In the afternoon, Xiansi watched over several newly arrived young palace maids as they did their needlework.
Xiansi was rigorous and aloof, set in her ways and stubbornly inflexible. Her demands for needlework were extremely exacting—her eyes were sharp, and so was her tongue. Every stitch and every thread had to fit together seamlessly.
While supervising needlework, she put on a cold expression, showing no leniency whatsoever—the complete opposite of her usual warmth and approachability. The young maids undid their work and redid it, redid it and undid it, until their wrists ached to breaking.
"Embroider the bat. I'll inspect it myself."
Her padded jacket, washed until it had faded to near-white, was perfectly smooth without a single wrinkle, projecting both propriety and a detached coldness. Having risen to the position of the foremost female attendant before the Emperor, she was genuinely proud and aloof—like a lone cypress standing upright against the thin mist on a sheer cliff, forbidding and unassailable.
"Yes, Senior Maid—" the young maids answered in unison, unable to hide their dejection and helplessness.
Truth be told, Xiansi was one of the better senior maids. The others were far worse, treating the young maids entirely as their personal servants—making them wait on them while bathing, eating, mending clothes, and combing their hair.
Xiansi did everything herself, not out of kindness, but because of the proud integrity deep in her nature. Fastidious by temperament, she refused to let others intrude upon what little private space she had left.
She was getting on in years and would soon leave the palace.
Generally speaking, senior maids nearing their departure all put on airs.
"Good Senior Maid, I really can't do it. Please teach me." An hour later, a young maid begged through tear-filled eyes. She simply couldn't embroider it, and braced herself for a hard knock on the head.
Her name was Chun'er—the very one who had been made to kneel that morning. Her knees still throbbed with pain.
"Blockhead."
Xiansi took the fabric and threaded the needle. Her hands were remarkably deft; the colorful threads danced at her fingertips like the Weaver Girl in the sky weaving brocade, and in moments she had embroidered a lifelike outline of a bat.
There was no flashy showing off, no ostentation. Needle and thread became one with her, as if she could control them by sheer will.
"Did you remember that?"
Chun'er stared blankly, clearly having remembered nothing.
Xiansi mercilessly gave her a hard knock on the head.
Since the girl had already been punished that morning, Xiansi used slightly less force.
Chun'er wept from the pain, not daring to cry out or dodge, only begging repeatedly: "Senior Maid, this servant will study hard, I promise."
Xiansi said, "We'll see whether you've learned your lesson."
Eunuchs and palace maids were forbidden from learning to read, so needlework was the only means of securing one's livelihood. With good needlework, one could please the masters above and be sent to the lucrative Bureau of Imperial Attire; or one could do needlework on one's own, have a eunuch take it outside to sell, supplement the family income, and earn money for a dowry. After leaving the palace, one could still make a living with a pair of skillful hands.
Conversely, a pair of clumsy hands usually meant dullness in other matters as well, inviting the masters' displeasure—and sooner or later, dismissal or punishment.
To some extent, Xiansi's strictness was actually for their own good.
Life in the palace was rigid and dreary. Everything had to follow the rules, and servants were at others' beck and call all day and night, without a moment of joy. Without something to hold on to, something to wear away the unbearable years, one would surely go mad.
Xiansi often lectured the young maids who loved to cry: if you want to cry, do needlework; if you miss home, do needlework. Do needlework when you've been beaten, and all the more when you've been promoted. Rather than wasting time crying, better to hone a genuine, solid skill.
Her pair of nimble hands had been beaten into shape by the senior maid during her first two years in the palace. The senior maid was domineering and vicious—aside from her face, there wasn't a single unbruised spot on Xiansi's body back then. Every inch of callus was mixed with blood and tears, shaping her into the cold, somewhat neurotic person she was now, demanding perfection in everything and everyone.
In that environment of misery and suffering—of dire straits—falling behind meant the threat of death. She had to outdo everyone else just to breathe within whatever sliver of survival she could claim. Her cleverness carried an edge of aggression.
That didn't mean Xiansi was unruly or self-centered.
The slaves of the palace all carried, to some degree, a touch of father-fixation and masochism—"unruly" hardly applied. Even accidentally meeting a master's gaze could earn you a punishment of pounding rice in the coldest, dampest lane of the Cold Palace.
Xiansi's aloofness was internal, like a bracelet: the jade surface gleamed warm and lustrous, but it was cool to the touch—cold, brittle, and hard.
After so many years in the deep palace, she had grown used to living behind a mask. Toward masters and superiors she was docile and obedient; she rarely offended even eunuchs and maids of her own rank. On the surface she was not cold at all—rather, she seemed like a pleasant, easygoing soul.
Only by getting close to her heart could one feel that layer of chill. At her core she kept people at a distance, her heart coated in cold wax, permitting no approach.
"Senior Maid, I've finished it. Please see if it's right."
In the end, through tears and beatings, the youngest and clumsiest of them all, Chun'er, had embroidered a bat.
Xiansi inspected it and nodded firmly.
Cry long enough, and you learn.
The southward-drifting sunlight fell upon the ridges of yellow glazed tiles. The great hall with its double eaves and hip-and-gable roof loomed like a colossal beast, casting thick black shadows; the thousand gates and ten thousand doors of the Forbidden City stood like enormous barriers.
The palaces themselves inspired awe and reverence, and the heavy web of rules that permeated the court tightened that awe until it was suffocating. Step into the imperial palace, and the first sensation was not grandeur but suffocation—everyone was locked fast by the rules.
"This servant pays her respects to Chief Steward Liu."
Xiansi arrived at the appointed place and bowed before the eunuch Liu Lun.
As the foremost female attendant of the Palace of Heavenly Purity, Xiansi was so busy she spun like a top—and this was without having to attend the Emperor himself. In a few days, when she became a bedchamber attendant, who knew how hectic it would be.
The year she entered the palace, she had been assigned to the Palace of Heavenly Purity, and from then on had never once stepped beyond it. Beneath its plaque, a clear line of demarcation was drawn, guarded day and night by imperial guards and eunuchs. A palace maid belonged to her palace, and had no right to leave it. Anyone who stepped out without permission faced the rod or the executioner's blade. This was the gravest of rules, a forbidden line that could never be crossed.
Even delivering something to another palace required an assigned eunuch to escort you—go quickly, return quickly. The founding Emperor had set down this iron law to prevent clandestine dealings among palace servants, and the forming of factions for personal gain.
The entire Palace of Heavenly Purity was like a cage, where slaves bowed and scraped day after day. Here, it was best not to think of the past, not to think of the future, not to think of the meaning of life, not to think of time—otherwise you would soon be crushed by unbearable pain.
"Before you begin tomorrow night's watch, come to the eastern three rooms to kowtow to His Majesty. After that, you will formally be a bedchamber attendant, and you may come and go through the nine rooms of the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Observe the rules that must be observed. I'll lead you through it once; after that, you'll have to carry it on your own."
Liu Lun instructed her. They were all clever ones who had risen with the Emperor—certain rules need not be spelled out.
"This servant understands."
Xiansi had long since mastered the rules of the night watch. As Liu Lun explained them one by one, she did not ask about the things he left unmentioned—the Emperor's preferences, his bedtime hours, his sleeping arrangements, his habits in dress.
That was the virtue of her aloofness: a keen sense of propriety, a strong awareness of boundaries, sparing herself from inviting disaster.
"Mm." Liu Lun nodded with satisfaction.
Many matters within the Palace of Heavenly Purity were secrets.
Spanning nine bays wide and five deep, the Palace of Heavenly Purity was where the Emperor's governance and rest were combined—the palace at the very heart of the Inner Court.
The nine heated chambers often lay buried under mountains of memorials, entangled in the power struggles of the Grand Secretariat, the Directorate of Pacification, the Directorate of Ceremonies, and other factions. Serving at the sovereign's side was like serving a tiger—one small misstep could mean eternal ruin.
Since the palace coup in the previous reign, every emperor, including the current one, had slept at random among the twenty-seven beds in the nine heated chambers—a matter of the utmost secrecy, to guard against assassination.
These were forbidden words, whispers that could cost one's head if spoken aloud.
Xiansi lowered herself slightly, her curtsy straight and precise, and offered her thanks once more: "This servant thanks the Chief Steward for promoting her. To serve His Majesty is an honor beyond measure."
Liu Lun glanced at her: the bow of her lips was soft and understated, and even her drab palace robes could not hide her natural beauty. Tall and slender, she resembled a white lotus in the morning mist, a beauty who stood out even among palace maids. He had to admit that part of why he had been willing to help her so devotedly all these years was his admiration for that fine face.
By comparison, Liu Lun—the grand eunuch resplendent in his position before the Emperor—felt a pang of inferiority. He was in his forties; years of toil had quietly whitened his temples. He was a filthy thing that had been under the knife.
He hoped that after Xiansi left the palace she would marry into a good family and settle down to a peaceful life—then he would have no regrets.
"Do your work well, and your future is boundless."
Xiansi was led to the dressing annex adjoining the first western bay. This space connected to one of the Emperor's bedchambers and stored his everyday garments. Once she became a bedchamber attendant, folding clothes became her duty.
Liu Lun instructed her: "Each day, you will deliver the laundered garments from the Laundry Bureau to the eastern side hall, where the Imperial Wardrobe Office staff will take over."
It was the first time Xiansi touched the Emperor's clothing.
Of that Heaven-endowed, brilliant sovereign, she knew very little.
Folding his garments with reverence, she noticed that among his private clothes there were few embroidered with bright yellow dragon patterns or flamboyant colors. Most were plain hues—ink blue, deep black, stone gray, pure white—majestic in bearing, like still waters running deep, profound and restrained, cold as thin moonlight. Though Xiansi had never been fortunate enough to behold the imperial countenance, she imagined His Majesty himself must be much the same.
The sovereign—one may gaze from afar, but never approach.
Though she lived deep within the palace, she had heard a little of what was said in the outer court. In the previous reign, eunuchs had run rampant, wielding great power, egging the late Emperor on to indulgence and debauchery, drowning the court in miasma while the nation teetered on the brink.
The current sovereign had ascended the throne at fourteen, purged the scourge of the eunuchs, wrestled with the Grand Secretariat, consolidated imperial power, and placed his trust in the Embroidered Uniform Guard—a ruler of extraordinary, Heaven-endowed brilliance.
Xiansi recalled Liu Lun's words: "You'll be leaving the palace soon. You should plan for yourself."
Having grown accustomed to life within these walls, the seemingly free days after leaving the palace filled her instead with a trace of bewilderment and fear.
In this world, she was so alone, so helpless, so small. Even if she married, she could still be swallowed up by her husband's family and spend her life in drudgery, without a fraction of the glory she knew in the imperial palace. To attach oneself to a mighty lord, even if only as a patch of moss in the shadows, was to share in his splendor.
If only she never had to leave the palace.
The thought rose faintly in her heart—and startled her.
When she first entered the palace, she did indeed cry every day. The palace was hell, and she longed to leave it early. Now, the palace was still hell, but she had grown accustomed to hell.
Leaving this hell, she might only enter another. Of course, there was also the chance that great fortune might strike and she'd land in a good husband's family—but who could know?
The unknown was the most terrifying thing. She would rather go on suffering in a known hell than risk the unknown.
Though she would be a slave for life, it would also be a life of stability and security.
Without her status as a palace maid, she dared not imagine facing alone a fate of raging floods and upheaval.
Her heart was in turmoil…
Xiansi's expression sank into stillness. She was always like this, neurotic—just moments ago she had been folding the Emperor's robes with delight, and now her face paled inch by inch, as if a well of sorrow in her chest had begun to seep up bitter water.
She drew a deep breath and quickly steadied herself, resuming her proper demeanor and carrying out her duties with clear-headed order.
What she took pride in was her superb self-control. Even if her heart shattered, it shattered only for an instant before the thick cocoon of callus would wrap itself around her sorrow, her joy, and all her other emotions once more.
She counseled herself inwardly: a tree dies when transplanted, but a person thrives by moving.
Life meant adapting, moving forward, finding new possibilities. Whatever path she took, she would have to walk it. She could not force herself to remain where she was no longer wanted.
Over these years she had saved some money, and with Liu Lun's protection, she might not fare so badly outside the palace. Fate would carry her to the best place for her. She had to accept her fate, to go along with it.