Chapter 5 — Rebirth in the Cold Palace

“Issue my decree.”

The Emperor’s voice had recovered its usual steadiness.

“Promote Consort Tong to Imperial Consort and grant her Yonghe Palace. The Imperial Medical Academy must devote every resource to her treatment. If there is any negligence, I will pursue the matter to the end.”

“Your servant obeys!”

Everyone in the hall knelt at once. The Emperor turned to Eunuch Li.

“Strip the Khuong clan of its titles and exile them. Punish everyone connected to this case without exception.”

“As Your Majesty commands.”

One decree after another was carried from the hall. Many people in the palace were destined to lose sleep that night.

By the time I was brought back to Yonghe Palace, dawn was near. It was much larger than the Cold Palace. The furnishings were not extravagant, but everything was neat and clean. Several palace maids and eunuchs stood beneath the covered walkway. When they saw me enter, they knelt together.

“Welcome, Imperial Consort Tong.”

I waved for them to leave. The old palace matron helped me into the inner chamber and closed the door. At last, she could not hold back her tears.

“Your Ladyship... you have suffered so much.”

I gently patted her hand.

“It is all over now.”

The Cold Palace lay far away beneath the morning mist, too blurred to see clearly. But I knew that it was holding another person at that very moment: someone who had come from a thousand years in the future, believed she could control everything, and had ultimately lost to an “ancient woman.” A psychology PhD.

“Your Ladyship,” the old matron asked softly, “do you think what the Noble Consort said was true? Did she really come from the future?”

I looked at the sky as it slowly brightened and did not answer.

What difference did it make whether it was true or false? The knowledge she had brought had changed this era, and it had nearly taken my life. Now she was locked in the Cold Palace while I stood here.

That was enough.

“Matron.” I turned around. “Help me change clothes. In a little while, I want to go to the Imperial Medical Academy.”

“Your Ladyship, you have not recovered yet...”

“There are a few things I need to ask about clearly.”

For example, what should be done with the formulas for cement and gunpowder? The Emperor was right that this knowledge could not simply be left unattended. But it could not all be destroyed either. It might save countless lives and make the country prosperous.

I changed into a simple palace robe. Just as I was about to leave, a young eunuch hurried over and knelt outside the door.

“Your Ladyship, the commoner Khuong from the Cold Palace wishes to see you once.”

7

The old matron immediately objected.

“Your Ladyship, do not go! Who knows what she is plotting now?”

I was silent for a moment.

“Give her my answer. I will not go.”

“But she says she has something extremely important to tell you in person.”

I walked to the door and looked at the kneeling eunuch.

“Then carry a message back to her for me.”

“Please instruct me, Your Ladyship.”

I looked toward the Cold Palace and spoke each word clearly.

“Tell her that psychology can be used to save people. She chose to use it to hurt them instead. The ending she faces today is the one she deserves.”

The young eunuch bowed once and withdrew.

The old matron helped me toward the Imperial Medical Academy. Along the way, she could not resist asking,

“Your Ladyship, are you truly not curious? Do you not want to know what she wished to say?”

“Of course I am curious,” I answered indifferently. “But compared with curiosity, I would rather stay alive.”

The white walls of the Imperial Medical Academy took on a pale blue-gray color beneath the early morning light. Chief Physician Wang was waiting at the entrance in person. His long white beard stirred in the breeze.

“Your Ladyship should rest quietly,” he said.

He led me into the inner rooms. “The residual poison has not left your body. The greatest taboo is exhausting yourself mentally.”

I sat in the examination room, which was filled with the smell of medicine, and watched him wash his hands in a bronze basin.

“Chief Physician, can those medicines really be removed completely?”

Chief Physician Wang’s hands paused. Water fell from his fingers one drop at a time.

“Are you asking about the hallucinogen?” He raised his head and looked at me with a complicated expression. “Or the memories that were planted inside your mind?”

My heart gave a hard beat.

“You know?”

“I have practiced medicine for fifty years and encountered too many strange illnesses.”

He dried his hands and sat across from me.

“The Noble Consort’s methods were bizarre, but they still followed certain rules: medicine to disturb the mind and sound to confuse it. The medicine can be treated, but...”