by Tang Qi
But before my right foot had even crossed the doorway, I heard Ye Hua’s gentle voice calling out, “What exactly are you doing out there? Are you coming in or not?”
I rubbed my forehead and gave a quiet sigh. Even with a beautiful woman in his arms, Ye Hua could still make out some faint indistinct sound. He really was an exceptional god.
The candles behind the curtain started to leap. I did not wish to enter, but did not feel I could leave now either. “I’ve inscribed your fan with a poem. Come and get it,” Ye Hua said.
I gave a gulp. Since he was instructing me to enter, I imagined he had to be decent. I was actually feeling curious to see what the little immortal attendant I had heard moaning looked like, so I plucked up the courage to eagerly lift the curtain and step into his study.
My instinct had not been too far off; however, it was not just one young immortal attendant on duty in the inner room, but two.
They were, though, fully clothed and on their knees, their heads lowered to the ground. The shoulders of the one on the left were shaking, as if she were lying there silently sobbing.
Ye Hua was sitting behind his desk with a big stack of documents in front of him. Next to the documents was a blue-and-white porcelain bowl of soup, with steam billowing off it. His austere expression was very different from the amorous one I had been picturing while standing outside.
I was filled with surging waves of doubt so strong that they reached the top of high mountains and filled deep valleys. I needed to retain my goddess bearing in front of these little immortal attendants, however, and so temporarily overcoming this doubt and feigning calmness, I took the fan from Ye Hua’s hand. While I was inspecting his inscription on its surface, I managed to regain enough composure to ask, “So what is all this then?”
Ye Hua’s handwriting was beautiful. He had written eighteen characters in two columns on the fan’s surface. They read, “To winds of the east let us raise a glass, relax together and enjoy the time we pass.” I had been trembling in anticipation as I opened up the fan, afraid that he might have written something too gushy.
But I was pleased with what I saw.
The room fell quiet. I lifted my eyes in curiosity and saw the girl kneeling on the right was looking at me, an expression of abject terror in her eyes.
She had beautiful eyes. In all my one hundred forty thousand years, I had never seen such beautiful eyes. Phoenix Nine’s eyes were very lovely, but she was younger, and they did not show any of the sediment of time. The eyes before me seemed filled with boundless emotion, and once I had seen them, I found it hard to look away.
There was something really special about this young immortal attendant.
But her eyes were her only charming feature. The rest of her face was quite commonplace, and she was nowhere near as beautiful as Princess Green Sleeves from the Southern Sea Emperor’s family.
Through trembling lips, this immortal attendant managed to call out a shaky name. I heard it clearly: it was the name of Dumpling’s mother, the woman who had jumped from the immortal punishment platform.
I stroked the white silk on my face. I had been mistaken for her three times now, and I was getting so used to it I no longer felt the need to put people right. I just took a sip of tea and looked her up and down again. “You have very beautiful eyes,” I told her quietly.
It was a compliment, given with sincerity, and most would be happy to hear it. The young immortal attendant kneeling in front of me was clearly different from most: she not only seemed displeased to hear my compliment, she actually fell onto the floor and lay sprawled on her side, staring at me through increasingly panic-stricken eyes.
I may not have been quite as blessed in the looks department as Fourth Brother, but I was always by far the most beautiful woman in Qingqiu. I would have expected her to be revering me for my beauty, which had not faded over these tens of thousands of years, not to become so fearful of my appearance that she fell into a crumpled heap on the floor!
Ye Hua calmly removed my white silk and pulled me over to the seat next to him. The two immortal attendants in front of us were both staring wide-eyed at my face. They must have finally realized that I looked nothing like Dumpling’s mother.
Ye Hua raised his chin and addressed the two immortal attendants staring dumbly at me in a cold voice. “Princess Liao Qing, there is no longer any room for you at Xiwu Palace. Please return to the Eastern Sea tomorrow morning. Su Jin, you obviously place a great deal of importance on your friendship with Princess Liao Qing, so if you really can’t bear to see her leave, I suggest you ask the Sky Emperor to issue a decree to have you both married out into the Eastern Sea. How does that sound?”
His words chilled me to the bones. Both the kneeling immortal attendants turned white.
I was shocked. I squinted at the girl on the left, who was still sobbing soundlessly. I could vaguely make out the elegant bone structure of her face, so similar to that of the Eastern Sea Emperor. She had to be Princess Liao Qing.
Which meant that the girl kneeling on the right, with the eyes that did not match the rest of her face, was the woman my unfilial apprentice, Yuan Zhen, had tried to have his way with, and who had attempted to hang herself as a result, and Ye Hua’s head concubine, Su Jin.
I had found her appearance rather commonplace before I knew who she was, but now that I knew she was the reason my poor beloved little apprentice had faced all those trials and tribulations, I found her looks even more commonplace. I gave a sad sigh into my sleeve. Yuan Zhen, oh, Yuan Zhen, what bad taste you have. You would be doing yourself more of a favor if you took advantage of yourself while looking in a mirror; you are miles more attractive than she.
Su Jin was still looking at me, her eyes clear again, while Liao Qing was still sobbing and pleading. I could see how angry Ye Hua was. Apart from during the battle with Xuan Nu at the Purple Light Palace, I had never seen him so angry. I was intrigued, and even though I already had what I came for, I was unable to tear myself away. I picked up a teacup, filled it with boiling water, found a corner to sit down in, and calmly waited for the tea to cool.
Even when he was angry, Ye Hua was amazingly skilled at maintaining his composure. Princess Liao Qing’s defense was enough to move any listener to tears, but he remained completely unaffected. He just sat there quietly, looking through his documents.
I had seen Princess Liao Qing reduced to tears by the depths of her love for Ye Hua once before, after the Eastern Sea banquet, and now, even though Su Jin was so affected by the princess’s performance that she was wiping away tears of her own, I found I was able to keep my cool.
After listening for a while, I finally caught up with what had taken place and understood why Ye Hua was so angry. Earlier that evening, Eastern Sea Princess Liao Qing had made a brazen attempt to feed Ye Hua a bowl of soup she had spiked with a love potion in the hope of seducing him. Unfortunately for her, she had not picked a quality potion, and Ye Hua had smelled it while holding the bowl. She had not ended up lighting a fire in his heart as she had been hoping, but had ignited flames of fury instead.
The desk immortal who ground Ye Hua’s ink had been standing by his desk at the time and had witnessed the whole thing. She had rushed to fetch Head Concubine Su Jin to adjudicate the proceedings, in line with Sky Palace regulations. I was impressed with Su Jin’s display of tolerance, which seemed to go above and beyond. When she learned that Liao Qing had tried to seduce her husband with a love potion, she had not shown the slightest resentment or anger, but had actually pleaded clemency for the princess. Such a generous attitude could make her a model concubine of the entire Four Seas and Eight Deserts.
I had come in to collect my fan during a break in their drama. As soon as I worked out what had happened, I was no longer interested in staying. There were far more interesting things to do than watch this pair kneeling on the floor and wailing. Mortal world plays had similar plots but were less subdued and better written.
My tea was the ideal te
mperature to drink. I finished it in a couple of swigs, picked up my fan, and made to leave.
Just as I was about to make my escape, Princess Liao Qing wrapped her arms around my leg. “Empress, I didn’t know who you were last time we met, but you helped me then, and I will always remember that and be grateful. Now I’m pleading for you to please help me one more time.”
I turned silently to Ye Hua. “Since Princess Liao Qing has knelt before me to ask me to help, I feel obliged to give a few words of advice, if you will permit me.”
Ye Hua lifted his head from his documents, looked at me, and said, “Be my guest.”
I gave a sigh. “Princess Liao Qing is not the only one at fault here. You knew from the start how she felt about you, and you brought her back to the Sky Palace anyway. I appreciate that you wanted to repay the favor you owe her by helping her to avoid marrying the Western Sea’s second prince and giving her space to think before returning to the Eastern Sea, but she was not to know that was your thinking. She was obviously hoping that your affection toward her would grow. She saw how upright and honorable you have been acting toward her, and so she eventually took it upon herself to make the first move.”
It was hard to read what Ye Hua was thinking from his eyes. He looked at Liao Qing with indifference and said, “You told me that all you wanted was to work as a serving girl at Xiwu Palace and you would be completely satisfied.”
“Do you think you can believe anything told to you by a girl in love?” I said with a yawn.
Liao Qing had cried so much that her face was barely recognizable. I tapped the edge of my fan and said, “You listen to an old lady’s words. You’d be better off going back to the Eastern Sea.” Then I took a couple of steps back to free myself from her grip. I straightened my clothes, and before she had a chance to react, I picked up my fan and slipped from the room.
I had gotten as far as the threshold of the outer room before Ye Hua caught up with me and pulled me back. I turned around to look at him. He let go, and we stood there shoulder to shoulder. “It’s dark outside. Will you be able to find your way back to your courtyard?” he asked.
I looked around and said, “I’m sure I’ll be able to find it,” but my words sounded full of doubt.
He was silent awhile before saying, “I’ll walk you back.” I heard Liao Qing sobbing from the inner room, behind the curtain with the flickering candle.
The two of them must have tired themselves out completely with all that fuss. They could use the time while Ye Hua accompanied me to have a rest and recover their energy, so that they could give him an even more spirited display later.
Even though I was temporarily removing Ye Hua from the scene so that he could act as my guide, I imagined I would not be taking him away from these serious back palace matters for too long. I led him out without too much of a sense of guilt.
The moon was frost colored, and a cold wind was blowing.
Ye Hua was quiet along the way, save for the occasional warning about tree branches or stones that could trip me. He took me down an uneven path, and because of my eyes, I had to keep my focus on where I was walking, which prevented me from talking.
I had been feeling quite tired anyway, and by the time we had walked the whole path, I felt even more depleted. Arriving at the front entrance to my courtyard, all I wanted was to dive into my room and flop down onto the bed.
But I had just reached the threshold when Ye Hua grabbed me again.
I lifted my head pitifully and said, “You don’t need to take me any farther. I know the way from here.”
He was slightly taken aback by my comment, but laughed all the same. “If this courtyard were any bigger, you would probably end up getting lost in it and might not even manage to find your way back to your room. I know this about you by now.” He paused, staring at me with a serious expression. “I actually wanted to ask you something. Why did you persuade Princess Liao Qing to go back to the Eastern Sea just then?”
I covered my mouth to give a half yawn. “Didn’t you want her to go back to the Eastern Sea?” I asked.
His eyes went dark. “That’s why you advised her to go back, because it was what I wanted?” I rested my fan on my elbow and said nothing.
There was a slight hint of aggression to Ye Hua’s voice. I was not sure if it would be better for me to be sincere and nod or to be insincere and shake my head, or whether I would be best off to just look unruffled and unreactive. I did not have much experience with situations like this, even at my grand old age. The immortals I spent time with tended to be cheerful and easygoing.
I had never really understood youngsters who had grown old before their time, and Ye Hua, the epitome of these, had been acting very unpredictably of late, almost as if he had been bewitched, making him even more unfathomable. I had no idea what answer he wished to hear.
Before I could decide how to reply, he had his head in his hand. “So that’s how it is?” he said with a bitter smile.
By the time an immortal obtains my amount of cultivated spiritual energy, enough to enter the realm of god or goddess, they naturally need to be familiar with the ways of the world. They do not need to know everything, but they need to partially understand how to read people’s faces. With a quick glance at Ye Hua’s face and the bitter smile upon it, I realized how full of resentment he was feeling, and how mistimed my silence had been. I should have responded to his question.
As soon as this dawned on me, I smiled at him to try to make up for it. I looked at his frosty face and began awkwardly, “Of course I hadn’t forgotten my promise to help you find a couple of beautiful concubines. But you need to choose them wisely, or you will just end up drifting apart, which will cause you nothing but trouble. Since Eastern Sea Princess Liao Qing isn’t to your liking, there’s no reason for her to continue living here.”
I rested the fan against my elbow again, tapping it as I frowned. “And she’s a scheming princess. Today she tried to feed you love potion. Who knows what astonishing stunt she might try to pull tomorrow! The back palace should remain as tranquil and free of drama as possible.”
Ye Hua was silent for a long time, a strange expression on his face. “I shouldn’t have asked you something like that,” he said in a flat voice. “When I pulled you into my study just then, I was hoping to rouse a little jealousy out of you. I was not expecting you to just sit there, enjoying the spectacle.”
My heart gave a loud thump. Goodness. I thought he had called me in just to collect my fan. I had not imagined for one second that might have been his intention.
He lifted his head and glanced at me briefly. I could read neither sorrow nor joy on his face. He continued speaking in that same flat tone of voice. “Bai Qian, do I not hold even a small place in your heart? Is it all taken up by him? How long are you willing to wait for him?”
I felt a tug on my heartstrings, but I was not sure why.
Ye Hua bid me farewell with a grim expression on his face. When he had gone, I walked through to my room without rousing Nai Nai and lay down.
I had felt overwhelmingly tired before, but lying on my soft and cozy cloud bed now, all I could do was toss and turn, turn and toss, unable to sleep. All I could think of was the tug I had felt on my heartstrings, while Ye Hua’s grim facial expression continued to hover in my mind. Finally I entered a daze and then started to drift off to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I was woken in the middle of the night by someone tapping on my door.
Because I was in a strange new bed, I had not been sleeping very deeply, and as soon as I heard the tapping, I lifted myself up, draped a cloak around myself, and went to answer the door.
Nai Nai was standing under the cool starlit sky, her eyes were bloodshot, and she was carrying the still-sleeping Dumpling in her arms.
Her brow unfurrowed slightly when she saw me. “Yesterday you said that His Little Majesty would wake in the early hours, but it’s the early hours now, and still he shows no signs of waking,” sh
e said in a panicked voice. “And his little face has been getting redder and redder. I am so sorry to disturb you, Goddess, but I’m very worried.”
I was halfway awake now. Nai Nai entered my room and lit a candle while I carried Dumpling to the bed. I moved my hands around his body and felt relieved to find that he was cooling down.
Children tended to have low alcohol tolerances, but Dumpling’s was much lower than I expected. I saw Nai Nai looking apprehensive still and offered her a reassuring smile. “Most little children who gets tipsy on fruit wine wake up in the middle of the night, and that’s what I assumed would happen to Dumpling. He actually looks like he’ll sleep through until early tomorrow morning. The fact that his face is rosy is a good sign. It shows that the alcohol is being flushed out. You mustn’t worry too much.”
Nai Nai let out a loud sigh.
When I saw how red her eyes were, I felt a surge of tenderness toward her. “I don’t think you should take Dumpling back with you. You haven’t had a wink of sleep, have you?”
She gave an embarrassed smile.
As a merciful goddess, I did not like the idea of Nai Nai being deprived of sleep for the rest of the night too. The two of us undressed Dumpling, covered him with a cloud quilt, and moved him into the middle of the bed. I gave Nai Nai a kindly smile and said, “I will transfer immortal energy across to him at intermittent points throughout the night. He’s certain to wake up tomorrow as his boisterous Dumpling self. When he does, he will need some stodgy sticky-rice porridge to fill his stomach. Go and have a good sleep, recover your energy, and when you wake up tomorrow morning, make that porridge and bring it over.”
Nai Nai hesitated before saying, “But if His Little Majesty is here with you, you won’t be able to get to sleep.”
I patted Dumpling’s face. “Look how deeply he’s sleeping now. We could make him into the shape of a ball and roll him back to Qingyun Palace and he wouldn’t be the wiser. He won’t disturb my rest.”