IMPERIAL FAVOUR - CHAPTER 2

After an eternity of darkness, a blinding light flashed across Tang Zhuózhuo's vision. She squeezed her eyes shut on instinct, then slowly and carefully opened them.

Above her hung a bed canopy, delicate and fine, ivory silk embroidered with jade-leaf begonias traced in gold thread, scatter-stitched with silver droplets that shimmered like rain caught in moonlight. She had barely twitched her fingers when she heard a woman's voice outside the curtain, soft and murmuring, as though giving instructions in a carefully lowered tone.

Tang Zhuózhuo sat up from the wide pear-wood bed. The coverlet; A fine cloud-brocade, the kind that costs a small fortune, slid down to her waist. She looked around at her surroundings, and the more she took in, the more her chest tightened.

The incense burning in the hall was her favourite kind, the one with a faint fruitiness to it; breathing it in, she could almost taste sweetness on the tip of her tongue. This incense. This incense. The Cold Palace had never had anything like it.

Whoever was outside must have heard the movement, for light footsteps approached, and the curtain was drawn back to reveal a clean-featured face, bright with relief.

"My Lady, you're awake,  shall I let you sleep a little longer?"

Tang Zhuózhuo stared at her. "Ān Xià?"

Something in her expression must have been strange, because Ān Xià's brow creased with concern. "I'm right here, My Lady. Shall I call the others in to help you dress?"

The moment she spoke, Tang Zhuózhuo heard it, the wrongness in her own voice. It had come out soft and sweet and young. After three years in the Cold Palace, her voice had been worn down to something hollow and rattling. But this voice, this voice was not like that. And Ān Xià, too: she was younger, visibly younger, dressed in fine palace silks rather than the patched linens of a Cold Palace servant.

Tang Zhuózhuo kept her face carefully still and swallowed the shock gathering behind her eyes.

"Where is this?" Her voice came out more taut than she intended.

"My Lady,  this is Yiqiu Palace."

For a moment, Tang Zhuózhuo was certain she had heard wrong. Her breath stopped. The astonishment in her heart rose in waves, one layer after another, like foam breaking over itself.

Ān Xià saw her expression shift and thought to ask after her, but remembered the terrible quarrel between her Lady and the Crown Prince that morning, and swallowed the question out of sympathy instead.

Tang Zhuózhuo pressed her fingers to the throbbing between her brows, and froze.

Her hands. Slender fingers, skin smooth and soft and faintly rose-tinted, like the finest white porcelain. She stared at them.

An outrageous thought came crashing into her mind.

"What is today's date?" she asked, pressing her lips together to keep the nervousness out of her voice.

Ān Xià helped her to sit up properly. "The third day of the sixth month, Qiongyuan the Sixteenth. My Lady, are you feeling unwell? Shall I send for the Imperial Physician?"

The words landed like a stone thrown into still water.

Qiongyuan the sixteenth year. The first year of her marriage to Huo Qiú, when she had entered the Eastern Palace as Crown Princess. And the third of the sixth month — she remembered this day. It was the day she and Huo Qiú, still only Crown Prince then, had their great quarrel over Wang Yi. By the time the evening meal came around, they had a second argument on top of the first, and she had infuriated him so thoroughly that she spent the better part of half a year refusing to exchange even a word with him.

And now, here she was. Back in this particular day. This particular hour.

Tang Zhuózhuo was momentarily at a loss. She shook her head at Ān Xià. "Go on. I will rest a little longer."

Ān Xià, not daring to argue, let the canopy fall back into place and withdrew to stand watch outside.

Left alone in the great stillness of the palace chamber, Tang Zhuózhuo looked around slowly. The tips of her fingers had gone white where they pressed together.

She crossed to the bronze mirror set in its frame of gold and inlaid jade, a Western import, polished to such clarity it might have been glass. Only three of such mirrors existed; two were kept in the palace at large, and the third had always been hers, here in Yiqiu Palace.

The woman in the mirror looked back at her. Hair loose and dark, flowing like ink poured from height. A pair of almond eyes holding something like starlight. A sleeping robe of moon-white silk embroidered with silver thread, both stately and luminous, like something that didn't quite belong to the mortal world.

Tang Zhuózhuo raised a hand to the cheek reflected there; white tinged with the faintest rose, and thought of the ridiculous way her life had ended, and pressed her lips together.

---

She didn't rest long. She called softly for her maids, and both Ān Xià and Ān Zhī came in, the two girls who had followed her from the Tang household into the palace.

Ān Zhī, in their previous life, had not been trustworthy. She had been in the Cold Palace barely a few days before finding herself a sum of silver and transferring her service to another palace entirely. Tang Zhuózhuo had not laid eyes on her again in all the years that followed.

The hall was lightly scented,  a cool, unobtrusive fragrance that settled pleasantly on the mind. Through the latticed windows, Tang Zhuózhuo could see the sun still burning bright outside.

Ān Xià attended her through the noon meal, but when she sat quiet and ate without any of her usual animation, Ān Xià assumed the quarrel with the Crown Prince was still weighing on her, and gently began to coax: "My Lady, His Highness only says such things because he cares too much, don't take his sharp words to heart."

Please don't let her start thinking about Wang Yi again, Ān Xià thought, remembering the antique ornaments that had been smashed to pieces that very morning.

Tang Zhuózhuo looked at her for a moment, then smiled quietly. "I know."

She said it. Whether she meant it was another matter entirely.

This was exactly how Ān Xià had been in the previous life too, fretting herself raw over the discord between her mistress and Huo Qiú, offering comfort again and again until the comfort itself became an irritant and earned her a scolding, until eventually she had simply stopped trying.

Ān Zhī had always been the shrewder one, never offering more than what was asked of her, having long since mastered the art of keeping out of trouble. But having lived this life once already, Tang Zhuózhuo knew she could not give Ān Zhī any real trust or responsibility this time around.

She found herself thinking again of that month spent drifting at Huo Qiú's side in Qiánqīng Palace, and felt something sting behind her eyes. Then she thought of the look on Wang Yi's face when he learned of her death, that mean, faint expression, and felt hot with anger all over again. Between one feeling and the next, without quite noticing, she drifted off to sleep on the carved rosewood daybed near the window.

When she opened her eyes again, the sky had gone a deep blue-black. The palace lay buried in the boundless silence of night, the darkness creeping close like something crouching.

She was helped back into the inner chamber, pressed a handkerchief to the corners of her eyes, and stretched the pleasant ache out of her limbs. Ān Xià helped her change, then announced: "My Lady, it is time for supper."

A full spread of dishes was laid across the table. Tang Zhuózhuo washed her hands and settled herself on the cushioned stool, but made no move to pick up her chopsticks.

The serving girls stood to one side, watching her expression. Tang Zhuózhuo was thinking of this same evening in the previous life.

Huo Qiú had come.

He had come to tell her about Wang Yi, that Wang Yi intended to seek a match with the second legitimate daughter of the Marquis of Ningyuan.

She hadn't believed a word of it, of course. She hadn't wanted to exchange even the minimum of words with him.

It was that night, and that refusal, that had finally made him give up on her entirely. Cold fury and cold disappointment, combined, had ended whatever fragile thing remained between them. From that night forward, her title of Crown Princess had been a name without substance. And yet, when he ascended the throne, the position of Empress had still been left for her.

Tang Zhuózhuo thought of this and felt the light slowly leave her eyes.

Then, from outside the chamber, came noise. As it moved closer, it resolved into the unhurried, deliberate footsteps of a man;  steady and confident. Through the strand of pearl beading over the doorway, Tang Zhuózhuo caught a glimpse of a dragon-embroidered robe in imperial yellow, and the white jade tablet hanging at the man's belt.

At this distance, she thought she could still smell it, that trace of peppermint that clung to him, cool and clear as cold moonlight.

The palace women and eunuchs went to their knees. Before she had fully collected herself, her own body had already moved sinking down, hands folded properly.

"This consort greets Your Highness."

It came out soft and lilting and deferential,  a voice quite unlike the woman she had been just this morning, or indeed for most of the past several years. It made Huo Qiú pause mid-step. The hand hanging loosely at his side tightened almost imperceptibly, then released.

His eyes were deep and unreadable, emotion churning somewhere beneath that composed surface like thunder behind clouds. He steadied himself, stepped back almost unconsciously, and said in a cool voice: "Rise."

Tang Zhuózhuo registered the chill in his tone, felt her heart give a sharp little kick, and stood with her expression entirely composed.

His sharp gaze skimmed over her and landed on the laden table. "Eating?"

Tang Zhuózhuo followed his look. The dishes had only just arrived; thin ribbons of steam still curled upward, blurring slightly in the candlelight, softening the edges of his face.

"The meal was just served, I haven't touched it yet. Will Your Highness join me?"

His gaze returned to her face. There was something open in her expression, something that caught him off guard, and he looked away, pressing his lips together.

Zhang Déshèng, who had been stationed behind him performing his most convincing impression of carved wood, spotted the shift in his master's manner and leaped smoothly into the gap. "My Lady, His Highness has only just come from the study—"

Meaning: he will be staying for supper.

Tang Zhuózhuo felt the subtle dampness gathering in her palms. She turned to Ān Xià. "Have the kitchen prepare a few more dishes, His Highness's favourites."

Huo Qiú's chopsticks paused. A flicker of surprise crossed his eyes and vanished, immediately overlaid by the cold composure  in his brow.

The Great Jin observed the old rule of silence at the table, so the meal passed in silence. Tang Zhuózhuo, having survived three years of the Cold Palace on leftovers and scraps, realised that her mouth still remembered the taste of that bitterness, so when she tasted food that was properly seasoned, properly cooked, properly food, something brightened in her all at once.

She had always been a lady of appetite.

Huo Qiú finished and wiped his hands on a napkin, then let his gaze settle on the woman across from him.

She ate neatly, as she always did, but there was a quality to it tonight. The faint sheen of broth on her lips turned them pink and soft. Her neat, fine-boned hand guided a white jade soup spoon from bowl to mouth in small, careful sips. Something shifted at the back of Huo Qiú's eyes, and for a moment, almost without his permission, it looked like warmth.

Tang Zhuózhuo felt the weight of his attention on her and didn't quite know what to do with herself.

Now then. How, exactly, was she going to explain what happened this morning?

The future Chongjian Emperor was not a man easily managed.

The author has something to say: Our female lead has quite the backbone: completely different from Wēnliáng! She'll take on heaven and earth and the air in between. I hope no one throws things at me for it. (Amitābha.)