The Empress Dowager is Terrifying
Wan Bi stood before the gates of the Cold Palace, supported by her attendants.
She was elaborately dressed. Her aqua-blue formal blouse was woven with patterns of golden clouds and dragons, and her bright red skirt was embroidered with lotus designs in gold thread. Her hair was full of pearls and jade, and on her forehead, she wore a Phoenix Crown.1 From a distance, she was a bustling vision of overwhelming nobility.
Wan Bi’s daily attire, though luxurious, was simple. This outfit for her visit to the Cold Palace was intentional. How else could she properly highlight the downfall of certain acquaintances within?
Back when the Late Emperor was still alive, Wan Bi had never competed with anyone for his favor. There was no need; whether she vied for it or not, the Late Emperor’s heart was hers. Sometimes, she even wished the Late Emperor would spend more time with his other concubines instead of always hovering around her. Although she had no desire to fight for fame or fortune, she couldn’t stop others from deliberately stirring up trouble. Some of those women had been sentenced to death, some had taken their own lives, and some had died under mysterious circumstances. Almost all who remained alive had ended up in the Cold Palace.
“Your Majesty, surely you don’t need to go in? It’s bad luck,” Yuanqian said. The afternoon air here felt chilling, and she couldn’t help but feel a shiver of fear. The palace was already a place where Yin flourished while Yang waned,2 and the Cold Palace was a land of extreme cold, thick with resentment. Yuanqian felt that if her master had orders, she could just have the servants below carry them out. There was really no need to come here in person.
“When those women were in power, they still couldn’t touch this bereaved one. Do you think they’ve grown more capable after losing favor? The same logic applies to ghosts. What is there to fear?” Wan Bi turned to the palace maid beside her and commanded, “Open the gates.”
Because Wan Bi was coming, the women of the Cold Palace had all been summoned from their rooms into the courtyard to await her arrival and pay their respects. However, fearing that some desperate soul might try to risk her life to startle the imperial presence, the guards had formed a human wall between the residents and the Empress Dowager, ready at any moment to seize anyone with ill intentions.
After all, most of the women in this Cold Palace had been put here by Wan Bi. This was true during the Late Emperor’s reign, and it was true during Emperor Ming Cheng’s as well.
The moment Wan Bi entered the courtyard, she saw the women huddled together in a corner by the palace wall. She walked toward them with a smile. Yuanqian cautioned her, “Your Majesty, don’t get too close. Those people are either mad or frantic. This slave-girl fears they might harm you.”
“What is there to fear with a human wall between us?” Wan Bi shot Yuanqian an annoyed glance. Yuanqian had been by her side in Ning’an Palace through countless perils. How was it that her courage hadn’t grown, but had instead shrunk? It wasn’t a good thing for a servant to be too timid. In a real crisis, she might abandon her master to flee for her own life.
But her attention was quickly drawn back to the huddle of women in the corner.
“They’re all familiar faces!” Wan Bi sized them up one by one, from left to right. She hadn’t expected some of them to have such long lives. They must have been in the Cold Palace for at least a decade, yet they were still alive.
Wan Bi took a step back—not out of fear, but because she couldn’t stand the foul stench. Yuanqian was right; these women were either mad or frantic. Now that they were in the Cold Palace, they naturally had no servants to attend to them. And so, these beauties, who had once been so gorgeously dressed3 and fragrant before the Emperor, had been worn down by the Cold Palace into raving, crazy old hags with disheveled hair and grimy faces.4 Who knew how long it had been since they had last bathed or changed their clothes. The sour stench of sweat and grime was piercing.
It was a good thing Wan Bi had sharp eyes. Upon closer inspection, she could still recognize her old rivals, even though their faces were changed beyond recognition, their city-toppling beauty5 long gone.
Yet, among this crowd of madwomen, one stood out. Her coarse, stone-blue clothes were clean. There were no pearl or jade hairpins adorning her head, but her hair was neatly coiled and held in place with a broken wooden stick. Her face was bare of powder and rouge, yet she wasn’t filthy like the other women beside her.
She wasn’t the only clean one. Two other women who had just been cast into the Cold Palace, still hoping to regain the Emperor’s favor, were dressed far more brightly than she was. But somehow, only that woman seemed like a fairy among a pile of demons and mountain monsters, having left the world to stand alone.6
Wan Bi vaguely recalled that this person was one of Emperor Ming Cheng’s Noble Ladies.7 Her face was somewhat familiar, but she couldn’t remember her name for the moment. She only gave the woman a couple of extra glances and didn’t pay her any further mind.
Yuanqian loudly announced the Empress Dowager’s decree to the crowd: “Her Majesty will be using the Cold Palace for a few days. During this time, you will all make do in the rooms of the Left Side-Courtyard. You are not to leave your rooms without Her Majesty’s order.” Then she turned to the captain of the guards. “Take them all away! We need to hurry up with the arrangements.”
What arrangements? Traps, of course.
Wan Bi was an extremely playful person. Since the idea of scaring that Yao Xi had taken root, she wanted to do it to perfection. Merely letting that little castrated donkey spend a dull, dark night in the Cold Palace—where was the fun in that? Wan Bi had rushed over in the afternoon precisely to prepare for tonight’s good show.
The women of the Cold Palace were being shouted at and dragged away. Seeing this, Wan Bi’s expression turned ugly. She roared at the guards, “All of you, stop! No matter what great crime these people have committed, they are still the women of the Late Emperor and the Current Emperor. Is it your place, you dog slaves, to be so insolent?”
The guards were terrified. In soft, gentle voices, they said to the residents, “This way, ladies, if you please!” Only a few who were completely out of their minds couldn’t be moved without force. The guard captain only dared to order his men to escort them away after receiving the Empress Dowager’s tacit approval.
The woman in the blue clothes followed the crowd toward the Left Side-Courtyard. Just before she disappeared around the corner, she turned back and glanced at Wan Bi.
Two palace maids brought a chair and placed it in the center of the courtyard, holding a canopy8 over it. Yuanqian helped Wan Bi sit down in the shade and asked, “Everything has been brought. We await Your Majesty’s instructions.”
The Cold Palace of the Daxing dynasty was the former Jingling Palace. It was a two-courtyard compound with a three-sided layout. The front courtyard had five main rooms, with the easternmost room being the bathhouse, and three wing-rooms on both the east and west sides. The rear courtyard had a short, covered corridor and a small pond.
Surrounded by her entourage, Wan Bi walked a full circle around Jingling Palace. She already had a clear idea of how to set up her traps. She quickly gave her orders: “Behind the threshold of the main palace gate, dig a pit one chi deep9, fill it with cotton, and cover it with a thin layer of dirt. Replace all the candles with oil lamps. The amount of oil in the lamps should increase sequentially from the entrance to the rear courtyard, but the longest-burning one must not exceed half a shichen.10 Oh, and the lamp in front of the large bronze mirror in the west secondary room must be left as is. Sprinkle some chicken blood on the mirror.”
Yuanqian listened and memorized everything, while some quick-footed palace maids had already begun to set things up according to the instructions.
“Hang a string of bells here. Don’t place it where someone might trip, just make sure it makes a sound,” Wan Bi said, already picturing Yao Xi scared witless, fart rolling and piss flowing.11 A smile she couldn’t hide touched her lips, and with her spirits high, her thoughts flowed like a gushing spring. “Hang a set of white clothes over here, and use a pomelo with hair stuck in it for a fake head at the collar. Lock a cat in that cabinet over there—it must be a black one. On that old scholar tree in the back courtyard, make a noose and hang another dummy made from a pomelo and white clothes. From this beam overhead, hang a cloth pouch full of ice blocks, just enough for water to slowly drip down…”
Listening to this in broad daylight, even Yuanqian was terrified. She felt that the servant named Yao Xi was not going to leave Jingling Palace alive.
“This bereaved one remembers there’s a pavilion next to Jingling Palace?” Wan Bi asked suddenly.
“Replying to Your Majesty, there is a pavilion for lotus-viewing.”
“Excellent. Tonight, we will listen for the commotion from there. Send someone to tell Yao Xi that this bereaved one has hidden a painting in Jingling Palace. The painting has a red tassel tied to it. If he finds it within one night, this bereaved one will not punish him further. After tonight’s watch, he may return to his duties at the Bureau of Imperial Gardens. But if time runs out and he still can’t find it, he can forget about keeping his little life.”
“This slave-girl obeys.”
Yao Xi had slept outside the hall of Ning’an Palace last night, so she wasn’t tired right now. After tidying up her room, she wanted to find some chores to do. She felt that because of her, everyone had lost sleep last night, so she wanted to help with the bureau’s work as much as she could. Ning’an Palace was no place for her; at the end of the day, she was still a person of the Bureau of Imperial Gardens. She ate and lived here. Offending Liao Bing was already a done deal; she couldn’t afford to offend anyone else.
She picked up a pumpkin and was about to wipe it with a damp cloth when a minor supervisor spoke to the busy crowd in a strange, mocking tone, “What are you all standing around for? Hurry up and take the work from Eunuch Yao’s hands. If Eunuch Zheng gets upset, won’t we be the ones to suffer?”
A wave of laughter erupted from the crowd. One eunuch with a foul mouth picked up a peach and began to point at the mulberry to curse the locust.12 “Brothers, take a guess. Which part of this peach is the most delicious?”
Everyone said they didn’t know.
The man roared with laughter. “Naturally, it’s the peach’s ass! Not only is it delicious, it’s precious, too! Hahahahaha!”13
Yao Xi let them snatch the pumpkin from her and fled in embarrassment. She truly regretted making a fuss about the stolen items. She clearly knew it was related to Liao Bing, and she clearly knew Liao Bing was the head eunuch’s nephew. But then again, what if she had resigned herself to suffering the mute’s loss?14 Her situation might not be any better than it was now. Perhaps others would have thought her an easy target and bullied her even more.
She was just afraid that her days at the Bureau of Imperial Gardens would not be easy from now on. Zheng Dayun’s kindness toward her was not without strings attached, and it was obvious that what he wanted was something she couldn’t give. One day, when Zheng Dayun found a new favorite or grew tired of being strung along by her, he would no longer have her back.
Yao Xi looked at the sky. She had to enter the palace even earlier today. She absolutely, positively, must not be late. The Empress Dowager’s bad reputation was not just wind from an empty cave.15 It was already a miracle that she had managed to escape death at the Empress Dowager’s hands twice.
Yao Xi was even naive enough to think that the Empress Dowager was being overly merciful by only making her guard the Cold Palace for three nights.
The kind and merciful Wan Bi was currently standing inside Jingling Palace, looking at the layers of traps she had personally laid out with a gratified smile. She was even starting to feel a little soft-hearted, thinking of removing some of the traps, lest she scare the little eunuch to death and have no one left to play with.
But then, thinking of the Empress, Wan Bi was suddenly at peace with it. If that little castrated donkey was scared to death, so be it. The matter with the Empress would keep her busy for a good while. Besides, if that little castrated donkey was so easily frightened to death, he wasn’t worthy of her spending any more effort on him.
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