The Poisoned Garden

The New Summer Palace was Cixi's world. In her gilded exile, she was surrounded by a beauty so profound it was almost suffocating. The political storms of the Forbidden City were a distant echo here, replaced by the gentle lapping of the lake against the shore and the whisper of the wind through the willow trees. But beneath the tranquil surface, the mind of the deposed regent was anything but peaceful. Her initial, volcanic rage had cooled, solidifying into a cold, hard, and patient core of hatred.

She had accepted her political defeat. She knew she could no longer challenge the new regency in the Grand Council. Prince Gong held the levers of government, and her former co-regent, Ci'an, now acted as the unassailable moral shield for his actions. To fight them politically would be futile. Her new war, therefore, would be a personal one. It would be a quiet, subtle, and far more intimate campaign, aimed directly at the impossible child who had been the architect of her downfall.

She sat in her favorite pavilion, the Hall of Dispelling Clouds, looking out over the serene waters of Kunming Lake. She understood now that she was not fighting Prince Gong or a faction of reformers. She was fighting the Emperor himself, or rather, the ancient, terrifying intelligence that wore his face. She could not attack his power, which was now absolute. So, she would attack his vessel.

She summoned Li Lianying. Her head eunuch, now stripped of his own power base and living in constant fear, was more loyal and more useful than ever. He was a frightened dog, eager for any scrap of his old mistress's favor.

"Lianying," she began, her voice soft and pleasant, as if she were about to discuss the arrangement of flowers. "This place is beautiful, but the damp air from the lake seems to have settled in my bones. I feel a persistent chill, a weariness in my spirit." She sighed delicately. "And I worry so for the Emperor. His health has always been so fragile. He is the future of the dynasty, the last dragon of our line. We must do everything in our power to protect his sacred 'dragon body'."

Li Lianying listened, his head bowed, unsure where this was leading.

"I wish to cultivate a garden of medicinal herbs," Cixi continued. "Rare plants known for their restorative and strengthening properties. It will be a spiritual pursuit, a way to pass the time and contribute to the well-being of the throne." She looked at him, her eyes holding a meaning he understood instantly. "I will need an expert. Not one of the usual palace gardeners who knows only of peonies and chrysanthemums. I need a true master of botany, someone who understands the deeper properties of roots and leaves. Find me such a man."

Li Lianying understood the unspoken command. This was not about healing. This was about the opposite. He knew exactly who she was asking for.

A week later, a new servant arrived at the Summer Palace. He was an elderly, unassuming eunuch named Old Wu. He was stooped with age, his face a roadmap of wrinkles, his hands gnarled and stained with dirt. He looked like a simple, harmless old gardener. But Old Wu was, in reality, one of the most dangerous men in Cixi's secret arsenal. He was a secret instructor from the School of the Silent Orchid, not a master of combat, but of botany, chemistry, and toxicology. He was the man who had taught the assassins which mushrooms induced madness, which berries caused the heart to stop, and which pollens could cause a slow, lingering sickness that mimicked a natural decline.

Cixi's new plan was as patient as it was insidious. She knew she could not use a fast-acting poison. The Emperor's food was tasted, his chambers watched. And a direct assassination attempt was impossible; the monstrous guard Meng Ao was an unbreakable shield. So, she would wage a biological war. She would attack the boy's weak, four-year-old body through his environment.

Under the guise of creating a "medicinal garden," she had Old Wu begin to cultivate a collection of rare and toxic plants. There were beautiful, bell-shaped flowers whose pollen, when inhaled in small, consistent amounts over months, could cause chronic respiratory weakness and confusion. There were creeping vines whose leaves, when dried and burned as incense, released a vapor that induced lethargy and clouded the mind. There were rare orchids whose roots, when powdered and mixed with dust, could slowly degrade the nervous system.

Her plan was to introduce these toxins into the Emperor's life in tiny, undetectable amounts over a long period. A new variety of "calming" incense for his study. A beautifully flowering plant to "purify the air" in his bedchamber. A new, special blend of oil for the lamps that would release a subtle, soporific vapor.

She would not kill him outright. That would be too obvious and would bring the wrath of the entire court down upon her. Her goal was more subtle. She would make him genuinely, chronically ill. She would weaken his body, cloud his brilliant mind, and induce the very "mental disharmony" and "physical frailty" that she had once only pretended to be concerned about. If she could make the vessel fail, it would not matter how powerful the spirit within it was. An ancient dragon trapped in a perpetually sick and failing body would be a dragon with no teeth.

She would turn his own supposed weakness into a reality, validating her initial concerns and perhaps, in time, creating a situation where the court itself would see that the boy was simply too ill to ever rule effectively. It was a long, patient, and utterly evil war, waged not with armies or edicts, but with pollen, smoke, and poison. She would become the caring, distant aunt, sending gifts of flowers and special incenses to her beloved, sickly nephew, all the while slowly, methodically, trying to destroy him from within. The serpent, though caged, had found that her fangs could still reach through the bars.