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gilthairpins · 8 months ago

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Book 2 Chapter 18: Why Not Leave It To Fate?

I was dizzy and drowsy, night and day. Sometimes the room was bright when I woke and sometimes it was pitch black. I always tried to stay awake. Tried to see the people around me clearly. Sometimes it was Qiaohui, sometimes Meixiang, or sometimes Juyun, but never others. After that moment of clarity, I would fall asleep again. It was the same when I woke up.

I don’t know how much time had passed before I was finally able to speak. The first thing I asked Juyun was to open a window.

“Aunt is not in good health. I’m afraid she can’t stand the wind.” Juyun advised.

I stared at the window while Qiaohui quickly opened it. Looking at the clouds and blue sky outside, I knew in my heart that I belonged there, not here in the Forbidden City. This wasn’t my home.

“Thirteenth Master is auspicious!” Qiaohui and Juyun greeted.

He rushed in from behind the beaded curtain, waving off the maids dismissing them. “Fourteenth actually has the emperor’s imperial edict in his hands! Now all the civil and military officials in court know that the emperor had left an edict for Fourteenth and you to get married! As long as Fourteenth is willing, he will announce the edict to marry you at any time. I’m afraid that the emperor will come soon. You should think quickly on how to deal with this.” He said anxiously.

No wonder Fourteenth dared to say he could take me out of the palace!

I was stunned for a moment and asked, “When did Emperor Shengzu give the edict to Fourteenth?”

“In November of the sixtieth year of Kangxi’s reign.” He said.

I suddenly recalled what Fourteenth had told me in the laundry department that year: “The emperor said that I had made great contributions and asked me what reward I wanted. I asked the emperor to let me marry again. To grant me a marriage as a reward. I asked him to forgive you for your many years of service, even if you made mistakes. The hardships you have endured over the years are enough.”

I smiled slightly and said, “The reward from Emperor Shengzu to reward Fourteenth for his military exploits in the northwest.”

“Why aren’t you afraid at all? Do you know that my brother is in court?” Thirteenth asked anxiously. “When he received the imperial edict, his face lost color instantly, but he still had to smile and listen to officials comment on the matter.”

Before he finished speaking, I was pointing to the beaded curtain. Yinzhen stood frozen, just beyond it. Thirteenth quickly turned and greeted him. Through the emerald green beads, his face was blurry, but his cold eyes were fixed on me.

After a while, he slowly stretched his hand out and opened the beaded curtain. Hatred, resentment, pain, and disbelief flashed through his eyes. My heart was in great pain. I didn’t dare look at him again. I stared out of the window and repeated to myself, ‘It is easy to love, but difficult to stay together. It is better to go home. Better to go home.’

He held the curtain tightly, the veins in his hands throbbing. He suddenly exerted force and a few cracks sounded as glass beads broke and fell to the floor with a clear and pleasant sound. Some was loud like heavy rain, others a whisper. The sounds strung together loud and soft.

After a few moments the sounds died away, in the silence only the emerald green beads were left. Yinzhen stood beside the broken beaded curtain, some broken pieces still in his hand. That joyful sound made the current situation even more depressing. He threw the curtain to the ground causing the sound again along with beads now rolling all over the floor.

He suddenly burst into laughter and held onto the door frame. He was laughing so hard he fell backwards. After a while he was able to control himself and asked with a smile, “What have you been doing all these years? If you are going to marry Fourteenth, why did you disobey the order back then? It would have saved me the trouble, and you wouldn’t have suffered so much.” “Disobeyed the order?” Thirteenth asked in surprise. He had been standing to the side quietly with his head bowed.

Yinzhen pointed at me and said to Thirteenth, “I have never told you that she was punished by the emperor to work in the laundry department because she had refused to marry Fourteenth.”

Thirteenth stared at me with a mixture of admiration and pity.

I leaned on my couch, eyes downcast, not moving. Yinzhen walked in a few steps and sat next to me. Lifting my face up, he said, “Since I ordered Eighth to divorce his wife, I can also prevent Fourteenth from marrying you.”

“The crime of disobeying the edict is not an ordinary one. It will immediately give others an excuse.” I smiled faintly. “Since you can ignore this edict, you can ignore others…”

Thirteenth stopped me. “Ruoxi”

I swallowed my words, but the smile on Yinzhen’s face had disappeared.

I sighed, “Emperors since ancient times have been the most afraid of not having their edicts respected. If you now openly disobey an edict from the Holy Ancestor, your descendants will have a precedent to follow. Where will the family rules of our ancestors stand? Even before you, the people of the court will gossip.”

Yinzhen stared at me and smiled tiredly, “Are you using your intelligence and eloquence to hurt me?”

The two glances were like sharp swords, piercing my heart. The pain was unbearable. I bowed and said, “We are always hurting each other now. When I was in the laundry department, my heart was full of love and longing for you, despite being separated by many palace walls. Now, although we can face each other every day, I am gradually afraid of you. I even think of… think of …. I will hate you. You… you now hate me too much. I don’t want to end up with only hatred and disgust between us. I can’t imagine how I will face that day. So I want to leave. Yinzhen, let me leave the palace!”

Yinzhen was silent for a while before saying, “If you want, we can go back to the past.”

I shook my head. “No one can go back to the past. Yutan died, the child is gone, Thirteenth was imprisoned for ten years, and you have been living cautiously and compromised since the fifty-first year. All of that stands between us! We can’t pretend that nothing has happened and I can’t ignore Eighth and Tenth! I can’t let it go!”

Yinzhen sat quietly for a while and then stood up. He walked out straight through the beaded curtain causing it to clack and was gone before the beads stopped swinging.

“You go and keep him company.” I said to Thirteenth. We had been staring at each other.

Thirteenth slumped into his seat. “Royal brother will not want to see me now. This time, there is no one else except me who can pass on your message to Fourteenth. Although he won’t peruse this matter, he must be angry with me in his heart.”

“I’m sorry.” I said.

He smiled bitterly. “If I had known that he carried the imperial decree granting marriage, I may not have agreed so readily to your request.”

“I hadn’t expected this, myself. I thought that he had the intention of letting me leave the palace. Now that I think it was my own will.” I said.

Thirteenth suddenly sat up and said happily, “You don’t want to marry Fourteenth? As long as you don’t want to, there is still room to maneuver.”

I was silent for a moment. “I don’t want to marry him, but if this can allow me to leave the palace, I am willing to choose this method. Besides, it’s just a nominal matter. Fourteenth and I both understand this.”

He fell back into his chair with a sigh. “What a mess this is!” He muttered to himself.

A few days later, Yinzhen still didn’t make any move. When Thirteenth came to see me, I asked him, “What does the emperor want?”

He sighed, “I don’t know either. After all of this, this means he is asked to give his woman away to someone else. How can my brother bear this?” He sighed again and left.

Doctor He came to check my pulse every day. After checking, he smiled and said, “It’s much better. Take two more doses of medicine and you can stop taking it.” Then he stood up to leave.

I motioned for Qiaohui to go out and I asked Doctor He, “What is my condition now?”

“It will be fine soon. Then it’s daily conditioning and maintenance.” Doctor He said.

“I’m not asking about my illness. I just want to know how much time I have left.” I said.

Doctor He hesitated and I said, “Please tell me the truth. Patients have a right to know their own condition and a doctor’s responsibility is to tell the patient the truth.”

He sighed and said, “After more than a year together I know that Aunt is not an ordinary person in this worldly world. I’m afraid she has been long indifferent to life and death. But do you remember what I said when I first took your pulse? If you follow my instructions, you can be safe for ten years.” I nodded slightly and he continued, “Now that more than a year has passed, you should have eight years left. But today I can only say that if everything goes well, you only have three to four years.” He lowered his head.

I smiled. “Doctor He, you don’t have to do this. I really am not a good patient. Does the emperor know this?”

“The emperor has never asked this. I… I didn’t dare to say anything.” Doctor He said.

“Thank you for your careful treatment over the past year. If it weren’t for you, I would have…”

Doctor He stood up and saluted. “This is a doctor’s duty. I only regret that my medical skills are too low to cure your illness.”

I shook my head and he saluted me again and left.

Meixiang, Juyun, and the others stared at me with strange looks. Qiaohui pouted, “What are they doing?”

I drank the medicine in my hands. “Aren’t you going to ask what’s going on?”

Qiaohui handed me a cup of tea to rinse my mouth. “What’s there to ask? If it weren’t for the young lady, I wouldn’t be able to stay in this palace a single day. The young lady loves freedom, just like the master, so it is better for her to leave the palace. When I found the young lady that night, I was almost scared to death! Your face was pale, eyes staring, and you kept falling for sister. You were able to walk, but kept walking in circles. Later, Doctor He came to see you and sighed ‘whether the disease can be cured is in her own mind. If she doesn’t want to get better, then even if Hua Tuo and Bian Que were reborn, they would be powerless’ I cried and cried at that time, but you just slept. Fortunately the Thirteenth Master came and the young lady got better day by day.”

Qiaohui’s voice was already crying. She pointed to the blue sky outside of the window and said, “The young lady doesn’t want to see these things across the palace walls of the Forbidden City anymore.”

I hugged Qiaohui. “I am sorry for the trouble you have endured these days. You’ve been living in fear with me. I’m afraid you’ve never suffered this much since you were a child.”

She shook her head. “Miss has been living like this for nearly twenty years. Only after Qiaohui came in, did I truly understand the suffering you have endured all these years. As long as you feel good, I will be happy no matter what.”

I nodded. Before Qiaohui could finish her words, Yinzhen hurried in from behind the curtain. Qiaohui turned to greet him, but he shouted with his calm expression, “Get out!”

She was shocked and looked at me with fear on her face. I nodded to her and motioned for her to leave.

He stared at me, temples throbbing. After a while he said, “I finally understand. I understand why you can’t let go of old Eighth, why you asked him to be wary of me, why he knelt in front of the Imperial Ancestral Temple while you stayed with him in the Buddhist temple, and why you would come and hurt me if I hurt him.”

I stared at Yinzhen’s dark, cold eues. There was no trace of warmth. My heart gradually sank into an icy cave. Finally, he knew it.

“Did Ninth say that?”

“I wish it were Ninth who did it this time, but it wasn’t. It was Eighth! He told me personally. Word for word. He taught you to ride a horse, gave you jasmine flowers, and the bracelet you wore on your wrist since you had entered the palace also given by him. You held hands on the grassland and watched the stars and moon together. He hugged and kissed you, and you made a vow: I will be with you through life and death. I will hold your hand and grow old with you…”

I saw his pale face and desperate eyes. I couldn’t help but cover my ears and shout “Stop talking! Stop talking!”

He leaned down and stared at me. “Stop talking? When old Eighth was telling me all this in detail, I kept shouting this sentence in my heart, but I could only continue to listen as if nothing had happened. How did I feel? How did I feel?”

Yinzhen lifted my head. “Look at me! Ruoxi, you have kept it secret from me! Why did you let him do this to me? Let old Eighth stab me in the heart again and again? But I could only smile and sit quietly as he stabbed me repeatedly. Why didn’t you tell me back then and deliberately allowed me to misunderstand you and Fourteenth? Why? It turns out that it was old Eighth from beginning to end! ‘I will never let you down’?”

He pressed my hand to his chest and said, “Do you know how much it hurts? How could you bear to let old Eighth hurt me like this?”

I was in tears and my heart was broken into powder, bit by bit. I went to hug him, but he pushed me away. He walked off a few steps.

“You are not allowed to touch me! From today on, I never want to see you again! Don’t even think about making me sad again!” After this, he staggered away, step by step.

I jumped up off the couch and ran barefoot a few steps. I just grabbed his sleeve, but hesitated and stopped. His sleeve slipped through my fingers. I held the doorframe and watched him go away, step by step. My body seemed to be stripped of its skeleton and collapsed to the ground. Since I have decided to leave, this may be the best ending. From now on he will no longer miss me and no longer have me in his heart. Without love, there is no pain!

I kept muttering to myself, “From love comes sorrow, from love comes fear; without love there is no sorrow, where is there fear? So do not cling to it. Love and separation are painful. If there is no love and hate, there is no bondage.”

Over and over again, only in this way can I stop myself from catching up, and only in this way can I prevent myself from immediately disappearing into ashes under this huge pain.

“So do not be attached. Love and separation are painful. If there is no love or hate, there will be no bondage…”

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gilthairpins · 9 months ago

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Book 2 Chapter 16: It’s Hard to Let Go of the Past

Qiaohui sat on the edge of the kang for most of the day without moving. I called her several times, but there was no response. I put down the book in my hand and said, “Don’t be upset. Go get the list and I’ll take a look.” She still sat there without moving.

I stood up and pushed her and asked, “What are you thinking about?”

She looked up at me and bit her lip without saying anything. After a while she said, “Nothing.” She then stood up to get the list.

“Come back! If there is something, tell me clearly! It’s better for us to think about it together than by yourself. At least we can discuss it with each other.” I shouted.

Qiaohui stood for a bit and walked to the door, lifting the curtain to take a look. She then turned around and sat back down next to me whispering, “The Eighth Lady wants to see Miss.”

As long as I am in the Forbidden City, I will never have a peaceful day. I smiled bitterly and said, We owe her a big favor for my sister’s matter.”

“I thought so too. Besides, she has been half my master for so many years, so I can’t help but pass on her message.” Qiaohui said.

“Just meet her. But if the emperor finds out, this was all my own idea. I wanted to meet Eighth Fujin on my own.” I said. Qiaohui nodded uneasily. There was a hint of fear.

I gently held her hand to comfort her. Thinking of Yutan, my heart ached. I had secretly made up my mind that unless I died, I would never let him hurt Qiaohui again.

Qiaohui supported me and walked slowly in the imperial garden. I smiled, “It’s only a few months and the belly isn’t even visible. I can walk by myself.”

“You are pregnant now, so I will hold you up to be more stable.” She said. I couldn’t do anything with her and could only let her go.

Eighth Fujin came towards me and Qiaohui quickly greeted her. I wanted to salute her, but she turned to the side and calmly said, “Although we haven’t been in public, you are the emperor’s woman and I cannot accept your courtesy.”

“The emperor is about to confer a title on Miss!” Qiaohui’s face flushed red.

I glanced at her and smiled. I wasn’t embarrassed at all, but she felt ashamed for me. I shook her hand and motioned for her to stand aside and watch.

“What is the matter?” I asked Eighth Fujin.

She smiled faintly, “A few days ago, the emperor issued an edict to reprimand me and detained Tenth. Zhangjiakou blamed it on Ye’s instigation.”

“Isn’t it?” I asked after hesitating a moment.

She studied me and said, “This matter is indeed not entirely the intention of Tenth. Although that dog servant Xu Guogui deliberately provoked Tenth, he did confront him but didn’t stay long. It wasn’t the Master’s intention. The Master is now indifferent to these things, and doesn’t care about the ups and downs. He will do whatever the emperor orders him to do. And he can even strip him of his title and imprison him. He even advised Ninth not to go against the emperor. Now that things have come to this, what is there to argue about?”

It turned out to be her idea. I asked with a hint of anger, “Why did you do this? Don’t you know that this will anger the emperor?”

She snorted coldly. “The emperor has been testing us step by step and suppressing us. We have given in again and again, but he always pushes us further! Instead of doing this, we should see how cruel he can be and whether he would be so cruel that he would do anything.”

I stared at her and said solemnly, “If you expect to see an emperor who will be soft hearted for the sake of the judgements of historians and the evaluation of future generations, you are very wrong. If you do this just to let him bear the reputation of torturing his brothers, then the price is too high. Reputation in history books is important, but how can it compare to your own life?”

Eighth Fujin half raised her head and stared at the sky. “The emperor has completely ruined my life. The emperor Shengzu started it, and he has made it worse! All the memorials were checked and destroyed by him. The ministers in court tried to guess his intentions and found faults everywhere, impeaching him at every turn. Some of them were exaggerated, and there were those not just specious. In short, half of my life’s hard work has been useless! And I’ve never done a real thing for the Qing Dynasty.” She shook her head. “If you think I expect those historians to judge right and wrong for us, then I have read books in vain since I was a child. In the Spring and Autumn Annals, there was Dong Hu’s straightforward writing, Sima Qian’s immortal history and articles, Ban Gu and Fan Ye were slightly inferior but still acted in a straightforward manner, and Chen Shou had some private interests in Wei, but he never repeated or altered them against his conscience. But since the emperor Taizong of Tang Li Shimin ascended the throne, history has become the history of the emperor, and he can do whatever he wants.

The only official history that deals with the Xuanwu Gate Incident is the ‘National History’, ‘Emperor Gaozu Records’, and ‘Emperor Taizong Records’ edited and edited by Fang Xuanling and others. The later official history such as the New and Old Tang Books were all based on these. I read this period of history carefully back then, and even in these histories, I couldn’t find any unfavorable words to Li Shimin. I have to admire the meticulousness of Taizong and his historians.

The Xuanwu Gate Incident was actually described as Li Shimin’s repeated concessions and his brothers wanted to kill him. He had no choice but to respond. In order to discredit the other party, such a ridiculous plot was fabricated. Li Shimin went to the Hongmen Banquet in person, drank the poisoned wine of his brothers and did not die. He did vomit several buckets of blood. However, he was alive and well in front of the Xuanwu Gate two or three days later and shot his elder brother, Li Jiancheng, with a strong bow. If the historical facts are true, I can only sigh that Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji actually left a drop of the best poison in the palace, that was enough to kill them and use street goods for such an important operation.

Or maybe Li Shimin was really the incarnation of a dragon with extraordinary talents who could survive the loss of several buckets of blood and even planned to kill his brothers.”

I was speechless when I heard all this. Eighth Fujin covered her mouth and chuckled. “If there really was an elixir for immortality, I would really wonder how our current Emperor Yongzheng would explain everything he did. How sinister and vicious we would be described as, and how we hindered his wish to serve the world and forced him to punish us.”

After a long while, I said slowly, “The flaws do not outweigh the merits. Although Taizong made mistakes in this matter, he still created the prosperous Zhenguan era. The same will be true for the emperor in the future. But since you don’t have this in mind, why do you want Tenth to stay here?”

She suppressed a smile. “He is only allowed to test our bottom line, but can’t we test to see how he intends to deal with us? If he really intends to imprison us until death, why not announce the decree early and give us a quick death? Why bother playing the cat and mouse game? If it weren’t for your calmness and detachment, I would have been driven crazy long ago. You don’t know the pain of living on the edge of a knife every day, knowing that the knife will fall sooner or later, and wondering every day when it will fall. I used to be afraid, but now, I actually feel that it is a relief if it falls early.” Cat and mouse? Life on the edge of a knife? My mind was in a mess. After a moment of silence, I asked, “You came to see me today if you don’t ask me to plead for Tenth, then what is it you want to say?”

Eighth Fujin studied me. “I’ve learned something strange from Ninth.”

My heart ached. I wonder how Ninth felt when he heard Yutan’s story. Did he have any sympathy?

She continued, “The emperor hates us so much now. Besides the hostilities over the throne for many years, another important reason is probably because of the plot against him that failed and Thirteenth was imprisoned for so many years. This forced him to be cautious for so many years, but you are smart. Have you ever thought about why we suddenly attacked him who has been on good terms with us? If it were just for the throne, why didn’t we target Third who was so low key?”

My heart tightened. Did she think that Eighth was dealing with Fourth out of love? But looking at her expression, it didn’t seem like it. Besides, the plan back then would have taken two or three years to set up. I wasn’t with Fourth at that time.

“Why?” I asked calmly.

She laughed. “This is what is so funny about this matter. I heard from Ninth that someone reminded us more than once to be careful of Fourth and mentioned a long list of names. Although we were skeptical, we decided to make a plan to deal with him just to be sure. So it seems that the emperor hates the wrong person! I can’t blame Thirteenth for all that suffering he endured for ten years. It turns out someone else was the culprit!”

My heart was falling, as if I had stepped off into empty air and fell from a thousand foot height. It was so dark that I couldn’t see the bottom. My body shook and I was about to fall. Eighth Fujin supported me and said with a grin, “Do you think that the emperor would be more sad or angry after learning this?”

I pushed her away and clung to a tree trunk next to me. She stood beside me and said, “You entered the palace from Eighth’s manor and had received the favor of our master for so many years. It’s not that easy for him to get you to sever ties with us. Oh! By the way, Ninth has asked me to tell you something. ‘If we were in ten points of pain, you must bear five points’.”

She ignored me after that and walked away.

Qiaohui ran over to me and saw my condition. She immediately half supported and asked crying, “Miss! Why do you look so pale? Were you feeling unwell? Let’s go get the doctor now!”

I shook my head and motioned for her to help me back first.

When I entered the house, I didn’t even have the strength to step over the low threshold. I stumbled and nearly fell. Qiaohui hugged me tightly, her face pale. She placed me on the couch and helped me drink a few sips of tea.

“Miss, should I ask to call the physician?”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. My internal organs were burning and despair and guilt filled my body, making it hard to breathe. I was always worried about the end for Eighth but I hadn’t expected it to be caused by me. If it weren’t for me, maybe he wouldn’t have planned on dealing with Fourth and maybe everything would be different. Thirteenth suffered many years and I was the cause. And Lu Wu also wouldn’t have suffered. She would have watched Thirteenth from a distance and not have committed suicide by jumping into the river because of the dilemma. What have I been doing all these years?

Qiaohui cried, “What did Fujin say? Miss if you are sad, just cry! Don’t scare Qiaohui! I’ll go get the imperial physician!”

“Qiaohui, please let me be quiet a moment. The imperial physician can’t cure my illness.” I said. Qiaohui suppressed her tears and sat on the couch to accompany me.

The light in the room gradually dimmed. Meixiang came in and asked what we wanted for dinner. Qiaohui lit a lamp and begged, “Miss, please eat first.” She begged several times, but when she saw that I didn’t say anything, she suddenly knelt down beside the couch and kowtowed desperately crying and begging. “Miss please! The master also didn’t say anything or move or eat. Miss, there is nothing more important than the child! Qiaohui begs!”

Meixiang saw the situation wasn’t right and left early. I propped myself up and said, “Qiaohui, it’s not that I don’t want to eat, but I really can’t eat. Let’s do this, serve the food first and I’ll try to eat.” I fell limply to the couch once finished.

Her face was full of tears and her cheeks were red. She quickly ran outside to provide instructions.

Before dinner, Thirteenth showed up. Meixiang came in and said, “Thirteenth Master has come to see auntie.”

I twitched my body suddenly and shrank into the couch. I said softly, “Just say I am asleep.”

Meixiang lowered her head and left silently.

Thirteenth lifted the curtain and came in. With a smile, he said, “I actually have to face the day when you turn me down. I hope my royal brother feels that he is the only one who loses face.”

I turned over and slept facing the wall.

Thirteenth stood still a while and asked Qiaohui, “What’s going on?”

Before she could answer, she burst into tears and cried a long while without saying a word.

“Ruoxi, if I had done anything wrong, just tell me. Isn’t there anything that we can’t talk about?” Thirteenth said.

I was trembling all over, as if my heart were being cut by a knife. I turned around and propped myself up. Qiaohui quickly brought a pillow for me to lean on. I waved to dismiss her and she bowed to Thirteenth and left.

“It’s not you who did wrong, but me!”

“What do you mean?” Thirteenth was stunned. He dragged over a stool and sat down beside the couch.

I studied his thin body carefully. His gray hair, the vicissitudes of life on his brow and eyes, the deep pain in his eyes and his body full of illness. Tears couldn’t help but fall.

“Ruoxi, what happened? You are torturing three people all at the same time. One is the person who loves you deeply, the other is your child. How can you bear it?” He said.

“Today I met Eighth Fujin.” I said.

“What did she say?” His face tightened.

I wiped my tears and said, “She gave me Ninth’s message ‘If we are deeply hurt, you must also bear five points’.”

“Does Ninth know about you and Eighth?” He asked after a moment.

I nodded. “The one who knew the most was Fourteenth, but I guess Eighth didn’t hide it from Ninth. Only Tenth who is less thoughtful was not clear on this matter, but he may have had some idea.”

He hesitated and lowered his head to ask, “How far did you and Mynah get back then? Did you… did you have any physical contact?”

I was stunned for a moment. The memories of walking hand in hand, hugging and kissing on the grassland flashed through my thoughts. My heart became colder and I said unwillingly, “Is it important?”

Thirteenth’s face turned pale and he looked up. “They dare not do anything recklessly about this matter. If they anger the emperor, the first to suffer is Eighth. Unless it is absolutely necessary, they will not use this matter to hurt the emperor. As far as I am concerned, this was Ninth’s idea. Given Eighth’s character, he would never agree to do so. I can take to Eighth first. If it’s just this matter, relax and let me handle it.”

One thing after another, I laid my head on the pillow and cried. Thirteenth, I don’t deserve your kindness! Suddenly I felt pain in my lower abdomen. My vision went dark and I collapsed on the couch. Thirteenth was shocked and quickly picked me up calling, “Ruoxi! Ruoxi! Quickly call the imperial physician!”

Qiaohui rushed in and threw herself on the bed, her face pale. She screamed, “No!” She immediately knelt and kowtowed, desperately begging, “Budda please! You have taken the Master’s child! Please take me! Qiaohui is willing to endure any hardship. She will fast and burn incense every day in the future!”

Thirteenth’s face grew pale and he kept urging people to call for the imperial physician. I opened my mouth wide, just gasping for air. After a while I cried, “The child can’t be saved!”

He lifted the blanket to see my skirt completely dyed red. His hands were shaking and he shouted, “Where is the imperial physician?”

Before he finished his words, Yinzhen and the physician rushed in, one after the other. Thirteenth stood up and made way.

Yinzhen hugged me and angrily asked Thirteenth, “What is going on? I ordered you to persuade people and this is how you do it?” He didn’t wait for Thirteenth’s response and quickly turned to the physician and ordered, “No matter what you do or want, nothing can happen [to her].”

Once completing the pulse check, the physician was shaking and he was pale. Yinzhen said slowly, “No matter the adults or child, nothing can happen to her, or you will be buried with them!”

He turned to Thirteenth, “I was in a hurry at the moment, so…”

“I understand.” He replied. He deliberately uses me instead of his brother. Yinzhen nodded slightly and said nothing more. They both stared at the imperial physician.

Doctor He ordered someone to prepare medicine with a trembling voice and immediately kowtowed to Yinzhen. “I can only try my best to keep her, sir.”

When I heard his words, the breath I held was stolen and I immediately fainted.

There was an endless green grass field and blue sky. Many beautiful bubbles floated up from nowhere. Because of the sunshine, they were colorful and dazzling. Inside each bubble lived a rainbow. In the sky and below the ground they floated and I chased after them joyfully. I flew with each jump, my body as light as those bubbles. I laughed and played with them. They were like elves, I chased them and they teased me when I stopped. Laughter filled the world.

Time seemed to stay in this moment forever, no beginning and no end. When I got tired of playing, I fell asleep, leaning against the bubbles. When I woke I would jump and fly around the bubble rainbows. It felt like my life began and would end like this.

The laughter suddenly got stuck in my throat, and the bubbles that were playing around me suddenly burst one by one. I watched in horror as all the bubbles that had been with me since my birth here were destroyed one at a time and the gorgeous rainbows left me in an instant. I shouted at them to stop, but they shattered in my hands. My hands were shaking and the warm sunlight became cold and merciless.

I felt a sharp pain in my body. I felt several big invisible hands pulling on me in different directions. I felt like I was being torn apart like the bubbles. When the last bubble was destroyed in my hand, I screamed and fell from mid-air.

“Wake up! Wake up!”

I felt someone rushing to the bedside reaching for me. There was someone inserting a needle into my body and they stopped them. “You cannot touch them, your majesty.”

The pain in my body grew worse and worse, and the figure before me grew clearer. I stared at Yinzhen. I was just in a dream, and when we met again your face was covered in dust and your hair white. We looked at each other tenderly with infinite pity and compassion.

Doctor He placed an incense burner beside my pillow. He interrupted Yinzhen, “Your majesty…”

Yinzhen quickly shut up. I stared at him for a while and then became extremely tired. My eyes gradually closed and I fell into a deep sleep with the gentle fragrance of benzoin.

Sleeping and waking, waking and sleeping. Everything seemed like a dream. When I gradually became clearheaded, the fear came back. I suddenly opened my eyes and called out for Qiaohui. Someone beside me rushed to answer.

“Here!”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Young lady is really awake!” Qiaohui said happily.

I studied her haggard face. “It’s been hard on you.”

She burst into tears before I could finish my words. She wiped away her tears and said, “Qiaohui has made a great mistake. Even death isn’t enough to make up for it. It’s just that I am worried about the young lady, otherwise I’d have gone to apologize to the mistress and the master a long time ago.”

I quickly signaled her to be quiet. Qiaohui whispered, “Meixiang and Juyun are decocting the medicine and the emperor has gone to morning court. The emperor has been staying here during this period except for court and he has been resting here.”

After a while, I asked in a daze, “Who served me when I was drowsy and wanted to drink water at night?”

“We all guarded the chamber outside. The emperor was the only one in.” She said.

“Will he investigate this matter?”

Qiaohui’s face immediately twisted into hatred and fear. She lowered her head. “I do not know.”

“You are the only person I care about and you are going to lie to me from now on? Then what is the point of keeping you around?” I said.

Qiaohui cried, “I helped Fujin pass the message that the little princess had been killed. I…”

I suppressed my grief and covered her mouth with my hand. “It is none of your business. Many things are inevitable. There is no effect without cause. You don’t understand the twists and turns, so you blamed yourself. In fact, this had nothing to do with you.”

Qiaohui wiped her tears and said, “The young lady’s condition has been unstable and the emperor has devoted all his attention to your illness. I can’t tell what he is thinking. The emperor himself never mentions the child and no one dares to say anything. I once heard Thirteenth Master advise him to vent if he feels uncomfortable, but the emperor said he was fine. Thirteenth Master asked me in private and I said I didn’t know what you and Fujin talked about that day. He only told me to not have any contact with Eighth Fujin in the future and don’t say anything else.”

“Does the emperor know I had met Eighth Fujin?”

Before Qiaohui could answer, we heard footsteps. She quickly said, “I don’t know.”

Meixiang and Juyun came in, each carrying a wooden tray. Seeing that I was awake, they were both very happy. While greeting me, they relayed, “Doctor He said that aunt will wake up today. Let us prepare food and drink! It’s a miracle doctor!”

Juyun half knelt beside the bed and served me the meal. Lifelike tender green lotus pods floating in the soup. They smelled extremely fragrant and tasted soft and sticky sweet. I couldn’t help but eat a few more mouthfuls. The three were smiling happily.

After finishing my meal and taking my medicine, I asked Qiaohui and Meixiang to wash me and clean myself up. I felt much more relaxed. As they cleaned up, Yinzhen strode in. Qiaohui and Meixiang quickly greeted him, but he ignored them and just stared at me. They looked at each other and lowered their heads, leaving quietly.

I smiled at him as he walked forward a few steps and sat on the edge of the bed. He hugged me. “It’s only a dozen years. It feels like I haven’t seen this day in my life.”

We hugged each other for a while. I said, “I’m sorry. I know you were looking forward to this child.”

A trace of pain flashed across his face, but when he looked up again, there was only a smile. “It’s okay. Your health is the most important.”

I stared at him. When the child grows up, would they have looked like me or him? If they were a girl, what if she took after him? But I will never see… My heart filled with sadness. I slowly said, “The child is a fairy who has fallen into the mortal world. God didn’t want our child to come to the mortal realm and experience all kinds of hardships, so he took them back. They are now in a place where colorful clouds fly, fairy birds circle and flowers bloom. They must be very happy.”

Yinzhen’s body stiffened, but his tone remained gentle. “Yes, they will be very happy.”

“Don’t blame anyone, okay? If there is anything wrong with this matter, it’s my fault.”

Yinzhen helped me up and gathered my hair. “The most important thing for you now is to take care of yourself. If you keep worrying about irrelevant people or things, I will be really angry!” His tone was gentle, but deep in his gaze, there was a hint of anger and bone chilling coldness. I was shocked.

The words “The emperor’s wrath will result in millions of corpses and thousands of miles of blood” flashed through my mind and I swallowed the words in my mouth.

I only know the general endings of Eighth, Tenth, Fourteenth, etc, but I have no idea/impressions on the ending of their wives. After all, women in ancient times were just a symbol of someone and even their own names would not be left on the family tree, but just certain surnames. Given the deep love of Eighth, how will Minghui face the final ending? The thought of dying together crossed my thoughts.

Yinzhen smiled and said, “The sun is shining brightly today. I’ll take you for a walk outside.”

I nodded and said, “I also want to go outside for a while. If I stay inside I will get sick even if I am not. But I can’t walk much. Ask someone to move two rattan chairs outside and we can sit!”

“Gao Wuyong!” Yinzhen called.

Gao Wuyong responded by pushing a carved sandlewood wheelchair in. It was covered in soft cushions and the handles specially wrapped in embroidered soft cloth.

“What an exquisite thing!” I praised it.

Yinzhen picked me up and placed me into the chair. “It’s important to make it useful. Is it comfortable? If there is something wrong, we can fix it.”

Yinzhen pushed me along the way at leisure. The lilac flowers were in full bloom and the fragrance could be smelled from afar. I laughed and said, “I’m going to miss the flower season again this year. This time last year… I was picking flowers!” I paused half way when I recalled Yutan accompanying me to pick and dry flowers. I suppressed my voice, finishing my words without changing my tone.

He pushed me to the lilac tree and said, “The flowers will bloom again after they fade. So pick them next year!”

I stood up from the chair and walked a few steps to pick a bunch of the purple lilacs and sniffed them for a while. I leaned over and wafted them under Yinzhen’s nose. He smiled. “They smell very good.”

He took a branch from my hand and twisted it around my bun a few times and tied it up. “This way I can smell it just by lowering my head.”

I raised my sleeve and sniffed it and laughed. “The smell of medicine on my body has covered the up the fragrance of the flowers.”

He leaned his head against my shoulder and said, “I only smell the fragrance of medicine and flowers, complimenting each other.”

I wanted to push him away, but failed. Instead, he hugged me tightly, kissing me along my neck and said, “You smell the best.”

Yinzhen used to like teasing me, but he had never gotten carried away in public. I tried to push him away but couldn’t, so I reached out to tickle him under his arms. “Why wont you let go? Someone’s going to see us!”

He laughed loudly and tickled me in return. “Even someone who is the most ticklish dares use this trick. Aren’t you afraid of getting burned?”

Soon I laughed myself into his arms, panting and begging, “You are the emperor! It’s not right for you to be like this!”

Seeing that I was a little short of breath, Yinzhen didn’t dare tease me any more. He hugged me and said, “The emperor is not allowed to have fun with his concubines? Besides, Gao Wuyong and the others are following. Who would dare peek?”

I didn’t hear what he said next as the first sentence kept circling in my mind. Yinzhen finally saw that I had suddenly stopped smiling and said calmly, “I have ordered people to prepare the ceremony for enthronement. When you are better, we will preform the ceremony.”

I forced a smile and said, “Weren’t you unwilling to let me be conferred with a title before? Then it was because of the child. But…. It’s not necessary now.”

He stared at me for a long while. “I was not as scared as I am now. I don’t care whether you are willing or not, I will not allow you to delay this time.”

His tone was firm with no room to maneuver. I wanted to turn around and leave, but when I saw his graying temples, my heart softened. He seemed to have aged ten years in just ten days. So I stopped talking and just leaned into his arms in silence.

#cw miscarriage

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