Ch. 30: Decree

Of the night and morning where Zhao Suiyan's life changed forever, what stood out the most was not the astonished emperor walking in on herself when she had stripped nearly half-naked, nor the harried ride in a closed sedan back to her home. It wasn't her legal mother's flurried footsteps before a painful slap was slung on her cheeks, nor the way the entire manor lit up as news of what happened leaped and bound unencumbered throughout the manor. It was her father's disappointment.

Zhao Suiyan later heard that the words that had gone around were the exaggerated version of events, "Fourth Miss received the imperial favor at the palace!"

She had been forced to kneel in the reception hall of the main courtyard where her grandmother resided, the carpeting doing little to pad her knees. All the candles were lit and the family's masters sat around her with dark expressions. Madam Zhao had looked like she wanted to beat Zhao Suiyan again.

"You were favored by the empress dowager, but you dared crawl in bed with the emperor? When did you eat a bear's heart and a leopard's gall? This can get nine generations of our clan killed!"

"Old Madam, please stay calm," Zhao Suiyan's father had beseeched his mother, motioning to a maid to pour Old Madam a cup of tea. Everyone was hastily dressed, mirrored expressions of panic on their face.

"I knew this girl wasn't a good seed. Just like her mother!" 3rd Madam, the wife of Zhao Suiyan's uncle curled her lip at Zhao Suiyan, an expression often mirrored by her two young sons who shared a similar disdain for her.

"Mother, Father, Grandmother forgive this unfilial daughter. This was not my intention. I spilled tea on my dress and went to change. A short while after, the emperor went to relieve himself and his servant accidentally led him to where I had been changing," Zhao Suiyan begged, knocking her head on the ground passionately enough for her pale forehead to turn red.

Obviously, it was all a lie. In fact, when she heard the emperor outside the screen door she had quickly untied her middle clothes to reveal the dusty pink dudou she had chosen that morning that complimented the jade-like color of her skin. Yet, it had been her skirt that had the tea spilled on from the exquisite jade cups only the empress dowager was privy to use.

She had managed to lay eyes on the emperor for the first time and their meeting, as surprising it had been for both parties, felt like fate. The eunuch who had engaged her that day in the palace stood behind the emperor with a thin smile, before he loudly wailed,

"Not good, Second Miss Zhao is in this room! This servant has sinned! Your Majesty, please grant this slave death!"

The words were what a servant who had made an error should say, but with such volume and such explicit detail suddenly heard by numerous servants, quieting down the matter would prove to be a difficult affair. Empress Dowager Sun's close-fitting attendant had been drawn to the scene, by which time Zhao Suiyan had put back on her clothing and bathed her face beautifully in pitiful tears the way she'd seen her mother do in the rear court to sway her father's heart.

The attendant's eyes had settled on Zhao Suiyan unmoved by the young girl's tears, her beady eyes almost piercing the veil of Zhao Suiyan's performance. She had never felt such nervousness and fear, fear that perhaps the senior court lady who had served by the empress dowager's side for many years could recognize her performance. But the old woman had simply informed the emperor that the empress dowager wished to speak of what had happened.

There had been a dreaded wait as Zhao Suiyan was carried back to Zhao Manor in a small, covered sedan that jostled her uneasy stomach; would Zhao Suiyan be welcomed to the imperial palace or would she be forced to move to a distant, strict nunnery in her clan's hometown? But the dawn had brought a palace eunuch to their doors and the Zhao family to their knees.

Even the dull ache in Zhao Suiyan's delicate knees as she kneeled in the previous day's clothes couldn't diminish the joy within her heart as the stern-looking eunuch read from the golden decree.

"Hear the emperor's verbal decree! Zhao Suiyan is virtuous and kind, the emperor is pleased with her. She shall be welcomed to the palace and canonized as Zhao Cairen. Zhao Cairen will be awarded 10 pieces of precious jewelry, 15 pieces of rare silk. She will be allocated to live in Zhongcui Palace on an auspicious day. Accept the decree!"

There was an unmistakable grin on her lips when Zhao Suiyan rose and accepted the imperial decree, the weight sitting comfortably in her hands. Behind her, the family was as quiet as death, there was no joy to be found. Before the eunuch left, her father slyly handed him a pouch full of silver to maintain goodwill, but it was fairly obvious that he wasn't pleased.

But Zhao Suiyan did not care.

Her thoughts were on the emperor, who had looked like a boy not much older than her when he'd walked into her room. The most powerful man in the empire possessed smooth symmetrical features without hair and shiny eyes that made him appear younger than his 23 years. In Zhao Suiyan's eyes, he was like a succulent fruit, waiting for her to take a bite.

She stood before her dispersing family with the prized decree, her air not that of someone who had kneeled and pleaded all night. For those who may have held doubts whether or not Zhao Suiyan's encounter with the emperor was an accident, her pleased expression took half of it away.

The next day, her father had called her into the outer yard for them to speak, the last conversation they ever had before she left. He did not ask Zhao Suiyan why, nor how.

"I've seen you since you were little, you think I don't know your heart?" he had finally said without looking up. He'd summoned Zhao Suiyan into his study and made her stand for the duration of a cup of tea without a single word as he looked over documents.

"W-What?" Zhao Suiyan stuttered. She had felt as if her face had been torn.

The father-daughter talk was short. He didn't try to talk her out of going to the palace, nor could he. Defying an imperial decree could get nine generations of a clan killed. And even if he had tried, Zhao Suiyan would not have listened. But his quiet anger was something new she had never dealt with before.

"The groom I found for you was not highly ranked, but he would've been honest with you and the Zhao Family would've stood by your side for whatever grievance you suffered. But the palace is not somewhere we can dabble. Even if we had the ability, once you are carried out of this manor, you will no longer be considered a daughter of the Zhao family. The emperor is a man who can have thousands of women. I've already sacrificed one daughter to the harem and now the younger one rushes to join."

"This daughter was unfilial." Zhao Suiyan uttered insincerely, without feeling. Since they had torn faces, she did not bother to fake sorrow for her actions, her heart filled with anticipation for going to the palace. Her path, she long knew, wound its way through the tall red halls of the imperial palace.

Her father let out a long sigh. "You have truly disappointed me, Suiyan. You may go."

He'd promptly looked back down at his work as if Zhao Suiyan no longer stood there. Surprisingly, something hot had stabbed at her eyes, causing her to rush out of the study. But Zhao Suiyan hardened her heart quickly under the care of perhaps the only person in the whole manor who was happy for her, her mother.

The day to leave for the palace approached rapidly as Zhao Suiyan was confined to her courtyard and practically had to serve herself since all her maids were beaten and dismissed save for her close-fitting maid. Her food and comfort were not neglected as she was going into the palace, but that was where the goodwill ended. Zhao Suiyan recalled her sister-in-law's wedding a few years prior when she had wed Zhao Suiyan's second older brother. The house had been doused in red, joy permeating from both servants and masters alike.

She recalled her own sister's entry into the palace, which had been fraught with tears from her legal mother and grandmother, a decent dowry, and hundreds of taels worth of broken silver to bribe servants. The palace momo had given her older sister special tutelage, which must have paid off for Imperial Concubine Zhao who had gone on to become the most favored woman in the palace at the moment.

But what of herself? Zhao Suiyan was too low-ranked upon entry into the palace to warrant a court lady coming to teach her etiquette. Her natal family was determined to forget her and had done little more than prepare a tired, little pink wedding dress for her to be carried into the palace with. It was only through her maid bribing the guard at the side entrance that Zhao Suiyan's personal maid, Jin Xiu, was able to exchange some of Zhao Suiyan's personal jewelry for broken silver which would serve her better in the palace.

Even if she were a monk, Zhao Suiyan would have felt bitter at the difference in treatment.

In the dawn of the next day, a small palace sedan was to carry into her new home, Zhao Suiyan sat on her bed wide awake, clutching her handkerchief tightly in her palm. The tepid light illuminated her bedroom, filtering through the gauzy curtain and splashing onto the pink wedding dress she had already changed into. The dress was plain, lacking the luster of fine silk, and free of intricate embroidery save for the little she had done herself with the limited time. After the time it took a stick of incense to burn, Jin Xiu entered to aid Zhao Suiyan with her makeup. The young maid's hands trembled at the terrible look on her mistress' face.

"Say," Zhao Suiyan uttered quietly, her eyes reflecting rage within the bronze mirror before them. "It was clearly my older sister who replaced me in the draft and entered the palace. I'm a shu daughter, and always placed second behind my sister. Even her betrothed before she entered the draft was the third son of a second-rank household. Why must she only get good things?"

Her knees still seemed to burn from the day her older sister had punished her for just taking one pair of forgettable earrings. For a favored imperial concubine those little earrings were one of many, but they were one of the finest Zhao Suiyan had ever touched. She felt her lips curl in shame and fury. Shame from being nearly married off to a fool from a low-ranked household. Shame from being carried into the palace in a clandestine manner without her family's care or even a meager dowry.

A servant from the outer yard came and escorted the fuming Zhao Suiyan, the pathways empty as if she were the only soul who lived in the entire family compound. Her mother was not allowed into the outer yard without permission, and no one came to see the 16-year-old off.

"Young Miss," Jin Xiu whined, her eyes red at her mistress' injustice. Zhao Suiyan didn't answer, simply gesturing for Jin Xiu to hand silver to the eunuchs who were to carry her into the palace. She stepped over the threshold of the side door, the taller main doors locked tightly and denying her the honor of leaving her family with pride.

The sedan was small and ordinary save for being constructed of the fabric unique to the imperial palace. Inside, it was dark as night, but courtesy of the small fee Zhao Suiyan had just paid, the ride was smoother than when she had been hurriedly carried away from the empress dowager's Yongshou Palace.

Something in her wished to open the small, fabric window once more to look back at the rapidly disappearing Zhao Manor behind her. There still stood no one. Only Jin Xiu walked by the side of her sedan. Zhao Suiyan was truly alone.

"Just wait," she murmured to herself, so quietly that the sedan carriers wouldn't hear her. "Someday I shall become the greatest woman in the world."