Empress in Danger

by Zoey Gong

  “We must go and see the baby and check on the mother’s well-being,” I finally manage to say when my crying calms. I wipe the tears and snot away with my sleeve and Nuwa helps me stand. I start to pull my robe tight around me and tie it with a sash.

  “You aren’t planning to go and see her like that, are you?” Nuwa asks, horrified.

  “Well, we should hurry,” I say. “Surely everyone else is already present. I don’t want people to think I am snubbing Liling and her child.”

  “You look a mess,” Nuwa says, throwing open the door of my bed chamber and clapping her hands to get the other maids moving. “We will hurry. But if you go looking like you do, it will surely be seen as an insult. You could look your best to meet the little prince.”

  I suppose there is some truth to her words, both for the reasons she says, and the reasons she doesn’t. It would appear as if I don’t care about the momentousness of the occasion if I did not take some care with my appearance. But also, I need to remind those around me that I am still the empress. With the birth of a baby boy, Lihua will be elevated to rank-two consort. She will be second in power and respect only to me. Some people will even see her as outranking me as mother to the future emperor. I will need to work hard to ensure my place within the inner court.

  Since it is the middle of the night and we are in a hurry, Nuwa styles my hair quickly and puts on only the most essential of makeup. But she tops my head with my phoenix crown, usually only worn for official occasions, which I suppose this is, and wraps me in a sumptuous yellow robe embroidered with the symbol for longevity. Even as a rank-two consort, Lihua will not be allowed to wear the yellow color that is reserved for the emperor and empress.

  Finally, I am deemed ready, and I climb into a sedan chair to be carried to Lihua’s palace. The night air is cold and damp. It is not quite raining, but a wet mist hangs in the air and moistens my face. As I suspected, I think the entire palace has arrived ahead of me. All of the palace’s servants surround the palace and sing songs, perform kowtows, and praise Heaven for such a marvelous blessing. The other concubines and their maids are in the courtyard since they cannot all fit inside the palace. All of them, though, seem near to tears instead of brimming with joy. They all bow when they see me.

  “I know how each of you feel,” I tell them as I bid them to rise. “But this child does not belong only to Liling, but to all of us. We are all mothers this day.” I say words that I know I am supposed to say, but I also know how hollow they must ring inside the hearts of women who so long to have a child of their own.

  “Your time will come,” I tell them. “I am sure of it. We have a healthy son on this day. Surely more children are to follow.” They all nod and murmur in agreement at this, and I hope I am right. Why wouldn’t I be? If Honghui can have one son, surely he can father many more children.

  I hold my hand out to Yanmei. “Come with me,” I whisper to her. “I need you by my side.”

  Her eyes are glassy as she nods to me and squeezes my hand. “Be strong,” she says. I nod and let out a few calming breaths. Finally, I can delay no longer.

  As I enter Lihua’s palace, smoke from incense burns my eyes and clouds my vision, the sickly sweetness filling my nose and making my stomach churn. I can hear a priest chanting from somewhere in the building. The building is crowded with maids and eunuchs waiting to attend Lihua, the emperor, and the dowager empress. They all part when they see me, giving me a clear path to Lihua’s bed chamber.

  Even though it is night, Lihua’s room is lit up bright as day with lanterns, candles, and a brazier in the middle of the room that also gives off plenty of heat. Along with the countless people in the room, the room is stifling hot, causing me to break out into a sweat.

  “Your majesty!” Lihua calls to me from her place on her bed, looking radiant and refreshed. I helped my mother deliver each of my sisters, so I know how a woman usually looks after giving birth. It is an exhausting and painful ordeal, and it can take the mother days to recover, more if the birth was difficult. I know that Nuwa said that Lihua had an easy birth, but still, she does not look like a woman who just forced another human being out of her. Her hair is brushed smooth and lays delicately over her shoulders. Her cheeks are pink with happiness and she seems unable to stop smiling. Her legs are covered with a blanket, but it appears as if her stomach has already gone mostly flat.

  But I hardly have time to wonder of Lihua’s quick recovery. Honghui turns to me, tears of joy streaming down his face, as he holds a little bundle in his arms.

  “Daiyu!” he says. “I have a son. Come and see.”

  I let go of Yanmei’s hand and cross over to stand in front of my husband. He lowers the bundle and moves the folds of blankets aside to reveal a tiny, pink face. The baby is sleeping soundly, and I can see his nostrils flaring slightly with each quiet breath. He has a little tuft of thick black hair on the top of his head, and I can see the rough patch of his forehead that many infants have that indicates their journey into the world.

  Honghui lowers his face to that of his son. He takes in his scent and kisses the baby’s head. “Would you like to hold him?” he asks me.

  I realize I have almost no feeling in my arms. My whole body feels numb. It is as if I am present only in my mind but left my body behind in my own palace. Still, I nod, since I know it will seem strange if I don’t want to hold the baby. After all, this is supposed to be my baby too. I am Honghui’s only true wife, so his children are my children.

  I held each one of my sisters the instant they were born, even before my mother held them, so I am no stranger to holding a newly born babe. And yet, as Honghui hands his son to me, my arms shake so badly I fear I will drop him.

  “Help me. Help me,” I utter to Honghui, and his warm hands remain under my arms to help support me.

  “Isn’t he wonderful?” Honghui says. I can say nothing, but of course he is. He is beautiful. He is healthy. He is a boy. He is everything Honghui needs in a child.

  “He is perfect,” I hear Fenfeng say. I had tried to ignore her presence, but I raise my head to see her hovering just next to Honghui’s shoulder.

  “Thank you, Mother,” Honghui says, and I hear nothing but sincerity in his voice. Fenfeng preens under his words.

  “You are already a wonderful father,” Fenfeng says. “And Liling has done her duty to perfection. Could you ever ask for more in a woman?”

  “No, I couldn’t,” Honghui says. He looks to Lihua. “Thank you, my love. I shall forever be grateful to you.”

  Lihua lowers her head humbly under Honghui’s praise.

  “Why, she looks ready to give you another son almost immediately,” Fenfeng says with a laugh.

  “I look forward to trying,” he says in reply.

  I can take it no longer and hand the baby back to Honghui before my strength goes out of me completely. He called Lihua his love. He wants to have her in his bed. She is perfection. Where does that leave me? Part of me knows that Honghui isn’t thinking clearly or speaking his true feelings. He is overcome with emotion in the moment. He is delirious in the joy of holding his son for the first time. And yet his words hurt, they cut me deep in the most insecure parts of myself.

  “Your majesty,” Lihua says, looking at me with a pained expression on her face. “Are you not pleased with me?”

  I open my mouth to respond, but Fenfeng speaks first.

  “Jealousy is most unbecoming in a woman,” she says, shaking her head. “And at such a happy time! How can you ruin this moment for the emperor?”

  “I’m not,” I say, growing frustrated.

  “Perhaps you should leave,” Honghui says to me.

  “What?” I ask in shock. “You cannot think so poorly of me.”

  “I just want to enjoy this moment,” he says in exasperation. I look around the room, and while Nuwa and Yanmei appear sympathetic to me, they are the only ones. Fenfeng and Lihua look disappointed while all of their servants look almost angry with me, disgusted. I have
to get away from this place. I give a quick bow and then leave the room. But outside the bed chamber, still, I find more angry faces. I think I even hear voices mumbling about jealousy and anger and what a poor example of an empress I am. I rush past them, not waiting for Nuwa or Yanmei.

  Outside the palace, a light drizzle has started to fall. The other concubines stand in the rain and cold, looking as if they are melting as their makeup runs and their hair falls around their faces. They look to me for hope, for reassurance, but I can give them none. I step down to the walkway and slip on the water in my pot-bottom shoes. I hear my gown rip and feel my headdress totter.

  “Empress!” Nuwa rushes to my side. For some reason, her words strike my heart.

  “I am not worthy of being an empress!” I say. I kick off my shoes and rip the headdress from my hair, tossing it into a puddle. I lift the hem of my gown and run from Lihua’s palace. I have to get away from here. I need to be alone. Why did Lihua have to come here? Why did she have to disturb the little bit of happiness I had found?

  I run across a grassy lawn and my feet sink in the mud. I slip and land on my knees and I know my glorious yellow robe is ruined. I tug at the sash around my waist so I can remove the robe altogether, leaving it in the muddy garden so I can walk more easily. The night is cold, and I can see my hot breath collect in front of me. I hold my face up to the moon and let the rain trickle over my face, down my neck, and over my body.

  I hear voices and look toward them, expecting to see Nuwa or perhaps Jinhai looking for me. But that is not who I see. Instead, I see four eunuchs all dressed in dark clothes. Their wide-brimmed straw hats shield the moonlight, shrouding their faces in darkness. I start to turn away, thinking they must be completing nighttime chores, when I realize that all four of them are carrying something between them. Something heavy. Something long wrapped in a white sheet. I cannot help but walk toward them to see what they are doing. They seem to be arguing, motioning this way and that, as if they are unsure which way to go. They finally come to a consensus and turn away from me, trotting off quickly. I realize that they will soon be beyond my reach, so I call out to them.

  “Hey! Stop!”

  One of the men toward the back of the group lifts his head, as if he isn’t sure what he heard, but he then slows his pace and looks over his shoulder at me. He screams and drops his corner of the sheet.

  “Ghost!” he yells, pointing toward me. The other three men stop and look at me, they all scream and scatter, dropping their load. One of the men tries to gather the others back together, calling them fools and idiots. But as I get closer, he too cried out for Heaven to save him as he runs away. For a moment, I wonder why they thought I was a ghost, but as I look down, I realize that without my outer robe, I am only wearing a long, white shift. And drenched in rain as I am, I hardly look like the empress I am supposed to be. But I can’t enjoy the humor in the moment as I get closer to whatever it is that the men have dropped.

  It is clear to me before I even reach the spot that the men were carrying a body. The white sheet has fallen on top of it, revealing the unmistakable shape. But who is it? And why would they be carrying such a thing away in the middle of the night? If it were a maid or eunuch, Fiyanggu should be making sure the body is disposed of properly, but I am sure he was not among the men I saw.

  I kneel beside the body and pull the edge of the cloth back. I shriek and fall back when I see the face of a woman—a woman who looks very much like me. I then realize that she is the woman I saw the night I saw the ghost. I thought that I had not seen her face clearly that night, but I now realize it is because I was looking at myself. Though, she does not look exactly like me, only similar. Perhaps as similar as I look to Lihua.

  So, she was not a ghost, but a real woman. I then remember that she had been pregnant, so I pull the sheet back further. Her stomach is smaller, but still round, as if she has recently given birth. The lower part of her dress is bloody, as if she is still wearing her birthing clothes.

  Who is she? Why is she here? Why is she dead? Where is her baby?

  All of these thoughts are swirling through my mind when I feel a sudden sharp pain in the back of my head, and everything goes black.

  22

  It takes a great effort to open my eyes, as if they are weighted down with heavy stones. When I finally do manage to pry them open, I see that the room is mostly dark, save the flickering flames from the brazier in the middle of the room. I turn my head to see if anyone is in the room with me and wince. It feels as though someone has stabbed me through the brain and left the blade behind. I lie still and let out a moan of pain.

  “Your Majesty!” Nuwa appears by my side from somewhere. The pain in my head makes it hard for me to focus. “Go tell the emperor that she is awake!” Nuwa tells someone else in the room.

  “What-what happened?” I ask her.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” she says, dabbing my face with a warm cloth.

  “What do you mean?” Her words aren’t making sense to me. If someone found me, they must have some idea of what happened.

  “Jinhai went to find you after you ran off,” Nuwa says. “He said he found you on the ground in the rain and that there was a bloody lump on the back of your head. He thought you were dead.”

  “Someone hit me?” I ask.

  “Don’t you remember?”

  I start to shake my head, but that is a mistake. I put my hand to my head, partly over my eyes. Even though the light from the brazier is soft, it is still too much.

  “I felt a pain,” I say. “I didn’t see who or what it was.”

  “What about before that?” Nuwa asks.

  “Oh, right,” I say as I try to think for a moment. “I went for a walk. Or maybe a run. I don’t know. I just needed to get away from…from…” I stop myself from saying her name because I can’t remember it for the moment. I want to say Lihua, but I feel as though that isn’t right. I know it isn’t. But I can’t come up with the correct name.

  “In the rain?” Nuwa asks. “You could catch a chill, or worse.”

  “I know,” I say. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

  Nuwa nods but doesn’t press the issue. “Then what?”

  “I saw…I saw…” I close my eyes tightly and try to remember. “Her.”

  “Who?” Nuwa asks.

  I suck in a breath. “Her! The ghost!”

  Nuwa gasps, her hand to her mouth. “You saw her again? Did you follow her?”

  “No,” I say. “She was dead.”

  Nuwa is quiet for a long moment. I open my eyes and see that she looks confused. It is as if she almost wants to laugh, as though I made a joke of some sort.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Well, she is a ghost,” Nuwa says. “Of course she is dead.”

  “No,” I say. “She’s not a ghost. I mean, at least she wasn’t. Maybe she is now.”

  “Your majesty,” Nuwa says, growing exasperated. “You aren’t making any sense.”

  There is a commotion from somewhere, and the door to the room flies open. Honghui is standing there, his face flushed. He rushes to my side and takes my hand.

  “My love,” he says, kissing my hand. “What happened? Who did this to you?”

  “It was the ghost,” I say.

  “What?” Honghui looks to Nuwa, who only shrugs and shakes her head. “What do you mean?” he asks me more slowly.

  “I saw her,” I say. “The ghost woman. Only she wasn’t a ghost. She was a woman, a real woman. But she was dead.”

  “But…you said she wasn’t a ghost,” Honghui says, putting the back of his hand to my forehead as if checking for a fever. Maybe he thinks I am delusional. Maybe I am. Even I am confused right now. And my head is throbbing in pain.

  “When I saw her before,” I say, trying to explain, “I thought she was a ghost. But now, I think she was alive. But when I saw her last night, she was dead.”

  “What makes you think she was dead?” Honghui asks, and I h
ope he is finally understanding me.

  “She looked dead,” I say. “She was wrapped in a white sheet.”

  “Where did you see her?” he asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “In the rain. Probably wherever you found me.”

  Honghui sighs and rubs his own forehead. “You were alone when we found you. No one else was there, certainly not a dead body.”

  “They must have carried her off,” I say.

  “Who?”

  “Oh, the eunuchs,” I say. “There were four eunuchs carrying the body wrapped in the white sheet.”

  At this, Honghui’s face looks a little lighter, and I think I must be making more sense. My head is still in a lot of pain, but it feels a little more clear.

  “Who were they?” Honghui asks. “Did you recognize them?”

  I close my eyes again and try to remember the scene. I shake my head. “It was too dark. Their hats shadowed their faces.”

  “But you are sure you saw four eunuchs carrying a body wrapped in a white sheet?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “How did you get close enough to see the body?”

  “When the men saw me, they dropped her and ran away,” I say. “I think they were afraid of me.”

  “Then what happened?”

  I wanted to see what they were carrying, so I went over and pulled the sheet back. That was when I saw her.”

  “The ghost woman,” Honghui says. “The woman you saw before outside the Cold Palace.”

  “Yes,” I say. “It was her. I’m sure of it.”

  “But I thought you said the ghost woman was Caihong.”

  “Well, I assumed it was Caihong,” I say. “I didn’t get a clear look at the woman’s face. But who else would be haunting me?”

  “If you didn’t see her face, then how do you know the woman you saw last night was the same ghost woman?” Honghui asks. His question is reasonable, but it makes me angry.