People always thought Dongfang Shuo complains a lot. And they believe the root of his complain is because Emperor Wu doesn’t think he is worthy. But that can’t be further from the truth. The reason Emperor Wu never use him is because he knows Dongfang Shuo is too smart to be manipulated. But he can’t let him go either, since Dongfang Shuo is too talented and too knowledgeable. So their relationship is like the one between Tom and Jerry, the characters in Disney Cartoons. While Tom harassing Jerry whenever he feels like having some entertainment, Jerry outsmarts him most of the time. When Jerry get caught once a long while, he will either con his way out or Tom will let him go because he is unable to find another companion as interesting as Jerry.
To me, Emperor Wu has been scary, even when he is nice to you.
I follow the eunuch walking through the quiet and empty Weiyang Palace. It is late at night. The cold and damp air creeps through my layered clothes.
He sees me in his bedroom chamber again. It is warm inside. The heat is coming from his Kang, the bed platform.
After I bow down in front of him. He opens the conversation without any delay. “I have received the request from Chanyu. He wants to resume Heqin with Han.”
Heqin is a marriage proposal with the sole purpose of establishing the alliance between two countries. Han had a long history of marrying their princesses to Chanyu. In fact, Zhao Yan’s mother was one of the members of the delegate group that has accompanied previous princess to Xiongnu. Emperor Wu had put a stop on Heqin when he came to power. To most people in Han, it is humiliating for a Han princess marrying a barbarian Xiongnu Chanyu.
I wonder why Emperor Wu tell me this. I understand the significance of Chanyu’s proposal. It means he is willing to make a peace pact with Han.
But what that has anything to do with me?
I keep my question inside waiting for more from him.
“You should know it has been tradition for a princess or a girl of royal family to marry Chanyu. But this time, he specifically has asked for you.” He pauses for a little, and then he continues. “You have been to Xiongnu and I was told you have met Chanyu. I want you to get ready and marry him next spring.”
Just like that, he has decided my marriage again.
My first reaction is to laugh at him. He always naturally assumes the ownership of everything and everybody. I have been expecting cruel punishment because I have disobeyed the previous decreed marriage with Huo. Now Emperor Wu himself sets up another one and forget about the first one conveniently.
But aside from Emperor Wu’s amnesia, I do not want to marry Chanyu. Although he was nice to me and I still have the necklace he gave me. But marriage is out of the question. I wonder why he suddenly wants to marry me. I don’t believe I was that irresistible to him. He was grateful to me to save his sister and his niece, and that was the end of it.
Then I think of Zhao Xin. Was he the one behind this? If that’s the case, his goal should be to keep his promise to Zhao Yan by taking me back to Xiongnu without hurting my brother. But can I trust this arrangement? If either one of them decides not to keep his promise, then what can I do?
While my mind is crammed with all kinds of hypothesis, Emperor Wu’s eunuch brings in Huo. I have not seen him since the day I buried Zhao Yan. And that was eight months ago.
“Why do you want to see me at this late night?” Emperor Wu asks him. His tone is much nicer this time.
“I heard you are seeing Shiaonu.” Huo says. “I am concerned about my fiancée going home at such a late night. So I am here to escort her home.”
Wow, I can’t believe what I have just heard. What is this all about? I feel like I am watching a show without understanding either the plot or the characters.
“She is not your fiancée anymore.” Emperor Wu says it firmly and gravely. “The day she ran away with a Xiongnu bastard is the day she broke the engagement. I have not punished her for disobeying the decree. So don’t tell me she is still your fiancée. She is going to marry Chanyu and stay with those animals for the rest of her life. That is probably the best punishment for her.”
The hatred in his voice is unquestionable, loud and clear in my ear. Not only has he revealed how much he hates Xiongnu, but also how much he despises me. From the accusations he just made to me, I don’t know which is worse: my disobeying of the decree or my marrying to a Xiongnu? Either way I guess is offensive enough to him.
“We are still engaged. I have the Imperial decree to prove it.” Huo says it slowly but clearly. “She did not break the engagement either. She has never officially married.”
The room becomes very quiet. Neither one of us is talking. I can hear the heavy breath from Emperor Wu.
“So you are willing to marry her even after she has publicly humiliated you.” Emperor Wu says gently but sarcastically.
“We are engaged.” Huo answers impassively. “And she is going to be my wife.”
I have been kneeling down since I came into the room. Emperor has not told me to stand up. So I have to stay in the kneeling position. I guess that was another of his way showing me how much I disgust him. By staying low, I can’t see the expression from either one of them. But I can feel the tension is building up.
“I will put out a new decree tomorrow to break your engagement officially.” Emperor Wu says. “At the same time, I will announce her as a princess to marry Chanyu next spring.”
I hear Huo drops down on his knees before Emperor Wu.
“Even without an imperial decree, we are still engaged and she is still going to be my wife. But if you insist on marrying her to Chanyu, I will leave tonight to Xiongnu and kill him.”
“You won’t be able to dispatch a single soldier.” Emperor Wu roars towards Huo.
“No, I will not ask for a single soldier. It is personal. ” Huo says calmly. “I have brought me the Commander Seal. Please take it back.”
I raise my head and turn to Huo. For the first time after more than two years, I look at him, or I should say I stare at him. He looks different than I remembered. No one will mistake him for a boy any more. He has always been an introvert, with a talent that we have never seen. He fought his battles in the most genius ways. But he is also ruthless and cold blooded. He kills without blinking and he breaks hearts without thinking. So for a guy as proud as he is, as cold as he is, as cruel as he is, why is he insisting in marrying me? Even giving up the Commander Seal, which represents the ultimate control over the Han army?
I see him kneeling there in front of Emperor Wu. His head is low and his hands are high holding a box. My brain has lost the capability to think. At this time, I really don’t know what to think.
After a long while, Emperor Wu breaks the silence.
“You disappoint me.” He sighs. He sounds tired and exhausted.
The room becomes silent again. No one says anything and no one makes a move.
“Take her home.” Emperor Wu says. “We will discuss it in court tomorrow.”
Both Huo and I bow and walk out of the room. I realize I have not said a word during the whole time.
I walk besides him, half steps behind.
I had never thought he and I would walk next to each other again. Glazing over the back of his broad shoulder, I can see muscle up and down as he walks and feel the warmth coming out of his body.
“Are you cold?” He turns back and grabs my hand naturally just like he used to do all the time.
He pulls my hands up towards his mouth. He does it so fluently, with an almost hypnotic effect, that I can do nothing but watching him.
Just when his lips touch my hands, I suddenly realize what he is doing and what I am doing. I pull my hands out quickly and walk away.
I become angry and disgusted, towards him, but mostly to myself. For a split second, I was bewildered by him, by the one who pierced through my heart and drove me out to wilderness, while he was holding another woman with expectation of their child. How can I forget all the misery he has put me through and still feel captivat
ed by his tenderness? How low have I sunk? And how cheap have I become? I feel really disgusted of myself as well feeling I betrayed Zhao Yan.
I wipe my hands on my dress, hoping to wipe away anything from Huo’s touch and rewind it when Zhao Yan last touched me.
Huo is behind me and I know probably sees me wiping my hands. But I don’t care.
I walk as fast as I can, trying to stay as far from him as I can. The realization of his influence over me angers me and scares me.
When I see the empty square in front of Weiyang Palace, I begin to worry about how to get home. I came with imperial guards, so I don’t have a horse carriage waiting for me.
“Stay here. I will get a horse carriage for you.” Huo says to me from behind.
Through the corner of my eyes, I see him walks to his horse which is tied to a hitching post by the wall. He mounts on it.
“Stay here. Don’t go anywhere. I will be right back.” He says to me again when passing by me.
I hear him riding away without looking at him.
I probably can’t get back to my house outside the city. It is too late and the city gates must have been locked up already. I can go back to my parents’ house. But again, if Huo shows up, they might think I am with him again. That’s not what I want them to think.
Going through my options in my mind quickly, I decide to go to General Wei’s place. He lives not far from where I am and I am sure he will be happy to let me crash for one night.
I take off my wooden clogs, tie up my long dress just below my hip, and start running.
General Wei is just getting ready for sleep when he hears I am here. I am so moved to see him rushing out with just a gown over his pajama. He thought something was terribly wrong and I was seeking for urgent help.
I tell him I am just asking to stay at his house for one night. I then tell him what has happened in Emperor Wu’s palace.
He listens to me carefully. The wrinkles between his eyebrows become a knot.
“Do you have any idea why does Chanyu suddenly want to marry you?” He asks me.
“I don’t know. Maybe I saved the life of his sister, maybe Zhao Yan asked for my freedom before he died, or maybe he’d rather marry someone he knows for the Heqing.” I have never told anyone the relationship between Zhao Xin and Zhao Yan. I don’t want to expose that Zhao Yan used to collect intelligence for Xiongnu. There are lots of people still work in tanning shop and brothels.
“Do you believe he wants to form a peace alliance with Han?”
“No.” I say to General Wei. “Just like I don’t believe Emperor Wu wants to have a real peace treaty with Xiongnu either. After the last war, both of them need time to recover. A marriage alliance can buy them time.”
General Wei smiles at what I have said. He apparently agrees with my assessment.
“And Huo still wants to marry you?” He asks again.
“That’s what he said.”
“How about you? Do you still want to marry him?” He asks me.
I shake my head. “No. I don’t trust him anymore. He has betrayed the trust and has shattered everything in my life. Once is enough for me. I don’t want to experience that ever again. If it was not forZhao Yan, I probably have died already in the desert.”
General Wei sighs. “He has been such a fool.”
“Maybe he thinks he can have me and other women at the same time. That is the common practice here.”
General Wei looks uneasy. He has three sons, almost the same age. And they are not triplets. It is very common for guys to have many women as their concubines while they have one formal wife. Usually the wife is the head of the household, just like the husband. He or she can easily get rid of the concubines whose status is just barely better than slaves. Divorcing a formal wife is a different matter. It has to go through a formal process and he has to list valid and acceptable reasons. Marriage Laws in Han also forbids divorce in certain scenarios, such as the wife has nowhere to go back to if her paternal family has all died.
“That’s not the same.” General Wei says slowly. “When you have the woman you love, you don’t hurt her by fooling around. That is simply stupid.”
I love what General Wei has said. At least, he understands the difference between love and lust as well as trust and betrayal.
“Actually I don’t blame him. I don’t believe he was ever in love with me. And he has every right to fall in love with someone else. It would have been disastrous if he marries me but also thinking of another woman. It would be a torture for three of us. I would ask for a divorce if that really does happened. I should feel lucky that I have found out early. If it were not for what he has done, I would never have accepted Zhao Yan and would never have known how happy I can be with him.”
I have never talked with anybody about how Huo’s betrayal has hurt me, not even with Zhao Yan. He has seen my pain, my suffering, but I never said a word about Huo. I chose to bury it. At first, it was too painful to talk about it, then I was too proud to talk about it, in the end, it became irrelevant since I fell in love with Zhao Yan.
“I am glad you have come to terms with past. You are much more mature than him.” He says. “He is like a kid breaking things around him without realizing the value he has just destroyed.”
I don’t believe General Wei is just referencing me in his statement. He is also talking about the support from Wei family Huo has enjoyed all his life.
“I guess my heart is not the only one he broke.” I say to him.” The thing I don’t understand is why he insists in marrying me. I thought he would eagerly break the marriage contract with me and marry the mother of his kid. But apparently something is not right between them either. I was told that his son is being cared by someone inside the palace.”
I finally decide to find out what had happened to Huo and his woman. I have been avoiding knowing about it for so many times when women in Wei family tried to tell me.
“Based on the information I know, there are lots of things wrong between them. First she was not a maid in his father’s household as she had claimed. His father did not have any money to hire anyone at his house. She used to be a slave servant in one rich family. But she got kicked out by the wife of the house after being found sneaking into the bed with the husband. Nobody knows how she ended up to be the maid in the house of Huo’s father, at the time when Huo’s father was seeking the reunion with Huo Qubing.”
I just want to laugh. “Remember I have told you it was too coincidental for his father to suddenly show up in his life? Isn’t it more obvious with this woman?”
He nods. “Yes. I did remember what you have said. I told him what you have said. Maybe that’s why as soon as that woman gave birth to the kid, she died. None of my sisters were willing to take the kid in and care for him. So Emperor Wu took the kid in and had somebody take care of him ever since.”
“Poor kid.” I sigh.
“The kid might not be Huo’s.” General Wei gently drops the bomb. “Huo’s mom said the kid looks too big to be a premature baby.”
“What a mess!” I comment. That is probably why Mrs. Chen would not admit that the kid is her grandson.
“It has been very messy.” General Wei agrees. “It was probably the biggest screw up he has ever done.”
When Huo was in the middle of the mess he has created, I was struggling between life and death in the Gobi desert. Luckily I had Zhao Yan by my side. And he has his whole family turning their backs on him. That was supposed to be his most glorious year in military career, with only ten thousand soldiers, he conquered five countries within six days. His troops have killed forty thousand enemies. And his triumph directly caused the surrender of two kings from Xiongnu and the control of Hexi corridor, the only known route for the Silk Road at this time.
But who can imagine, his personal life was a mess.
“I am surprised that Emperor Wu was so kind to take in the kid.” I say to General Wei.
He laughs so hard on what I have said. “Shiaonu,
I thought you were more mature than Huo. It seems like you are naïve too.”
I raise my eyebrows. “What does that mean?”
He just shake his head without saying anything. But I start to understand what he meant. “Is that why Huo is so close to Emperor Wu now? Even he knew that might not be his kid, he was still moved by Emperor’s big heart?”
He nods his head with a smile. “Huo maybe slow in mind tricks and conspiracies. But he is not stupid. He will figure it out sooner or later.”
I have always thought General Wei is the most sophisticated guy I have ever known. He has just proved it again. I shared with him about what Dongfang Shuo said about tiger and rat. He laughs loudly.
“He is a very smart guy.” General Wei says. “And he is too bitter and too vocal.”
“He doesn’t want to be in the circus.” I defended Dongfang Shuo. “There is always risks associated being in a circus.”
“He only sees the surface of what happens. Emperor Wu is using Huo Qubing as a convenient leverage to limit the influence of me and my family. We have become a threat to him.”
I think about what he has said for a while. Emperor Wu has been deliberately promoting Huo to decrease the influence of General Wei Qing. He has rewarded Huo generously after Battle of Mobei while General Wei and his subordinates received nothing at all even after they had won a tougher battle. Although Wei and Huo shares the same ranking, enjoys the same salary, Emperor Wu has been making it very clear he prefers Huo only. It is so obvious that most of the court officials keep their distance from General Wei while shamelessly kissing up to Huo.
“No wonder you have time to visit with me now.” I say to him. “I am sure your visitors are much less than before.”
“That has been the case for a long time now.” He says it bitterly. “Actually you are the only visitor for months now.”
“I am so sorry. If I knew about this, I would have come to visit you earlier. It’s just there are so many memories here, and they are the ones I don’t want to remember.”
My Soul is in the Sky Page 35