The young man’s appearance was not as beautiful as Cui Xun’s but rather had a martial air. His technique was skilled and quite comfortable. Seeing that the Empress Dowager was resting her head on her hand, her expression not as cold as usual, the young man boldly said, “Empress Dowager, Cui Xun killed his commanding officer, enraging both gods and men. The common people hate him so much they gnash their teeth.”
The Empress Dowager did not speak. After a long while, she finally raised the corner of her mouth in what was almost a smile. “It sounds like you want me to kill him?”
The young man was startled and respectfully said, “It’s not that Xingzhi wants Your Majesty to kill him; it’s the common people who want Your Majesty to kill him. Your Majesty has confined Cui Xun to his residence instead of imprisoning him, and the people think Your Majesty is showing favoritism. Xingzhi is only thinking of Your Majesty’s reputation.”
The Empress Dowager sneered. “Why do I feel like you’re trying to compete with him for my favor?”
Upon hearing these words about competing for favor, the young man was speechless. After a moment, he said softly, “Everything Xingzhi does is for Your Majesty.”
“You say it’s for me, but it’s really for yourself,” the Empress Dowager said languidly. “You want to incite me to kill Cui Xun? You dare?”
The last three words were as cold as an ice dagger. Even though the young man was foolish, he could hear the anger in the Empress Dowager’s tone. Frightened, he scrambled off the couch and knelt. “Your Majesty, please spare me.”
After pleading for mercy, he still felt dissatisfied. Why should Cui Xun hold the fourth-rank position of Deputy Commissioner of the Investigation Office when he had no official position at all? Gathering his courage, he looked up at the Empress Dowager, whose appearance showed no signs of aging and remained quite beautiful. “Your Majesty, Xingzhi just feels it’s unfair. Cui Xun has caused Your Majesty too much trouble. Why keep such a person? Whatever Cui Xun can do for Your Majesty, Xingzhi can do too. Xingzhi is younger, more handsome, and better able to please Your Majesty than he is.”
The Empress Dowager slowly opened her eyes and looked coldly at the kneeling young man, as if looking at the most foolish insect. “You don’t think Cui Xun gained my favor with his looks, do you?”
The young man was dumbfounded. “Isn’t… isn’t that the case?”
The Empress Dowager had been widowed for twenty years, and rumors had never ceased. Yet among those around her, only Cui Xun had obtained such a high position. If not for his appearance, what else could it be?
If Cui Xun could do it, so could he.
The Empress Dowager glanced at him, finding it somewhat amusing. “You want to replace Cui Xun as Deputy Commissioner of the Investigation Office? Yet you don’t know that he has never even been on this couch.”
The young man was even more stunned. The Empress Dowager was already too disgusted to explain further to him. She simply said, “A plaything should know its place as a plaything. I despise those who think themselves clever.”
The young man’s face had turned deathly pale. He kowtowed repeatedly. “Your Majesty, please spare me… Your Majesty, please spare me…”
As the Empress Dowager watched him beg for mercy, his face, which should have been vibrant and spirited, was now distorted with fear and looked utterly ugly. She immediately felt revulsion. Her final words came lightly: “What a pity for such a face.”
That night, in Penglai Palace, servants scrubbed the bloodstains from the bluestone floor again and again. But the Empress Dowager was no longer in Penglai Palace; she had gone to the Buddhist Prayer Hall.
The Buddhist Prayer Hall stood at the top of the Daming Palace’s high tower. Besides enshrining Buddha, it also housed the memorial tablets of all the emperors of the Great Zhou Dynasty.
The Empress Dowager walked slowly into the Prayer Hall and silently gazed at one particular tablet.
That was her teacher, her husband, her sovereign.
In her ears, she seemed to hear his voice: “Jiang Lingye, your greatest weakness in life is your soft heart and excessive concern for family ties.”
Those words were spoken when one of Jiang’s aunts had been bribed by Consort De to slander her, claiming she had been involved with someone before entering the palace. After the truth was revealed, she still begged Emperor Taichang to spare her aunt, who had cared for her in the past. That was when Emperor Taichang had spoken those words.
He had also said: “I have nothing more to teach you, except this final lesson: one who wishes to achieve greatness must be willing to kill even one’s closest kin.”
The Empress Dowager looked at the cold tablet and suddenly smiled strangely:
“You said I was soft-hearted. I’ve killed all dozen or so of your sons. Is that enough to graduate from your teachings?”
She shook her head. “No, that’s not right. Even if I killed all your sons, you wouldn’t shed a single tear. A person like you had nothing in your heart except your grand ambitions.”
“What a pity that you died so early, leaving the power you loved so much and the grand enterprises you worried about most in my hands.”
“In the underworld, you must be quite dissatisfied.”
“Before you died, you didn’t even say a word asking for my forgiveness. Was it because you thought it beneath you to ask, or because you knew the answer and didn’t dare to ask?”
She felt as if all strength had left her body. Slowly falling to her knees, her throat emitted a venomous sob: “Listen well, I, Jiang Lingye, will not forgive you. I will never, ever forgive you…”