SU TANG (素醣)

  Day 5, 5th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Taishan Province, Tian’an Sect

  I was dragged into the scene that I could only imagine was the start of death.

  So, it was quite fitting that it was here. The Empress’ Hall.

  Opulent. Grand. Blinding in its self-assurance. A place that took itself very seriously, much like its namesake. High ceilings soared above, each beam lacquered in cinnabar and gold-leaf dreams.

  Glamorous. Dressed in luxury. Regal.

  Just like her.

  If someone had handed me a brush, I could’ve painted the scene into a scroll that collectors would fight to get bloodstains off of. Because oh yes, there were stains.

  Two of them, to be precise. Dark, dry, and hopelessly out of place. A pair of overlapping blotches sprawled at the base of the dais like uninvited guests at a banquet. They ruined the aesthetic, and more importantly, ruined my chances of pretending this wasn’t real.

  Because those one of those stains was me.

  I had nightmares about this room. About how I’d return to it and say something better. More useful. More obedient. Something clever that would have saved someone. Or at least spared myself. But I hadn’t. And here I was, back again, steps echoing on that stone floor like a summons I hadn’t agreed to.

  “A lunatic and a liar. How quaint.” Her voice was crisp and so beautiful, that I could be mistaken that the sarcasm wasn’t directed at me at all.

  “My humblest and deepest apologies Your Majesty, but I struggle to understand your meaning,” said Eunuch Sun, who probably had to be surgically severed from the Emperor to be here. “Ze Lujin is a known criminal of the court, but that one—what is that one’s—”

  “Imposturing.”

  I didn’t need to look to know that everyone who could be bothered, was looking at me now. What an audience she called to bear witness. A crime like that merited the extermination of seven generations.

  The Empress sat atop her throne as an eternal deity, resplendent in blue-black brocade that shimmered like oil on water. Her makeup was painted with the kind of precision that could frighten a calligrapher. A touch of disdain and a touch of boredom graced her expression. She looked like she’d been waiting centuries to be amused and still hadn’t been.

  My knees ached with memory. My arm flared from the burn of an infection I still hadn’t treated. I held myself upright anyway. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. Not again.

  But another part—the louder, more injured, more honest part—wondered if I should just lie down and save everyone the drama. Get the sentencing over with.

  She’s going to have me executed anyway.

  This is where it would end.

  An unfair trial conducted by a corrupted judge.

  Number two. Words are the most powerful weapon.

  I would not forget that.

  Hold my tongue. Hold it fast. Don’t speak.

  Eunuch Sun turned his head to the side—ever so slightly—as if the very bones in his neck were negotiating terms for survival. A man whose voice represented the Emperor’s will, was now stuck navigating a verbal minefield laid by a woman who wore power like perfume: cloying, pungent, and inescapable. I watched him, still clutching the last frayed thread of some half-dead faith. If even he showed doubt—if even he hesitated—there was hope—

  But the Empress was still smiling.

  That was all it took. That little kindle of hope in me flickered into nothingness.

  “Of course, I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t have proof,” the Empress said, her voice dipping into that soft, syrupy lilt that always preceded something monstrous. She tilted her head slowly, almost like she expected the gesture to be immortalised in embroidery. “Bring the witness.”

  The curtains behind her throne parted to display a young lady. Maroon and scarlet coloured linen clothed her body from the crown of their head to the tip of her toes, not a peek of bare skin revealed except for her face. But even that too was partially obscured by a translucent silk veil. The girl walked forward and the rush of motion around her blew the veil to reveal a familiar face.

  Memories rained down like ripe apples falling off a tree.

  A severe bun.

  A prominent forehead.

  That icy stare.

  Her tears as she told me I could put her down.

  Those lessons in the muddy grove.

  Laughing with Xiao Wu.

  One-by-one, all those treasured things splattered into a pulpy mess.

  Gone forever.

  Maybe I was the only one who stupidly treasured those things.

  “That girl grew báilián,” Ying Yue said, pointing directly at me, as if naming a rare pest. “Not once. But thrice.”

  Her voice rang clear, sweet and polished like a scholar reciting memorised scripture. “The first time was during the Blossom Cultivation Ceremony. She probably discovered then that she could win if she grew báilián.”

  Her gaze lingered on me as she strolled closer, veil forgotten. She walked with the slow, graceful confidence of someone who knew their story would be believed because the ending had already been written.

  “The second time,” she continued, “was at the Alchemist Hall. She didn’t mind risking civilian lives just to win a prize. Half the audience nearly died. But as long as she got her recognition…”

  She flashed her smile. That same serene, patient smile she used to wear when applying salves to my scraped knees. When teaching me how to knead dumpling dough. Now weaponised.

  Ying Yue spat her words like a poem made of venom. “And the third time was me.”

  She turned, eyes locking with mine. “How dare she use her magic to reverse death? I took that arrow willingly for the Empress. As a servant, I should die to protect my master. But she—she stole that from me.”

  There was a strange silence that followed, the kind that swells in the space where disbelief used to be. I searched her face for some crack. A blink. A twitch. A tremble. A tell.

  But no. She was as sure of this as she had been when reciting our bedtime poems.

  This was her true self.

  All this time.

  Swinging in the trees with us.

  Yelling at us when we left dirty plates.

  Reading books silently at the fountain.

  All fake.

  All lies.

  My breath caught. My body followed. Pain surged again—white-hot, coiling through my arm like a snake waking from hibernation—and I crumpled before I could hide it. My arms trembled against my will, the blackened veins now so stark they looked inked by an angry calligrapher. The cream. Of course. She’d poisoned it.

  Of course she had.

  And that look on her face—smug, triumphant, final—confirmed what I’d refused to believe. Yes, I poisoned it. Did you really think I wanted to heal you?

  No wonder it had worsened. The gaps between agony had shrunk to heartbeats. I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood, desperate not to cry out. Get a grip. Get a grip. Get. A. Grip.

  But what do you grip when all the branches you trusted rot in your hands? When the tree you thought was home turns out to be hollow, its core long since eaten by worms?

  The world was going. No…

  The world had always been this way. I’d simply been too naive, too soft-hearted, too trusting to see it.

  Too stupid.

  Eunuch Sun stroked his chin. “Those events are hearsay. And even if they were true, it is a stroke of luck that the girl managed to master this banned magic. The girl didn’t imposture anyone.”

  The Empress’ eyes glinted as if she had been waiting for him to notice that exact thing. “That’s not all. Yun Hui, come here.”

  Oh.

  The Crown Prince strode until he was beside me, and then, in one fluid, dispassionate motion, he knelt.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  He didn’t look at me.

  He didn’t even look at me.

  The words didn’t wound me. It was the absence of them. The hollow, gaping silence where some recognition should have been.

  And because he didn’t give me anything, I couldn’t stop the tears. Not this time.

  It wasn’t even that I expected him to stand up for me. I’m not that much of a romantic. I knew what this place was. Knew what kind of people rose in it. It's just…maybe I’d hoped that when the dagger came, he’d have the courtesy to look me in the eye before he twisted it.

  Where can I look? Where is safe to look? Because there was nowhere to look that wouldn’t completely unravel me.

  The tiles. Yes, the tiles were safe. They didn’t betray. They didn’t lie. They didn’t smile at you with familiarity before serving you up on a golden platter to the wolves.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “From the start,” said the Empress, her tone rich and indulgent, “I asked my son to investigate this girl when I put her under his services.” She spoke to Eunuch Sun but made sure her words echoed far beyond his ears. “Yun Hui. What did you discover?”

  Her reflection in the tiles rippled like a spectre, grinning at me with that distorted smirk.

  Silence answered first.

  No one prompted the Crown Prince. No one dared. If it had been anyone else, the pause would have been dissected, interpreted, punished. But everyone knew where the true power rested; he was the Crown Prince, the Emperor’s direct offspring.

  The true power always rests with the ones born close to the throne, they say. And they’re right. No matter how bright your flame, you’ll be snuffed out by a hand wearing silk gloves.

  A soft crunch broke the stillness. I looked up before I could stop myself.

  The parchment that had been crumpled in his fist was now unfurled in the Crown Prince’s grip, pristine and perfunctory.

  “I found nothing more than what has already been said. I apologise for my incompetence, Your Majesty.”

  His gaze passed over me, clinical as a surgeon’s knife.

  He was lying.

  And I don’t know how I knew that, but I did. You don’t spend your life reading books and people and poisons and not learn the scent of falsehood. Something about the way he avoided weight in his voice. The slight stiffening of his jaw. The trained neutrality that was just a bit too practiced.

  But it didn’t matter. No one would challenge him. And I—I wasn’t going to be the fool who wished he would.

  The Empress sighed, her voice a blade sheathed in honey. “Although the Crown Prince was unable to show the evidence,” she said with a well-timed air of disappointment, “I have another way to prove my suspicions.”

  Her attention shifted, finally, to Ze Lujin.

  The poor lady looked like a penitent martyr about to be burned at the altar. Kneeling, muttering, trembling, yet perfectly positioned in the dramatic centre of the polished floor. How poetic.

  “May I trouble you to listen to a story?” the Empress asked Eunuch Sun.

  Polite, yes. But in the way a python is polite when it coils around your neck and asks if you’d mind suffocating quietly.

  “May I trouble Your Majesty to listen?”

  That voice did not belong to the Empress.

  Princess Changping.

  Her appearance was so jarringly out of place it snapped the court’s silence in half. She stood at the threshold of the chamber, wind-tossed and rigid, looking for all the world like she had wandered out of a different tale and accidentally walked into mine.

  The frail one. The background character. Sweet, uncertain, the kind of shame mothers hid in their wardrobes.

  But not now.

  “Your Highness,” welcomed Eunuch Sun. Whilst a great many insulted the princess, one did not have to look too closely to know that the Emperor indulged her presence. And as far as Eunuch Sun was concerned, the princess also carried that true power in her royal veins

  Princess Changping smoothly graced the polished floors, a single maidservant in tow. By all intents and purposes, her esteemed Grace was far from being a worthy contender to the Empress. But if the Empress wanted to bite the princess in the presence of Eunuch Sun, there was no way she would be able to continue her scheme.

  “Eunuch Sun, what is this maid doing here? I thought she was my brother's personal alchemist.”

  My brother.

  Not His Highness the Crown Prince.

  Not Yun Hui.

  An intimate endearment to show their closeness.

  The Crown Prince beside me tilted his head slightly, as if he too had just noticed the wind had changed.

  A beat passed. The Empress stood up.

  “Yun Shiqi, if you came to listen, you need to listen.”

  There was venom tucked into the edges of her words, but it was varnished with grace. The kind of rebuke that didn’t breach etiquette but left scars, nonetheless.

  The princess bowed her head once more. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”

  And just like that, she was once again the meek little royal, fragile and forgettable. But her presence still disrupted the rhythm. Threw off the balance.

  The Empress swept past her, not even stopping to slice her down with a passive-aggressive barb.

  She didn’t have to. She thought she had already won.

  She took her place in front of Ze Lujin like a composer settling in to conduct the final movement.

  The Empress began.

  “Once upon a time in a faraway land, there was a fair lady, and her eyes sparkled with the jewels of sapphires. She had a younger sister. Between the two, she was a free and reckless spirit, whilst her little sister was shrewd and cautious. When their parents died, they gave the throne to the youngest sister.”

  Ah.

  That one.

  I had read this story in children’s primers and textbooks. Recited it in my schooling years as a model tale of betrayal. But what passed for bedtime stories in the capital always had a way of steeping the listener in propaganda. This wasn’t a story. It was a warning. A politicised parable. One that had been sharpened and simplified, then mass-produced for comfortable minds to swallow.

  A tragedy of what would befall those who disrupted the Natural Order of the martial world.

  “But this eldest daughter didn’t care,” the Empress continued, as though we were all in a nursery with blankets and honey tea. “Years passed, and all was well. Both women married and soon they wanted to have children. It was a great joy when the youngest sister bore a child to carry their legacy. But the eldest sister remained barren. And her heart turned bitter.”

  The room fell silent as if everyone stopped what they were doing, all allured by the story.

  The Empress, blessed with a performer’s sense of timing, had wrapped her audience around her jewelled fingers. Even Eunuch Sun, whose face was typically frozen in that courtly wax mask of unreadability, looked visibly disturbed—though whether it was at the tale or the teller was hard to say.

  “It was then that she realised what she had been missing. Her sister had the Lotus Heritage; the family’s coveted seal that was bestowed to their bloodline. She had nothing. No power. No love. No children.”

  This was new.

  I could feel it. Something turning, something being pushed that didn’t want to budge. That story—this story—had been described in one way for so long, I almost forgot how warped it could get under a different light.

  “But of course,” the Empress said sweetly, “she wanted to do the right thing about it. She would never have thought to betray her family. She just wanted to experience love. She just wanted to play with children of her own.”

  Yes. Something was wrong.

  This wasn’t the same parable anymore.

  It was being remade.

  The official records claimed the Liantai Sect fell due to their greed. That their hunger for the divine and for legacy had driven them to madness. That Ze Lujin, once the flower of their youth, turned on them at the opportune moment, allying herself with imperial forces. A woman of infamy and convenience. A necessary evil. A blade with no hilt.

  Because history is written by the winners.

  Ze Lujin said nothing. She neither nodded nor flinched. Her head remained bowed like the weight of the past had nailed her spine to the floor. Her silence screamed.

  “And she managed to do it. To fall pregnant. The eldest daughter had three children. Two sons”—the Empress’ voice faltered ever so slightly, as if the taste of those words was too sour to swallow—“and a daughter.”

  The temperature in the room dropped.

  Ze Lujin’s eyes opened.

  “Ze Lujin,” the Empress said, slowly, precisely, “do you know where your daughter is?”

  No one breathed.

  Even I, snared in the trap of my own panic, couldn’t help it.

  My breath caught—not because of what was said, but because of what was coming.

  And in that instant, I knew.

  Startled into action, Ze Lujin began muttering louder and louder, repeating the same name as a charm or a curse.

  “Little Socks. Little Socks? Little Socks?? Little Socks!!”

  Her eyes found mine.

  She began to crawl.

  Dragging herself across the floor, her limbs twitching unnaturally, her skirts catching on the uneven stone, her body twisted and half-useless like a discarded marionette, still animated by sheer force of longing.

  I recoiled instinctively, curling in on myself like a fist.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  It wasn’t a mistake that she had been calling me that.

  “Su Tang,” Eunuch Sun said sharply. His voice carved through the air. “Answer me. Are you the daughter of Ze Lujin, heir to the rebel Liantai Sect?”

  “No!” I blurted, too fast. My voice cracked. It wasn’t the dignified denial I’d always imagined myself making.

  I was supposed to be calm. Polished. Controlled.

  Like I’d practiced.

  “And where is your proof?”

  “I—”

  This time I stopped myself.

  I wanted to say I am Su Tang.

  But what did that even mean?

  Who was Su Tang?

  Ju Ying used to say I bloomed from a lotus bud just like everyone else. Lao Zhe always laughed when I asked, telling me I came from ‘a warm patch of moss and moonlight.’ Harmless stories. Comforting lies. But the truth? The truth was a void.

  I later learned I was an orphan. My name—a gift, supposedly slipped into my swaddle. My eyes—too purple. Too bright. Too wrong. My powers—too strong for any humble Huadu disciple.

  And now the silence answered for me.

  For all I knew, they could be right.

  “Oh, Little Socks!” Ze Lujin cried, flinging herself onto me.

  I gasped as her full weight crashed into my lap. Her arms locked around me, her chin digging hard into my shoulder. I twisted, thrashed but she clung to me with the desperate strength of the condemned.

  Somewhere beyond the ringing in my ears, I could hear someone trying to pry us apart.

  “My dearest daughter,” she whispered. “I thought I lost you forever.”

  “I’m not—! I’m not your daughter—let go—”

  But she tightened her grip and whispered—clear, slow, final:

  “Why don’t you believe the truth, Little Socks?”

  And then the red returned.

  That same red.

  The one that clawed at my vision after the Imperial Hunt. The one that bloomed behind my eyes every time I tried to remember things I wasn’t meant to. The one that bled into dreams and seeped into every crack of my thoughts.

  It surged.

  I couldn’t see. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe.

  Then—sharpness. Pressure.

  I looked down.

  A jewelled hairpin, barbed, elegant, and glinting with garnets, was jutting out from my stomach.

  Her hand was still wrapped around the other end.

  Slowly, deliberately, she pushed it further in.

  I choked. Blood gushed through my fingers, sticky and hot, soaking through the silk of my skirts. It hit the floor with a sick splash.

  Ze Lujin’s eyes stared into mine.

  “Can you see it?” she whispered.

  Su Tang…

  Where are you?

  Su Tang~

  Come to me~

  You owe me. Are you going to pay it back?

  The deity called out, begging to be worshipped.

  Its voice rose like smoke, a melody older than language itself. It thudded in my skull, each note hammering in time with the headache splitting me down the middle.

  I didn’t want to listen. I shouldn’t have listened.

  And yet—

  I drew closer.

  The White Lotus unfurled in all its impossible glory before me.

  It didn’t just bloom. It reached for me.

  Petals peeled back like searching hands, tendrils of pale light coiling outward, each one desperate to find. To know.

  At its centre: a light so blinding, so densely compressed, I felt certain it could annihilate every person in the Empress' Hall with a single breath out of place.

  Suddenly, it rammed into me.

  My body buckled from the impact. It wasn’t a gentle merging. It was an invasion. I flew backwards, the air torn from my lungs.

  My spine hit something—firm, maybe fabric or flesh—but I didn’t have time to register who or what. I crumpled, folding down onto the floor like wet paper.

  I clutched at my abdomen, bracing for agony.

  Stars swam across my vision, and I waited for the pain to follow.

  But instead, it faded.

  I looked down.

  Not a drop of blood.

  Not a scrap of skin.

  Not even a scar.

  All that remained was the hairpin, cool and whole in my palm, as if it had never skewered through my stomach like a kebab stick.

  My pulse galloped. Adrenaline lit every nerve, every pore. I was sweating, shaking, stupidly alive.

  “So, the rumours are true,” Eunuch Sun said behind me, voice sour with meaning. “A girl who can conjure báilián.”

  He stepped forward, barely concealing his disgust.

  “Seems only fitting she’s the daughter of a rebel.”

  He turned, bowed to the Empress without meeting her gaze.

  “Your Majesty. I will report this to His Majesty immediately. Restrain the suspect until further notice.”

  He made his way out. And everything started moving.

  The Imperial Guards surged forward, spurred on like eager hunting dogs. Some drew their swords, angling them toward me with expressions torn between awe and ambition. Their stances were bent, professional, but I could see it in their eyes; they wanted a reason to strike.

  Others swarmed Ze Lujin.

  I watched, dazed, as they clasped her wrists, her ankles, even her throat, binding her up like a silk-wrapped insect. She didn’t resist. Her glassy eyes still stared blankly in my direction, like she could see something I couldn’t.

  And then it hit me.

  I would have the same fate.

  A lunatic and a liar.

  A mother and daughter.

  Remnants of the Liantai Sect.

  They’d write us into the same chapter of a dusty palace archive:

  Two unstable women bound by blood and treason. Identified by cursed eyes and blooming myths. Branded for ruin.

  It was such a bad story, I almost felt offended.

  I raised my hand slowly.

  Whether it was to surrender or to reach for something—someone—I couldn’t say. My limbs felt heavy, suspended in honey, as if the air itself had thickened around me.

  A scuffling noise snapped my head sideways.

  The Crown Prince was behind me. Sitting upright. Clothes slightly askew. A faint bruise bloomed at the edge of his collar. His brow was creased, like he regretted waking up into this moment.

  So that’s what I landed on. No wonder it felt soft.

  Why are you doing this?

  You’re unexpectedly—

  —good.

  I barely registered the prick at first. Just a flutter. Like a moth landing on my skin.

  Then came the sting.

  My arm trembled as Yun Rongxian pushed a familiar needle into the back of my hand.

  That needle.

  The same one I had used on him.

  Oh.

  So, this is irony.

  My mind took flight, and the room tipped sideways, blurred at the edges. I crumpled again, this time into his lap. My cheek pressed against the fabric of his robes, and I could smell him.

  “Please understand,” he murmured.

  That’s what they always say.

  Please understand. It’s not personal. It’s only policy.

  My limbs betrayed me one by one. But my eyes. They still worked. And what they saw made me want to gouge them out.

  Ze Lujin.

  Blood painted her hands—my blood—dripping off her knuckles like red lacquer.

  Drip. Drip. Drip.

  Splot.

  Splot.

  Splot.

  She didn’t flinch. She didn’t cry.

  The Empress laughed, voice gleaming like a drawn blade.

  “Ah, Lujin. I always did wonder why you wanted her as your maidservant.”

  There was no fury in her voice. No judgment. Only amusement, as if she were watching a play she’d seen too many times before.

  Ze Lujin turned slowly to face her.

  A lopsided grin spread across her face. Too wide, too slow.

  Then, she raised her hands to her mouth and licked the blood from her fingers.

  Like it was honey.