No need to please anyone anymore

 

“The khan asks what she desires, but Mulan has no need of a minister’s post.

She only wishes for a swift steed, to carry her a thousand li, and send her child back home…”

The sound of reading drifted faintly from the nearby Wenhua Hall. Bright sunlight slanted through the carved lattice windows, and a palace maid, just returned from the Household Bureau, pushed the door open happily, holding in her arms newly received bolts of fabric.

Before the dressing mirror within the hall sat a tall figure. By her side, another maid was coiling up her hair. As she wound it up, she laughed and said: “Your Highness, look—this is the ‘falling-from-horse bun’ that has been fashionable in the capital these days. It truly makes one appear gentle and virtuous, and gives a fresh, delicate charm.”

Hearing this, the maid who carried the fabric also laughed, stepped forward, and held out the material in her hands.

“Please look, Your Highness—is this not a happy coincidence? The court has just received a tribute of Lake Silk, the softest of all. I especially chose for you the freshest shade of water-green. Worn in summer, will it not harmonize perfectly with your coiffure?”

Saying this, she lifted her eyes with a smile, looking into the mirror as she asked: “Your Highness, do you like it?”

There was a faint hint of caution in her expression—though she smiled, through the reflection in the mirror it was easy to see she was studying her mistress.

Zhao Yu knew well what she was worried about.

Her figure was too tall; soft, flowing garments sat awkwardly on her, only serving to emphasize her arms that were not slender but faintly muscular. By nature she was cold and reticent, disliking both chatter and smiles. Her looks were plain, her brows especially sharp, so that her entire bearing appeared cold and hard, wholly mismatched with the falling-from-horse bun atop her head.

And yet these maids still racked their brains to wrap her in such things.

Because the emperor, knowing she had liked martial pursuits since childhood, had purposely chosen for her a husband from a family with generations of generals, and soon she was to be wed.

That imperial son-in-law had also been raised in the army at Fuzhou since youth, and what he favored most were the gentle women of Jiangnan’s watery towns—not one such as her.

The maids dared not speak out, but each one of them knew in their hearts: if the Eldest Princess did not suffer hardship now, she would have to swallow endless hardship after marriage.

For a woman—when is she ever permitted to remain as she truly is? Is it not always a matter of carving herself anew, shaping flesh and bone according to the gaze and taste of her husband?

Staring at her own incongruous reflection in the mirror, Zhao Yu said nothing.

She could not understand: why was it that the things she herself liked, she could not be allowed to do? Why must she hand herself over to a man to do those things on her behalf, all in the name of a so-called “marriage of gold and jade”?

Nor could she understand: what business was it of hers what kind of women he liked?

She remained silent. The maids, assuming she was dissatisfied with her appearance, tried to coax her by tucking two white magnolia hairpins into her bun, smiling as they said:
“It looks beautiful, Your Highness.”

Zhao Yu never made things difficult for others.

“Mn.” She gave a soft assent, and rose to her feet.

“Come,” she added. “Let us go pay respects to the Empress.”

*

She had not grown up under Dou Qingyi’s knee, but from an early age she had been precocious and remembered well the many favors she owed to Dou Qingyi.

It was Dou Qingyi who had memorialized to obtain the imperial decree that allowed her to be raised by her own mother. And in order for her and her mother to live in peace, Dou Qingyi had over the years repeatedly requested titles and better quarters for her concubine mother, so that none in the palace dared to despict them.

When she came of age, Dou Qingyi even sent her to the Wenhua Hall to study and practice martial arts, no different from the princes and noble sons.

After her mother passed away, it was not her father the emperor whom she saw most often, but Dou Qingyi.

Even though neither of the two women were ones to speak much.

That day, when she arrived at the Phoenix Luan Palace, Concubine Su Yunshuang—of the Su clan, newly entered into the palace—was also there. Dou Qingyi sat upright at the upper seat, while Su Yunshuang sat beside, nibbling tea pastries and prattling on endlessly about which consort in which palace was the most snobbish, and who had quarreled with her by the Taiye Pool.

As soon as Zhao Yu entered, Su Yunshuang swept her gaze up and down, scrutinizing her.

Zhao Yu made her salute, but just as Dou Qingyi bid her rise, Su Yunshuang set aside the fruit in her hand and said: “Who dressed and arranged your hair today? Change her out at once.”

Zhao Yu lifted her eyes slightly in confusion. The maid beside her had already hurriedly dropped to her knees to plead guilty.

“This falling-from-horse bun is common even outside the palace. On the streets, out of ten women, eight wear it. However pretty it may be, how pretty can it really be?” Su Yunshuang spoke without mercy. “Her figure is tall—dressed simply and cleanly would be better than this awkward mismatch.”

The kneeling maid quickly stammered that the future imperial son-in-law liked such women, which was why she had dressed the princess this way.

Su Yunshuang gave two sharp laughs.

“Only women who are not pretty enough make excuses about looking fresh and refined. If one can carry gold and jewels, who looks bad adorned with them?” She turned her gaze to Zhao Yu. “And besides—you are a princess. What need have you to bow and scrape to please him?”

Her words were merciless, and her eyes stared openly, without concealment.

But Zhao Yu did not feel the least discomfort.

Perhaps it was because Su Yunshuang’s manner was too forthright, too unguarded, her expressions carrying a naïve air of innocence, so that one could not bring oneself to dislike her.

All the more since her beauty was undeniable, and in matters of adornment and cosmetics, she was indeed a natural master.

“Let Princess Huaning sit down first,” Dou Qingyi interjected coolly at last, cutting her off. She spoke to a maid nearby.

The maid hastened forward and guided Zhao Yu to sit at one side.

Nearby, Su Yunshuang was still chattering endlessly to Zhao Yu.

Saying things like, if one wishes to please others, one must first please oneself—all of it rare, heartfelt words.

Zhao Yu, living in the palace these days, had also heard some things.

It seemed that this consort was naturally lively in temperament, yet exceedingly domineering, and wherever she went in the palace it was all flashing blades and drawn swords.

Since she had entered the palace, treating all around her as rivals in the struggle for favor was normal, and women of the same rank and age were naturally all enemies. From the looks of it, she had had no one to talk to for many days, suffocated by silence, and now finally, she had run into this princess who did not need to vie for affection, and that empress up on the high dais who had never once enjoyed favor.

After a while, when Su Yunshuang grew tired of speaking, Dou Qingyi finally spoke from her seat.

“I heard that Huaning is to set out before long,” Dou Qingyi said. “Fuzhou is far, and this is a great event of your life, so I memorialized His Majesty, and on behalf of your mother consort, added to your dowry.”

As she spoke, she raised her hand, and received from Songyan at her side a lacquer box. “Gold, silver, pearls, and jade are trifles—these, I thought I must hand over to you myself.”

Zhao Yu rose to her feet, and already a palace maid had stepped forward, holding the box reverently into her hands.

The box was very light. Opening it, she saw inside a collection of ancient books, so old they were even somewhat tattered.

There were ones about the roads and waterways of Fuzhou, ones on the construction of ships, ones about the tides and climates of the seas—varied in kind, beyond counting.

For a moment Zhao Yu was somewhat startled, and she lifted her head to look toward Dou Qingyi.

She saw Dou Qingyi smile faintly at her and nod. “You are to live long in Fuzhou. When idle, it is no bad thing to look beyond the courtyard walls to the wider world,” she said. “The skies are vast, the seas are wide—there will surely come a day when you will have use of them.”

Zhao Yu’s eyes grew hot.

After so many years, the one who understood her tastes best was still Empress Dou.

Compared with a stepmother or an empress, she was more like her teacher, one who respected her, and in the concealment of the layered palace halls, nurtured and raised this pine tree growing in a flowerpot.

She gave a heavy nod toward Dou Qingyi.

At the side, Su Yunshuang could not quite understand the deeper meaning in their words, but hearing them talk to this point, she at once raised her own hand, and added five large chests filled with gold and silver to Zhao Yu’s dowry.

“Princess or not, this is the confidence given you by Consort Su, your mother,” Su Yunshuang said. “In the future, wear what you like—so long as we stand behind you, whom need you ever please?”

*

After that day, Zhao Yu never again saw Dou Qingyi and Su Yunshuang.

They were dead. In the palace, it was said they had died in the struggle for favor—one died suddenly, blood spilling; the other sickened and perished in the inner palace.

And Zhao Yu, holding the books given her by Dou Qingyi, with every character circled and marked, led her warships into the surging seas.

The changing skies above the sea, the four grades of differing tides, the ships tossing and rolling in the waves—all transformed from words into reality, appearing before her eyes.

And the “confidence” given her by Su Yunshuang became the indestructible warships amid the waves, the decks battered by seawater, the compass standing firm against storm and surge, and the banner flying high atop the mast when she led her forces forward.

She fulfilled their wish—no longer needing to please anyone.

Years later, when Zhao Yu once again put on her armor—

A crimson cloak streamed behind her. On the eve of setting out to take command, she entered the palace to bid farewell to Zhao Chu, and then went east in the palace to the Ancestral Temple.

Passing the rows of ancestral tablets of former emperors, she stopped before the tablets of her mother consort, of Dou Qingyi, and of Su Yunshuang, and made a deep bow, offering three sticks of incense.

The last time she had gone into battle, clad in armor, she had not been able to let them see her thus.

And this time, they had already become but figures in the yellowed scrolls, silent painted beauties behind tablets.

She held back her tears, and after offering incense, kowtowed deeply before them.

If not that she could no longer make a sound, she would have had so many words to say to them.

Such as, about Zhao Chu—this child lived up to expectations, accomplishing what none had done for centuries. Such as Zhao Jin—he had remembered his mother all these years, and redressed at last the grievance she could not utter even in death.

And such as… herself.

She knelt before the tablets, weeping until she could no longer form words.

She wished to tell them, the clothes she had once wanted to wear—this time, she had put them on.

And would never need to take them off again.

 

Translator : DarNan