transmitting an imperial verbal decree summoning Meng Delai to the palace for an audience with the Emperor. Do not mention this bereaved one.”
The eunuch dropped to his knees with a thud, kowtowing and pleading, “Your Highness, spare this slave’s life! Falsely transmitting an imperial decree2 is a capital offense!”
“Believe it or not, this bereaved one will have you beheaded right now!” Wan Bi was desperate to save someone and had no time to dilly-dally3 with the eunuch. She combined threats and assurances: “If His Majesty punishes anyone for falsely transmitting an imperial decree, this bereaved one will take the responsibility. Go, now!”
“This slave obeys.” The eunuch wiped away tears and went out crying.
After giving orders regarding Meng Delai, Wan Bi called over another eunuch from Qianqing Palace and said, “Take this bereaved one’s token to the Pacification and Sentry Office Yamen and mobilize men. Tell them we’ve received word that assassins are coming to the palace. Have them enter discreetly and prepare to protect His Majesty.”
“Reporting to Your Highness. As you know, the Embroidered Uniform Guard only recognizes the Emperor…” the eunuch said, clearly in a difficult position.
Wan Bi shot the eunuch a look and, familiar with the layout, slipped into Emperor Ming Cheng’s bedchamber alone. She picked up a book from the desk, opened it, and took out Emperor Ming Cheng’s waist token4. Returning to the main hall, Wan Bi tossed the token to the eunuch and said, “There. Now go! And remember to tell Cao Yue to bring all his elite fighters.” She was summoning Cao Yue into the palace because she feared Meng Delai might, like a cornered dog jumping over a wall5, harm her.
All that remained was to wait — a long, agonizing wait.
Wan Bi could not sit still. She did not know whether Yao Xi was dead or alive at this moment, and if alive, whether she was being tortured. The girl was afraid of pain and had a stubborn temperament — perhaps the Eastern Depot hadn’t even started torturing her before she had taken her own life out of fear.
She would never let Yao Xi leave the palace again without her. If Yao Xi had to go out, she would go with her. But all of that was for later — first, she had to rescue the girl. But what if she couldn’t? Wan Bi’s heart skipped a beat.
What if she couldn’t rescue her? Even if she killed every last person in the Eastern Depot, Yao Xi would still not come back. What would she do without Yao Xi?
Wan Bi did not know. In every future she could imagine, Yao Xi was there.
Yao Xi’s hands and feet were tightly bound and she had been thrown onto the floor, a gag in her mouth preventing her from speaking.
She had the hand gun that Her Highness had given her tucked at her waist, a poison-needle hairpin hidden in her sleeve, and colorless, odorless poison tucked in her clothes… Her Highness had thought of everything for her, and she had been obedient enough to bring everything she could.
But it was all for nothing6! The bad guys hadn’t given her any time to react!
The moment the carriage curtain was pulled aside, she had seen a figure rushing toward her. Before she could understand what was happening, her hands and feet were already bound and her mouth was gagged tight. The person, taking no chances, hadn’t just tied her up — they had struck her on the back of the neck, knocking her out…
When she woke, she found herself lying on the floor of this room.
Yao Xi glanced around and felt the room looked awfully familiar. The ceiling beams were incredibly high, the doors and windows painted red, the floor made of stone bricks… No matter how she looked at it, this seemed like it was inside the palace!
Had she been brought back to the palace?
Yao Xi couldn’t remember offending any palace master. If she had to name someone who disliked her, the Emperor would be one…
The Emperor???
Could it be that the one trying to eliminate her was the Emperor???
Then she was done for. Yao Xi stared bleakly at the ceiling beams. If the Emperor wanted to eliminate her without anyone knowing, it would be incredibly easy. But if that were the case, he could have just killed her outside the palace and dumped her body in some wilderness river. Why go through the trouble of bringing her back to the palace? It was puzzling.
The door creaked open.
Yao Xi looked warily toward the doorway and saw a young woman about her own age, richly dressed, enter with a palace maid. After they came in, the maid turned and bolted the door. Yao Xi thought the young woman looked somewhat familiar — she seemed to have glimpsed her once when the opera troupe had come to the palace. She must be some low-ranking young mistress of the palace.
After entering the room, Feng Zhen sat down on a chair and gave the maid a meaningful look. “Do it.”
The maid glanced at Yao Xi and walked toward her.
Yao Xi thought these two were going to harm her and frantically twisted her body, pressing toward the wall. She felt so wronged — she hadn’t even offended this mistress, didn’t even recognize her. Why would she want to harm her?
The maid walked up to Yao Xi but didn’t harm her. She merely crouched down and removed Yao Xi’s waistband, then used it to bind the young woman sitting on the chair. “Your Highness the Princess, is this all right? Is it too tight?”
“The tighter the better,” Feng Zhen said with a bitter taste in her mouth. A proper princess, molested by a eunuch — her reputation was ruined. But what could she do?
Eunuch Meng had had Yao Xi, who served beside the Empress Dowager, brought here bound, and demanded that she cooperate in staging a scene to falsely accuse Yao Xi of molesting her. If she dared to refuse, at best she would likely be forced to marry some local thug, rogue, or bandit as her Imperial Son-in-Law, and at worst, she would die under mysterious circumstances in the palace.
It was laughable, really. The selection of Imperial Sons-in-Law for princesses was all handled by the Directorate of Ceremonial. When the Late Emperor was on the throne, the head of the Directorate of Ceremonial wasn’t Tang Huaili yet, but a corrupt and immoral man who, for the sake of silver, had ruined the lives of many princesses of the previous reign.
How did he earn silver? Some men were willing to squander their entire family fortunes for the chance to marry a princess and become imperial in-laws. As long as they paid enough silver to the Directorate of Ceremonial, even the most grotesquely ugly man could be portrayed as impossibly handsome, an eighty-year-old could be described by the Directorate as an eighteen-year-old youth, and being clubfooted and scabrous was no obstacle — even having killed people or committed arson didn’t matter.
If the truth came out after the princess was married off, it didn’t matter — they could just find a servant to take the blame. As for the princess who had been married off, once the ceremony was complete, if the husband’s family had committed no major offense, it was nearly impossible for her to remarry. Her entire life was just… over.
Meng Delai was the second-in-command of the Directorate of Ceremonial and also controlled the Eastern Depot. It would be incredibly easy for him to deal with a princess whose mother was absent and whose father didn’t love her. Her mother had been of low status, and she had no powerful maternal grandfather to rely on. As for her Imperial Father — after the fake eunuch incident, the way he looked at her had become far less affectionate than before.
Because her mother had only served the Emperor in bed once and had gotten pregnant with her… just like Lady Lin.
In this world, the only person she could rely on was herself. If her reputation was ruined, so be it — it was still better than having her entire life destroyed or even losing her life.
There were quite a few princesses living in the palace — some were the Late Emperor’s daughters, and some were the current Emperor’s daughters. Among all the princesses, not many had titles and fiefdoms; you either had to be of extremely high status or exceptionally favored. Yao Xi didn’t know which princess this was, but she thought she understood. Her Highness the Princess was planning to frame her for molestation? Tsk tsk tsk — it seemed that maintaining her disguise as a eunuch and not exposing her female identity actually had its advantages!
Yao Xi felt much more at ease. She watched leisurely as the maid bound Her Highness the Princess hand and foot. Looking at the maid’s hideously ugly knots, she even wanted to step forward and offer some pointers: Want me to teach you tortoise-shell bondage7? Heh heh heh heh heh heh.
“Tear my clothes open a bit more,” Feng Zhen instructed the maid, then asked, “Has someone been sent to Qianqing Palace?”
“Yes. His Majesty should be here soon.”
Feng Zhen nodded and said, “After you untie the eunuch, remember to exit through the window. Once you’re outside, latch the window shut.” When her Imperial Father arrived and saw that the door was locked from the inside, and she was tied up, what had happened would be immediately obvious.
The maid tore Feng Zhen’s clothes open, exposing half her shoulder, then went to untie the ropes on Yao Xi. Feng Zhen’s hands were bound but her feet were free. She walked over and straddled Yao Xi, pinning her hands and feet tightly so she couldn’t move, and said to the maid, “Cut the ropes and take them away quickly. It would be terrible if Imperial Father saw them.”
Yao Xi had no intention of resisting. If she provoked these two, what if they seriously harmed her? Besides, Her Highness the Princess’s pathetic scheme couldn’t actually frame her. Better to just wait obediently for the Emperor and the Empress Dowager to arrive.
The maid took the ropes and climbed out the window. Feng Zhen stayed on top of Yao Xi, listening attentively for sounds outside.
“This slave-girl pays respects to His Majesty.”
There was the sound of a palace maid outside greeting the Emperor. Feng Zhen leaned down and grabbed the gag cloth in Yao Xi’s mouth with her teeth, pulled it out, and put it in her own mouth. Then she scrambled up, rushed to the bed, lay down, and began sobbing softly.
Yao Xi was absolutely floored by Her Highness the Princess’s acting skills.
Brilliant!
If she were a real eunuch, and didn’t have such a deep relationship with Her Highness, she would definitely be doomed!
Emperor Ming Cheng pushed the door but couldn’t open it. He roared, “Since you knew something was wrong in the princess’s room, why didn’t you find a way to get the door open?”
“Eunuch Yao, who serves beside Her Highness the Empress Dowager, said he was delivering a message from Her Highness to the princess, so we servants didn’t dare disturb them. Later, when things seemed wrong, and whenever we asked Her Highness the Princess what to do, it was always Eunuch Yao who answered for her. We peeked through the window crack and…” The maid cried indignantly, “We servants were afraid that if we barged in, Eunuch Yao would harm Her Highness the Princess, so we could only ask His Majesty to come and seek justice for Her Highness the Princess.”
What had Yao Xi done to Zhen’er? Emperor Ming Cheng raised his right foot and kicked the door hard. It flew open.
Emperor Ming Cheng stood in the doorway. He saw Yao Xi with her clothes undone lying on the floor, and his daughter Feng Zhen bound on the bed, her garments in disarray, crying her heart out.
Emperor Ming Cheng was enraged. Yao Xi, this insolent slave — relying on the Empress Dowager’s favor, she had become utterly lawless, daring to molest a princess in broad daylight. He glared at Tang Huaili, who sensibly led the other eunuchs to turn their backs, not daring to offend the princess’s modesty.
Emperor Ming Cheng walked to the bed, removed the gag cloth from Feng Zhen’s mouth, and untied the waistband binding her tightly. Then he pulled a brocade quilt over to cover his daughter and asked with a pained heart, “Zhen’er, did he hurt you anywhere? Did that beast Yao Xi…” Emperor Ming Cheng couldn’t bear to finish asking.
Feng Zhen said nothing, just buried herself in the quilt and cried.
Yao Xi’s heart was in a panic. Why hadn’t the Empress Dowager come with the Emperor?
Seeing how furious the Emperor was, he might execute her on the spot! In front of the Emperor, on one side was his daughter crying her heart out, and on the other was a eunuch he already disliked. Who would he believe?
“Someone! Drag Yao Xi out and execute her on the spot!” Emperor Ming Cheng held the sobbing Feng Zhen through the quilt. He had suspected that Feng Zhen might not be his biological daughter, but after all, he had watched her grow up — a girl who had called him Imperial Father for over a decade. How could he not be furious when his daughter had suffered such a grievous wrong?
Even if Feng Zhen weren’t his daughter, if a palace maid had been molested by a eunuch, that eunuch would deserve to die!
“Drag her farther away. Don’t dirty the princess’s floor.” Emperor Ming Cheng’s eyes were red with fury as he glared murderously at Yao Xi, who stood in the corner looking panicked.
Footnotes
- A spoken imperial order (kǒuyù), as opposed to a written edict. Falsely transmitting one is a capital offense.
- A formal imperial decree or edict (shèngyù). Falsely transmitting one is a capital offense.
- A colloquial term (mòjī) for dawdling or wasting time.
- The Emperor's personal identification token (yāopái), carried at the waist, which granted authority to its bearer.
- A Chinese idiom (gǒu jí tiào qiáng) meaning that even a cornered dog will jump over a wall — desperate people resort to extreme actions.
- Modern Chinese internet slang (rán bìng luǎn), an abbreviation of 然而并没有什么卵用 — 'but it's all of no damn use.' It expresses that something is ultimately pointless or ineffective despite initial expectations.
- A Japanese-style bondage/knot-tying technique (shibari/kinbaku). In Chinese web fiction context, used humorously to refer to intricate rope bondage, reflecting the transmigrator's modern knowledge.
0 Comments