Maybe I should have just followed Miss Fén, Lián thought ruefully, as the entire room of people stared at her with undisguised scorn. One of the court officials began to laugh.
"Are you being serious?"
"Her Great Royal Highness died over a century ago. Are you her ghost?"
"Could someone check the local hospitals and asylums?" another official asked, with genuine seriousness.
Lián let her aura float gently out around her. With the lifting of the curse and Miss Fén's assistance, Lián had broken through to the level of Third-Dāntián Novice. The officials quietened down quickly, their curious gazes now flickering between her and the person seated above them on an ornate stone throne.
The Chūn King stared sharply at Lián, taking in her simple clothing and hair, and the innumerable faint scars on her face. For a few minutes, the two locked eyes, Lián patiently waiting, the King inscrutable. Eventually, he gestured to one of the officials.
"Send everyone else away. Public sessions are now closed. Bring all the pictures and records we have of the Princess Zéyì."
The members of the public who had come to make requests of the King grumbled, but generally there was little complaint. They had seen something very interesting, after all, and they were keen to pass the information along. They left with little fuss, casting glances back as they did at the shabby but dignified figure standing alone before the King.
A few moments later, a team of servants appeared bearing scrolls and books, which they laid before the King, stretching out the scrolls so he could view the pictures and compare them to the woman who stood before him. Throughout this, he had not spoken a single word to Lián, but she had expected no less. After all, a scruffy-looking stranger had just appeared out of nowhere and claimed she was his long-dead grand-aunt.
The officials, on the other hand, spoke continuously. From her eyes to her feet, she was scrutinised and compared to the pictures. Her hair was too short. Her lips were a little less full. She had a slight stoop that the Princess would never affect. Her skin was the wrong shade. And those scars...
Servants handed the Regent book after book and he skimmed over passages while Lián waited patiently. Eventually, he snapped shut the last book and waved forwards a mid-level official, who bowed to the King, then began to ask Lián questions.
"Your name, please."
"Zéyì, although my parents and siblings called me A Lián."
"The details of your palace here."
"I didn't have one. I slept at the Jyun Mei Temple(1). When I was going to be married, I spent a month in the Lily Palace(2), but it was never mine."
"Favourite food."
"Taro Fish(3)."
Lián continued answering questions, but she was puzzled. The information she provided could easily be researched by a third person. After all, Zéyì had been a darling of the people, and she was free and open in her speech with the public, so information such as her favourite 'whatever' could easily be obtained. The court officials evidently seemed to agree, so after a few more simple questions, the King stopped the middle official and waved one of his chief advisors forwards. He bowed with some politeness to her, then immediately began his interrogation.
"How did you survive?"
"I was never attacked."
The court officials muttered suspiciously amongst themselves.
"I hear the historical records say that a demon woman killed me as the price for ending the rain curse. That never happened. Do the records say how I was killed?"
Another round of muttering. The King frowned.
"What was your true relationship with your Imperial Brother, the Venerable Fourth King of Chūn?"
Lián inhaled slowly. "Are you... referring to his attempt to kill me, sir?"
An immediate uproar followed her words. Before any coherent words could be raised, the King had launched himself from the throne at Lián. "Gū pó(4)!"
The court officials watched in surprise as the King seized Lián's hands, eyes shining. From a silent and distant figure on a pedestal, he had suddenly become almost child-like, his voice high with excitement. As if remembering where he was, he coughed, and gestured for the officials to leave. Although some hesitated, the chief advisors hustled everyone outside. The King turned back to Lián.
"Gū pó, it really is you! You've returned to us... we have to celebrate! Let everyone know that the Divine Lotus has returned. This is... this is such good news."
Lián smiled with surprise, and a little relief. In truth, she still didn't remember exactly what had happened that day, how she had ended up trapped in a lake in a neighbouring kingdom. She had expected suspicion, unease, perhaps a slow acceptance, but this burst of warm familial affection... Seeing him close to, she realise that the King was a fairly slight person, with more scholarly and artistic airs than the martial ones of his great-grandfather, her father. Still, she could see in him her mother's dark grey eyes, and their small, slim hands, holding each others' tight, were almost identical, down to the length of their thumbs and the way their wrist bones protruded.
"Zhí sūn(5)," she replied, squeezing those hands. "I'm back."
"I'll have them set up a palace for you immediately. The Lily Palace has not been used by anyone since you left..."
"I am happy to return to the temple."
The King sadly shook his head. "The temple burnt down not long after your disappearance. You won't be able to go back there."
Burnt down?
"The nuns and monks...?"
"There were no survivors recorded."
Lián's ears seemed to stop working. She knew her zhí sūn was saying something, but somehow it was muffled. All she could think of were the nuns, the monks, the little child apprentices, the dinner times and the story times and the in-betweens of quiet contemplation and shared contentment together.
"I need to see..." she felt herself say.
"Not now. Gū pó, you've had a sudden shock. And you've travelled so far, please, rest. I will have someone take you to a room temporarily to rest as we prepare the palace. I'm sorry to inconvenience you..."
Lián shook her head mutely. She could feel her hands trembling, and it was taking all her willpower not to run from the palace for the temple. She tried to deepen her breathing. Her eyes flickered.
The King was instructing some servants to begin preparing the palace, then personally escorted his gū pó to the room where she would rest temporarily, a luxurious guest suite that formed part of the Queen's Palace. He gave instructions that no-one was to disturb his gū pó, even the rest of the royal family, then retired to give Lián some quiet.
Lián, still numb and shaking, lay down on the massive bed without removing her outer robe. She pressed her quaking body into the thick bedding, unable to suppress her shock and distress now that she was alone. Screwing her eyes shut, she tried to bring herself into a state of meditation, the boiling energy in all three of her dāntián threatening to spill out.
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Calm calm calm, she chanted to herself, clenching her fists. They're gone now, getting upset won't bring them back. Calm calm calm.
The calmness would not come. The fierce shén(6) energy in her upper dāntián would not dissipate, no matter how hard she tried, until her head throbbed and she felt dizzy and dissociated. In that heightened, chaotic state, she began to see visions – sweeping the temple steps with a group of young nuns whose faces burned away as she watched, the red blossoms of the plum trees in the courtyard replaced with flames, and then, faded and barely remembered, a memory of standing before the temple as a young teenager, the day she turned from a political path as a royal towards the spiritual to heal the people.
"Zéyì," her mother said, standing anxiously beside the carriage that had rapidly brought her to the temple on hearing of her daughter's plans. "Why are you doing this? Come back home."
Everything began to burn around them. Zéyì could feel the heat of the fire on her back, but she shook her head.
"Stay and help me, A Lián. We will be strong together. Hǔ fù hǔ zǐ (7)."
But still, Zéyì shook her head. She had chosen her path. A dark expression crossed the Queen's face. Everything was burning now, even Zéyì herself, all except the Queen.
"So this is your choice."
Zéyì felt the fire consume her. She could no longer see, or hear, or sense anything other than the pain. She was burning, burning -
"HEY! Dàjiě!"
And she woke.
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Zéyì gasped as though surfacing for air. Vision still swimming, her eyes managed to find Prince Fàn Bì'ān peering at her as though she were a specimen in a display cabinet.
"Dàjiě, you're super strong! You'd make a great demon - look at all that dark energy!"
She could barely comprehend what he was saying, but managed to catch enough to anxiously respond, "N... no..."
"No?"
"Take... ake it.. hngh... from me..."
The demon prince looked delighted. "I can have this energy? Wow, dàjiě, you're so generous. Are you sure?"
"H... hurr... ry..."
The prince clapped his hands together as if praying and recited a short phrase in a language Zéyì didn't recognise, then immediately began to stuff the dark energy that was boiling off Zéyì into his mouth with the air of someone enjoying a rare delicacy.
Zéyì shivered, sweat pouring over her as she fought to bring her energy under control. Even as he devoured her darkness, more seemed to spring forth.
"Mm. So good," the demon prince declared happily, licking his long, black-painted fingernails. "Pity the other dàjiě isn't here, your energies complement each other so well, it would be extremely delicious."
Miss Fén?
As if plunged into cold water, Zéyì felt a wave of relief wash over her. The burning in her head and her heart and her stomach momentarily quashed, a brief vision of Miss Fén's playful grey-brown eyes and silken fall of chestnut hair flashed through Zéyì's mind.
Slowly, slowly, the fire within came under control. Zéyì held in her mind the memory of Miss Fén holding her safe in those days when they first met. The churning demonic energy shifted, subsided, and then melted back into the crucible of her lower dāntián, jīng becoming qì, qì becoming shén, and then finally, a feeling of pure, blissful relief, clear as a struck bell, rolled through her as a wave of wúwéi. Her dāntián settled into peacefully circling energy.
The demon prince gagged. "Ack! Where did the lovely dark energy go? Dàjiě, are you trying to poison me?"
Zéyì opened her eyes shakily. "Apologies, Your Highness."
"Well, I got to taste a delicacy. I guess I won't have that opportunity again." He cocked his head to one side as he examined her again. "Third-Dāntián Novice now? That's a pity, you would have made an excellent demon. Still, there are opportunities in the future!"
Zéyì laughed wearily.
"I should thank you for all the meals, I suppose. Anything I can do for you?"
"Miss Fén..."
"Hm?"
"Ah, no. I... I'll think on it. Thank you, Your Highness... How did you get in here?" It finally occurred to her that the demon prince was right here, in her room, although he didn't seem like he had any intentions to do anything other than kill boredom.
"Ah, I can't tell you that! I would give all my tricks away."
Zéyì was slipping into sleep, exhausted from her struggles. She felt more amused than concerned by this cheeky demon boy.
"'s that so? Well, behave and you might get some more dark energy later."
She was asleep before she heard his reply.
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The first few weeks back in the Chūn Kingdom felt strange. Revisiting the places where she had walked and played as a child, had worked and travelled as a young woman, was like re-experiencing an old dream. Familiar and yet not, comforting and yet not, she roamed the palaces and gardens, visited the royal mausoleum to pay her respects to her parents and siblings, greeted all of the servants she came across.
The servants didn't really know what to make of this strange new Royal Lady, only bowed with obeisance and hurried away quickly. The lower court officials made it clear that they distrusted her, yet the higher officials treated her with great respect. She surmised they had better knowledge of her history.
The person she saw the most was the King. As if seeking to make up for over a century without family, he would dine with her every afternoon, enquire after her health and comfort. The conversation was always pleasant and cheerful, the food arranged to suit Zéyì's tastes, and the pavilion where they dined decked out with beautiful flowers. He arranged for beautiful clothing to be brought to her, and her favourite earrings, a pair of exquisite lotuses carved from pale green jade, were retrieved from the treasury and brought to her for her immediate adornment. Perhaps he was lonely too; strangely, there were no close members of the Chūn family, having been carried off by disease, or war, or ill fortune, and although the King had three wives, none of them had conceived. Zéyì wondered if perhaps the old curse still lingered on the royal family, that it hadn't truly broken that century ago.
And yet...
A month after she had returned, Zéyì was meditating in the courtyard of the Lily Palace. She always began her practice now by greeting the spirits of the nuns from Jyun Mei Temple and praying for their well-being in their next lives, before shifting her focus to the peacefully turning energy in her three dāntián. She could achieve the state of wúwéi much more easily now, and these moments of blissful nothingness were welcome. Sometimes, however, as wúwéi rolled through her, strange thoughts would follow along close behind.
"He has never asked about what happened to me," Zéyì suddenly said out loud.
She was referring, of course, to her zhí sūn. He always had lunch with her, and made sure that she wanted for nothing, and yet he never seemed interested in finding out about the past hundred years, where she had been, how she had spent it. She did not want to dwell on the long, sad time, but it seemed strange that her 'devoted zhí sūn' was so disinterested.
On the one hand, she felt that she might appear to be trying to take advantage of her zhí sūn's sympathy, but on the other, she thought that an empathetic person would surely have something to say about the situation. And with the nervous servants, the hostile lower officials and the fawning upper officials, the whole situation made her ill at ease.
"Zhí sūn, I have something to ask you."
"Actually, so do I, gū pó. But please, you speak first."
They were sat in a pavilion in the middle of one of the water gardens. Zéyì's eyes flickered over the calm, clear water, but she said deferentially, "No need to be so concerned. You speak first, zhí sūn."
The King smiled, and clasped his fist respectfully to his great-aunt. "Gū pó, I wonder... if you could help me."
"If it is in my power, I will."
"Well... You were going to marry the Crown Prince of Zhàng, correct?"
"That is true. Of course, that did not happen, and I am sure he is now long dead."
"Yes, he was a good king, but only mortal. Not all of us are cultivators with extended lifespans," the King said ruefully. He sipped his tea. "Gū pó, the Zhàng Kingdom are strong neighbours, and we would like to keep them as allies. The Chūn Kingdom is a fertile and rich land, which can make us a target for other nations."
"And how can I help?" Zéyì interrupted suddenly. A creeping suspicion was beginning to make its way into her mind.
"Will you not honour your agreement with the Zhàng Kingdom and marry the Crown Prince, as promised? Perhaps it is a different Crown Prince, but..."
So this is what it was all about. The over-attentive higher officials and the sweet but shallow attentions of her zhí sūn. The relatively easy acceptance of her as truly Second Princess Chūn Zéyì, returned from the dead. They wanted to use her as a bargaining chip with the Zhàng Kingdom.
"Gū pó, why haven't you removed those scars?" the King continued, gesturing to the myriad silvery lines across her skin. "You're a beautiful woman, they don't suit you. I know with your level of cultivation, you could get rid of them easily."
"What if I don't want to?" Zéyì asked casually, also sipping her tea.
An ugly look flashed over her zhí sūn's face, but he smoothed his expression quickly. "Come now, gū pó, aren't we family? Won't you help me, help the Chūn Kingdom? We've taken you back in and looked after you, so shouldn't you look after us? Has rotting in a lake for the past century also rotted your sense of compassion?"
"Perhaps." Zéyì put down her cup. "Why don't you marry the Prince?"
The King glared at her, no trace of affection left on his face. "Me? The King of Chūn, marry a man? Even if he is the Crown -"
"But you are a woman, are you not?"
The King's expression was now one of open hostility. "You..."
"I apologise if you wish to be known as and live as a man. However, it seems to me that a great partnership would be forged if you were to marry the Prince rather than I."
"Guards!"
In a few moments, Zéyì was surrounded by the King's own guards. She looked calmly at them, and at her zhí sūn. His... no, her face was black with rage, and all at once Zéyì realise something else, seeing that face that looked so much like her mother's.
"Take this imposter to the dungeons immediately. She will stand trial in a week for impersonating a royal."
Before anyone could make a move, Zéyì bowed humbly to the King.
"You..."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
Without waiting for a reply, Zéyì turned and walked herself to the dungeons, the bemused Royal Guard trying their best to hide their confusion. She descended into the cells and calmly allowed herself to be locked in one, where she sat down in the lotus position and began to meditate once more.
The faces of her zhí sūn and her mother overlapped, and she remembered that previous vision she had seen of her mother, a rage-filled glare that she had never seen before.
No, that was wrong. She had seen it before. That was a memory, not a hallucination.