Meanwhile, the main hall of Luoxiao Palace, which by rights should have been deserted after its former mistress’s fall, was already welcoming its new occupant.
Servants and maids rushed in and out, so busy they scarcely had a moment to breathe. Standing before the entrance was a dazzlingly beautiful woman with luminous eyes, delicate as a willow swaying in the wind. She held a silk handkerchief to a forehead that bore not a single drop of sweat, repeatedly warning the maid beside her to stay alert, telling another to raise the oiled-paper parasol higher, another to bring the ceremonial sunshade closer, and still finding time to issue instructions in every direction.
“Move more quickly, all of you. I was ordered by imperial decree to move into the main hall and oversee all affairs in Luoxiao Palace. I have no interest whatsoever in the tastes of your former mistress, so remove everything she left behind—every last piece. You there!” She pointed toward a maid carrying objects beside the main wall behind the folding screen. “Take that painting down too. Just looking at it irritates me. Why hang it in such a conspicuous place? I have no idea what is supposed to be so beautiful about it. Hurry and remove it—”
“Hey! What are you doing? That is a white porcelain vase with colored glaze and gold inlay personally bestowed by His Majesty. Be careful with it! Stop fumbling around. If you break it, just see how I deal with you!” She rolled her eyes without restraint at the servant carrying an enormous porcelain vase into the hall who nearly stumbled over the high threshold. Had he been standing any closer, she would probably have slapped him without hesitation.
“Your Highness has finally gotten some satisfaction.” Among all the attendants, the privilege of standing closest to her and enjoying the easy task of merely chatting belonged exclusively to her dowry maid.
The young maid spoke with animated delight, and Guipin Liu—Liu Xiaoyun—listened with equal smugness. “Exactly. That is why people say Heaven sees everything people do. One should never push matters too far. She was nothing but a little girl who did not know how to restrain herself and went around making enemies everywhere. Look how pleased with herself she used to be. And now? Banished to the Cold Palace. Ha! Let her keep acting arrogant. Let her keep strutting around. I almost miss that ridiculous swagger of hers now. I would truly like to see what sort of face she is making at this very moment. Ha ha.”
“Your Highness is too kind. Even now, you are still thinking about visiting an abandoned consort who has lost imperial favor. But Your Highness must remember your status. The Cold Palace is not somewhere just anyone can visit. Even if Your Highness truly wishes to lower yourself and experience the suffering of others, one still has to possess the proper fate for such a thing. Such ‘important matters’ should be left to Her Highness Consort Shu—oh, no, I suppose we should call her Cainü Meng now. Only she deserves such a privilege. As for these insignificant little matters like high beds and soft pillows, Your Highness will simply have to suffer the inconvenience and make do.”
Elio’s Notes: The Chapter 88 source writes Meng Zhen’s demoted rank as 才女, while the subsequent text consistently calls her 孟採女. The latter is clearly being treated as the formal rank, so this translation standardizes it as Cainü (採女). Chapter 88 should therefore be retroactively revised from “Talented Lady” to Cainü.
Like master, like servant; like servant, like master. Liu Xiaoyun had no shortage of quick-tongued people around her, but her dowry maid was outstanding even among them, possessing the remarkable ability to twist black into white so skillfully that Liu Xiaoyun invariably ended up delighted.
“Indeed. Since only I can bear such a terrible hardship, I suppose I will simply take over the mess she abandoned and move into the main hall of Luoxiao Palace.” Her voice was filled with such sorrow and reluctance that anyone listening without seeing her face might genuinely have believed Liu Xiaoyun had suffered some enormous injustice. Unfortunately, the smile she could not suppress revealed the unmistakable triumph of someone drunk on petty success.
Within the imperial harem, sending charcoal in the snow was rare; pushing down a wall that was already falling was commonplace. If no one came along to throw stones after you had already fallen into the well, that alone could be considered the reward for a lifetime of accumulated virtue.
Elio’s Notes: “Sending charcoal in the snow” means helping someone when they most need it. “When a wall falls, everyone pushes it” describes people piling onto someone once that person has lost power.
After walking around the hall once, Liu Xiaoyun was extremely pleased with the structure and furnishings. “A main hall truly is a main hall. It is far more impressive than my eastern side hall.”
“Your Highness has suffered terribly. It is all that shameless little vixen’s fault. If she had not racked her brains trying to please His Majesty and whispered poison into his ear until he neglected Your Highness, how could Your Highness have ended up like this? Even Shen Shuyuan, who entered Prince Rong’s residence at the same time as Your Highness, has already reached the rank of consort, while Your Highness—”
“Will you die if you speak one sentence less?” Too many words inevitably led to mistakes, particularly for someone like Liu Xiaoyun’s dowry maid, who thought she understood her mistress perfectly but never knew which careless phrase might suddenly strike a sore point. And why would a master ever concern herself with the feelings of a lowly servant?
“But you are not wrong. Even that wretch surnamed Shen outranks me now. How am I supposed to swallow that?” Then another thought occurred to Liu Xiaoyun, and her beautifully drawn brows immediately relaxed into a smile. “That little Meng girl thought she could run wild simply because she was young, beautiful, and related to His Majesty. In the end, she was merely full of herself. When did His Majesty ever truly take her seriously? He tolerated her because her family still had some use. She was the only one who failed to understand it, swaggering around the inner palace every day and offending people without even realizing it. And look—Virtuous Noble Lord barely had to lift a finger before everything on her side collapsed like a defeated army. How tragic.”
“Your Highness thinks there is something suspicious about what happened?”
“What I think is irrelevant, and what actually happened is equally irrelevant. What matters is what His Majesty believes—what His Majesty chooses to regard as the truth. I only wonder whether our newly risen young lord understands that principle himself. Either way, there are clearly going to be plenty of good performances to watch from now on, and I certainly have no intention of missing them.” Liu Xiaoyun’s tone was strange and pointed, every word carrying another meaning underneath. It sounded almost like sour jealousy, yet for a moment it was impossible to tell how much of it was genuine.
“Your Highness is not going to compete? You will simply watch His Majesty favor Virtuous Noble Lord alone?”
“Compete?” Liu Xiaoyun laughed. “Naturally, there will be people who cannot stand it, and naturally someone else will compete. I only need to sit back and wait. The Meng family of the Gurun Prince Consort, the Nalan family of Marquis Dingbei—a veteran of three reigns—each is a prestigious and formidable clan that cannot be underestimated. But do you not think they have far too much in common? A second Consort Shu Meng… Ha. I am very much looking forward to it.”
Meanwhile, in the western side hall of Yonghe Palace, Han Ruifeng froze when he first heard the imperial decree, then suddenly burst into laughter, rocking forward and backward as though he intended to laugh himself breathless. Qing Zhu stood nearby “attending” him, coldly watching Han Ruifeng behave like a madman before offering only one word. “Lunatic.”
“Lunatic?” Han Ruifeng laughed wildly. “I would love to go mad. Unfortunately, I am afraid I see things far too clearly. Ignorance is the one thing I cannot obtain.”
Qing Zhu continued working without bothering to respond.
“Your friend is climbing higher with every step, his position growing more secure by the day. Aren’t you happy for him?” Han Ruifeng’s smile turned cold. “Or have even you noticed that something about this does not quite fit?”
“This servant does not understand what Master is talking about, nor does this servant wish to understand. Master is the master and I am the servant. A servant needs only to serve conscientiously and perform his proper duties.” Qing Zhu recited the entire string of words like scripture, without the slightest pause or change in tone.
Han Ruifeng did not take offense. An imperial decree that had absolutely nothing to do with him seemed instead to have become the source of his happiness, leaving him feeling thoroughly refreshed. “What the truth actually is does not matter. The moment even one side refuses to believe it, truth ceases to be truth. For Ning Xuan, everything is falling naturally into place. The higher one climbs, the harder one falls—and that performance has already begun. How could I possibly resist watching to see what happens next?”
“Despicable.”
“Despicable?” Han Ruifeng sneered. “When despicable methods are used in the right place, they can defeat an enemy just as effectively as anything else. That is called strategy. Since I cannot compete with his endless schemes, methods, and opportunities, I can only watch from here and move a little closer at the appropriate time. Even if I cannot share in the full favor, perhaps I can at least claim a portion of the benefits and remind His Majesty that I still exist. That is called protecting myself. It is called surviving.”
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