by Zoey Gong
Lihua’s face falls for only a moment, as though surprised that I would dare censure her. But her smile quickly returns. “Yes, your majesty, you are quite right. I’ll switch to slippers as soon as I return to my palace.”
“There is no need to delay,” I say. “What if you tripped on your walk from here to there. Why, you could slip here in my own garden. There is still a bit of mud around from the recent rains.” I motion for Lihua’s maid. “Go and fetch you lady’s slippers right now.”
“Yes, my lady,” the maid says before scurrying away.
When I look back to Lihua, she is glaring at me, and she is making no attempt to hide it. I can’t help but smile. After all, I am in the right to be worried about the health and safety of the emperor’s child.
“Have you felt the baby move?” Jiangfei asks as she reaches over to touch Lihua’s belly. Lihua recoils suddenly and slaps Jiangfei’s hand away. Jiangfei pulls her hand to her chest and tears fall from her eyes.
“Liling!” I say, pulling Jiangfei to me. “There was no need for that.”
“I’m sorry,” Lihua says. “It was just a reaction. I have to keep the baby safe.”
“Now you worry about keeping the baby safe?” I ask. “I think that a little girl’s touch is significantly safer than walking in pot-bottom shoes.”
The maid returns at that moment with Lihua’s slippers.
“You are right,” Lihua says as the maid kneels down and changes Lihua’s shoes. “I think I may have overexerted myself and am feeling a little overtired. If you don’t mind, I am going to excuse myself.”
“Of course,” I say, more than a little glad to see her go. I can’t help but chuckle to myself as she struggles to hold up her gown to keep it from dragging along the ground now that she is several inches shorter in her slippers than she was in her pot-bottom shoes. All of her clothes will have to be adjusted for the height difference now.
“I don’t like her,” Jiangfei says in a huff as she returns to her seat. “She might look like you, mother, but she doesn’t act like you.”
I want to thank Jiangfei for her kind words toward me, but I know that I shouldn’t encourage her to say such things.
“I am sure she is not herself,” I say. “It is difficult being pregnant…or so I have heard.”
“She’s always been unpleasant,” Dongmei says as she helps Yanmei pass around the cups of the tea Lihua left behind. “She’s always around when we go and see Grandmother, but it is clear that she doesn’t want us there.”
I lick my lips as I wait for the tea to cool. I hadn’t thought about using the girls to gather information for me about Fenfeng and Lihua. It still probably isn’t a very good idea…
“She and the dowager empress are getting along?” I try to ask casually.
Dongmei shrugs. “I suppose, but they don’t really talk much. Whenever Fenfeng tries to talk to Liling, Liling just smiles and gives simple answers, if she replies at all.”
“Hmm,” is all I can say as I hold my teacup in both hands. So, it seems that Fenfeng is trying to talk to Lihua, trying to get information out of her, but Lihua is holding back. I have to wonder why. I mean, if Fenfeng was to learn the truth, that Lihua and I are not who we claim to be, that information could be just as damaging to Lihua as to me. So Lihua cannot be very forthcoming. Still, Lihua must see a benefit in serving Fenfeng instead of me. She seemed so eager to go to Fenfeng’s household, but why? I simply cannot puzzle it all out.
“Yuck!” Dongmei says, practically throwing her teacup back to the table. “That tea is disgusting. What kind is it?”
Yanmei pulls a face and licks her lips as she puts her cup down more gracefully. “It is terribly bitter. Is it pu’er?”
I smell the tea. It is the same tea that Lihua had been serving me before. But I had never noticed how bitter it was. I mean, yes, it was always bitter, but I thought that was how it was supposed to taste and I did my best to drink it down to be polite. But now, I can’t hardly stomach it. I put my hand to my mouth to keep from vomiting.
“Take it away,” I say to my maids. Nuwa comes over and sniffs the tea. “It is not familiar to me. Some kind of herb?”
Even after the tea is gone, my stomach continues to roil. Then, I feel a cramp, which is strange because my monthly cycle has passed. I then have a terrible thought.
What if it was the tea that caused my monthly bleed to cease? I grab Nuwa’s arm, causing her to nearly spill the cup she is carrying.
“Find out what it is,” I tell her.
“Very well,” she says. “I’ll ask Lady Liling presently.”
“No,” I say. “Take it to an apothecary. Ask him what it is.”
Her eyes go large, and she looks to Yanmei.
“Your majesty,” Yanmei says. “You can’t possibly think the tea is…” She looks at Dongmei and Jiangfei. Not wanting to upset them, she mouths the word poison at me.
“No,” I say. “Of course not. I only want to know more about it. Learn its medicinal properties.”
“Yes, my lady,” Nuwa says. “I’ll take care of it right away.”
“What are you thinking?” Yanmei asks me.
I shake my head. “I’m not sure.” I don’t want to say anything until Nuwa learns more. But now that I think the tea might have been the reason for the false pregnancy, I can’t let go of the idea. It would explain why my monthly bleed returned after Lihua left my household. She wasn’t there to give me the tea every day. But why? Why would she want me to think I was pregnant? How did that benefit her?
I can’t explain it, I just know that Lihua is much smarter than I am, far more devious and clever. If she is hatching some sort of plot against me, I’ll never be able to figure it out until it is too late.
20
The weeks pass, and Lihua’s belly continues to grow. She cannot be elevated to a rank-two consort until she officially gives birth to a son, but she is still celebrated, nonetheless. This will be Emperor Honghui’s first child, so even a daughter will be welcome. Gifts for Lihua and the emperor pour in from around the country. She is moved to a larger palace and her allowance is increased. Honghui visits her almost daily to check on her health and that of his son. I try to do my part, but my resentment toward Lihua only grows, and it is nearly impossible for me to hide my true feelings.
One night, I am lying in bed, trying to sleep, when I hear a noise from outside. I have always been a light sleeper with good hearing, so it does not surprise me to look down and see that Nuwa and Jinhai are still sleeping soundly. At first, I cannot tell what the sound is, so I close my eyes and listen. After a moment, it sounds like a woman humming. I suppose this should not surprise me. After all, the inner court is full of women—maids and ladies—so it should not seem odd that a woman is out at night. Perhaps it is simply someone else like me who cannot sleep. I tell myself to ignore whoever it is and go to sleep, but the humming continues. Slowly, the humming fades away, as if she is walking further away from my palace. For a moment, I remember how I first met my friend Wangli. She had been crying in the courtyard between our palaces. I feel a quick pain in my heart at the memory. How I miss Wangli and hope she is well and happy with her lover.
My curiosity gets the better of me, and I climb from the bed. It is autumn, and while the days are still pleasant, especially in the afternoons, the nights are quite cold and crisp. I put on some thick wool socks under my slippers and wrap a thick robe around myself before I pull the door to my bedroom open a crack. I make my way out of the palace and across the courtyard. I have to wait a moment for the guards to pass the gate on their patrol before I can exit the courtyard and try to find the singing lady. I had been able to hear her voice from my bedroom, so I head to that side of my palace.
At first, I hear nothing. I begin to think that she must be gone by now. Disappointed that I missed my chance at finding the girl, I start to turn back to my palace gate when my eyes drop to the ground and see small footprints in the dew that has sprouted on the paving sto
nes. For some reason, the girl seems to not be wearing shoes. She must be freezing. I feel an urgency to my search as I follow the footsteps. Why would anyone be out on such a chill night without shoes? I don’t want the girl to catch a chill or a cold or worse.
I follow the footsteps until they cross from a paved pathway to a wide expanse of grass that makes up one of the many palace gardens. I squint in the darkness to try and see who the footsteps belong to. Surely, since I could hear her from my bedroom window, she has not gotten too far ahead of me. Across the lawn, I see a flutter of white cloth reflecting the pale moonlight. I think it must be a young woman in a white sleeping gown.
“Hello!” I call out to her. What is she doing here? Is she not afraid of getting sick?
She glances toward me, but in the darkness and from such a distance, I cannot see who it is. I think she must see me, but instead of coming toward me, she turns and runs away.
“Wait!” I call as I bound across the grass after her. When I turn to follow her, I slip on the wet grass, getting my own sleeping gown muddy. But I right myself and keep running. I follower her down a corridor between several buildings, the path turning left, then right. I’ve completely lost sense of where I am until I come to a sudden stop.
Ahead of me is the Cold Palace. The abandoned palace is in even worse shape than the last time I saw it. Shudders have fallen from hinges. Ratty drapes flap in the breeze. The paving stones in front of it are cracked and uneven. The wooden slats of the two large doors are warped and gapped. Standing in front of the palace, with her back to me, is the woman in white.
“Who are you?” I call out. “What are you doing here?”
Slowly, she turns. My eyes fall to her arms, which are cradling her round belly. I let out a scream and lose my senses.
“She’s waking up!”
I open my eyes and see Nuwa and Yanmei fussing over me. I’m back in my own bed and there is a steaming cloth infused with herbs on my forehead.
“What’s happened?” I ask, wondering if I’ve simply had a nightmare. But if that were true, why are there so many people around?
Honghui pushes Nuwa aside and sots next to me, taking my hand. He holds it to his cheek. “My darling, are you all right?”
“I…I don’t know,” I say, sitting up.
“What were you doing out there in the middle of the night?”
“I…I heard something,” I say, trying to remember exactly what happened. “There was a woman, a woman dressed in white and she…she… Oh!” My hand goes to my mouth and I feel sick at the memory. “She was pregnant!”
“What?” Honghui asks. “Who was pregnant?”
“The woman in white,” I say. “I could hear her singing outside my palace, so I followed her all the way to the Cold Palace. When she turned around so that I could see her, I could see that she was pregnant.”
“But the only pregnant woman in the Forbidden City right now is Liling,” Yanmei says.
“It wasn’t Liling,” I say. “At least, I don’t think so.” If it had been Lihua, I would have known immediately. Plus, if it had been her, why would she have run away from me? No, it wasn’t her.
“Send someone to Liling’s palace to make sure,” Honghui says to no one in particular, and a servant jumps up to fulfill the emperor’s order. Honghui then turns back to me and runs his hand over my head and down my long hair. “Maybe it was just a nightmare. A figment of your imagination.”
I shake my head. “No, I know what I saw. She was real. She was there. She was—” I gasp. Suddenly, I realize who it was. “It was Caihong!” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I wish I hadn’t said them out loud.
Honghui’s face falls and he recoils from me as though burned. “What? Caihong? Empress Caihong?”
“I…I don’t know,” I say, wishing I could take my words back. But as I think about the nightmare Caihong had before she died, how haunted by guilt as she was before her death, it makes sense to me that Caihong did not find peace after her death as I had hoped. She was outside the Cold Palace, the place where Lady An was banished. The place where Lady An hanged herself. A place where countless women have met their end after some sort of betrayal. But I say none of this to Honghui.
Honghui’s face is grim and he presses his lips. “Daiyu,” he finally says. “You have been under a lot of strain lately. I think, perhaps, you simply need to rest.”
I shake my head. “Maybe it wasn’t Caihong,” I concede. “But I saw something, someone.”
“It was just a dream,” Honghui says.
I want to tell him that it wasn’t. That I know what I saw. But do I? If I were speaking truthfully, I would say yes. Yes, I saw Empress Caihong outside the cold palace. But I know it sounds crazy. But who else could it have been?
A maid enters the room. “Lady Liling says she has not left her palace all night, and her servants confirmed it.”
“There,” Honghui says. “See, if it wasn’t Liling, who else could it have been? It was just a dream.”
I let out a sigh and nod. “Yes, of course it was.”
He kisses my forehead and takes his leave. “Just rest,” he says before closing the door to the room. Yanmei takes his place beside me on the bed.
“Did you really see Caihong’s ghost?” she asks, her eyes wide.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I saw…someone. Something. Do you think it could be a bad omen?”
“You mean about Liling’s child?” she asks. “Do you think something is going to happen to her?”
I shake my head, trying to force the bad thought away. “No. No, surely not. We can’t think such things. Liling and her son will be fine.”
“Yes, of course,” Yanmei says. We are both quiet for a moment, afraid to speak our thoughts aloud.
“Take a bowl of rice and plate of food to the Cold Palace,” I tell her. “Burn joss sticks and say a prayer.”
Yanmei nods. “You wish to appease whatever hungry ghost could be haunting the place?”
I nod. “It might not have been Caihong, but I saw something. I don’t know what the ghost wants, so we should make sure it is appeased before Liling’s child is born.”
“Yes, that is a good idea. I will take care of it…” She looks to the window and I notice it is not quite dawn yet.
“After daybreak,” I tell her.
“Of course, your majesty,” Yanmei says. She tucks my blanket around me and fluffs my pillows. “Now, you really should rest.”
I try to give her a reassuring smile, but she must know that rest will be nearly impossible. I had always thought that Caihong’s beliefs in dreams and hungry ghosts were old-fashioned superstitions. But now, I’m not so sure. I’m not even sure if what I saw was a ghost. She seemed more real than that. She left footprints on the ground. I had the feeling that she was trying to get away from me, not lead me somewhere. Could it be that there’s another pregnant woman living within the walls of the Forbidden City, here in the inner court? On one hand, it seems impossible. But on the other, I suppose it is very possible. I have been told that the Forbidden City has a thousand buildings, so there must be many thousands of rooms. Someone could very easily hide here. But why would someone do that? Or am I simply grasping for an explanation when it is clear that I am being haunted by the ghost of Caihong? The birth of a new child could certainly be cause for her to return, to manifest herself. But why? Is she trying to tell me something? Why would she appear to me and not Lihua?
So many questions swirl through my head, making me dizzy. I finally do manage to close my eyes and find a little rest.
21
“Your Majesty, wake up.”
“Hmm?” I moan.
It has been months since I have seen the ghost, or whoever she was. For weeks after, I had trouble sleeping. I would lie awake in my bed and listen for her humming voice to lure me from my bed. But slowly, as life returned to normal and everyone waited anxiously for Lihua’s baby to be born, I nearly forgot all about her. But now, being woke in the middle
of the night by Nuwa holding a lamp over my face, all of my fears come rushing back. I sit up quickly, nearly bumping my head on the lamp.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I ask.
“It is Lady Liling,” she says. “The baby—”
I gasp and throw my blanket back, which takes a little work as it is now winter and there are four or five thick blankets piled upon me.
“Hurry! Summon the midwife,” I say.
“My lady—”
“Has the emperor been notified?”
Your majesty—”
“Where is my coat?”
“My lady!” Nuwa nearly yells to get my attention, stopping me in my tracks.
“What?” I ask her, and my heart seizes. “Oh no. Is something wrong? Has something happened?”
“No,” Nuwa says. “Only that the baby is already here.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Apparently the birth was very quick and easy,” Nuwa explains. “Her chief lady-in-waiting says that the wee thing merely slipped out and into the world before the midwife could even be summoned, though she is there now.”
“And is it…alive?” I ask cautiously.
“Yes!” Nuwa says, a sudden, broad smile across her face. “A healthy boy!”
I reach out for a chair, but when I don’t find one, I fall to the floor.
“My lady!” Nuwa rushes to my side. I haven’t fainted, but all the strength seems to flee from me and I want to burst into tears. I do burst into tears. I don’t know why. I knew the baby was coming. We all did. And all of us prayed every day that the baby would be a boy. But now that it has happened, that the precious baby boy, the heir and future emperor, has arrived, it is just too overwhelming.
“I’m sorry it wasn’t you,” Nuwa says as she wraps her arms around me and rocks me. I nod as I hold her and continue to cry. I let her believe that I am crying because I am jealous. I can’t tell her the truth. That if the baby had been born to anyone else, I would be so glad. I would rejoice and sing the mother’s praise from the golden rooftop of the Forbidden City.
