I immediately wrote out the order for this to be carried out and affixed my seal as Mistress of the Palace. Little Phoenix was silent and ashamed, letting me act as I saw fit and lacking the courage to intervene. To be sure that the punishment would be severely enforced, I sent Ruby and Emerald to watch the procedure. It was not long before they reported that Wang, the dethroned sovereign, had prostrated herself three times in the direction of the Middle Court and wished the Emperor a long life and the Empress much happiness before being reduced to a seething mass of meat. The demoted Resplendent Wife had sworn that in her next life, she would be reincarnated as a cat and I as a rat, and she would drink my blood and tear me into a thousand pieces. Her voice soon stuck in her throat as the black lacquered planks tore off her skin and broke her bones. Her blood, flesh, and excrement mingled together, and she had her last breath after twenty strokes.
I had the bodies thrown into the leopards’ den. I forbade the two criminals’ families to bear the names Wang and Xiao. From then on they would be called Python and Stray Cat.
I slept fitfully in the Forbidden City: My rivals appeared to me in my dreams with their hair torn out and their flesh bloodied. I was haunted by the thought that their supporters would want revenge. But I decided to preempt any reprisals. To demonstrate my generosity, I requested promotions for Han Yuan and Lai Ji who had dared to write to the sovereign, and I praised their sense of responsibility and the courage they had shown in being so candid. Ashamed and frightened, they refused the titles the Emperor offered them and left Court.
Chu Sui Liang and Liu Shi, the uncle of the deposed Empress, received orders to go into exile at the ends of Earth. But Wu Ji was still chancellor. The old man, furious in his isolation, publicly contested my every decision. I had to wait for years to orchestrate his downfall. Wu Ji was indicted in the fourth year of Dazzling Prosperity. In a letter of accusation that covered a full three scrolls of paper, the imperial magistrates demonstrated that the Great Chancellor had been the instigator of my daughter’s death: Through Liu Shi, he had supplied the then sovereign lady with a phial of aconite.
Little Phoenix wept when he heard these shocking revelations. Then he was gripped by anger, and he exiled him from the Capital. On his journey, the former chancellor received orders to kill himself: He hanged himself from the rafters of an inn. The death of Wu Ji-the previous Empress’s brother, and the sovereign’s uncle, who had been a chancellor for two reigns-announced a new era. This man who had been feared and venerated as a demi-god had proved to be fragile as a clay statue. His demise would serve as an example to anyone who might dare wish me harm.
Even though they had retired, Han Yuan and Lai Ji did not escape capital punishment. Chu Sui Liang was already dead, but the deposed Empress’s uncle was called back from exile and decapitated at Long Peace. The Court confiscated the assets and lands that these noble clans had accumulated through a succession of dynasties: I distributed this fabulous fortune to the commoners who were now ministers and who would be devoted to my cause.
In his tomb, Father received the posthumous title of Master of the Kingdom of Zhou. His funeral stone was now in the temple of the Emperor Eternal Ancestor, and the Court made daily offerings to him. An imperial decree raised Mother to the rank of Lady of the Kingdom of Dai, and Elder Sister to Lady of the Kingdom of Han.
In this world beneath the Heavens, no one could fail to know the glory of the Wu family. My brothers and cousins hastened to Court to offer me their obsequious congratulations. The men of the clan had aged. They groveled before the sovereign and prostrated themselves at my feet in the hopes that I would promise them elevated positions. In the annals of other dynasties, there were many empresses who had granted the men of their own clan command of the armies and key posts in government. Once in Court, these relations from the outside helped to defend the sovereign’s authority against ambitious princes and powerful ministers. My brothers and cousins had neither the political vision nor the necessary education to take on any administrative responsibility. I could not forget the misery they had inflicted on us. They were shameless, thankless creatures; they would never set an example as men of State. Little Phoenix was prepared to welcome them to Court for the sake of my prestige and his imperial dignity: It was hardly fitting for close relations of an empress to remain simple administrators. But I was reluctant to include these worthless individuals in the government simply because they were lucky enough to be born my brothers and cousins. If men like that were granted promotions without earning them, without any effort, would they swear unfailing loyalty to me, would they prove perfectly obedient? After weighing up the arguments for and against, I decided to raise the men of my clan to a symbolic rank within the hierarchy, and I accorded them modest responsibilities that would mean they could take part in the morning salutation.
A few months later, during the Feast of the Moon, Mother gathered all the members of the family in her palace and asked them, “Do you still remember our lives yesterday? And what do you think of the abundance and honor we enjoy today?”
Cousin Wei Liang, who was disappointed not to have been given a more significant promotion, replied: “We are descended from the most highly skilled warriors in the dynasty, and we have climbed through the administrative ranks by our own efforts. Having no claim to the highest ranks in the hierarchy, we are forced to accept these new positions to please the Empress. This special favor weighs on our conscience. Good Lady, there is truly no glory in this!”
When Mother told me of this conversation, their lack of gratitude now and their oppression in the past inflamed me. I immediately wrote the Emperor a long letter, my hand working furiously across each page, denouncing the privileges of these relations from outside the Court and citing frequent historical examples when unworthy men had been heaped with honors and had usurped supreme power. To cut the evil back to the very root, I suggested my relations be sent away from Court to far off provinces. The ministers greeted my request with enthusiasm. My determination had dissipated their fears that my family would become embroiled in politics. The men of my clan had barely taken up their positions before they were driven out of Court like criminals.
Shortly thereafter, I received letters from them begging for my clemency, and I replied to their supplications by writing the book
A Warning to Relations from Outside.
My brothers died in their postings. Their bodies were taken to the Cemetery of Ancestors. And so I buried the shadow over my glory forever.
SIX
The same scene kept coming back to me in my dreams: Elder Sister emerging from her room wrapped in crimson silk, her face carefully made up, and every eyebrow plucked, resplendent as a goddess. I was about to take her hand when a surging crowd of strangers knocked me aside. My anguished cries were drowned out by deafening music. She was carried away by the jubilant crowd and disappeared forever.
When she was fourteen, Purity had married into the He Lan clan. Her husband was a gangly, sickly boy of fifteen who soon began a career in local government. As the years passed, he made little progress in the imperial hierarchy, but he became very well read, could hold a conversation about the Great Classics, and was an able painter on silk paper. Like most young aristocrats, he did not go home when he left work. The young lords of the town would take turns organizing banquets in the Houses of Flowers and would invite the most famous courtesans to join them at the table. Clandestine loves flourished as they teased each other. A young poetess introduced a young lord to the astonishing pleasures of the flesh, but she refused to become his concubine and slave in his gynaeceum. In his efforts to persuade her, he visited her pavilion with tenacious regularity and squandered his fortune. Precious stones could buy her smile but not her faithfulness. Other men had found their way into the courtesan’s rooms: A poor but educated man offering her a roll of silk could hope to be given a cup of tea; rich merchants with gold might be granted a perfumed kiss. When, at the age of twenty-five, she was found hanging from a beam, the whole town was devastated, but no one knew which thwarted love had made her kill herself. Without her, life had lost its spice: Elder Sister’s husband succumbed to the incurable illness of his grief. He died six months later.
At twenty-five, Elder Sister was a widow and a mother of two. She had put away her colored gowns and wrapped herself in dark tunics. She no longer left her apartments where she divided her days between reading and prayer. Believing her life was over, she hoped to find happiness for her future life through Buddhism.
I still remembered the image of her as a beautiful adolescent whose coquettish pouting seduced every person she met. When Purity had appeared at the gates of the palace, I saw a woman from the provincial aristocracy who was chillingly severe. She was covered in layers of tunics of heavy purple-blue-black satin and looked like a crow bearing evil omens. I made her take off her sinister clothes and dress in silks and muslins. I looked at her closely while she changed. What an extraordinary surprise to find she no longer had the straight legs, thin arms, and flat stomach of the sister I used to glimpse at in her bath! Her monastic clothes had been hiding a fertile bosom and generous hips: an ivory sculpture!
The servants had then announced the sovereign’s arrival, and Elder Sister had wanted to escape, but I held her back. She had insisted on putting her gloomy clothes back on and had prostrated herself on the ground, trembling shyly. Little Phoenix looked closely at her, and his expert eye saw beyond her immediate appearance. The novelty of a widow appealed to the sovereign, overwhelmed by the polished sweetness of the Court ladies. I encouraged him to seduce her. Through him I hoped to slip inside of a woman who had been close to me and very distant. The union between Little Phoenix and Purity took place in a pavilion I had prepared. That night my soul was in turmoil, accompanying my husband as he explored a sacred kingdom.
At thirty-one, when most women are in decline, Elder Sister had rediscovered her youth. Her silk gowns and crepe muslin tunics had revealed a proud and happy bosom. Her face had thrown off its gloomy veil and adopted a thousand languid expressions, displaying her sensual delight. She who had never been loved had now discovered the fervent caresses of an emperor. Her chastity had been breached, and she had allowed herself to be borne away on a wave of pleasure.
I had watched my sister blossoming with the pride of a craftsman contemplating his masterpiece. I had offered her part of my palace, a pavilion surrounded by blazing azaleas and camellias, with orange blossom and jasmine wafting their subtle fragrances around it. The Emperor had stopped pursuing the beauties to spend alternate nights in our beds.
That summer the Zhong Nan mountain was covered with pale, pastel colors and heady moisture. The cicadas moaned in the trees. The silken breeze gently stroked our shoulders. Our three-way agreement was an invitation toward the highest pinnacle of desire. One evening, when the musicians were singing age-old melodies outside the door, Little Phoenix affected drunkenness and tumbled Elder Sister and myself down onto his bed sewn with leaves of jade.
I hardly had time to think, my fingers glided over her delicate skin, and my lips pressed up against my sister’s. I felt as if I were holding myself in my arms and kissing my own burning lips. I moved carefully, afraid of hurting her, but Little Phoenix guided me in my discovery of her body, as if climbing a magnificent mountain. Her breasts were the peaks wreathed in eternal mists. Her stomach, a deep lake reflecting the blue of the sky. Snatches of our childhood came back to me. I saw Purity pulling a wooden duck behind her. I remembered Little Sister, a restless child who craved affection. Mother’s youthful figure loomed up from the past with her high topknot, her collar left open, her noble bearing, and her dazzlingly white breasts. I did not know what Elder Sister was thinking: She kept her eyes obstinately closed. Her awkward gestures implied that she had never made love with a woman. Was she shocked by my experience? Little Phoenix had penetrated me when my sister’s naked body rolled on top of mine. I gripped hold of Purity’s shoulders, for I wanted to take her with me on my celestial journey. Suddenly, two streams of tears spilled from the corners of her eyes.
Elder Sister was ashamed. Elder Sister was an ordinary, sensible woman, who kept her feet firmly on the ground.
Purity had fallen in love with my god-like husband. She would be punished for this impossible passion.
WHEN I LEFT the village of Wu, I had wanted to console my mother and to give myself courage when I said: “My position at the Palace is our one opportunity. Have confidence in my destiny. Do not weep.”
Sixteen years of separation-a split second or a whole eternity. When I arranged for Mother to be brought to the Forbidden City, I had been proud of fulfilling my promise. I had wanted to dazzle her with the riches and the glory waiting for her here, but my blood had frozen in my veins at the sight of this stooped old woman leaning on her cane. I had forgotten that Mother had borne me when she was forty-six and that she could grow old. She prostrated herself at my feet. In keeping with Court etiquette, I returned her greeting with a slight nod of my head. A searing pain carved through me: The happiness I claimed to be offering her was laughable.
Ever since childhood, Mother had demonstrated a tendency toward philosophy and a contempt for manual labor. She had abandoned the women’s duties prescribed by the ancestors to devote herself to a spiritual quest. When a team of workmen had restored her apartments in her family home, they had found a piece of paper hidden in a cleft in a beam. On it she had written the maxim for her existence: “Never to do evil and to spread generosity of heart to the four corners of the country.” Her father, the famous Great Minister Yang Da, had exclaimed, “My daughter is the future of our family!”