Character Index
Ashina: Personal name Ibilga, Kayla's wife and the princess of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate.
Housekeeper Li: Kayla's loyal servant, previously acted as one of the few people who helped Wenyuan.
Sir Yang: An old eunuch in service of the Emperor.
Derin: A middle-aged woman, she is Ashina's lady-in-waiting and serves as a mother figure.
Sun Zhong'e: A middle-aged woman who is talented in both fighting and administration, one of Kayla's retainers.
Zhou Hong and Zhou Yong: The First and Second Prince who were demoted to commoner status. They were murdered very recently.
Empress Gongsun: The deposed Empress and the mother of the First and Second Princes. Like most Empresses, she was the Emperor's official spouse since they were both quite young, and thus has a high degree of familiarity with him, and her family also played a helping role in his coronation. However, as her family grew too greedy and powerful, the relationship between her and the Emperor fell apart.
Lady Lin: A blind divinator who had worked with the Imperial Princess to transmigrate Kayla into this world.
Zhou Ying: The Emperor and the most powerful person in the country. The price he pays for that is to never be able to trust a loved one's intentions towards him.
Li Que: A Senior Investigator in the Bureau, Kayla's supporter.
Captain Jiang: A young Imperial Guard who previously went North with Kayla.
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Midnight found Kayla weary but unable to fall back asleep. It had been two long, painful days of guilt, fear, and suspension. Kayla felt drained after raising her voice at Ashina, of all people, and sometime during the afternoon, between ordering the Bureau to increase the security on the Turkic envoy and praying for the Emperor’s mercy, Kayla fell asleep on the couch. Ashina had placed a blanket over her. Then, the princess had made herself comfortable with Kayla as a pillow and fallen asleep as well. When Kayla woke up, the princess was deep in a dreamless sleep, and Kayla couldn’t move for fear of waking her.
The frantic knocking at the door had Ashina sit up so quickly that Kayla started in surprise.
“What is it?!” Ashina demanded, the sleep gone from her eyes in an instant.
“My lord, my princess, there is someone from the palace,” Housekeeper Li said through the door in a trembling voice.
Kayla sat up slowly.
“So it’s come,” Kayla muttered. Ashina didn’t register the words.
“What? At this time?!” Ashina crossed the distance to the door and flung it open, scouring the darkness for sight of the mysterious messenger. “Who is it? What do they want?”
“I do not know, my princess,” Housekeeper Li said, uncharacteristically struck off-balance by the sudden turns of fate. “It is a senior eunuch, he’s been here before, but I can’t remember his name. And guards too, Imperial Guards. There’s a whole score of them. There hasn’t been so many since–”
She caught sight of Kayla emerging in the doorway behind Ashina and hastily stopped short of saying more.
“Who heads the guards?” Kayla asked.
“A young man, I think he was the one who was here last time,” Housekeeper Li said, sounding a little uncertain.
“Captain Jiang?”
“I’m not sure,” Housekeeper Li confessed.
Thoughts sped through Kayla’s mind. The impeachments have been flowing in–but would he have reacted that quickly? Would he have even read them? Or did the Empress Dowager find a way into his good graces and ruin me? No, it’s not an arrest, I’m being called to the palace. I could die there. I could talk the Emperor out of his temper. The din reached a roar, and Kayla forced herself to push them all aside.
“Alright, I’ll be back soon,” Kayla said. “Ibilga, don’t try to contact anyone until I return, do you understand?”
“You can’t go! This late at night–what on earth could he want? It won’t be anything good!” Ashina protested. Kayla gently wrapped her arms around the princess.
“I don’t know either,” Kayla admitted. “But I have to go. No matter how bad the outcome, not going will be worse. Pray for my success. I’m off now, you should stay in the Inner Quarters.”
“Wenyuan!”
“It’s alright,” Kayla comforted Ashina. The princess looked as though she wanted to argue, but gave in with a sigh.
“Be careful,” Ashina warned.
“I will. Call Derin, you shouldn’t stay anywhere alone until I’m sure we’re safe,” Kayla said. “Oh, and Sun Zhong’e too, I want her right in the room with you. Is that alright?”
Ashina nodded.
Kayla turned to Housekeeper Li. “Shall we?”
“As you wish, my lord,” Housekeeper Li said. The woman drew herself up, willing her nerves to steel, and led her master to the Outer Courtyard with great dignity. An old eunuch and Captain Jiang stood there, flanked by two guards each.
“Your Excellency,” the eunuch greeted her. Kayla recognized the man, a senior eunuch she saw almost every time she visited the Emperor. The eunuch tended to stay in the background, and she’d never spoken to him directly before.
“Sir Yang,” she returned the greeting, nodding at Captain Jiang. “Captain Jiang.”
“Your Excellency.” Captain Jiang bowed his head.
“I take it that I am to come with you?” Kayla asked.
“Yes, my lord. If you would so please,” Sir Yang replied.
“Of course. I thank you for taking the trouble to come escort me,” Kayla said. She nodded at Housekeeper Li. “Take care of my wife.” The woman bowed.
Turning back to Sir Yang, Kayla followed him out of the courtyard, trying not to tense as Captain Jiang fell into step right behind her, the distance used for prisoners who were a flight risk. Her shoulder tingled, even though the cut there from the Turkish agent had long since been healed.
Kayla was helped into a carriage, well-furnished and decorated. The details disappeared as the door closed her into the darkness. The curtains were shut, and she didn’t bother to open them.
From the message Li Que sent me during the afternoon, the impeachments have been flowing in since the news broke. And since we couldn’t just arrest all the officials and the Turkic envoy, the information containment was a failure. Still, to have all these vultures swooping in to try and capitalize the situation right after your sons died, that should get the Emperor angry enough. The problem is, will he act according to his usual nature or not? If so, then he’d be furious that these people are taking advantage of the situation and side with me. If not, then I’m really, really screwed.
Kayla couldn’t tell if she’d miscalculated or not by staying still. But turning the Emperor to mercy after he’d lashed out sufficiently was infinitely more reliable than trying to grab a hold of his horns when he was still angry. The carriage rolled on through the night, effortlessly bearing the weight of countless hopes and resentments tied to the chance of Kayla’s success and failure.
In complete darkness, she arrived at the palace.
The carriage had stopped only a short distance from the Emperor’s personal quarters. Despite all the effort she’d put into calming herself, Kayla was shaky as she got out of the carriage. Captain Jiang reached out to steady her as her knees wobbled, and got her safely onto solid ground.
Sir Yang was kind enough to give Kayla a moment to get her bearings.
“This way please,” he said. Still flanked by Captain Jiang, whose closeness was now due to worry that Kayla would fall over rather than worry of her running, Kayla made her way towards the grand building. It had never been imposing before. Now, it loomed.
“How is the Emperor’s health?” Kayla asked as she followed the eunuch.
“He has not eaten or drank anything since the news broke, we can’t get him to rest either,” Sir Yang said, his voice heavy. “He took the news very hard. We fear for his condition.”
“I understand,” Kayla said.
Tread carefully. Tread very, very carefully.
“Please go in from here yourself,” Sir Yang said, stopping just shy of the entrance. Kayla thanked him, thanked Captain Jiang, and then walked in on legs that suddenly found their strength. She stepped through the doorway, eyes adjusting to the darkness. The Emperor had only a single candle alight in the entirety of his chambers.
She finally caught sight of his shadowed form huddled on a couch.
A breath. Two.
Kayla knelt.
“Zhao Wenyuan humbly greets His Majesty the Emperor.”
The Emperor raised a hand, barely visible in the darkness, gesturing for her to rise. Kayla quietly obeyed.
“Your Majesty, my deepest condolences,” Kayla murmured softly.
The Emperor was silent for a long while. He seemed to look at Kayla and then glance away uncomfortably. The stretch seemed a chasm, widening until it became an abyss between them. Kayla could see her chances trickling away like so many glittering little objects in the darkness.
“I accused you wrongly,” the Emperor finally said, his voice hoarse and gravelly. Kayla’s heart skipped a beat and then thudded against her rib cage.
“Your Majesty,” she said, half in protest, half in relief. The latter didn’t show through, and the Emperor sighed, shaking his head.
“It wasn’t your fault,” the Emperor said wearily. “I wasn’t in my right mind then.”
Relief came crashing down, but stopped, suspended just over her head. The Emperor was still speaking much too formally. She wasn’t in the clear yet.
“Please don’t trouble yourself over it, Your Majesty,” Kayla said worriedly. “Your health is the most important–please take care of yourself as the foremost priority, there is nothing that we, your subjects, would not be willing to forego in order to maintain your wellness and safety.”
The Emperor shook his head again, looking lost in his own thoughts. Carefully, very carefully, Kayla inched closer.
“It wasn't your fault, it was me,” the Emperor muttered. “I was the one who refused to send guards–refused them when you’d had the thought to ask for them! For my own sons!”
He buried his head into his hands. Kayla moved forward as quietly as she could, hands half-raised before her as though the Emperor was a frightened animal, never mind that he couldn’t see her. Now that she was closer, she could see the tremors wracking his frame.
Kayla could see it now, the thin, tenuous rope that promised her a final chance.
“Please don’t think that, Your Majesty. The facts aren’t clear yet, but it is the scoundrels who did this who are to blame,” Kayla said quietly.
“I’ll see them die by a thousand cuts! Them and their clans to the ninth degree!” The Emperor snarled, bristling like a beast. Kayla drew back slightly, slowing her approach until it was measured in centimeters.
“You will,” Kayla promised. “I will–or your appointee of choice will find the culprits. Your pain is our pain. Your subjects will not rest until we see you avenged.”
“Avenged…I can never be avenged." The Emperor's voice quavered on the words. "It wasn't just the assassins. It was my decisions that damned them. But it was never my wish to let things come to this! They all think I wanted to, but who would want to disown their own sons?!” The Emperor raised his head sharply at the last question as though he were demanding an answer.
“I can kill the assassins, but who was the one who put us into this situation? My sons should have lived happily by my side, but instead they died as squalid peasants in the distant borders!”
Kayla stilled to a stop.
“I was the one who banished them, the one who condemned them to this fate! But who was the one who forced my hand?! My Empress–oh she did love me once, but she loved her family far more–she thought that she could gift them the country, and she would’ve! She would’ve, if I hadn’t deposed her. And then she died, and my sons couldn’t stand it. And I couldn’t stand them. Them and their pleading, as if they didn’t know what their relatives had done, it drove me mad. Mad, I tell you! The Gongsun clan…they were the ones who pushed us to this point! They’re the ones who are guilty, they, and all the ones who galvanized them!”
Like the Grand Duke, as the records Kayla had destroyed were apt to show. The Emperor’s rage withered into despair.
“What could I have done? What could I possibly have done?” The Emperor whispered despondently.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
She slowly began to move towards him again, stopping a small distance away, close enough that he could see her face properly. Her mind span like a spindle on a loom as she struggled to find the best words to say. She thumbed through historical examples, religious clauses, a plethora of platitudes at the speed of light. As slowly as she had approached, she knelt onto the ground.
“Your Majesty, we are all what fate has made us to be,” Kayla said softly. “You are a wise and benevolent ruler, not someone who allows personal attachments to blind your vision to the needs of the nation. We, all of us, have benefited from your just decisions. But the Heavens have made you bear the price in our stead. We beg your forgiveness and your grace, my liege.”
The Emperor met her gaze with teary eyes.
“I am the Son of Heaven. Why do the gods make me bear so much grief?”
“Because you are the Son of Heaven,” Kayla replied. “You are the only one who can bear this.”
The Emperor sighed, looking ten years older as he slumped in his seat. Kayla drew nearer to him, now just outside of reaching distance.
“Plenty of men lose their sons,” the Emperor said dully, eyes turned to the ceiling. “Few can claim guilt for it. But me, I can. Have the gods no mercy?”
“The heavens would not give you more than you could take, unless they did not mean for you to bear it alone,” Kayla said. “For that, I am to blame. Your accusation against me was true, Your Majesty. I am responsible.”
From here on it was a thin line. Kayla fought to keep her breathing steady.
The Emperor shook his head. “It is not your fault, Wenyuan. I ordered you not to,” he said hollowly, sounding as though he wished it weren’t the case.
“No, it is my fault. I was made the Director of the Bureau by your benevolence, it was my duty to ensure the safety of your sons. If I weren’t afraid of offending you, if not because of how deep my love and respect for you runs, I would have argued until I was purple in the face to post a guard, political implications or not. But because I cradled my own affections over my duties, it has ended in tragedy,” Kayla said.
Even as she spoke, she felt her reflexive instincts screeching for her to stop. But this was her only chance. She’d seen it the moment she walked in. The Emperor might forgive her for a tragedy that wasn't her fault, but he would never forgive her for making the fault his own. Claiming full responsibility was a non-option. But there had to be a way to make it work, and now she was crawling towards it on hands and knees in the dirt.
“More importantly than duty alone…if I were worthy…worthy of the love and care I’ve received from you since my birth, worthy of the many kindnesses I have received throughout my life, I would have repaid your magnanimity properly. Instead, I have failed, both to help you shoulder your burdens and to spare you from grief. I deserve any and all reproach you care to cast upon me, and in fact, if it could be of any help to you, then I beg you to do so. Don’t blame yourself, don’t punish your own health. There is no one whose well-being is more important to me, I can accept any punishment to that end!”
Kayla spoke with great emotion, almost convincing even herself that it was in earnest. The Emperor slowly straightened from where he was slumped against the back of the couch to lean forward on the couch.
“Wenyuan!” The Emperor reached out and Kayla moved forward to let him grab her hands.
“Wenyuan, who other than you would say such things?” The Emperor’s voice was now thick with tears. “You truly are my son in all but blood!”
"Uncle," Kayla began worriedly. The Emperor burst into tears anew at the familiar term of address. He began to ramble like an aggrieved widow, clinging to the closest source of comfort.
“I was so happy to have a son,” he sobbed. “He was so tiny when he was born. I was worried he would break when I held him, or that I would hold his head wrong and his neck would become crooked, but then he fit so perfectly in my arms, and that smile...I loved him, I adored him! I wanted him to be my heir. We were so young then, we had our lives ahead of us and we thought it would be good. But my poor boy…my poor son…”
Kayla carefully wrapped her spare arm around him as she tucked herself next to him on the couch. The man before her was no longer an Emperor who held life and death at the whim of his thoughts. He was just a father who had erred and wronged, and now, grieved.
And grief, she knew how to deal with.
The Emperor wept, sometimes recalling a moment of paternal pride, sometimes cursing the circumstances and his own choices, sometimes cursing the Gongsun clan and the murderers. Kayla offered comforting words as well as she could, carefully selecting each one to avoid setting him off by accident. She’d had plenty of practice with her own mother since she was very young and kept the same habits from then. Unbeknownst to Kayla, her manner of offering comfort was somewhat childlike as a result, but it also happened to be exactly what the Emperor needed.
Slowly, the Emperor calmed down again.
“Uncle, you need to drink something,” Kayla urged him after he was sufficiently calmed. “I’ll have the eunuch bring you some broth.”
The Emperor shook his head, eyes red-rimmed and face haggard. Kayla dabbed the tears off his face with her sleeve, regretting not bringing a handkerchief.
“Please, Uncle. You must have something, just a little,” she pleaded. The Emperor relented. His grip on Kayla’s hand tightened when she stood up to go summon an eunuch, so she settled for raising her voice instead.
“Sir Yang! Please bring His Majesty some broth!” Kayla shouted, the sound not coming out quite as loud as she’d wished after sticking to soothing murmurs for a while. Sir Yang heard it anyways, and moved at an unearthly speed to bring a bowl of hot broth to the Emperor, watching with relieved eyes as the Emperor allowed Kayla to coax him into eating it.
He let the eunuchs pack him off to bed, seeming quietly relieved that Kayla sat herself on a cushion on the ground, right at his bedside. Sir Yang retreated with the servants he had magically summoned, seemingly out of nowhere, and the Emperor was soon breathing deeply, his sunken eyes closed.
Do all parents grieve the same way? Kayla wondered. Her mother had mourned a lost husband instead, and Kayla hadn't been there to see her mourn a lost daughter, but it all seemed to blur together into one continuous stretch of grief in her exhausted mind. Looking down at the Emperor’s sleeping face, Kayla heaved a sigh.
This reminds me of when he was ill in Lady Lin’s visions, Kayla thought dully. Was that what happened? Did they die in that timeline as well? They must have. They died, and the grief destroyed his health.
Too tired to think anymore, she leaned against the bed-frame and nodded off. She started awake again some time later at the Emperor’s groaning.
“Uncle,” Kayla called him. When his face twisted but he did not awake, Kayla reached out and shook his shoulders. “Uncle, wake up!”
The Emperor jolted awake with a cry and shoved her back. Kayla toppled over and hastily got to her feet again.
“Uncle, are you alright?” Kayla asked.
“I-I-” The Emperor gasped for breath, hand over his heart. Kayla’s heart thudded in fear.
“Uncle!" Do I call for a eunuch? Is this a heart attack? Fuck, I am not ready for a coup–
“I had the most terrible dream,” the Emperor said shakily.
Oh.
“My wife and sons were accusing me–I can’t remember what they were saying, but by the gods–!”
Kayla hastily reached over to take his hand.
“Uncle, you’ve worn yourself out too much with grief, and you’ve blamed yourself most unfairly,” Kayla said gently.
“But their accusations…it was true, all of it!” The Emperor sounded as helpless as a frightened child.
“It’s the times, it’s the fates,” Kayla replied somberly. “All of us are guided by circumstances we neither created nor controlled, what can we do when the world forces our hands?”
The Emperor heaved a sigh, but the tension slowly drained out of his body.
“You’re right,” he sighed. “You’re right. But the guards, I should have posted them–”
“Uncle, please fault me for that as you wish, but do not blame it upon yourself,” Kayla said.
The Emperor’s eyes fixed on her unnervingly, sending a chill down Kayla's spine. But then they slowly softened into a moistened look of pain.
“Then there is nothing to fault.”
“Please get some more rest, Uncle,” Kayla urged. “You need it.”
The Emperor let her pull the blankets back over his shoulders, and despite his evident unease, soon fell into a peaceful sleep. Kayla sat next to the bed, vigilantly keeping an eye on him until the sky outside began to brighten. The wink of sleep she’d gotten was far from enough. She was so exhausted that she felt empty.
Quiet footsteps approached, and she turned her head towards Sir Yang.
“Your Excellency, you have done us all a great service,” he whispered. “We can take over from here. You ought to get some rest.”
“I can’t leave him like this,” Kayla said, a little woozy with lack of sleep. She was sure that she could, but she didn’t know how the Emperor would like it.
“Well, I suppose it would do His Majesty some good to see you still here in the morning. Perhaps you can rest on the couch over there, I’ll keep watch over the Emperor,” Sir Yang offered.
“I should stay here,” Kayla said, a little uncertain as to whether that was necessary. She hoped it wasn’t. Sir Yang shook his head.
“Please, Your Excellency, we would be scolded if the Emperor knew we let you sleep on the floor,” Sir Yang said. Well, that was a good enough excuse.
“My household,” Kayla began.
“I’ve notified them.”
“Many thanks.”
“Not at all.”
And with that, Kayla got to her feet with Sir Yang’s help and immediately fell asleep on the nearest couch.
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Zhou Ying woke to a sense of numbness throughout his body. The moment he sat up, the familiar touch of his oldest eunuch was at his arm.
“Sir Yang,” Zhou Ying muttered.
“Your Majesty, please have some tea,” Sir Yang offered, a cup already at hand.
Zhou Ying blankly downed the cup, not even sure when he had let go of it except that it disappeared again. He blinked, his eyes swollen and worn out from crying. The overwhelming anger and grief from the day before had faded now, replaced by a sense of hollowness that threatened to consume him, an empty hole in his chest in the shape of his two eldest sons.
He remembered speaking to Wenyuan at some point. He couldn't immediately recall the words, but he remembered the feeling of solace as Wenyuan comforted him, earnest and childlike, the same way the boy had probably comforted his widowed mother so many years ago. Had Wenyuan been there during his nightmare? Zhou Ying couldn’t quite remember. When had he left then? Zhou Ying's eyes caught on a familiar form curled into a tight ball on a couch.
“Wenyuan,” Zhou Ying said in surprise. He turned to Sir Yang, who looked rather sheepish.
“The Duke was standing guard at your bedside all night, but I noticed that he was growing tired, so I tried to send him home. But he was worried about your health, so I convinced him to move to the couch,” Sir Yang said. He tentatively examined the Emperor’s face for displeasure. “Should I send him off?”
“Let him be,” Zhou Ying said, a wave of fondness washing away any lingering anger at his nephew in the back of his mind. Wenyuan had meant well, and Zhou Ying had been the one to order him off the matter. Some part of him wished that Wenyuan had just gone ahead and posted guards anyways, or done so secretly, even if that meant insubordination. But that wasn’t Wenyuan. And if it had been, Zhou Ying would never have made him a Duke. A new surge of regret brought tears to his eyes again, and Zhou Ying blinked them away.
“I want the killers and everyone behind them,” Zhou Ying said, his voice heating into a snarl. “I want them ripped into shreds and their flesh fed to the dogs!”
“Duke Zhao has already sealed off the crime scene and begun investigations, with your permission, the Bureau will conduct an autopsy,” Sir Yang replied quietly.
Zhou Ying flinched at the idea of someone cutting his sons open anew.
“Do it,” he ordered through gritted teeth.
“As you wish, Your Majesty.” Sir Yang quickly sent off a message to the Bureau’s Vice-Director and anxiously turned his attention back to the Emperor. Zhou Ying was blankly staring at his hands again.
After a brief deliberation, Sir Yang chose to stay silent and wait for orders.
“I want to give them a state funeral as princes,” Zhou Ying finally said. “You’ll organize it–I trust your abilities.”
“I will ensure that every detail is faultless,” Sir Yang promised.
“And those–” the Emperor gestured at the pile of scrolls on the desk. All of them were impeachments against Zhao Wenyuan by officials who had moved perhaps a bit too hastily. “Burn them. All of them.”
Zhou Ying’s voice was tinged with disgust.
“I’ll see to it right away.”
“Wait. Take down the names first,” Zhou Ying said. “And give Wenyuan a copy of the list.”
Sir Yang bowed, allowing an almost imperceptible look of relief to cross his face for the Emperor’s benefit. This time, at least, no political crisis would ensue in the Emperor’s own faction. As for the others, well...Sir Yang picked up a scroll off the floor. They had grabbed the chance, understandably, and had thus taken the risk upon themselves. There was no one else they could blame for it.
But secretly, even he was surprised that Duke Zhao seemed to have ridden out the Emperor’s fury more or less intact. Sir Yang had seen the same script happen on various scales before with the Emperor's loved ones–whether or not the Emperor’s rage was misplaced or not, the result was never a happy one for the object of the Emperor's anger. Resentment would smolder and darken anything they said until the Emperor was furious, or fear would tinge their voice until the Emperor turned away from them in disgust. Had they realized they were making missteps then? Sir Yang was sure that they did, but who could claim to be capable of fully controlling their emotions with their loved ones?
The only person who had always kept their footing had been the Imperial Princess, and now...Sir Yang glanced at Zhao Wenyuan’s sleeping face with a twinge of sentiment, and went on making the list.
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Cultural Notes
The Imperial Guards arriving at the Zhao household: Housekeeper Li makes an aborted mention to the Grand Duke's assassination attempt on Kayla and the swamping of the household with Imperial Guards immediately after, an event halfway through Book 1 that directly contributed to the growing schism between Kayla and the Empress Dowager.
让你蒙冤了/I've let you be wrongfully accused: A phrase of speech you might see in a Chinese period drama, the one who says it is usually the one doing the wrongful accusing, but the passive voice allows them to apologize without accepting responsibility, a true inspiration to toxic parents and partners everywhere. Jokes aside, this phrase is pretty serious way of putting it, overall. Between an elder and a younger person in a family, a way to try and minimize the situation in order to smooth things over might be to say "让你委屈了/I've caused you to be aggrieved". It's hardly strange for an Emperor to use the term 蒙冤/wrongfully accuse instead, though considering that the Emperor likes to act like a close family member in his interactions with Wenyuan, the phrasing clearly signals whether he's speaking as Kayla's liege or uncle.
龙体安康/Dragon body's health and safety: An Ancient Chinese term, it essentially refers to the Emperor's health and wellbeing. The Chinese dragon is often a symbol of the throne, and such this phrase adds a level of respect and esteem to the Emperor's personage. Happy Dragon Year btw.
凌迟/Death by a thousand cuts: An Ancient Chinese punishment in which an executioner lacerates the victim a thousand times while the victim is still alive. This could take days in some cases and was a prime example of a cruel and unusual punishment, even by the standards of Ancient times. It was used very rarely throughout history, and people tended to judge rulers who used such punishments pretty harshly.
诛灭九族/Extermination to the ninth degree: I've discussed this several times previously so I won't walk through the very long list again, but this pretty much just means killing the entire extended family. In its worst forms, upwards of hundreds of people could end up dying. It was a severe punishment used only for extremely severe crimes such as treason, and usually had the intention of making an example of someone as well.
天子/Son of Heaven: The Ancient Chinese term used for the Emperor, who was believed to have the Mandate of Heaven.
敬爱/Respect and love: A Chinese phrase that is used to mean a specific type of love (can be romantic, platonic, familial, or parasocial) that centers respect for the person in question, lending hierarchical implications to the relationship.
时也，命也/It's the times, it's our fates: An Ancient Chinese lament used to refer to situations that can't be helped.
守在床边/Guard at the bedside: A phrase that has strong implications for devotion, especially filial devotion. It was commonly expected that it was the son (though usually it was the daughter-in-law who did most of the actual caretaking work) who would be responsible for caring for his infirm parents in their old age at their bedside, and thus the term has come to have very strong overtones of filial piety.
国丧/National mourning period: Often refers to the combination of a state funeral and a mandated mourning period in which no one could marry, certain entertainments and celebrations were forbidden, etc. Usually used for the Emperor's mother, where the mourning period might be a full year, while for other persons related to the Emperor, it might be much shorter if existent at all.
弹劾/Impeach: A common political weapon in Ancient China, these were much easier to file (and to ignore) back then.