[Chapter 6: Let Me Test You]
After waiting for who knows how long, sunlight leaked into the long corridor, gradually casting blurry shadows. At last, the palace doors creaked open from within.
Aunt Tao appeared before her with a kindly smile. “Why have you come so early, Lady-in-waiting? You must have waited a long while. Her Majesty the Empress Dowager has sent me to invite you in.”
The dew on the hibiscus in her hair had not yet dried. Shang Fuqu shook her head. “I came too early and disturbed Her Majesty.”
Anyone can speak polite words, but at the right moment, their power doubles. Aunt Tao’s smiling eyes narrowed into slits as she led her inside, around a screen carved with fu, lu, and shou motifs.
“Her Majesty is still at her toilette. Please wait here.”
The hall was perfumed with sandalwood, quietly exuding a sense of serenity. Aunt Tao pointed at the brush and ink scattered on the table. ”Can you write, Lady-in-waiting?”
“Her Majesty fell asleep last night with one scroll of scripture still unfinished. Since you have this idle moment while waiting, why not offer a bit of devotion on the Empress Dowager’s behalf?”
This was the Empress Dowager giving her a chance.
Shang Fuqu hurriedly expressed her thanks.
The fine hand of calligraphy her Father had forced her to practice as a child was finally coming in handy.
The brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone in Shou’an Palace were all of the finest quality. The moment she sat down, Xiaodie skillfully stepped forward to roll up her sleeves and grind the ink.
She knew this scroll of scripture couldn’t be finished in a single morning, but as long as it wasn’t recitation, Shang Fuqu could sit still well enough.
Through the screen, she could glimpse graceful figures drifting into the outer hall one after another.
Fragrant breezes filled the air.
These newly arrived Meiren were young, not yet hardened by hardship, and most still carried a bright innocence. At this moment, the hall was full of whispers like warbling birds—and amid them, Shang Fuqu even heard someone mention her.
“How strange—doesn’t it seem like Lady Shang is missing?”
The screen barely let light through, so she couldn’t see the women’s faces, only the blurred silhouettes of slender figures.
The first voice to speak had a gentle tone, as natural as discussing what to eat for lunch. But after that remark, the room noticeably quieted for a moment, then burst into chatter like water hitting a hot oil pan.
“Does Liang Meiren not know? Last night His Majesty spent the night in her palace. With such vast imperial favor, perhaps she couldn’t even get out of bed~”
“People really can’t be judged by appearances. She seemed so honest the day she entered the palace—who knew she’d fooled all our eyes.”
“Fooling us is one thing, but missing her first visit to Her Majesty’s palace—she’s showing far too little respect for the Empress Dowager.”
…
Though the voices were deliberately lowered, every word carried clearly into the ears of Shang Fuqu and her two maids. Xiaodie’s face flushed red with anger, but she dared not act rashly.
Before they left home, the Madam had given special instructions.
The imperial palace was not like the outside world. If their young lady gave no signal, acting on her own initiative would only bring ruin.
Shang Fuqu, listening to the Meiren perform their little chorus, actually found it quite entertaining.
The last time she’d been the subject of such intense discussion was when she helped her elder sister elope—her grandfather had even prepared the hemp ropes.
Two of them.
One for her sister, one for her.
The tip of her wolf-hair brush soaked with ink, Shang Fuqu’s writing was nothing like the delicate small script typical of boudoir ladies—it was bold and sweeping, like roaming dragons and startled phoenixes.
As the atmosphere grew more heated, she quietly beckoned to Xing’er. “Go ask Aunt Tao for me…”
When the sun hung fully at its zenith, the Empress Dowager finally emerged from the inner chamber. The Meiren composed their faces and held their breath, and the hall sank back into stillness.
The room was done entirely in subdued sandalwood brown, elegant to the extreme. The Empress Dowager wore almost no jewelry—only the jade bracelet on her wrist glowed with a flowing green.
She took a seat at her ease. Her relaxed, effortless bearing was enough to overshadow every beauty gathered below her.
The reigning Emperor had been born late in her life, and her temples were already touched with frost. But however late a beauty’s autumn, her fine bone structure and features still betrayed the stunning grace of her youth.
“Is everyone here?”
She held a cat in her arms, black all over except for a thread of crimson cord strung with copper coins around its neck, rising and falling gently with its breath.
At this question, the beauties below each wore a different expression.
Tao bent down to her side and whispered, “Your Highness, everyone is here. Only Lady Shang was summoned by you to copy scriptures—she hasn’t finished and is still inside. But her maid just came to ask after her…”
The Empress Dowager had not called a halt, so naturally no one dared to.
“Seems she’s one who can keep her composure.” She patted the purring cat and raised a hand. “Call her out to sit. She can take the scroll back and finish copying it later.”
When Tao ushered her out from behind the screen, the expressions of the assembled beauties instantly became like a spilled spice jar—every flavor mingled together, quite a spectacle.
Then the newly arrived consorts rose one by one to pay their respects to the Empress Dowager. But her expression remained lukewarm throughout, listless. Shang Fuqu saw this clearly and understood in her heart.
After all, waking up one morning to find a dozen alarm clocks like these surrounding you from then on—who could be happy about that?
As one of the alarm clocks herself, she sympathized. She didn’t want to get up early either.
“Now that you have entered the palace, as fellow consorts you must live in harmony from here on, and bear the Emperor an abundance of heirs…”
This declaration, composed by the champion of every palace intrigue across the dynasties and steadily refined over generations, droned on for half an hour. Its distilled meaning was contained in the first and last sentences; everything in between was filler.
Yet the consorts bowed their heads and listened with utmost seriousness, not daring to breathe loudly.
Harmony was impossible—everyone was gathering strength for that last sentence.
After another round of tea was poured, the lecture finally ended. The Empress Dowager showed no desire to exchange further words with them, and the beauties took their leave, departing in twos and threes.
Shang Fuqu remained standing where she was, waiting for Tao to help pack up the scriptures and the brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone.
“Lady Shang.” An unfamiliar senior palace maid called to her. “Her Highness the Empress Dowager asks you to come inside.”
Kept after class.
Shang Fuqu could guess it was about the Emperor, but she hadn’t expected it to be so direct.
“The Emperor didn’t touch you last night, did he?”
The Empress Dowager’s tone was certain—she clearly understood her son very well.
Still, there was something she couldn’t figure out.
“What did he take the lamp and keep you overnight for?” Surely he wasn’t just looking for a different place to sleep?
Mother and son bore a striking resemblance in their features. Under this gaze, half appraising and half suspicious, Shang Fuqu steeled herself and answered, “His Majesty had me recite a book…”
“What book?”
“The Three Character Classic.”
“…”
Good—so she wasn’t the only one who found it absurd.
The Empress Dowager looked at her and fell into silence.
Shang Fuqu’s mind raced, running through everything the woman might say next and every response she herself might give.
But of all things, she never anticipated the question that came: “Well? Did you finish reciting it?”
Shang Fuqu was a little dumbstruck. “N-no, not yet.”
Her eyelids twitched violently, and a faint sense of foreboding rose in her heart—just like when Lu Huai came yesterday… And soon enough, she heard the Empress Dowager speak.
“Then bring one over. I shall test how far you’ve memorized.”
Shang Fuqu: …
She should have known.
This madness was hereditary.