"I've missed you since Mother's burial." Instantly Rong broke into tears. "You never care to see me unless there is business."
"You know that is not true, Rong," I said, feeling guilty.
A eunuch came in with tea.
"Didn't I tell you that this house serves no tea?" Rong yelled at the eunuch.
"I thought the guest might like-"
Get out," Rong said.
The eunuch picked up the cups and gave Li Lien-ying a resentful look.
"Idiot pud-nut," Rong said. "Never learns."
I looked at my sister and then said gently, "I came to see Tsai-t'ien."
"The little debt seeker is napping," Rong responded.
We went to the child's room. Tsai-t'ien was sleeping under his covers, curled up like a kitten. He looked a lot like Tung Chih. I reached out to touch him.
"I don't want this child." Rong's voice was strangely clear. "He has given me nothing but trouble and I am sick of him. Truthfully, Orchid, he will be better off without me."
"Stop it, Rong, please."
"You don't understand. I am scared of myself too."
"What is it?"
"I don't feel any love for this child-he is from the underground. He made his three brothers die so that he could have his turn to slide through my body and live. When I was pregnant I wanted him so badly, but after he came out, I knew I'd made a terrible mistake. I dream of my three dead children all the time." Rong began to sob. "Their ghosts have come to tell me to do something about their younger brother."
"You will come around, Rong."
"Orchid, I can't cope anymore. Take my son, will you? You will be doing me a great favor. But you must be extremely careful with his demon-possessed spirit. It will take away your peace. His trick is to cry around the clock. No one here gets any sleep! Orchid, take my trouble. Strangle this son of a demon if you have to!"
"Rong, I won't take him because you want to abandon him. Tsai-t'ien is your son, and he deserves your love. Let me tell you, Rong, the only thing I regret is that I wasn't able to love Tung Chih enough-"
"Oh, Mulan, the heroine!" Rong cried.
Awakened by his mother, Tsai-t'ien opened his eyes. A moment later he broke into a muted cry.
As if disgusted, Rong turned away from him and returned to her chair.
I picked up Tsai-t'ien and held him. Gently I rubbed his back. He smelled of urine.
Rong came and grabbed her son from me. She threw him back onto the bed and said, "See, you offer him a penny, he demands a dollar!"
"Rong, he is only three years old."
"No, he is a three-hundred-year-old! A master of torture. He pretends to be crying but he is having fun."
An overwhelming anger and sadness came over me. I felt that I couldn't stay in that room. I started walking toward the door.
Rong followed behind. "Orchid, wait a minute."
I stopped and looked back.
She gripped the boy's nose with her fingers.
Tsai-t'ien began to scream, struggling for air.
Rong pressed. "Cry, cry, cry! What do you want?"
Tsai-t'ien tried to break away, but his mother wouldn't let go.
"Do you want me to kill you? So that you will shut up? Do you?" Rong put her hands around Tsai-t'ien's neck until he began to choke. She laughed hysterically.
"Rong!" I lost all my restraint and rushed toward her. My nails dug into her wrists.
My sister screamed.
"Let go of Tsai-t'ien!" I said.
Rong struggled but would not release the child.
"Listen, Rong." I squeezed her wrists tighter. "This is Empress Tzu Hsi speaking. I am going to call the guards and you'll be charged for murdering the Emperor of China."
"Good joke, Orchid!" Rong spat.
"Last time, sister, let go of Tsai-t'ien or I'll order your arrest and beheading."
I pushed Rong against the wall and pinned her chin with my right elbow. "From this moment on, whether or not you agree to the adoption, Tsai-t'ien is my son."
14
Under cover of darkness, a detachment of guards led by Yung Lu marched through the streets to the residence of Prince Ch'un and Rong. They gathered up the sleeping Tsai-t'ien and brought him back to the Forbidden City, where he was to spend the rest of his life. The soldiers' feet and their horses' hooves were bound in straw and sacking so that the news of the Emperor's successor would not spread through the city prematurely and provoke riots and disorder, which often accompanied a change of ruler.
It was dawn when Tsai-t'ien arrived at my palace. I had been waiting for him, dressed in my official robe. Barely awake, Tsai-t'ien was presented to me. In the Hall of Ancestors, led by the minister of court etiquette and with other ministers in attendance, we performed the adoption ceremony. I held Tsai-t'ien and got down on my knees. Together we bowed to the portraits on the wall. My adopted son was then dressed in a dragon robe made of silk. I took him to Tung Chih's coffin, where, with the help of the ministers, he completed the ceremony by kowtowing on his own.
I held Tsai-t'ien in my arms as he received his court. We were surrounded by the light of candles and lanterns. Memories of Tung Chih again came to haunt me.
On February 25, 1875, my nephew, now my son, assumed the Dragon Throne. He was proclaimed the Guang-hsu Emperor-the Emperor of Glorious Succession. His name was changed from Tsai-t'ien to Guang-hsu. Peasants in the countryside would start counting the years with this "first year of the Guang-hsu Emperor."
As we had done before, Nuharoo and I announced to the court and the nation that "we look forward to handing over the affairs of the government as soon as the Emperor completes his education." In our decree we also explained the reasons we had been compelled to select Tsai-t'ien for the throne, and why he should become the heir by adoption to his uncle the Emperor Hsien Feng instead of to his cousin Tung Chih. "As soon as Guang-hsu produces a male child," we declared, "the child will be offered to his uncle Tung Chih as an heir by adoption to officiate at his grave."
My opponents challenged the decree. "We are deeply shocked at the blasphemous neglect of Emperor Tung Chih's ancestral rites," they declared. In downtown meeting places and teahouses, vicious slanders and gossip spread. One lie suggested that Guang-hsu was my own son by Yung Lu. Another suggested that he was fathered by An-te-hai. A local judge named Wu K'o-tu dramatically caught the nation's attention: he poisoned himself in protest and called the succession "improper and illegitimate."
In the middle of this chaos, my brother sent me a message saying that I must grant him permission to see me. When Kuei Hsiang arrived dressed in a satin robe embroidered with colorful good-fortune symbols, he had his daughter with him.
"Your niece is four years old," he began, "and she hasn't been granted an Imperial name."
I told him that I had a name picked out. And I apologized, telling him I had been grief-stricken and hadn't seen to many things. "The name is Lan-yu, or simply Lan." The name meant "honorable abundance."
Kuei Hsiang was thrilled.
I took a good look at my niece. She had a bulbous forehead and a small pointed chin. Her narrow face highlighted her protruding upper front teeth. She appeared unsure of herself, which was unsurprising given how she had been raised. My brother was what the Chinese would call "a dragon at home but a worm outside." A typical Manchu, he had little respect for women, regarding his wives and concubines as his property. He wasn't unkind, but he was prone to ridiculing others. I hadn't witnessed his treatment of his daughter, but her behavior offered more than I needed to know.
"My wife thinks our daughter is a beauty, but I told her that Lan is so plain that we will have to give a discount to her marriage suitor." Impressed by his own sense of humor, he laughed.
I offered Lan a cupcake, and my niece thanked me in an almost inaudible voice. She chewed like a mouse and wiped her mouth after every bite. She fixed her eyes on the floor, and I wondered whether she had found something interesting to look at. Teasing, I asked her. "Crumbs," she replied.