Resentment at Changmen Palace - Chapter 1

I died in the twelfth year of A-Zhi’s reign, at a secluded estate outside the palace, on a New Year’s Eve thick with falling snow.

No one cared whether a deposed empress lived or died, especially on a day when the whole country was celebrating. News of my death did not reach the palace until after the Lantern Festival.

By then, I had been drifting beside A-Zhi for fifteen full days. At first, I had wanted to strangle the faithless wretch. Now I only hoped he would grant my final wish and help me move on to my next life.

A soul weighed down by resentment cannot enter the cycle of rebirth. The Black and White Impermanence could not take me away. I could only linger at his side.

I had spent my entire life trapped behind palace walls. I had no desire to spend my death here as a vengeful ghost as well.

So I began taking stock of all the grievances I had carried in life. He had promised me a house of gold and never given me one. He had sworn to love me alone, then fallen for other women. He had oppressed my family. He had cast me aside like a worn-out shoe.

There was so much to resent.

I tipped my face toward the heavens and sighed. How had I turned into such a bitter woman? I had once been among the most distinguished young ladies of the Li dynasty. I could compose verse and understand affairs of state; I could ride a horse and draw a bow. I should have lived my life as freely as I pleased.

Instead, I had married him.

That marriage had begun with my mother’s obsession. A princess born to an empress, she had enjoyed honor and favor all her life. I was her only daughter. Naturally, she wanted to give me the very best the world had to offer.

To her, that meant the empress’s throne.

A-Zhi had not been her first choice. In those days, he had neither his father’s favor nor a powerful maternal family. He was an utterly unremarkable prince.

Then the crown prince’s mother offended mine with a rash remark, and Mother chose A-Zhi in a fit of anger. He had a sweet tongue even as a little boy. He would trail after me calling “Jiejie”—older sister, though I was his cousin—and promise to make me his only wife.

Mother was delighted. Convinced he would treat me well, she did everything in her power to put him on the throne.

He became emperor. I became empress.

In the first flush of our marriage, he cherished and indulged me. That tenderness was precisely what blinded me.

I believed his lies. I believed I would be his only woman. Yet new women appeared in his harem, one after another. At first, I went mad with jealousy. As their numbers grew, my heart gradually turned to ash.

An emperor has no heart. I should have known.

I shut myself in my chambers and refused to step outside. I would not look at those pretty women, or at him. I kept to my own small, square patch of the world.

Even that failed to satisfy him. When I went out and caused trouble, he called me jealous and would not set foot in my rooms. When I locked myself away, he came day after day to quarrel, accusing me of lacking the dignity befitting the mother of the nation.

Sometimes, as he went on and on about my faults, I sat on the couch and watched his one-man performance. So this was how much he disliked me. Back when he followed at my heels, when we lingered among flowers beneath the moon, had he been fighting down his disgust all along?

The more I thought about it, the sadder I became, until I cried. Whenever he saw my tears, he stopped insulting me and reached out to wipe them away.

I thought he must at least feel some guilt.

Even then, I gave him too much credit.

One night, his favorite consort sent men to surround my chambers. With great fanfare, they uncovered a little doll stuck full of needles and accused me of cursing the emperor—a crime deserving death a thousand times over.

They dragged me before him and forced me to my knees. Beside me knelt the young Taoist I had hired to pray for my mother’s well-being.

They said I had practiced sorcery and brought evil into the palace. They said I deserved to die.

They chattered on until all I could hear was noise. I looked up at him.

“A-Zhi. What do you think?”

“The witnesses and evidence are all here. Do you still intend to deny it?” His long-fingered hand covered his eyes, as though I had disappointed him beyond endurance.

“Then let it have been me.”

I rose, removed the phoenix hairpin that marked me as empress, and flung it to the floor.

“From this moment on, there is nothing left between us.”

The hairpin struck with a sharp crack. A-Zhi’s shoulders flinched. My insolence must have enraged him.

I turned and walked toward the door. Perhaps there was something too final in my expression: not one maid or guard dared stop me. They even parted to let me through.

“Where are you going?” He raised his head, his voice cold.

“We can no longer bear the sight of each other. I request leave to move to Changmen Palace.”

I did not look back. With what remained of an empress’s authority, I left the imperial palace under cover of night and went to the estate beyond the capital.