TCPM 22

 

Chapter 22

In the winter of the twenty-first year of Shengyuan, Prince Su, Wei Wei, took advantage of the Emperor's illness to stage a rebellion and force the palace, leading his private troops to break into the imperial city in an attempt to coerce the Emperor into writing an abdication edict. Princess Kangning, Wei Zai, used a forged imperial decree to mobilize the Wuwei Camp to enter the city; her forces opened the city gates and then the palace gates, acting as the mantis stalking the cicada from behind, trapping Wei Wei inside the Yong'an Palace.

"Wei Zai? What a brilliant Wei Zai. We all underestimated her," Wei Wei muttered through gritted teeth, his elite soldiers guarding him as the two sides appeared evenly matched.

Wei Zai raised her long saber and waved it forward: "I am acting under the imperial decree to defend the sovereign and protect the monarch! Take Wei Wei down! A bounty of ten thousand taels of gold!"

The elite soldiers went red-eyed, roaring as they charged forward.

"What imperial decree do you have! That is a forged edict! Charge! Charge! Kill Wei Zai! Once I ascend the throne, I will confer upon you a fief of ten thousand households!" Wei Wei flew into a rage; he refused to believe that his father would favor Wei Zai—how could someone like her ever be worthy?

The two factions clashed fiercely. The Yong'an Palace, as the sovereign's residence, should have been the safest place of all, yet at this moment it was reduced to a mere battlefield of slaughter, filled with flashing blades and flying flesh and blood.

Amidst the stalemate, Zou Yongjin arrived with a detachment of the Palace Guard; their overwhelming numbers ultimately tipped the scales. The men surrounding Wei Wei dwindled down until, at the very end, countless blades and spears pressed heavily against his shoulders.

The dust settled.

The wall of men surrounding him parted to leave a gap, and Wei Zai, gripping her saber, walked toward him step by step.

Wei Wei sneered: "Acting under a decree? Where did you get any decree? You are just like me—nothing more than a rebellious traitor."

Wei Zai replied with a cold sneer of her own: "And so what if I am? Eldest Brother has still lost."

"The Wuwei Camp, the Palace Guard, the Imperial City Guard—to think they all obeyed your command. Oh, Wei Zai, Wei Zai, just how long have you been plotting this?" Wei Wei was no fool; from the attire of the elite soldiers at Wei Zai's side, he could already discern the cause and effect.

"Not long, merely eight years," Wei Zai sighed with emotion. What Xu Qingchu had planned for her took eight years, while she herself had walked on thin ice, trembling with caution for over twenty years.

"Good, very good. To think that I, a hero my entire life, was actually outwitted by a little brat like you. Bah, you are nothing more than a little toy of lowly birth, nothing more than a pet bird raised by our father—what gave you the audacity to contend for this? Are you worthy? What kind of thing are you?" Wei Wei looked down upon this youngest sister from the bottom of his heart, and even at this juncture, he refused to admit his defeat, filling his mouth with foul and abusive language.

Caring to argue with him no longer, Wei Zai tightened her grip on her long saber, raised it high, and declared: "Eldest Brother, do not close your eyes; I want you to watch wide-eyed as I ascend the throne of the Nine-Five."

With the fall of the hand came the dropping of the blade, and the head plummeted to the ground. True to Wei Zai's words, he stared wide-eyed, dying with eternal grievance unavenged.

With Prince Su executed and the dust settled, Zou Yongjin directed the soldiers to clear the battlefield. Wei Zai picked up Wei Wei's head and walked into the Yong'an Palace.

The Yong'an Palace was deathly quiet. The eunuchs and attendants had either been slaughtered by Wei Wei or had fled completely. Wei Zai walked in alone, every step steady and firm; for the very first time, she lifted her chin to clearly gaze at the painted beams of the Yong'an Palace.

The Emperor was gravely ill, lying upon his couch unable to rise. He had grown old, frequently struck down by major and minor illnesses that he always managed to survive unscathed; time and time again, he had used his critical conditions to test his children, entirely unaware that it was precisely his willful and reckless actions that had driven several of his offspring to harbor alternative ambitions. The news of the palace's emptiness had been leaked by Wei Zai's people, the one who believed the news and led troops to force the palace was Wei Wei, and the mantis waiting behind was Wei Zai. As for the weakened Sixth Prince, Wei Jie, who was trapped in his residence by both factions—did the soldiers he used to break out simply materialize out of thin air? This was the sovereign who held the supreme authority of Wei Zhou, and these were the high and mighty children of the imperial family—how utterly laughable.

Wei Zai did not know what Wei Wei might have done to him beforehand, or whether this old man had truly reached the twilight of his mortality. At this moment, Wei Zai was clad in full armor, young and powerful, whereas he was exceedingly weak, no longer able to support the imperial crown. Was a man who could neither stand nor lift a blade even worthy of being called an emperor? Was a person who toyed with power only to burn himself to death even worthy of serving as the lord of this country?

Wei Zai tossed Wei Wei's head right before the couch. Upon seeing it, the Emperor's pupils contracted violently, and his breathing abruptly turned into the sound of a broken bellows—ragged and fragmented. Yet even at this moment, he still sought to prop up the dignity of a sovereign and a father, suppressing his rage as he wheezed intermittently to Wei Zai: "Qiniang, you have done well... you are... more capable than your brothers... from this moment onward, you are... the crown prince..."

Without a word, Wei Zai stood before the couch, looking down at the aging sovereign. She still clutched the very same saber she had used to execute Wei Wei—a long blade that had carved its way all the way in, stained with countless blood: soldiers, eunuchs, sycophants, and even Wei Wei's. In life, they had been divided by status and nobility, but once their blood stained the weapon, it was identically crimson, blending together into the exact same warmth. Thick, viscous blood slowly trickled down the blade's edge, winding its way downward to drop heavily onto the floor, the dripping sound clearly audible.

Inside the silent hall, the Emperor easily caught the sound of blood striking the ground, resembling the clepsydra of the fifth watch, reminding him that the long night was coming to an end. Furious, he berated her: "Wei Zai! What... what are you trying to do? Is stepping into... the Eastern Palace not enough! Why do you not yet give thanks for this grace—cough, cough!" The majesty he forced himself to muster was choked off by a fit of phlegm, sending him into a dizzying fit of coughing that warped the sound of his command to give thanks, rendering it somewhat absurd. He coughed until his face turned completely red, yet Wei Zai showed no intention of stepping forward to pat his back; she simply watched him with utter calm. It was not a daughter looking upon her father, but a monarch looking upon another monarch.

The calmer she was, the more enraged the Emperor became. Shifting from interrogation to fierce reprimand and finally to outright cursing, he felt a long-absent surge of strength that granted him the energy to prop himself up and lecture this youngest child. But it was merely a fleeting flash in the pan; very quickly, he lost that breath, collapsing backward onto the couch, entirely unable to rise again. Even so, he continued to mutter curses, ranging from Wei Zai to his other sons and eventually to their mothers; to think that an emperor could possess such a vast vocabulary of foul language.

This man had once been a towering, lofty sovereign—forever grand and majestic—yet at this very moment, he was nothing more than a flickering candle before the wind, muddle-headedly venting his final spark of life upon curses. How utterly ridiculous.

Unmoved, Wei Zai simply looked coldly upon the deathbed struggle of the man before her.

In her childhood, this same man had cradled her affectionately in his arms and showered her with immense favor. But that had merely been the affection shown toward a little bird kept inside a cage, the fondness for a small beast reared in captivity, rather than love for a human being. Truthfully, Wei Zai did not truly hate him; strictly speaking, they harbored no deep, unresolvable blood feud—they were merely a selfish father and an overlooked child, and at the end of the day, they were still father and daughter. Yet, yet—as Wei Zai the daughter, she might have reconciled with her father; but as the sovereign to the multitudes of Xu Qingchus, as the new monarch born to follow the great tides of the realm, she could not forgive this decayed, incompetent, absurd, and greedy emperor on behalf of the suffering, wretched masses. Tonight, what she desired was not the robes of a crown prince, but the crown of an emperor.

She watched as her father's breath grew fainter and fainter. Terror gripped him; he begged Wei Zai, he roared, he cursed—and finally, amidst a surge of bitter resentment, he drew his very last breath. He stopped moving.

Wei Zai stood by the couch like that until dawn. When the first light of morning broke into the Yong'an Palace, she stepped outside, pace by steady pace. Waiting outside for her was none other than Xu Qingchu.

Wei Zai looked at Xu Qingchu, as a belated wave of exhaustion surged over her, leaving her emotionally and physically drained. With a strained, difficult voice, she asked: "Is everything finally over, then?"

Xu Qingchu shook out the white ceremonial robe she held in her arms, draped it over Wei Zai's shoulders, and gazed at her with a tender, lingering affection while speaking words both chillingly cold and intensely burning: "No, everything has only just begun, my Emperor."

--