Spring had deepened. Crows brushed their glossy black wings against the treetops, and a few wisps of cloud lay stretched across the vast azure sky. Gazing into the distance, one drew the cool air into one's lungs—neither cold nor hot, the spring light brilliant. It was the best time of the year.
The list of old palace maids to be released from service had been approved layer by layer by the Directorate of Ceremonies and delivered to the mistress of the inner palace, Her Majesty the Empress Dowager. The Empress Dowager went through her usual routine of marking the names and affixing the Phoenix Seal. Come autumn, they would leave the palace—all of them at least twenty-two.
Xiansi was on the list.
Such were the rules. No matter how high a servant climbed, unless the master granted special favor, she had to leave the palace once she reached the proper age. The palace never lacked bright, clever young newcomers.
In her final half year at the palace, Xiansi received the promotion she had hoped for.
Counting and recounting the stipend she had saved over the years, she found it came to a full fifty taels of silver. Added to the parting reward she was due upon leaving, it would be a considerable sum—enough to turn her life around. So long as no one robbed or cheated her of it, she could live safely for at least six or seven years.
Such was the boundless grace of the Emperor.
In the small private cubicle of the eastern wing that belonged to her alone, Xiansi clenched her fists against her chest.
Lately, a subtle air of excitement had suffused the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Officials from the Ministry of Rites and the Grand Secretariat came and went in quick succession, hurrying in and out for audiences with the Emperor, as if some great matter were being discussed.
The Emperor was in the prime of his youth, and next year he would marry his empress. This was a matter that would shake court and country alike, not to be handled carelessly. Rumor had it that the Emperor and his future empress were deeply devoted to each other, and their palaces stood empty in anticipation of the marriage.
When the time came, it would surely be a grand and earth-shaking occasion.
But old palace maids like Xiansi would have no chance to witness it with their own eyes.
In late spring, Xiansi's patron in the palace—the old eunuch Liu Lun—told her that on the fifth, she was to meet her family at Xuanwu Gate, and that Liu Sheng would come.
Palace maids could not leave the palace, so matters outside had to be handled through eunuchs as go-betweens. Liu Lun treated her well and worried sincerely about her future. Bypassing her mean-spirited uncle and aunt, he had passed word along to their neighbor, the Liu family.
The Liu family's son was named Liu Sheng, and he had just turned thirty this year.
Liu Sheng had qualified as a xiucai two years earlier, but his wife had since died of illness, and he was now looking to remarry. A household with a xiucai degree was no small thing in the local area. If Xiansi could marry into it after leaving the palace, she would be marrying into a scholarly lineage. Liu Lun had acted as intermediary, and Liu Sheng had agreed to come to Xuanwu Gate on the second of next month to meet his childhood friend Xiansi and sound things out in advance.
The Liu family prided itself on being a family of scholars; they would never stoop to wife-beating. The household lived comfortably, free of endless toil—a wife need only stay home to serve her parents-in-law, keep house, and bear children. The Liu family valued Xiansi's years as a senior maid in the palace: she was elegant, well versed in etiquette, and beautiful. They were willing to accept her as their son's principal wife.
Most palace maids left the palace with no means of making a living, growing old and sickly in poverty, having long missed the age for marriage. Xiansi's prospects were among the best.
Xiansi pondered for a moment, then said in a hoarse voice, "Chief Steward, you always see to everything on my behalf."
Liu Lun's weathered old face creased into lines of wrinkles. "Us servants—this is just our lot in life. Leaving the palace is one thing, but these last six months, you must do your duty faithfully to the end."
He never said it—that, in truth, he had feelings for her. Her sharply sculpted brows and eyes, her naturally fine bone structure, the baby fat she could never quite shed… But alas, he was a rootless, filthy eunuch, an old and ailing body. Ashamed of what he was, he had no right to hold back her future.
Xiansi was about to say more when Liu Lun clutched his chest and coughed, bringing up a few threads of blood. Xiansi stared at those blood threads, stunned, a sorrow tinged with shock in her eyes. Liu Lun smiled with equanimity. "I won't die. I won't die."
Servants in the palace did not deserve medical care; to fall ill was simply to die. Liu Lun had been worn down by years of toil, living one day at a time. It was precisely because he was old and sick that he had been pushed aside on grounds of uncleanliness, and for years he had not managed much of the affairs before the Emperor.
No wonder he was willing to hand over power and let Xiansi take up the night watch.
Xiansi felt a pang of guilt. Eunuch Liu had entrusted her with such an important duty, yet she would have to leave the palace because of her age. If only she were a few years younger. Perhaps she might have followed the example of Senior Maid Jinshu and simply done up her hair, never marrying.
"Don't." A few tears gathered in the old eunuch's triangular eyes. She could have a better life, instead of spending all her days as a servant.
"Listen to your godfather."
For the first time, Liu Lun pulled rank in front of her.
On the fifth, Xiansi and the other palace maids knelt and kowtowed on the polished blue-gray bricks of the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Then designated eunuchs followed the roster and led them down a long, winding passage toward Xuanwu Gate to meet their relatives.
They threaded their way through one vast, silent great building with yellow tiles after another. Birds glided across the skyline. The rivers and mountains were like a painting, dignified and beautiful, and human beings were insignificant in the eternal river of time.
Xiansi walked at the very end of the line, wearing a veiled hat that shaded her face, gazing at the towering palace walls and the guards armored and armed. For a moment her mind went blank—in seven years in the palace, she had never once received a visit from family, much less set foot outside the Palace of Heavenly Purity. The world outside was utterly strange to her.
The servants of the Palace of Heavenly Purity were granted one family visit a year, a chance to pour out their hearts to kin and exchange silver; those of the other palaces might not get one in four or five years. Everyone clawed their way upward for the sake of this small benefit of human warmth.
The solemn, grand Xuanwu Gate was the face of the forbidden palace, and no gathering of people could be allowed there. So Xiansi and the others were led through a maze of turns to a crude little side gate, guarded by imperial guards, its doorway sealed fast with an iron grille. The grille was wide enough for a dozen or more palace maids to meet their relatives through the bars, shed a few tears, and exchange a few affectionate words. As long as nothing went beyond bounds, it was all permitted.
The palace provided food and lodging, so silver was of little use there, and many palace maids would hand their saved stipends to their families. They did not come from families of high officials and nobles, but from poor common folk. The rules established by Taizu at the founding of the dynasty, to prevent the inner palace from meddling in politics, were that all consorts and palace maids of the rear palace were to be selected from respectable common families—Empress Ma, whom Taizu revered and loved all his life, was herself of common birth.
Xiansi finally came to the grille and searched for a long while before she finally recognized Liu Sheng. Liu Sheng wore a coarse cloth scholar's robe with patched cuffs, washed clean, but hardly suggesting wealth. His hair was wrapped snugly in a dark kerchief, and beneath his lip was a carefully trimmed beard. Upon seeing Xiansi, he first raised his folded hands and performed a bow, his manner pure and upright.
"Miss Xiansi."
Liu Sheng's face betrayed constraint, awed by the majestic grandeur of the imperial family, his every movement exceedingly careful.
Xiansi's lips curved slightly. She wore a faded gray sleeveless vest, modest and plain, her whole person as if covered in a layer of frost—the restraint and withdrawal of one facing a stranger.
"I wish you well, Master Liu."
Liu Sheng looked closely: the girl's long, level brows shading her eyes, the flowing curve of her eye shape, the narrow, sharp bridge of her nose, full lips, an oval face, and slightly weary, pale skin. She was as slender as a sheet of paper, and far more beautiful than his late wife. He was pleased. "I hear you will soon be leaving the palace?"
Xiansi gave a low murmur of assent.
They had met as children and played together once, but had gone their separate ways for too many years. An invisible wall of air stood between them, and their meeting held only silence and awkwardness, each guarded against the other.
"There are some fruits and pastries here—Mother made them," Liu Sheng said after a while, passing an oilcloth-wrapped bundle through the lattice to Xiansi. "Take these. Next time I'll bring you something better."
Xiansi accepted it. It was an unspoken understanding—exchanging gifts like this made them tokens of affection. She handed Liu Sheng the only thing she had, a red cord that bound her hair. "I don't have anything nice to give."
Liu Sheng held the red cord as if it were a precious treasure. So slender a strand, like the hair of a beloved, carrying a faint fragrance.
"I shall keep it safe at the very bottom of my keepsake box."
The tokens had been exchanged. Neither spoke of it, but a promise had formed in both their hearts.
Visits were never long, and their silence filled most of the time. Soon, the overseer was urging them to head back.
Xiansi bade Liu Sheng farewell, and under his watching gaze, returned once more behind the red walls and yellow tiles.
"Take care of yourself."
"You as well."
Across the vast Forbidden City, through gate upon gate of barriers, their elongated afternoon shadows trailed behind them, the sound of bells and drums echoing in the winds of late spring.
Liu Sheng twirled the red cord between his fingers, feeling as if bathed in a spring breeze.
…
Liu Lun had arranged for his godson Wang Fulu to train Xiansi for over a month, and she had fully grasped the essentials of serving the Imperial Presence: speak little, do much, follow the rules—at any time, this could not be wrong.
In time, when Eunuch Liu retired due to illness, Xiansi would be a highly capable successor.
More than once, Xiansi had entertained the thought of staying in the palace forever. The person she envied most was Senior Maid Jinshu, who had put up her hair and vowed never to marry.
For one thing, she revered and adored the Emperor, willingly serving as his slave for life. For another, compared to the drifting hardship and exposure to wind and rain outside, being a palace maid was at least respectable, safe, and predictable. The rules were strict, but if one day her master ordered her put to death, she would at least know where she had gone wrong, rather than dying in muddled confusion. Life in the palace was bitter, but once accustomed to it, it no longer felt bitter.
As for Liu Sheng—she and he had met by chance. He sought her beauty; she sought the Liu family as her destination. At most, theirs was a relationship of mutual use; there was no real affection between them.
If she could hold on until the Emperor and the Empress wed, with the whole palace celebrating the grand occasion, she and the other servants might seize the chance to beg for some favor.
She had always been proud and aloof. Better to be the tail of a phoenix than the head of a chicken.
Now she followed her master and saw only the grandest displays of the highest nobility. If she left the palace and fell into the mud, how would she not end up bending the knee for a meager pittance, drowned in the mediocrity of firewood, rice, oil, and salt?
She believed that through her diligence and hard work, she could master the rules—even command them.
The eunuch Chen Bingzhong, competing fiercely against her, calculated that at twenty-three she could not shamelessly cling to her place in the palace. The position of Chief Steward in the Emperor's personal service would ultimately be his, and he secretly rejoiced.
As Xiansi grew ever more capable, more duties of the Palace of Heavenly Purity were handed to her. Busy all day long, she no longer needed to concern herself with small matters like training young maids in embroidery.
Meals were a matter of the first importance—above all, the Emperor's meals.
The Emperor's mind was unfathomable. He would often discuss state affairs with the ministers of the Grand Secretariat for two to four hours at a time—more a manipulator than a participant—mastering the great matters of the realm from within the Daoist temple in the palace. His methods defied convention, ghostlike and elusive, unbound by rules or precedent, leaving those white-bearded old ministers with aching backs and stiff waists, emerging from every audience drenched in cold sweat.
Only after all the officials had dispersed would the Emperor summon his meal.
To guard against poison, the dishes the Emperor favored were a secret, never to be spoken of. The Imperial Kitchen served a different procession of dishes every day, and the Emperor was particular besides: what he ate at noon, he would not eat again in the evening. What he ate in the morning might be skipped at midday if he was devoted to ritual fasting and offerings. It was disorderly and unpredictable—the Emperor's mood was like overcast, shifting weather of clouds and rain.
But Xiansi knew, secretly, that the Emperor was somewhat partial to Huaiyang cuisine.
Before each meal, Xiansi, in her role as head attendant, kept watch over the crowd of eunuchs carrying dishes, laying chopsticks, and serving food. After kneeling and kowtowing, she would be the first to pick up her chopsticks and taste for poison; only then could the Emperor eat. Whenever she tasted Huaiyang cuisine, a subtle, peculiar flavor seemed to flicker across her tongue as well.
Until that day, when Hanzheng set down his chopsticks after barely two bites, his gaze turning toward her with an unmistakable sharpness.
He asked:
"What is your name?"
Xiansi's mind went blank.
She bowed her head deeply, like a quiet object—proper, useful—and answered her master in a voice soft yet clear:
"Your servant's humble name is Xiansi."