Page 43 of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

“She falsely accused you of stealing and had you beaten... for nothing.” The concubine repulsed her, but Xifeng couldn’t help admiring her gall. She knew how to deal with enemies.

Kang lowered his tunic over one shoulder so she could see the long, raised scars, stark white against his skin. “This was the punishment I received.”

Xifeng hissed through her teeth. Her back ached in sympathy as she remembered her own scars from Guma. “Why hasn’t anything been done about her?”

“Everyone’s scared of how much power she wields over the Emperor. Not even the Empress can control her, as these prove.” Kang gestured to his injuries. “And she knows having people beaten will irritate Her Majesty.”

The Empress’s tired, gentle face appeared in Xifeng’s mind. What patience she must have to endure Lady Sun, toying with her husband and grappling for her throne. “I’m sorry for Her Majesty. No wonder she looks so ill. She barely ate a thing the day I met her.”

“She’s had no appetite for a long time. Was that you I saw outside the door of her apartments yesterday, delivering something?”

“You don’t miss a move I make, do you? I made a poultice to help encourage her to eat. It’s the kind I used to make for my aunt.” Guma had always demanded the poultice during spells of illness. It was a simple, soothing herbal mixture of ginger and crushed rose hips, sewn skillfully into a cotton pouch and placed in one’s tea.

But Kang did not tease her about flattering the Empress, as she expected him to. “Her Majesty will appreciate it. The gods know she needs all the strength she can get with a thorn in her side like Lady Sun. But aside from the concubine’s children and beauty, she has nothing to keep the Emperor. Soon he’ll grow tired of her.”

“She’s notthatbeautiful,” Xifeng seethed.

“She humiliated me, and now she’s doing the same to you. I tell you I would gladly see her dead.” Kang’s eyes gleamed with undisguised malevolence. “Promise you’ll be careful. She’s gifted when it comes to stirring up trouble for others, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I promise,” she said, and he patted her arm.

It was a dangerous gamble to despise this favorite concubine of the Emperor, she knew. But if Lady Sun had never been challenged before, it was high time someone taught her a lesson. And who better than Xifeng?

Iron striking iron might create a spark, and a spark might be just what she needed to change her fortunes.

•••

An hour later, Xifeng squatted in the pouring rain, contemplating even more brutal ways in which she would like Lady Sun to expire.

The woman had sweetly ordered her out into the storm to collect mud for her beautifying routine, citing that soil soaked with fresh rain was best for her complexion. She had not given Xifeng anything to cover herself, nor had she provided anything with which to dig. So Xifeng crouched in a corner of the garden, scraping her nails in the dirt and splattering herself as she deposited it into a bucket. But at least it was warm summer rain, and at least she was out in the fresh air, away from the cloying perfume of the concubine’s apartments. And there was something soothing about the way the mud squelched in her fingers.

Xifeng stood up and stretched, glancing around the empty garden. She wished the evil wretch Shenshi attended to his bodily needs here, so she might add some of it to the concubine’s mud mask. The bucket was full, but she didn’t want to return yet. She set it under a table to protect it from the rain and walked over to the wall. There was a slight overhang of stones along the top, which sheltered her somewhat.

She closed her eyes, wondering how long she would be able to hide out here before Lady Sun sent someone to fetch her. Unless the Emperor had come calling, which would no doubt put her well out of the concubine’s mind. What kind of man could attach himself to such a cruel, hateful woman? But Lady Sun likely didn’t show him that side of herself.

It had been many weeks since Xifeng had arrived at the palace, and still she had never seen Emperor Jun. The closest she’d gotten was when he came to visit the Empress, accompanied by a retinue of simpering eunuchs who shielded him from view with frilly silk screens. Perhaps he was fat, with triple chins and liver spots, and preferred to travel undetected.

Xifeng grinned at the idea of Lady Sun having to feign passion for an aging, overweight Emperor with a loud, smelly belch. But, of course, if her own destiny were to come true, it would soon beXifenghaving to pretend.

Yes, it was time to find out what the illustrious Emperor Jun was like.

But before she had time to finish the thought, her feet began to sink. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster, as though the soaking earth were swallowing her. She screamed, gripped by panic as she sank into a muddy hole chest-high, her arms desperately flailing for purchase.

“Help!” she cried, but there was no one to hear her.

Her frantic fingers seized a clump of grass as her legs dangled into nothingness. She couldn’t die... not here, not now. Not such a pathetic death, with all she had done and all she had left to do. She gritted her teeth and pulled with all her strength.

But her hands slipped, and she screamed again as her body sank through the ground.

She landed in a heap on a hard stone floor, groaning. The sound of the rain was muffled down here, like someone had shut a window, and a few drops splattered onto her face from the muddy hole above. Xifeng pulled herself up, wincing at the sting in her leg, though nothing felt broken.

The light illuminated a stone passageway, similar to the one she and Kang had traveled through a month ago. But this one seemed more crudely made, with only a dirt ceiling and a few stones placed halfheartedly on the walls.

Somehow, she had ended up back in the tunnels below the city of women. This must be one of the passages Kang had warned her about, the dangerous old ones that might cave in or contain poisonous air. Sheglanced warily at the dirt ceiling, hoping the rest of it wouldn’t collapse on her because of the rain.

“Hello?” she called, hoping a eunuch guard would respond, but there was only silence. How far was she from the main passageway? The winding passage led into blackness on both sides. The familiar anxiety crept over her—that sickening feeling of being enclosed by the earth—and she took a few deep breaths. Kang had told her three exits led out of the city of women, and she was bound to find one before long.

She had fallen straight down against the wall. She didn’t know where the passage on the right might lead, but the left would likely take her back to the entrance she had come through on her first day. She limped in that direction, wishing she had a torch.

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