by Jeremy Han
“I only wanted his Majesty to govern wisely!” she pleaded. “If China continues to ignore the progress of technology, we will always be under the feet of the west! We must‒”
PWAAK!
The slap echoed across the tight confines of the alley. “Enough, you jinx! I have had enough of your insolence! You always think you are so clever, so much better than us, that the emperor should listen to you instead of to me! TO ME!” she roared.
The younger girl was undeterred, not when facing death, “Please, let me speak to his
Majesty! He will listen to me! Take me to him! He needs to know this! He needs to put a stop to all of this!”
She laughed cruelly. “Your beloved is leaving tonight with me to Xi’an. The emperor cannot fall into the hands of the western powers. But you, my little flower,” she patted the girl on her cheek and gave her a cold, hard smile, “shall remain here forever. To prevent you from being dishonored by the white barbarians, who will surely rape you, I will present you with an honorable death.”
Zhenfei’s face contorted with fear. “Please, Majesty!”
Cixi waved. “Take her away!” Before she turned she addressed the man with the saber, saying, “ Make sure it is done,” and hurried away from the impending chaos that would surely come when the western forces breached the gates of the palace. The huge man with the saber prodded at the eunuchs.
“Move, half-men.”
The two eunuchs groaned miserably. They had hoped that they did not need to see their cruel duty to completion, for indeed the favored concubine had treated them well. They had always known her as a kind and gentle person, who had the heart of the emperor. The empress dowager had been right in the sense that the concubine was a little too modern in her thinking and dressing, and perhaps a little too vocal, too quick to speak her mind when silence and deference to seniority was preferred. Nobody challenged the dragon lady and got away with it, and tonight, to her chagrin, Zhenfei would learn this truth.
The concubine knew there was no more hope, and there was no more need to be subservient to the woman who had just condemned her. Venom laced her voice as she screamed at the departing figure of the empress dowager.
“You will pay for this! Guangxu will find out some day! There will be a reckoning for you! A RECKONING! YOU WILL PAY! I WILL COME BACK! I WILL COME BACK FOR YOU!”
They came before a well, the dark opening yawning before them like the gates to the netherworld. The sounds of war and mayhem faded into the background, seeming far away, but the black hole beckoned ominously before her. She wept, and her legs turned to jelly.
“No…no…please, I beg you!” She turned her head vigorously left and right to plead with her executioners.
“We are sorry, mistress. We truly are. We are only slaves.” The eunuchs wept. They had genuinely liked her.
“You can let me go now,” she said hastily. “I promise, I will disappear and never come back. No one will ever see me again, and you can tell her Majesty I am dead.”
The huge man drew his blade. “Do it now, or else!”
“NO! PLEASE, NO!” she screamed as she was forced closer and closer to the well. She started to struggle, to kick, but the eunuchs were surprisingly strong. She did not even feel the pain in her arms as their fingers bit into her muscles. They pulled her slowly, but surely, towards the dark, forbidding entrance to hell. They forced her head down and she stared into the bowels of the deep. She could see the reflection of the moon shimmering below, like a signal to her. She was so close she could smell the musty still water inside.
She keened like an animal being forced to the abattoir. “Mercy! Mercy! I have done nothing wrong! I only wanted the best for the emperor!”
With a mighty push she fell headlong into the dark waters. The scream was cut short with a splash. The two eunuchs dropped to their knees and wailed.
“Forgive us, mistress! We did not want to do this! We are only slaves!”
The man who stood behind them took out his saber, but the two distressed slaves were in too much anguish to notice. With a mighty slash he decapitated eunuch Wang, and with another stroke killed eunuch Jin. He took a deep breath and sheathed the weapon. Then he hurried away.
He did not want to be around when the western soldiers broke through. He must disappear tonight. Nobody must tell the emperor what had happened to his favored concubine on the 15th night of August, 1900.
About the Author
Jeremy Han is a former English, History and Social Studies teacher with an Honours degree and a Masters degree in History. He has published educational books for History and Social Studies before and was also an entrepreneur. Currently, he works in a training company. He is thirty six, married with one daughter and lives in Singapore. This is his first novel.
The author blogs at www.jeremyhan.com and can be contacted there or at Facebook under the author’s name or the title of the book The Emperor’s Prey.
