Chapter 7 — The Secret the Empress Dowager Concealed

His complexion was even more wretched than it had been at the execution grounds.

"Your Highness, Miss Xie."

Xiao Zhi dismounted.

"Where is His Majesty?"

Eunuch Chang lowered his voice.

"Inside the Eternal Brilliance Hall."

"Who else is there?"

Eunuch Chang hesitated for a fleeting moment.

"The Empress Dowager."

Xiao Zhi’s expression shifted slightly. Separated from them by the thin curtain of the carriage, I sensed that something was gravely amiss. Emperor Yuan Sheng had ascended the throne as a mere child, and the Empress Dowager had held the harem in her iron grip for many years. If the tokens used by the assassins originated from within the palace, then the Empress Dowager was, at the very least, inextricably linked to the plot. As I stepped down from the carriage, a sudden, mournful tolling of a bell echoed from the direction of the Eternal Brilliance Hall. Palace bells struck at midnight signify only one thing—the death of a royal. Eunuch Chang’s face drained of all color.

"This is disastrous!"

In the distance, a young eunuch came scrambling toward us, tripping over his own feet in his panic.

"Your Highness! Eunuch Chang!"

"His Majesty has been assassinated in the Eternal Brilliance Hall!"

My entire body went rigid. The young eunuch lifted his head, his face a mess of tears and snot.

"The assassin was captured, and he insists that he was sent by Xie Ming Duong!"

Xiao Zhi whipped his head around to stare at me. Behind the palace gates, the blades of the Imperial Guards were drawn in unison, the cold steel gleaming under the torchlight. I had only just escaped the celestial prison, and now, I had somehow become the mastermind behind an assassination attempt on the Emperor.

I stood before the palace gates, surrounded by dozens of blades pointed directly at my throat. It was a novel sensation. Half an hour ago, someone had tried to kill me in my cell. Half an hour later, I was the architect of regicide. I could not help but ask Xiao Zhi.

"Your Highness, do all investigations in the capital proceed with such frantic haste?"

Xiao Zhi spared me a cold glance.

"Hold your tongue for a moment."

"I am afraid that if I do not speak now, I shall have no further opportunity to do so later."

Eunuch Chang was so agitated his face had turned a ghastly shade of grey.

"Miss Xie, how can you still have the temperament to jest at a time like this?"

I gestured toward the wall of blades surrounding us.

"Even if I were perfectly solemn, it would hardly persuade them to sheathe their swords."

The commander of the Imperial Guards spoke in a low, grim voice: "By the decree of the Empress Dowager, arrest Xie Ming Duong!" Xiao Zhi took a single step forward. His own sword remained in its scabbard, yet among the ranks of the guards, no one dared to advance another inch.

"Who dares to lay a finger on her?"

The temple of the Imperial Guard commander twitched.

"Your Highness, the Emperor has been wounded, and the assassin himself has named her as the culprit."

Xiao Zhi’s voice was icy.

"She has only just stepped out of the prison, and she has been under my personal escort every step of the way."

"The assassin claims she gave the order, and so she is suddenly the mastermind?"

"If I were to claim that you were the one who ordered the assassin to kill me, would you be willing to kneel and accept your guilt right now?"

The commander’s face stiffened. I whispered, "Your Highness, your debating skills are surprisingly reasonable." Xiao Zhi did not look back.

"Shut up."

I obeyed. However, my heart settled a little. At the very least, as long as Xiao Zhi stood, I would not be dragged away to be executed immediately. The Eternal Brilliance Hall was ablaze with light. As I followed Xiao Zhi inside, the floor was covered with figures kneeling in rows—imperial physicians, palace maids, and eunuchs, all prostrate on the ground. Emperor Yuan Sheng sat on the edge of the dragon bed, his left shoulder wrapped in white linen, blood still seeping through the fabric. He was not dead. I let out a long, shuddering breath. Even though he had nearly wiped out my entire family earlier that day, his survival was infinitely preferable to his demise. If he had died, I surely would have been dragged straight from the palace gates to the public square for execution. The Empress Dowager sat on the high dais. She wore robes of deep imperial purple, her hair impeccably styled, not a single strand out of place, as she rhythmically fingered her prayer beads. She stared at me as if I were a vermin that should never have survived until midnight.

"Xie Ming Duong."

Her voice was languid and slow.

"You are truly bold."

I knelt.

"This commoner is not particularly bold."

The Empress Dowager let out a cold laugh.

"Not bold, yet you dare to assassinate the Emperor?"

I raised my head to look her in the eye.

"Empress Dowager, even in the act of regicide, there should be some sense of order and sequence, should there not?"

The hall fell into a profound silence. The movement of the prayer beads in the Empress Dowager’s hands came to a sudden halt. I spoke with deliberate earnestness: "During the day at the execution grounds, I was nearly beheaded. At midnight in the prison, I was nearly murdered. And the moment I reach the palace gates, the Emperor is attacked."

"If I truly possessed such supernatural ability, would I not have saved myself first?"

Emperor Yuan Sheng let out a cough. It sounded almost like a laugh, but the movement caused him to wince as it tugged at his wound. The Empress Dowager glanced at him.

"Your Majesty, she is merely adept at sophistry."

Emperor Yuan Sheng replied in a flat tone: "Mother, let us first hear what the assassin has to say." Beside a palace pillar, an assassin dressed in black was forced to his knees. His shoulder blades were pierced with iron chains, and blood trickled from the corners of his mouth, yet he remained alive. When I saw him, my heart sank. This man was not one of the two I had encountered in the prison, but the black threads visible on his sleeves closely resembled those on the man who had died in my cell. Xiao Zhi had clearly noticed it too. His gaze turned frigid. Emperor Yuan Sheng commanded: "Speak." The assassin lifted his head to look at me. His eyes were unnervingly calm—not the gaze of a man prepared to die for a cause, but the gaze of someone who had memorized a script long ago.

"It was Xie Ming Duong who commanded me."

I asked him, "When did I command you?"

"Last night."

"Where?"