She was lying again. She had to be. No one could know what really happened inside their bedchamber, no one except Pheasant, but then I remembered, clearly, that she had begged me once to let Pheasant want her. I had just returned from exile then. But it did not matter now. Even if she was not barren, she was absolutely evil.
I struggled to my feet. “Ah,” I said with relish. “Who can blame him? You are repulsive. Look at you. You are hideous. You are uglier than a toad. You are not a woman.”
She moved toward me, her hand raised high, and I straightened, ready to take another blow. But it did not come. She swayed and fell to the ground with a loud thud instead. Holding her stomach, she rocked back and forth, shaking her head. She looked so pathetic that she reminded me of all those accounts of how weak she was, how tormented she was in her chamber. But I would not pity her, not after she had smothered my child.
“Don’t say that… How can you say that?” Her voice was miserable, weak, so unlike her too. “It’s your fault. It is. You stole him from me. You stole my happiness. You…you are the wanton woman. You were his father’s concubine. You took him from me before he even married me. If it were not for you, he would love me, he would want me, and I would not have suffered this disgrace. What did I do? I did nothing. I did nothing wrong. I am his wife!”
“So you are his wife. But you are delusional. Pheasant will never love a woman like you. He will never love an ugly, evil woman like you.”
She turned toward me, her hands clenched, but they were trembling, and there were tears in her eyes. I paused. For a moment, I did not know what to say. But her eyes, those small, closely set eyes, reminded me of what she had done to my beloved pet and cherished friend, and I wanted to say those words over and over and pierce her heart a thousand times.
“You smothered an infant. A six-month-old infant! Pheasant could never love a heartless woman like you. No one will love you. No one. No one!”
“No, no. You can’t say that… Please don’t say that…” She shook her head, covering her ears, and then as though she suddenly remembered something, she jumped up, shrieking. “You will not speak to me this way. You will not speak to me this way!”
I raised my chin. “You will not command me. You cannot command me, murderer.”
“I shall kill you. I shall kill you!”
She turned around, grabbed a dagger from the man beside her, and dove toward me. She moved so fast I did not have time to dodge. A bolt of light glared in the air, and then it sank into my chest.
At first I felt no pain, and the force of her body, so powerful, drove me backward. I staggered, taking the dagger with me. She had stabbed the top of my chest, near my shoulder, missing my heart. The cold blade pierced my flesh, severed my veins, and excruciating pain burst in my body. All at once, I was giving birth to my Hong again. I was torn apart, I was leaking, yet, with my hands tied behind me, I could not staunch the flow. I stared at the dagger, where black blood gushed at a sickening speed. I shuddered. I felt cold and dizzy.
But I raised my head to the child killer. “You see? You cannot even kill me. You can only kill a child. A child! She could not even walk or talk!”
The Empress clenched her hands again. Her head dipped and rose as she breathed. “I did not want to.”
“But you killed her. My daughter! What did she ever do to you? What did she do? You are a liar and a monster!”
She pointed her finger at me. “You made me do it! It was you!” She panted, and the phoenix crown fluttered, its wings spreading as though ready to fly. “I wanted to strangle you, but I saw her instead, her legs kicking on the bed. I picked her up. I held her, that little pink thing. I never thought a baby would look like that. I never thought of hurting her. She was so small, so soft, so precious. She smelled like milk. She looked like a dream. I wanted her. I wanted to love her, and she looked at me.” The Empress looked down, holding out her arms as though she were cradling my Oriole, and her voice was eerily gentle, sending a chill down my spine.
I lost track of her voice for a moment. I felt weak and sank to the ground. But I shook my head. I had to concentrate.
“…She kicked her legs, smacking her lips. She had no teeth, only pink, bare gums. And those black eyes—oh, those eyes, so dark and so beautiful. I did not know what to do. I touched her cheeks. So soft and smooth. She was perfect, perfect. I wished I had made her. I wished she was mine. I wished I could take her and keep her forever.”
And she did. She took her away from me. Tears wetting my face, I closed my eyes, and in my mind, I could see that moment, my child, so sweet looking and filled with life, smiling her toothless smile at the monster, not knowing the hands that held her would take her life. Why was I not there? Why did I not protect her?
I did not want to hear anything else. I did not wish to share my child, even the memory of her, with my enemy.
“She turned her head, this way and that, and her small hand tried to grab something. I think she was looking for my breasts. I let her. I took no offense. Do you see how kind I was to your child? I was kind! I was maternal. I cradled her like she was my own. I was born a mother!”
“No, no.” I shook my head, but the movement pulled at the blade in my chest, and I felt it cut deeper into my flesh. I gasped. “No. You’re not worthy. You will never be a mother. You are a monster, a child-killing monster.”
“It’s not fair. Not fair! Heaven has given me none but gave you two! What did I do to receive Heaven’s wrath?” She lurched toward me. “I! The Empress of the kingdom! The chief wife of an emperor! I am noble and pious! But nine years! He would not bed me, and you, his father’s concubine, took everything that belonged to me. You gave birth to one piglet and then another! I curse you. I curse your children. I curse Heaven! For you are blind. You are wanton. You are the one with a harlot’s womb!”
Her voice cackled shrilly, piercing my bones, and I wanted to raise my head and shout back, but I was shivering, my teeth were chattering, and my lips were trembling. And the world spun again, and everything looked darker. So cold…
“So do you know what I did, harlot?” Her voice pierced me again. “I continued to hold her, that little thing. I held her close. I held her to my breasts while she cried, her small face scrunching and her legs kicking at my arm. I held her until she stopped.”
Grief, hatred, and agony drowned me. Finally, I had heard what I wished to hear, but this was cruel. With her shrill voice, with her hateful words, she had killed my child twice. I wished I could spring up and strike her. I wished I could dig into her eyes and strangle her with my bare hands. “How could you? How could you…”
“You forced me to do it, and I hate you for it. I hate you, Pheasant, your child, and all of you! You are all spawns of malice, rodents bred from an evil womb. What innocence, what an infant! She would have grown up just like you, a harlot, seducing people’s husbands and poisoning their wives. She would have produced more vile children, and they would all be like her. Those little things! So precious, people said. But it is a lie. A lie! Those little things, they hide their teeth, sharp and invisible. Then they grow, they bite, gnawing on your kindness and spill words of venom; they rake into your heart, sucking the nectar of your soul, and devour your flesh and bones. Those little faces, they change, those sweet voices, they change, and those sweet smiles, they change! They put on the skin of the evil, and they whisper, they plot behind your back, they hurt you, they devour you. They should all die. Die!”
“Enough.” I felt tired, and I could not hold my head straight. A pool of blood was sitting on my lap and flowing down my hips, and the ground was sticky and slippery too. I needed to lean against something, a tree trunk, or lie down. I was going to pass out. “That’s enough… You are evil. You killed my daughter. You cannot deny it now.”
“I will not deny it. Yes, I smothered her. You heard me! What will you do? Look at you. You are going to bleed to death, an
d I shall bury you here, and you will bring this news to your grave to meet your daughter.”
“No. Not yet,” I said. “Because I have heard your confession, and so has everyone else.”
“Who, who else?”
“Can you not see?” I nodded toward the dark forest. “They heard you—the forest, the wind, the trees, and the men behind them. They all heard you. They all heard your confession.”
She turned sharply toward the darkness and froze for a moment. “What men? No one is here.”
The traitor guards standing near the pit shifted their feet. Frowning, they glanced toward the forest as well.
It was time.
“General Li?” I shouted, gathering all my strength to raise my voice. “You may come out now.” But my voice was not as loud as I had hoped, and it quickly dissipated in the air.
The men near me, however, jolted. “What? The General?”
“General Li is here?”
“Do not believe her!” the Empress shouted. “No one is here. Do not listen to her.”
“You thought I was joking? You won’t believe me? I told you they were here earlier, didn’t I?” I said, and with all my might, I shouted, “You may come out now, General Li.”
This was our agreement. He would follow my order. He would serve me at my signal on this most important night, as we had discussed in Pheasant’s library. But the night remained quiet, the trees still. The General should have answered me by now, and his guards should have leaped out from the forest. But I could not see any moving shadows or arrows whistling in the air.
Had the General betrayed me? My mouth was dry. An image burst into my mind. Her hair matted, one eye missing, crusts of blood covering her face. Jewel. How strange it was to see her again in this moment. We were both alike, she had said, women with dreams, women with their eyes drawn to the palace in the moon.
But there! A loud rustling came around me, and the General’s voice, so loud and beautiful, filled the forest.
“Empress Wang! I am here. I have heard your confession. You murdered the little princess! You will be punished. Leave Luminous Lady alone. Do not harm her. All the men here, listen! Step back twenty paces, or I swear I will have your heads on stakes!”
Such a valiant and comforting voice. No wonder his enemies fled in fear on the battlefield. The General and his army, holding sabers, their golden breastplates shinning in the reflection of the torchlight, ran toward me in the shape of a crescent moon.
The Empress spun, and her phoenix crown dropped to the ground. “What is this? What is this?”
The men near the pit jumped to pick up their weapons as the General released a bloodcurdling cry. A bolt of silver light flashed in the air, and a man near me dropped to the ground.
I wanted to smile, but I could not, for every movement, even of my face, seemed to pull at the blade that had pierced my chest. “I told you so, didn’t I? The General is here, with his army. Two hundred men. He surrounded you all while you spilled your venom for all to hear.”
Her confession. The truth that I had so wanted.
“How did he find us? How? Harlot?”
I could not answer. I was so tired, I wished to sleep.
“Tell me, harlot. You will tell me!” She grabbed a blade from one of the rogue guards near her and lunged toward me, raising the blade high above her head. “How did he find us?”
I could not speak. She looked like a possessed giant from where I sat. She was going to kill me for sure, and the General was fighting the men on the other side of the pit. He was too far away to save me.
“Stop it, Empress Wang!” Apricot’s familiar voice came to me. “Do not hurt Luminous Lady!”
“You.” She spun around. “Jianren, jianren!” Despicable woman. “It’s you! You told me where she was! You led me to her! You betrayed me!” The Empress turned away from me and dove toward Apricot’s slim figure.
“Run!” I wanted to warn Apricot, but it was too late. The Empress raised her arm, the dagger glared in her hand, and Apricot froze, casting a long shadow across the pit, and then she slumped to the ground.
I jolted. “Apricot!”
A few paces from her, the General finally pivoted and grabbed the Empress’s arm. He shouted, and his men swarmed around him to take that woman.
“Apricot!” With all the strength I could muster, I crawled to reach her. “Oh, Apricot.”
She turned her face toward me. “Luminous Lady…I did what you told me.” Blood poured from her mouth.
“You did. You did. I’m grateful. I’m grateful, Apricot. Thank you, good girl, good girl.” She convulsed, and her lips curving into a smile, she became still.
If my hands had been free, I would have hugged her. If I had had enough time, I would have told her I was sorry I had beaten her.
“Are you all right, Luminous Lady?” the General asked beside me. “I told you this was risky. She could have killed you.” He frowned at the dagger in my chest.
I could not speak. He was right after all.
The General ordered his men to spread around me. “You, guard us. Tie up the Empress. Subdue the traitors. Get them all. No one leaves here.” He cut the ropes that bound my hands.
I flexed my fingers. My robe was soaked and sticky with blood, and my hands were chilled and numb.
“Now, stay still. Let me help you with this.” He tore a piece of cloth from his cape, put it on his lap, and held the dagger on my chest. “This will hurt a little.”
I had yet to say anything when he pulled the dagger out of my chest. I cried out, almost fainted. “I thought you would not come. But you did. You came. You saved me. Why, General? You always looked down on me.”
“I don’t look down on you.” His hands working fast, he wound the strip of cloth around my chest.
“You never even cared to speak to me. You said you knew my father—”
“That is why you can be the only one who knows this.”
I could not think with the pain. “What do you mean? Who else will know? Why does it matter?”
“The Regent is not a fool, Luminous Lady.”
Then it dawned on me. The General had to keep his distance from me. If he had showed me any sign of favor, he would have attracted the Regent’s attention, and the Regent would have discovered the connection between the General and my father, and he would have concocted stories of us, stories that would pin us together and bring death to both him and me.
“I see.”
“You are your father’s daughter, I can tell you that.” He tightened the ends of the cloth and tied a knot on my shoulder.
I felt much better. “Thank you, General. Thank you for saving my life. Now, shall we go find Pheasant? Where is he? Is he all right? The Empress said—”
“Of course he’s all right. He is still on the watchtower. There was a fight earlier, I heard,” the General said, standing up. “The Emperor is holding it off, though. He has good archery skills. Many people were surprised. I heard he shot the Regent, and the rebels are retreating.”
Pheasant’s archery practice had paid off. “Is the Regent dead?” I asked with hope.
He shook his head. “We will find out.”
“Take me to the watchtower.”
“As you wish, Luminous Lady.”
I looked around. Several of the General’s men and the rogue guards were still fighting, and two guards were binding the Empress’s hands behind her. She screamed, her hair whipping around her shoulders. But she had lost the battle, I could see.
I leaned over Apricot and placed my hand over her eyes, shutting them.
She was the secret and the most vital arrow I had unleashed. I had asked her to betray me, and she had gone to the Empress’s uncle and told him where I was, and the Empress’s uncle had in turn told the Empress, who then sent Captain Pei to abduct me. While the Captain
took me, Apricot had followed, and the General, who had never let me out of his sight, followed me as well when I was taken to the Empress. While that evil woman, sure of her victory, delivered a virulent account of her crime and her hatred of children, she did not know the General and the guards, hiding near us, were listening to her every word.
For I knew even if I captured the child killer, she would never confess, and the only way to force her to tell the truth was to let her come to me, by offering myself as bait.
And that was what I had learned from the master Sun Tzu. That when your goal was too great, the best method to deceive your enemy was to make yourself a victim.
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I pushed up to stand. A few paces from me, the General had trussed up Captain Pei, the rogue guards, and the Empress, and they were ready to herd them out of the forest.
“Stop, General. Give her to me.” I tottered toward them.
“Luminous Lady—”
I picked up a sword near the pit and put it against the Empress’s neck. I had to kill her. She had smothered my child, and I had to take her life in return. “She is mine.”
“Luminous Lady, she is now a prisoner—”
He would take her and throw her in a dungeon. But she did not deserve that. She deserved death. I could not let her out of my hands. As long as she lived, I, and my child, would never live in peace. I should end her life and bury the threat underground. “No. She is mine.” I pressed the blade harder against her thick neck.
“Go ahead.” Her flat face was smeared with dirt and blood, and she looked like a dirty funeral wailer on a cursed burial site. “Kill me while you can, or I will kill you whenever I have the chance!”
“Shut up.” I stabbed her. I could have finished her with a stroke, but I was too weak; my hands felt cold and numb; so did my legs. Drops of blood slid down her neck. She screamed.
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