From CEO to Concubine-Chapter 182: Haerqi

Chapter 182: Haerqi

The sound of shattering porcelain had become a rare occurrence in the Bright Prince of the First Rank’s manor after the announcement of Side Concubine Wu’s pregnancy. Some of the famed geniality Prince Xi directed at outsiders had finally been brought home to his household and even now, the servants were still unaccustomed to his cordial smiles.

Thus, when the shouting resounded once again from His Highness’ study, no one was particularly surprised. These couple of months of his good mood had felt like a guillotine blade hovering over everyone’s necks; no one believed that he had changed his ways and surely it was only a matter of time before his true colours resurfaced.

"Your Highness, please calm your anger," Eunuch Xiao Lichun placated, so used to Liu Wei’s volatile temper by now that he didn’t even flinch as a Jade paper holder heavy enough to concuss him went sailing past, missing his forehead by a hair’s breadth.

"Calm my anger," Liu Wei mocked. "That’s all you good-for-nothings have to say to this prince, if you lot were any more useful, I’ll be using ’this sovereign’ in my speech by now!"

"This servant begs Your Highness for forgiveness!"

With one last growl of frustration, Liu Wei flung himself into his chair, taking a long swig of wine as he did so. He was already too deep into his drink to care about maintaining appearances, the cool liquid spilling sloppily down his throat to seep into the lapels of his underrobe. With his hair loose and his eyes wild with a vicious gleam, he didn’t appear one whit like the elegant cultured gentleman he normally went to great lengths to portray himself to be.

He could guess what Xiao Lichun and the others must be thinking. He knew he looked crazed, driven to madness by his hateful older brother, who had one-upped him his entire life by virtue of being born earlier.

How could be bear it? Why did Liu Yao have to take everything he wanted away from him?

His head spun. With great effort, he regathered some of his sobriety and began to sift through his scattered thoughts in hopes of finding a solution.

Yesterday, at the banquet celebrating the Festival of Ten Thousand Years, had been the closest Liu Wei had ever come to tasting victory. For the first time since Liu Yao had ascended to the throne, Liu Wei had been delighted to attend. He knew how much the festival pained his older brother, used to find comfort in the misery Liu Yao no doubt felt at having to sit through a state banquet where everyone knew the unspoken truth; there was no joy in the festivities when the emperor’s own mother refused to acknowledge the day she brought him into the world.

Yesterday, Liu Wei thought he’d done enough to turn Liu Yao’s most hated day into a living nightmare. And he’d succeeded, to some extent.

But the nightmare was his.

When news of Compiler Wu’s death reached his ears in the wee hours of the morning, Liu Wei had still been dallying in his latest plaything’s bed. The male whore he’d brought back from Yutao Pavilion had the most delicious moans and they’d drowned out so much of Xiao Lichun’s anxious reports, such that Liu Wei had initially believed he must have heard wrongly.

Compiler Wu may have been the most ineffectual fool Liu Wei had ever had the misfortune of forming an alliance with but his father was usually swift enough at wiping his ass that Liu Wei generally chose to close a blind eye. Coupled together with assistance from the Gao Family, their plan should have been foolproof.

Where did they go wrong? Liu Wei didn’t know but this was the question everyone had been asking themselves since the bad news broke out.

Unwilling to go into the palace and draw his brother’s attention to him, Liu Wei had no choice but to wait on tenterhooks for updates from his spies to filter back to him.

It was the longest day he had ever lived. As though to torture him ceaselessly, messages came through bit by bit, each one bearing worse tidings than the last. A lowly concubine’s disgrace, the arrest of the entire Wu Family, Liu Wei could only pray that Wu Shengqi didn’t capitulate to torture and out them all.

By the time word of Attendant Wu’s ’suicide’ in her cell got back to him, Liu Wei was numb. His mother had taken the risk of discovery to send her trusted eunuch over with the warning to lie low until Liu Yao discovered the other perpetrator. She seemed to believe that someone had double-crossed all of them, reaping the rewards of the painstaking plan they’d hatched after months of deliberating.

But Liu Wei had other suspicions. Reaped the rewards? Was it not Liu Yao who was the greatest benefactor here?

The thought of his brother’s steady gaze watching him knowingly all this time, waiting for him to make a stupid mistake, left him breathless with trepidation. The realisation that perhaps, all this while, he’d been performing like a court jester1 to the emperor’s tune, was a noose that slowly tightened itself around his neck, strangling his ambitions to a steady death.

If Liu Yao truly was responsible for the deaths of Compiler Wu and his sister, then he must know of Liu Wei’s involvement with them. Come to think of it, every step they had taken yesterday had progressed too smoothly. It was like Liu Yao had bound his own wrists for capture,1 luring them in with the irresistible promise of triumph before making use of them to uproot a good portion of Liu Wei’s political backing in one swift move.

No, he couldn’t afford to go down now. He needed a distraction and quickly too. The Gao Family would no doubt feel the same as he. The ploy to disgrace Imperial Noble Consort Yue was only the beginning, calculated to show the court and the public at large that Liu Yao had allowed himself to be led around by the nose by a demon and discrediting him in their judgmental eyes.

It was done to force Liu Yao’s hand, put him in an unfavourable position where he would have no choice but to make certain decisions they wanted him to make. The next steps of their plan were still in their infancy but...things were progressing at a rate that was spiralling out of Liu Wei’s control.

It was looking like he had no choice but to take action now instead of waiting around like a sitting duck. He could only pray that they were fast enough to catch Liu Yao unawares.

——————————

Wu Zhong stole through the dreary winter night towards the relay station1 where the northern envoys were being kept under careful watch by Kaiming. It was a subtle form of house arrest; there wasn’t enough evidence that they were behind the failed assassination attempt on his master’s life during the autumn hunt but after copious discussion, it was determined no longer safe to have them reside in the imperial city.

Even as he closed in on his target, the conversation that he’d had earlier that evening with his master rang in his ears.

After escorting Imperial Noble Consort Yue safely back to Qianqing Palace, Wu Zhong had returned to the shadows, waiting for his next command. There hadn’t been any time to catch up—not that he would have tried to anyway; he would not give his master any reason to doubt that he would honour their differences in status.

The surprised delight on Yan Yun’s face had been more than enough. Wu Zhong was a practical man. His main priority had been to protect the person whom he’d failed to protect before, through whatever means necessary. If that meant giving him up without thinking twice, without allowing wistfulness to cloud his judgment and put Yan Yun in a precarious situation where his fidelity to the emperor might be called into question, then Wu Zhong had no qualms about doing so.

It wasn’t difficult at all, even in the light of his master’s unexpected magnanimousness.

The emperor had offered him the chance to speak to Yan Yun. Trained to keep his gaze deferentially on the ground when in the presence of his master, Wu Zhong had chosen his words with care, refusing without any disrespect, before making it clear that any feelings that might have existed were solely on his part.

"Don’t misunderstand," his master had said, without any cruel gloating. "This isn’t a test. Ah Yun would wish to have the opportunity to talk to you, that’s all."

Wu Zhong had lowered his forehead to the ground in a deep bow. "Perhaps after everything blows over," he’d replied, voice rough around the edges from trying to keep his emotions under check. "This subordinate thanks Your Majesty for the favour."

The biting northern wind seeped through his dark clothes, thin leather armour selected to allow him to retain his dexterity. His master wasn’t convinced that the northern envoys weren’t involved in the unrest that had riddled the capital and it only made sense to send his sharpest pair of ’eyes’, the fifth official, in personally.

On the other side of the yard, Xiao Er had already infiltrated another set of rooms, parting ways with Wu Zhong with a cheeky smile that left him lost for words. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along but Wu Zhong wasn’t used to dealing with such boundless enthusiasm. Not to mention, Xiao Er was the sort of individual who lived for gossip and would go out of his way to create some once he was done plucking the grapevine bare.

Wu Zhong often found himself the hapless victim of his endless attempts at matchmaking. He wasn’t pleased that Xiao Er seemed to know most of the prostitutes in the capital on a first-name basis and had somehow or another decided that Wu Zhong preferred men.

...there was no point attempting to correct him. This was the lesser evil than Xiao Er finding out who truly resided in his heart.

The quarters that Wu Zhong sneaked into were more lavishly decorated than the other rooms of the relay station and had fur rugs and woven stoles draped generously across the chairs and the otherwise bare wooden flooring. A woody scent permeated the air, which was shrouded in incense smoke1. As he drew closer, careful not to reveal that he was tucked away on the ceiling beams in an awkward crouch in the shadows, he could hear two voices, both equally melodious, engaged in a heated argument.

"Whether you like it or not, Little Brother, Daurga has commanded you to take on the job." The speaker was Princess Suhanala, lounging brazenly on a bed covered in animal skins, her flimsy skirts falling aside to reveal her bare legs. In contrast to her relaxed pose, Prince Haerqi sat in front of a bronze mirror, his long dark curls unbound and spilling down to his waist. His gaze was trained on empty space and he didn’t seem to heed the haughty disdain that his sister regarded him with.

"Since when did Daurga have the power to decide who to sell the prince and princesses of our tribe to?" he asked boredly. "Father’s orders are to gift us to Great Ye’s ruler, not a foolhardy prince hardly capable of becoming more than a pale imitation of his formidable older brother."

A prince of Great Ye? The northern envoy wanted to establish ties with one of the princes of the first rank? Was this just an attempt to snare a powerful insider within the kingdom’s boundaries as their ally or had an agreement between both parties already been made?

Suhanala’s laughter was mocking. Wu Zhong was not versed in the royal affairs of the north but from her behaviour, it was not difficult to see that she must have been the favoured twin.

"Are you still holding out hope that Great Ye’s emperor would be captivated by you because he prefers little boys to beautiful women?" she asked, a scathing lilt to her tone.

"Sweet sister of mine, could it not perhaps be that I just do not wish to be served up like a fresh slab of meat to a disgusting, lustful creature?"

Behind closed doors, the twins wore different personas to that which their public images donned. Or rather, this might just be their true selves. Suhanala was poisonous like a viper and as for Haerqi, the meekness that he had used to allow himself to fade into the background as his sister shined was all but replaced by a dangerous calm.

Neither of them was as simple as they’d made themselves out to be.

"Whether you like it or not, this bond needs to be formed," Suhanala retorted smugly before rolling off the bed and getting to her feet. "Daurga didn’t send me to ask for your opinion, get this into your head, Little Brother, you’re being told what to do."

Wu Zhong listened as the door shut behind her. From his angle, he couldn’t see Haerqi’s expression but the boy remained seated for a long time unmoving.

He was about to consider whether he should retreat there and then or whether it would be worth staying for a while longer on the off-chance that Haerqi might communicate with someone else and give him even more valuable information but Haerqi chose that moment to reach for the leather garter strapped around his thigh. His face came into view, his green eyes bright like those of cats that roamed the streets at night and with the same vicious determination they had when they were firming themselves up to go for their prey.

Except, Haerqi’s victim was his face.

Wu Zhong was so unfamiliar with the feeling of shock that by the time he processed what he was feeling, the sharp edge of Haerqi’s weapon was already pressed against a beautiful cheekbone, leaving a thin red line that started to weep blood.

A flicker of helplessness in the depths of that expressive gaze was quickly consumed by a forced nonchalance.

Later, Wu Zhong would analyse the mistakes he made that night with annoyance at himself for allowing his feelings to get the better of him. He couldn’t be certain if, like an echo in time, it was the despairing similarity of Haerqi’s situation that robbed him of his ability to make a good call or if, in the heat of the moment, he had failed for the first time to think of the consequences, but before he knew what he was doing, he had flicked a bronze coin—the only thing on his person small enough to use—in the direction of Haerqi’s hand with enough force to make him drop the dagger.

The cold gleam of a merciless blade reflecting candlelight was all the warning Wu Zhong had before he had to dodge, the pointed tip of yet another jewel-encrusted dagger embedding itself firmly in the support beam behind him, right in the centre of where his head had been mere moments ago.

Wu Zhong raised an eyebrow even as he darted swiftly back out the window. It wasn’t that surprising that this northern prince was well-versed in combat, given the adeptness his sister had flaunted at the autumn hunt sparring competition. However, Wu Zhong hadn’t expected his senses to be this keen or his reflexes to be that quick, for that matter, pinpointing Wu Zhong’s location and launching into an attack without any of the useless preamble people caught unawares by assassins and spies tended to indulge in. Instead of asking Wu Zhong to show himself or to explain why he was trespassing, he went in straight for the kill.

Wu Zhong could approve, given that he would have done the same. It would have been preferable if he weren’t the one facing off against a target that he couldn’t assassinate without ruining the fragile diplomacy between the two kingdoms that was barely hanging by a thread.

Quick footsteps followed behind him. Although Wu Zhong was agile enough to use the tree outside the window as leverage to vault over the compound’s wall, he wasn’t swifter than a third dagger flying his way with deadly precision. He only managed to avoid being hit by performing an ungainly flip in midair.

The prince didn’t give chase.

So much for that momentary lapse in judgment. Xiao Er, always expounding on the importance of his boss to ’get in touch with your feelings’, was a poor influence.

Making a mental note not to jeopardise his future missions, Wu Zhong proceeded back to the inner palace to report his findings.

The court jesters in ancient China took on the role of keeping the emperor morally aligned (ironic in Liu Wei’s case then). This was quite hard to research but what I found was that often times they were educated scholars and would tell the emperor stories that had a political background to them, usually in an attempt to influence the emperor to make wise decisions that protected the people. An idiom that means to give up without a fight. A courier stop of sorts where the horses that carried the messengers could rest and recuperate. Usually came with living quarters for travellers too and there are records that foreign visitors without the necessary identification papers were only allowed to stay here. Could be juniper, thyme, wormwood. I didn’t wish to name a specific tribe or time period for the northern envoys so I decided not to choose one.