“If you persist, I’ll send for a doctor to check it.”

Lengmei panicked for she didn’t expect Chu Tiankuo to be so serious about it. She knew he was getting to the bottom of it for Tang Xia’s sake. She hurriedly made up an excuse.

“Your Majesty, I might have caught a cold last night… I didn’t feel like eating anything after I got up this morning, and I feel a dull ache in my head. I’m not in good condition… I can’t see other people for now.” She lifted her silk handkerchief to cover her lips and burst into a spasm of coughing. She frowned slightly, and her face turned pale, making her look more pitiable than Xi Shi.

“Even better. The doctor can also cure your cold. Don’t worry. I won’t grudge drug expenses to you.” Chu Tiankuo was in a real fury and wasn’t moved by Lengmei’s pity at all. His face was covered in formidable air and his words were full of taunts.

“Send for the doctor!”

At once, a eunuch standing obscurely nearby bowed and replied with a soft “yes”, and then walked outside the chamber and spoke loudly, “Send for the principal doctor of the Imperial Hospital!”

Shortly afterward, Doctor Hu arrived carrying a drug box. He noticed the stifling atmosphere and deathly silence in the chamber, and he knew it would be a sinister task that might even cost his life.

Chu Tiankuo had long lost his patience. If it were not for all sorts of worries, he should have executed this disgusting woman already. He didn’t want to stay with her in the same chamber anymore. The doctor’s appearance was a sight for his sore eyes. The recent gossip slightly changed the queen’s attitude toward him, even if it was not in the most pleasing direction though. He waved the sleeve of his royal robe to spare the doctor the formalities and said sneeringly, “Concubine Lengmei alleged she was pregnant. You take a good look at her and see if she told the truth.”

Doctor Hu greeted Lengmei and then walked up to the glazed bead curtain of her bed. Lengmei poked out her hand covered in a handkerchief underneath the curtain, allowing Doctor Hu to rest several fingers on her wrist to feel her pulse. He closed his eyes and held breath to detect if there was any subtle difference from the ordinary pulse.

The pulse was as smooth as rolling beads. It was the pulse of pregnancy.

Even though Doctor Hu didn’t have much experience with pregnancy pulse in the harem, he detected its mark in the blink of an eye. He was about to express congratulations when he recalled the stifling atmosphere upon his entrance into the chamber and the emperor’s somewhat meaningful words. He kept his composure, stood up and bowed, and then said courteously while holding back his sleeves.

“Your Majesty, Your Grace, it is pregnancy indeed.”

“Em… what?” Even Chu Tiankuo, acute as he was, didn’t follow his words at first. After a pause, he realized what the doctor meant. He grabbed him at his collar, and snapped furiously, “Do you know how grave the guilt of deceiving the emperor is?”

Lengmei sobbed behind the curtain and said, “Your Majesty, I know you don’t like me, but please don’t dislike my innocent baby just because of me…”

Doctor Hu was born in a family of doctors. He grew up in the Imperial Hospital since his childhood and received medical training from his father and his eldest brother. He served the imperial family for decades to finally reach the position of the principal imperial doctor. He couldn’t be more familiar with the tricks in the harem. Those lovable concubines were willing to do anything to give birth to a prince to stabilize their positions. However, Chu Tiankuo’s attitude puzzled Doctor Hu. It was normally recognized as good news for a concubine to get pregnant. There were too many emperors in the history that died without a descendant, resulting in the inheritance of the throne by a brother. He wondered why His Majesty was angry at the news rather than being happy about it. Unless… He dared not think about it further. His conjecture was dangerous to the extent that it might incur the death penalty for all his families. Besides, he was still grabbed at his collar, his throat tightly squeezed. He tried to stand on tiptoe to reduce the pressure, but he was still unable to breathe properly. His face turned purplish red, and he struggled to utter, “Your…Majesty…How…dare…I…lie…to…you…It…is…true…”

…

An emperor’s wrath could cause the death of millions. Doctor Hu couldn’t believe he was still alive.

Just now, Chu Tiankuo firmly gripped his throat and kept questioning him. Doctor Hu insisted on his view, which infuriated Chu Tiankuo. He threw Doctor Hu to the wall. Doctor Hu flew over to the floor, smashing several rare vases from foreign lands in the way despite his effort to steady his body, which was in vain for he didn’t have any martial arts training. Some of the fragments even pierced his flesh. Chu Tiankuo flung his sleeves back and left the chamber without saying another word.

Doctor Hu rested for a while and stood up quietly. The great pain on his neck and back told him what just happened was not his dream. None of the servants nearby dared give him a hand.

Lengmei reclined on an embroidered pillow, gave an elusive smile and put her hands on her belly. “Doctor Hu, please stay. Could you write a prescription to nourish my body?”

A clever maid walked up to grind ink and lay the paper. Doctor Hu held a brush and started to write. The prescription included regular healthy ingredients like fleece-flower root, angelica sinensis, white peony root, Chinese wolfberry, and medical dogwood. Lengmei thanked him and rewarded him some silver knobs wrapped in red paper.

Maids responsible for sweeping and watering were notorious for their enthusiasm for gossip behind their directors. The next morning, everyone knew the Imperial Hospital confirmed Concubine Lengmei’s pregnancy. Concubines living near and far from Lengmei’s chamber all went to visit her, bringing various gifts. Of course, Tang Xia wasn’t among them.

“Lengmei, my dear big sister…”

“Lengmei, my dear little sister…”

Nobody was honest and sincere here. Everyone just took what they needed and did what was best for themselves. Lengmei received lots of attention and flattery these days. Even though Chu Tiankuo didn’t enter her chamber since that day, she led a busy and happy life. Not every concubine could be that popular in the harem. She had the one thing desired by all other concubines, even those who were more charming, intelligent, or talented than her.

Sometimes she felt confused. What was the purpose of all her actions? The love from Chu Tiankuo? The future of her family? Or the envy of Tang Xia?

None of them. Or all of them perhaps.

The ordinary people envied the life behind the red palace walls. In their imagination, it was all about wealth, pleasure and extravagance. Even the animals — imported Western cats or Ferghana horses from the borderlands — were taken good care of by special staff and lived better than the ordinary people who earned a modest living with a few acres of farmland.

Lengmei never experienced hunger or coldness. She was the lady of the Leng family. Ladies from the noble families were usually bossy and cocky for they had their family power behind them. But she couldn’t. She had to smile without baring teeth and walk while keeping the hemline on the ground. She had to learn musical instruments, chess, calligraphy, and painting. She had to study poems and proses. Only through such culture could she win the heart of the emperor, and her family’s investment in her would be paid back.

She recalled something that happened shortly after she entered the harem. She met her mother and nanny at an imperial feast. She was so happy and was about to greet them when they bowed to her and said, “Blessings to you, Your Grace.”

She suddenly realized she was no longer a lady of the Leng family but one of the three thousand concubines of the emperor, which her family long expected her to become. She gave a gentle smile and said, “Stand up.”

There were many girls like her in her family. “I’m the best among them.” Lengmei often thought proudly in her chamber after she qualified for entering the harem.

But the harem was far different from what she expected. It was full of schemes and betrayals. After she won attention by framing a teenage girl for the first time, she knew she mastered the rules of the harem and she would not stop there. She had forgotten the look of that girl long ago. She only remembered she was always wearing a cute smile.

She was buried in her memories with blurred eyes when a maid in green called her back to reality, “Your Grace, Zui Linglong is here to see you.”

“Invite her to join me in the backyard and make tea with Green Conch Spring leaves my family sent here last time.” Lengmei smiled at a small bronze mirror. It was the smile that aristocrats liked, a smile that was both tender and cute. “I can still do it. I used to practice for so long after all.” she thought.

Zui Linglong was wearing white clothes and no makeup, just as usual. It was quite at odds with Lengmei’s gorgeous apparel. Lengmei sometimes felt she was looking at a wandering ghost walking off the ground.

A gust of wind blew in, rattling her clothes, making her look even thinner, like a lonely and soulless skeleton standing there.

Lengmei winked and rolled up sleeves to make tea for her visitor. She added some fresh tea leaves into the boiled water with her exquisite fingers. The water gradually turned green and the green grew darker, emitting a vapor in the air that moistened the chamber. “It’s like a dream when I talk with you. It won’t surprise me if you vanish all of a sudden.”

Zui Linglong remained silent. She didn’t drink the tea but just sat still, gazing at Lengmei. Lengmei wasn’t the least perturbed, and she kept talking on her own about the exotic gifts she received and interesting stories she heard about recently.

After she finished a story about two rich men smashing coral tree to show they had more wealth than each other, Zui Linglong finally said, “The altar?”

Lengmei knew she was asking why she didn’t use the altar. She replied casually that it was not damaging enough and might fail to exterminate her enemy.

Zui Linglong pointed out bluntly that Lengmei’s pregnancy was not real.

Lengmei nodded for she didn’t intend to hide the truth from Zui Linglong in the first place. It was a voodoo she obtained from a barbarian tribe, and she didn’t expect it to be used on herself then.

It could be used to fake pregnancy on someone else. She could send the victim into the limelight and then push her into hell by exposing the fraud. What could be a better torment than that?

Zui Linglong asked, “How are you going to handle it?”

Lengmei looked aside. The backyard was arranged as she dictated. There were some bare and peculiar rocks, and no flowers were planted intentionally. Sometimes a couple of wild flowers would appear in the corners, lonely and timid.

“I had Doctor Hu prescribe some tocolytic drugs for me.” They were both smart enough to understand the implication. The harem was never devoid of accidents. Suddenly, something occurred to Lengmei and she asked the question she had always been curious about.

“Why did you help me?”

“I never helped you. You are helping yourself.”

With a sizzle, the tea water boiled again. A wild goose flapped wings and flew over the clear sky above their heads. Was it flying across the palace or out of it?

Lengmei didn’t know, and she didn’t need to know. All she needed to do was to bear the weight of the wronged souls and live in the dream woven by extravagance and tears.

It was her destiny and the duty her family gave her.