The news spread through all of China: The Emperor was in his final agonies. The people were terrified, and inflation began spiraling because of ill-considered buying and because merchants started stockpiling cereals, salt, and bolts of brocade. Our spies in the west and the north spotted movements of the Tatar cavalry regiments. The Empire was waiting for a seismic event, our enemies their hour of victory. Amid all this agitation, I watched my own metamorphosis with displeasure. My breasts were growing, my cheeks had become chubbier, my mouth fuller. My body was ignoring my own unhappiness: I had become beautiful just when beauty would no longer be of any use.
On the twenty-sixth day of the fifth moon in the twenty-third year of Pure Contemplation, in his summer Palace in the Zhong Nan Mountains, the Emperor of the Yellow People with Black Hair completed his earthly mandate and rose up to the heavens to sit amongst the powerful gods. The sun hid behind the clouds; Earth was plunged into darkness. For twenty-seven days, the Imperial City groaned with tears and prayers, and the various ceremonies-calling the Emperor’s soul, bathing him, the clothing ceremonies, laying him in his coffin, and the official closing of the coffin-were carried out with unprecedented pomp and splendor.
On the first day of the sixth moon, in his Eastern Palace, the twenty-two-year-old heir succeeded the late Emperor by putting on the imperial tunic painted with the twelve sacred symbols and by wearing the crown with twenty-four tiers of jade pearls. The music for the celebrations sailed over the red walls and hovered along the deserted galleries of the Inner Court. Bronze bells and sounding stones intoned the knell of his wives and concubines. Stifled tears and pious prayers escaped from every gloomy little room where the scarlet wall hangings had been covered over with white fabric.
I stayed at the bedside of the Delicate Concubine Xu, trying to persuade her not to let herself die. Beneath her linen sheet, she weighed little more than a feather. She spat blood and was wracked by violent coughing. She reached out for me with her frozen, bony hand. We talked endlessly about our first few years in the Side Court, the Institute of Letters, and the late sovereign. I begged her to receive a doctor. She smiled and gave me no reply. I could see in her eyes her determination to follow the master into the next world.
She died a few days later, and her death buried once and for all the intrigues between the Precious Wife, the Gracious Wife, and all the imperial favorites. Rivalries and alliances, loathing and attraction had been dissolved. Their existence had been a pointless tragedy, just as the talent of one prodigious poetess had been.
Every woman in the Forbidden City -beautiful or ugly, intelligent or foolish, refined or vulgar-was fragrant dust. The whirlwind of history would carry them away, making no distinctions.
THE SOVEREIGN HEIR gave the late sovereign the posthumous title of Emperor Eternal Ancestor. The man who had ruled the vastest empire under the skies had lost his final battle. Heroes are damned. No mortal conquers Death.
In tears, the imperial concubines packed their bags. After the sovereign’s burial, they had to hand over their palaces to the new Emperor’s mistresses. The Precious Wife and the Gracious Wife followed their king-sons and exiled themselves in distant provinces. Other favorites resolved to take their vows. Oppressed by sadness and uncertainty, I tried in vain to contact Little Phoenix. He was now the all-powerful Emperor of China. From now on his friendship was a favor over which all men and women would fight. I had written to him, but he had sent no reply. His first wife would soon be recognized as Empress; his mistresses would leave the Eastern Palace and come to live in the Middle Court with their own intrigues. I would have no place in that horde of younger, more beautiful women. Why should I stay at the Side Court and wait for an unlikely summons from a man who would be surrounded by ten thousand beauties?
One night, in my dreams, I saw the peripatetic monk Xuan Zang sitting in the middle of a lotus flower. His eyes stood out from his weather-beaten face with the incandescent brilliance of the sun. When I woke, I understood that Buddha had spoken to me through this image. I had been an apprentice nun at just seven; I was afraid neither of discipline nor of abstinence. A visionary monk had revealed my spiritual vocation to Mother: I should go back to the monastery.
On a date decided by the astrologers, the Emperor raised a great parade and left the Forbidden City. More than one hundred thousand people followed him and made their way to the Mountain of Nine Horses, where the imperial tomb had just been completed. One thousand soldiers drew the imperial hearse, and behind it Little Phoenix and his wives, the ministers and princes, and the princesses and concubines of the August deceased formed a river of white tunics.
One night I was woken by a bustle of activity outside my tent. Two people lifted the curtain and put two lanterns on the ground. A third person came in but was not announced. I rose quickly and prostrated myself before the Emperor.
“Heavenlight,” he said. “I am so sorry I have been silent. My uncle Wu Ji is making my life impossible! With the funeral arrangements, electing a new government, and drawing up peace treaties with Turkish tribes, I don’t have one quiet moment.”
My throat felt constricted.
“I’ve missed you,” he went on. “In my most difficult moments, I have often thought that if you had been by my side, you would have advised and comforted me. Heavenlight, I have come to tell you that I have not forgotten you. I beg you to be patient. Another month or two apart, and we shall be together all the time.”
Tears filled my eyes.
“Too late, Majesty. After the funeral, I have to go to a monastery.”
The smile vanished from his face. He was so taken aback he could not speak.
“Majesty, you signed the authorization. I received Your Majesty’s decree and his gift three days ago.”
“Do you think I read everything I sign? How could I know your name was among the list of concubines who were leaving? Why are you behaving like this? I wanted to be with you until the skies fall in, and you abandon me already!”
Prostrated on the ground before him, I wept.
“Majesty, your servant belonged to the previous Emperor. My inclusion in Your Majesty’s household would have caused such a scandal that Your Majesty’s reputation would have been blighted: It would not be long before people found out that our liaison began when the previous Emperor was still alive; Your Majesty would be accused of abusing his father’s trust. Your Majesty has just taken command of the Empire. Those who harbor dreams of usurping the throne would use slander such as this to weaken you. If Your Majesty is determined to lead his empire to prosperity, then he must forget me!”
“Heavenlight, why did you give yourself to me? Why did you let me believe that we might stay together forever? What does this crown matter! I never wanted to be Emperor. If you become a nun, I shall abdicate, shave my head, and become a monk in the neighboring monastery.”
He clasped me tightly in his arms.
“Heavenlight, I beg you, don’t abandon me. I am the Emperor. I do as I please. I shall execute all those who are against us. I command you to obey your master, your sovereign: Stay, Heavenlight, stay by my side!”
Little Phoenix ’s words wrung my breast with pain.
“Let me leave, Majesty,” I cried. “Leaving this secular life is a kind of death that erases all the impurities of the previous life. There I shall observe the twenty-seven months of mourning. Day and night I shall pray for the soul of the late sovereign. After that time, Your Majesty may call me back to the Palace. Coming out of the temple is a rebirth, and no one would be able to contest my legitimacy. Majesty, it is our only hope!”