An Offering of Comfort

The Palace of Peaceful Longevity, Empress Dowager Ci'an's personal residence, was a world away from Cixi's opulent and politically charged court. It was a quieter, more modest palace, filled with books, beautiful but simple art, and the scent of the flowering plants she tended to herself. It was a place of retreat, a sanctuary. Tonight, however, it felt like a prison.

Ci'an sat in her private chambers, the silence of the room pressing in on her. The brutal confrontation with Cixi had left her feeling hollowed out, her spirit bruised. She had stood her ground, spoken her truth, but the cost had been immense. Cixi's final, cutting words echoed in her mind: I will rule alone. She had been cast out, stripped of her purpose. She was now a Dowager Empress in name only, a decorative relic. A wave of doubt and despair washed over her. Had she made a terrible mistake? Had her defiance accomplished anything, or had she merely endangered herself and abandoned the young Emperor to Cixi's unchecked ambition? She buried her face in her hands, and for the first time in many years, she allowed herself to weep.

It was in this moment of profound despair that a soft, hesitant knock came not from the main entrance to her chambers, but from a small, private door that led to the gardens. It was a door her personal maids used, a door no one of importance would ever approach.

She looked up, startled, her tears still wet on her cheeks. She quickly tried to compose herself, dabbing at her eyes with a silk handkerchief. "Who is it?" she called out, her voice thick with emotion.

The door opened a crack, and a small head peeked in. It was the Emperor.

Ci'an gasped. He was alone, dressed in his simple sleeping robes, his small face etched with concern. In his hands, he clutched the little mechanical songbird toy she had given him.

This was an unprecedented breach of all protocol. The Emperor was never to be unaccompanied, especially not at this late hour. His presence here was impossible.

"Your Majesty!" she exclaimed, rising quickly to her feet. "You should not be here! It is late! Where are your guards? Your eunuchs?"

Ying Zheng slipped into the room, closing the door softly behind him. From the garden shadows outside, the figure of Meng Tian detached itself from the wall and took up a silent, sentinel-like post, ensuring their absolute privacy. The general had navigated them through the labyrinthine palace with his superhuman senses, moving through blind spots in the guard rotations, a ghost guiding a smaller ghost.

"I was worried," Ying Zheng said, his childish voice a soft, concerned whisper. He walked towards her, his expression one of pure, unadulterated sympathy. He had, of course, been informed of the furious argument between the two Dowagers almost as soon as it happened, his network of invisible ears working perfectly. He knew Ci'an would be emotionally vulnerable, and he was here to capitalize on it immediately.

"Huang E'niang," he began, using the correct, affectionate title for her, the one a son would use for his mother, a title Cixi had forbidden him to use for her. "Are you crying?" He looked up at her, his large eyes wide with feigned worry. "Is it because you and Huang A Ma Cixi had a fight? I was in my study, and I heard shouting from across the courtyard."

He was positioning himself not as a political figure, but as a child caught between two feuding parents, and he was siding with her, the wronged party.

Ci'an's heart ached at the sight of his worried face. The troubles of the state were now troubling the sleep of this small, burdened boy. "Oh, my child," she said, her own sorrow momentarily forgotten. "You should not concern yourself with such things. It was just… a disagreement between sisters."

"But you were brave today," Ying Zheng insisted, his voice firm with a conviction that seemed far too old for his years. "In the big room. You voted for the smart man, not the angry, loud one. You did what was right for the new ships." He looked directly into her eyes. "My old tutor, Weng Tonghe, he taught me from the classics that a true ruler chooses what is right, not what is easy. Today, you were a true ruler."

The words struck Ci'an with the force of a revelation. A true ruler. For her entire life as Empress and then as Empress Dowager, she had been the second, the quieter one, the one who deferred. Cixi was the ruler; she was the partner. No one had ever spoken to her with such direct, validating respect. And to hear it from the boy she now secretly believed possessed a divine, heavenly insight… it was an incredibly powerful affirmation of her difficult, dangerous decision. It washed away her doubt and began to replace it with a fledgling sense of resolve.

Ying Zheng then held out the small, bamboo-caged bird. "When I am sad," he said simply, "or when the tutors are being too loud, I listen to the bird's song. It makes me feel a little better." He pressed the toy into her hands. "You should have it. You need it more than I do tonight."

The gesture was so simple, so profoundly innocent and kind, that it broke through the final walls of Ci'an's composure. She was a woman starved of genuine affection and respect in the cold, transactional world of the court. Cixi gave her orders; the ministers gave her flattery. This small boy was offering her genuine comfort.

She knelt down, her eyes now level with his, and took the small toy from his hands. Tears welled in her eyes again, but these were not tears of sorrow. They were tears of gratitude and a fierce, burgeoning protectiveness.

"Thank you, Zaitian," she whispered, using his personal name for the first time. "Thank you."

In that moment, a bond was forged between the ancient, calculating emperor and the gentle, heartbroken empress. It was a bond not of political convenience, but of genuine emotion—or at least, what Ci'an perceived as genuine emotion. He was no longer just a symbol to her, the Son of Heaven she was duty-bound to serve. He was now a special, wise, and vulnerable child whom she felt a deep, personal need to protect from the rages and ambitions of his other "mother," Cixi. Ying Zheng had just acquired his most powerful ally yet.