Seemingly fragile, yet unbreakable.

The day the imperial edict was delivered to the gates of the residence, Dou Qingyi finally saw her father smile at her.

(NT: for those having forgotten, Dou Qingyi was Zhao Chu’s mother)

The whole household was full of joy, firecrackers stretching from the head of the street to the end of the alley. Her mother clutched her hand, weeping tears of happiness, saying that raising her had not been in vain at last, that finally their daughter had been cultivated into talent.

Dou Qingyi did not understand why only today she was considered “talented.”

On the day the spring examinations released their list, her father had been so enraged he nearly fainted. Picking up a bamboo whip, he struck her palms swollen. He said she had disgraced the Dou family’s honor and her own chastity, said that from then on no one would ever dare marry her, and ordered her to bind her hair and go up the mountain to become a nun.

Her father, a man of the highest ministerial rank, had cursed her until he clutched his chest and collapsed to the ground—yet never once mentioned the essay of hers that the Emperor himself had praised with his own lips.

But today, he wept tears of pride as he praised her.

“Thanks to His Majesty’s grace in not abandoning you, seeing some worth in those books you’ve read—remember this favor well, and serve His Highness the Crown Prince diligently,” her father said.

That day, Dou Qingyi put down the imperial edict and returned to her boudoir without a trace of expression.

She had always had a gentle temper, but on this day she shut the door by herself, lit the candles, and with trembling hands nearly burnt the beloved books that filled her room.

Her mother, anxious, beat at the door outside, saying that ever since childhood she had been the most sensible, and how was it that the older she grew, the more unreasonable she became.

Dou Huairen leaned lazily against the wall with arms crossed, saying the Emperor’s grace was vast, and she was blind to it.

Behind the closed door, she sank to her knees in despair, the lamp overturning at her side and igniting her skirt.

She bowed low in silence before the roomful of the sages’ books.

She was sixteen, and the classics she had read stacked higher than this very room.

But why must she still be confined within these walls? Why was it that of all the thunderous words spoken by the great scholars across millennia, not a single one could point her a path beyond them?

That fire never truly caught—it burned out upon her skirt.

And so the girl praised in the markets as the “embroiderer’s top scorer” quietly mounted the bridal sedan draped in ten miles of red silk.

The Emperor chose another as the official top scorer, while the Eastern Palace gained a Crown Princess of stunning beauty, but cold as frost.

The Eastern Palace housed many women, and news spread fast. Soon, all knew that the Crown Princess, for all her pretty face and bookish mind, had a wooden, dull temperament and did not win the Crown Prince’s favor.

Only Dou Qingyi herself knew that this was the only path of survival she had found in despair.

To be a wife was also to be a minister. A clear and ordered household could ease the ruler’s worries; the raising of virtuous heirs could ensure the state’s continuance for generations. And the person across the pillow, treating him with respect as equals, could also aid the sovereign—speaking frankly, advising plainly—so that even in a flourishing age, a trace of credit would belong to her.

She could still do what she wished to do.

At sixteen, knowing nothing beyond the words crowding her household library and the thin ties to her father and brothers, she carried the last ember of fire in her frozen heart and stood at the side of the Crown Prince in the grand, bright hall.

She became the principal wife, ascended to the consort’s seat, stood on the heights beneath only one person, and became the most exalted woman in the world.

Yet she felt clearly that the last flicker of hope and warmth in her chest was slowly being extinguished in this palace of piled gold and jade.

She saw how fragile were both the fate of a dynasty and the life of a man upon whom it rested.

In palace struggles, when she punished others to set an example, she was denounced for rebuking the Emperor’s favored concubine. During a drought on the outskirts of the capital, she cut palace expenditures to provide for famine relief, only to receive from Emperor Hongyou a cold laugh and the words, “a drop in the ocean,” as he left her chambers.

When floods ravaged the Yangtze, the Ministry of Works presented a flawed plan for water control. She scoured the classics and past records of flood management, revising them into a new method, only to be punished by Emperor Hongyou for “interfering in politics from the inner palace” and be confined in Fengluan Palace for three months.

Once, traveling with the Emperor, bandits attacked the imperial carriage. She shielded him with her own body, endured countless perils to escape captivity, and, after returning to the city half-dead, found the Emperor in the arms of a newly offered courtesan from Jiangnan, indulging in daylight debauchery.

That day, Song Yan wept beside her, asking why she still exhausted her heart and blood for the Emperor.

But she said nothing—only sat quietly by the window, copying from memory the Analects she already knew by heart.

“The ruler employs the minister with ritual; the minister serves the ruler with loyalty…”

Dou Qingyi’s brush stopped there for a long time, until a blot of ink stained the character for “loyalty.”

Her hand trembled as she held the brush. After a pause, she suddenly slapped it down onto the paper.

Why?

She had never cared where Emperor Hongyou slept, whether he worried for her safety, or whether there was true conjugal affection between them.

What she cared about was: why?

Why could one unbenevolent and narrow-minded still be sovereign—rejecting sound counsel, obstinate, licentious—yet ministers must be loyal unto death?

Such reasoning should not exist in this world.

Song Yan trembled as she begged her to quell her anger, but Dou Qingyi’s gaze was sharp as fire, fixed on the white paper spread before her. At length, she crushed the pageful of sages’ words into a wrinkled ball.

It was a prison.

All those years of reading sages’ books, yet never escaping this small cell—because those words, those so-called great truths, were nothing but shackles binding her.

Because the great scholars themselves had never asked:

Why could a fool sit the throne?

Why must she be born to be wife, subject, helper within the home?

The justice of the world should not be dictated by them.

*

The discontent long suppressed beneath her loyalty finally rose to the surface that day.

But at the same time, she was with child.

The people around her were both joyful and worried, cautious and fearful that she might not carry the child safely, afraid she would suffer hardship.

But only she herself knew that her ability to endure pain far surpassed what others imagined—so much so that even during bouts of morning sickness and vomiting, even through sleepless nights when drowsiness would not come, she could still settle her mind and read a volume of books.

Her heart had grown completely cold, and her eyes became all the clearer, seeing through to many more things.

She saw the king’s suspicion and loathing, saw her own perilous situation. She buried her disdain and hatred deep within, and when her hand occasionally rested upon her ever-rounding belly, she could also feel the presence of a blood-bound ally.

She was not alone. She too had her own bloodline and posterity, her own path forward and her own legacy.

It was with this clarity of mind that, on the night the child let out its first cry, amid blinding pain, she herself wrapped the infant’s body and placed it into Song Yan’s hands.

“Go tell His Majesty—it is a girl.”

Song Yan’s face showed worry, but her expression was resolute. Song Yan carried the child out with the grim resolve that, should the emperor discover the truth, she might lose her head. Yet, as Dou Qingyi had foreseen, Hongyou Emperor was no longer outside the birthing chamber.

That night, in the vast palace bedchamber, there was nothing but chill emptiness. Only Su Yunshuang came to visit, bringing gifts and tonics that piled high in the corner.

Song Yan, having wrapped the wrinkled newborn tightly, carried the child to Dou Qingyi’s bedside.

“Though not a prince who can inherit the throne, at least he can be a keepsake for you,” Su Yunshuang said, taking the child from her.

But Dou Qingyi merely turned her head and quietly gazed at the boy in her arms.

In her very bones, there did indeed arise a motherly tenderness, softening her, stirring emotion, even making her vulnerable.

Yet she shook her head firmly.

Her keepsake had always been herself.

A person ought not rely on another to fulfill their own ideals and intentions. Even if she were willing to take responsibility for this child, to shield him from wind and rain—even though their fates had already been bound together under the shadow of that king—still, her purpose was her own.

Su Yunshuang looked at her, knowing well that this consort had always been cold and taciturn, leaving others unable to guess what lay in her thoughts.

Seeing her weak from childbirth, Su Yunshuang sighed and pressed no further.

“The Ministry of Rites will surely soon send a list of names. When the time comes, you should personally choose one for her,” Su Yunshuang added.

But Dou Qingyi again shook her head. “No need for the Ministry of Rites,” she said. “I have already decided.”

“What will it be?” Su Yunshuang asked quickly.

“Chu,” said Dou Qingyi. “Zhao Chu.”

This character proved troublesome for Su Yunshuang.

She first asked Song Yan whether there truly existed a character “璴” (NT: chù, rarely used character, can be decomposed in 王 蜀 (wáng shǔ) ), with the jade radical (NT: 王 (wáng), meaning stone, jade. Shǔ is the phonetic component), and when told yes, yet no one could say what it meant, she could only turn back to Dou Qingyi.

“What is the meaning of this character?” she sighed with a laugh. “I am not like you, the female tanhua—I cannot possibly recognize every character.”

(NT: tànhuā (探花 ) was the official title for the third-place finisher in the highest level of the imperial civil service examinations )

Female tanhua? That title was far too distant for her now.

Drawn by Su Yunshuang’s words, Dou Qingyi let out a soft laugh, then lowered her gaze to Zhao Chu.

“It means stone,” she said. “A stone that resembles jade.”

At this, Su Yunshuang gave a little cry of disappointment: “Why stone? Is that a good character?”

Dou Qingyi looked at Zhao Chu, and after a pause, smiled faintly and nodded.

Seemingly fragile, yet unbreakable.

For him, this character was the best of all.

 

Translator : DarNan