Chương 120: Chapter 118

I look at the outfit spread out over the folding screen at the back of my room with the same expression with which, in my previous life, I would have looked at a surprise physics exam on a Monday morning. It is a masterpiece, I am not going to deny it.

Silk in various tones of deep red that gradually fade toward a pale gold at the edges, sleeves so wide that they could house a small family of cats, a belt embroidered with motifs of phoenixes intertwined with peonies and, to crown it all, an overcape with inlays of gold thread so dense that I have serious doubts that the fabric beneath is still, technically, fabric.

I let out a long sigh, of those that have been accumulating for some time, and turn my head toward Lianhua, who is carefully setting aside the last layers that remain to be placed over the outfit.

"Lianhua", I tell her with the tone of someone posing a philosophical dilemma of profound implications.

"Explain to me, please, why the men can go to these events with a sober, functional, comfortable outfit that lets them breathe, move, and, in general, behave like human beings, while I have to dress myself in that sort of walking tapestry that weighs more than I do and that is designed so that making any movement requires thinking about how to do it beforehand." Lianhua is not perturbed, what's more, she doesn't even lift her gaze from the cape she is smoothing.

"It is the custom, Zhāohuán Wen", she replies with a placidity that is only achieved after years of hearing exactly the same complaint in slightly different variations.

And I listen to her halfway, because I already know that the answer was going to be that, and because I also know that however much I complain the final result is going to be the same, that I am going to leave this room wrapped in kilos of embroidered fabric, with my hair loaded with hairpins to the point of being able to use it as a throwing weapon, and with absolutely no possibility that my mother will accept anything other than exactly that. My mother, in these things, is a wall.

And banging oneself against a wall only to end up the same is, frankly, a poor use of time. I am about to let out sigh number four of the morning when a soft knock at the door interrupts my little inner duel with imperial fashion. I lift my head, intrigued, because at this hour I am not expecting anyone and my mother is in her pavilion finishing her own preparations, and Lianhua, upon hearing it, leaves the cape with care on the folding screen and heads to the door to open it.

And on the other side, looking at us with a mixture of seriousness and embarrassment that on her face turns out to be absolutely disconcerting, is Xia.

"Xia!" I exclaim as soon as I see her, and I notice how my smile widens without my being able to do anything to avoid it.

"You're already well! Why didn't you let us know so we could come fetch you?" Xia enters the room with a step that is half as energetic as usual, and Lianhua closes the door behind her softly. And as I see her advance, my smile keeps losing a bit of its initial effervescence.

Because it is not the Xia who normally enters my room, the one who crosses the threshold as if she were the owner of the place and immediately expresses what she thinks, this Xia has her shoulders slightly hunched, her hands joined at the height of her stomach, and her gaze barely lifted from the floor.

"Xia", I tell her with a much softer tone.

"Is something wrong with you? Did something go wrong with the treatment? Does something still hurt from…?" I don't finish the question, because Xia, without pronouncing a single word, is kneeling down. And it is not one of those half-kneels she does sometimes when she wants to ask me something with dramatics, but rather it is a formal kneel, slow, with both knees resting on the floor in a synchrony that in a girl of her age should be impossible.

"Xia!" I exclaim immediately, startled.

"Stop, stop, get up right now! Lianhua, stop her, this is absurd!" But Lianhua, for once in her life, doesn't pay me any mind and remains still beside the door with her hands crossed before her chest, observing the scene with an expression I am not capable of fully deciphering, and does absolutely nothing to interrupt what Xia is doing.

I look at her for a second, perplexed, and then return my gaze to Xia, who has already completed the kneel and, without lifting her head, lowers her forehead until it touches the floor in a formal genuflection. And then, with a voice that comes out muffled by the position but that is strangely firm, a voice that resembles in nothing the enthusiastic squeal or the childish grumble I am accustomed to hearing from her, Xia speaks.

"Zhāohuán Wen", she says, and the formality of my complete title in her mouth strikes me almost physically.

"This humble Ling Xia presents herself before you to acknowledge a debt that cannot be paid with money nor with service." She makes a pause. And the pause is so deliberate, so careful, that I realize she has rehearsed this. That at some point, probably more than one, she has forced herself to repeat these words until they came out with the appropriate tone.

"You have saved my life twice", she continues, still without lifting her forehead from the floor.

"Once in an alley of Xi'An when I was no one to you, when you could have passed by and no being in this world would have reproached you for anything. And another when the rubble collapsed on top of me and only thanks to the people you sent with me together with the treatment you provided me did I keep breathing." Another pause, and this is the one that makes me swallow, because I know what comes next.

"And besides that, you took me in when even my own brother had abandoned me", she says, and her voice trembles only an instant, only just enough to remind me that behind this little formal ceremony there is still a ten-year-old girl.

"You gave me a roof, a life, a family. And that, Zhāohuán, is something that is not returned easily." She finally lifts her head, and when she does, her eyes are damp but perfectly still, without tremor and without tears escaping, being the most adult gaze I have seen her put on in my life.

"For all of this, this servant swears to you eternal loyalty", Xia finishes with a solemnity that in another context, in another girl, on another day, would seem ridiculous to me.

"My life, my will, and my service are yours until the Heavens decide otherwise." And she bows again, waiting. I remain still in my place, looking at that small figure kneeling before me, and for an instant I have absolutely not the remotest idea of what I am supposed to do. Because my first impulse, my absolute instinct, is to leap to telling her to stop, that it is not necessary, that this is absurd, that between us this is not needed.

But I also know, in a much more serious corner of my head, that Xia has come all the way here with this prepared, has rehearsed it, has felt it, and that if I reject it lightly, what I am going to break is not only the ceremony, but also something in her. I turn my head toward Lianhua, seeking her with that look I use when I don't know what to do and need advice. Lianhua returns my gaze and, slowly, almost imperceptibly, smiles.

It is a tiny smile, of those that only I know, and then she inclines her head once, in a minimal gesture that says, with a clarity that needs no words, that I should accept it. I sigh once, deeply, and then compose the most serious gesture I am capable of and pronounce the formal words that in this world are pronounced to accept an oath of this type.

"I accept your oath, Ling Xia", I tell her with my voice as firm as I can make it.

"May the Heavens be witness and may the earth bear faith. Your loyalty will be reciprocated with my protection, your service with my care, your life with mine. Rise." Xia rises upon hearing me, and as soon as she is on her feet, the first thing she does is bow one last time toward me, much more briefly, with a small but radiant smile appearing amid the just-finished formality.

"Thank you, Zhāohuán", she tells me. And there the solemnity lasts me exactly three seconds before a shiver runs through me from head to foot.

"All right, no", I tell her immediately, cutting off the ceremonial moment with the elegance of a hammer falling on porcelain.

"Enough already with the Zhāohuán when we are alone, please. Save that for when there is an audience and we have to keep up appearances." Xia looks at me with her eyes a bit wider, as if the transition of tone had caught her off balance.

"But…", she begins to say.

"But nothing, Xia", I interrupt her waving a hand.

"If I had wanted you to call me Zhāohuán when it is only you, Lianhua, and me, I would have asked you many years ago. You have been with me since you were six years old, and I have never asked you to call me anything other than Wen. And I see no reason whatsoever for you to have to change that just because you wanted to do that silly business of the oath." A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Xia blinks once.

And then, slowly, the carefully constructed solemnity deflates from her like a candle put out by a breeze, giving way to something much more familiar.

"All right, Wen", she tells me at last with that mischievous half-smile she does so well, and which after the previous formality feels to me like a glass of cold water after a day in the desert.

"Much better", I tell her nodding with exaggerated satisfaction.

"And now, since we have apparently finished with the palatial melodrama of the morning, can the two of you remind me why we keep wasting time when I still have to finish getting dressed? Because my mother is waiting for me to go to my father's birthday party and it is not a good idea to keep her waiting." Lianhua, who has waited patiently for the little emotional whirlwind to pass, gathers the clothing from the folding screen with the silent efficiency of always.

"If Ling Xia helps me, we will finish sooner", she says with no further preamble. Xia, who has apparently just remembered that among her tasks as a handmaiden is still exactly that, approaches with an efficiency that suggests she is eager to return to familiar terrain. Between the two of them they put the outfit on me, and when Lianhua finally steps back a pace to inspect the result with that critical gaze she reserves for great events, I am already closer to being a mannequin than a human being.

"Ready, Zhāohuán Wen", she tells me. I nod, because I don't feel capable of protesting any more for today about the matter of the outfit, and Lianhua, instead of going for the chair, leans over me and takes me in her arms, so I remain for an instant completely disconcerted.

"Lianhua", I ask her with an eyebrow raised.

"And the chair?"

"Guifei Xiang has given instructions that today you will not use this chair, Zhāohuán Wen", she replies with her habitual impassivity as she settles me against her.

"She has commissioned a new one specifically for you to use during the Banquet of the Emperor's Birthday." I lift a second eyebrow to match the first.

"And why hadn't you told me until now?" I ask her.

"Because Guifei Xiang wanted it to be a surprise", she replies without the slightest alteration in her tone.

"And she expressly forbade me from telling you before today." Processing the information, I furrow my brow, since if my mother has commissioned a chair specifically for this and has made sure that I don't find out until the last moment, it is certain that this does not portend exactly something discreet.

"I understand", I tell her with a voice that probably betrays more than I would like.

"Then let us go and find my mother." Lianhua nods and, carrying me in her arms with the naturalness of always, heads toward the hall while Xia positions herself at our side with the exact mixture of discretion and attention she has learned to have. And as we go advancing down the corridor of the pavilion, Xia speaks suddenly without her voice going beyond the immediate surroundings.

"Wen", she tells me in a low voice.

"Do you know where the Nei Wei who protected me is?" The question catches me a bit by surprise, but I immediately realize who she is referring to and why she brings up the subject now.

"Her name is Shen Qingwan", I reply to her in the same tone.

"I imagine she is in the Nei Wei barracks recovering, although by this point she should already be well."

"I would like to go see her", she tells me.

"I want to thank her in person for saving my life." I look at her for an instant out of the corner of my eye, and I see that although she poses the subject with her habitual voice, her fingers are pressed firmly against her dress. I think for an instant and then turn my head toward Lianhua, who although she has not made the slightest gesture of listening has surely done so.

"Lianhua", I tell her.

"Since you are not going to be able to accompany me to my father's birthday party, take advantage of the time to accompany Xia to find Shen Qingwan." Lianhua inclines her head barely to indicate that she has registered the instruction.

"Besides, I have another task for you", I add upon remembering the mental note I have been postponing too many days.

"Take her something to reward her for having saved Xia's life, since I promised myself I would reward her generously and it completely slipped my mind with all the mess of the Yushitai at the Tàiyīyuàn. I leave it to you to choose what to take her, because you know much better than I do what things are appropriate for a Nei Wei of her rank and position."

"I will do so, Zhāohuán Wen", Lianhua replies to me without hesitating. And when we finish crossing the last corridor and enter the main room of the pavilion, I see it. There, in the middle of the room, right between my mother's impeccable posture and Lingxi's equally impeccable posture, is parked what at first glance seems to me to be an oversized piece of jewelry with wheels, and which at second glance I identify, with a slow but profound horror, as a wheelchair.

Or, rather, what a deranged goldsmith would decide is a wheelchair if you gave him carte blanche, unlimited budget, and the explicit instruction that the result has to be utterly tacky.

Because my new chair, my dear mother's surprise, is coated to the last centimeter with inlays of gold, with polished jade in the shapes of intertwined phoenixes surrounding the contour of the seat, and with a small constellation of precious stones sprinkling the edges in a pattern that, probably, has a highly elaborate symbolic meaning but that I, at this moment, am in no condition to appreciate.

It is, frankly, the furthest thing from a functional wheelchair I have seen in my life in either of the two worlds I know. I turn slowly to look at my mother, turn my head again to look at the chair and finally turn it again to look at my mother.

"Mother", I tell her with the most controlled voice I am capable of given the circumstances.

"Please, tell me that that monstrosity is not the chair I am supposed to use during my father's birthday." My mother smiles, and it is that smile she puts on when she knows exactly what she is doing, knows exactly how I am going to react, and finds it tremendously amusing.

"Of course it is the chair you are going to use, Wen", she replies to me with the same tone of voice she would use if we were talking about a piece of clothing.

"And yes, I already know perfectly well your tastes and preferences in these matters, but you are going to have to put up with it, Wen, because to an event like today's you cannot go in that old chair that is even starting to become small for you, but rather you have to go with something in accordance with your rank and your position."

I open my mouth with the clear intention of beginning a reasoned protest, but I close it again, because the face with which my mother is looking at me tells me, with total clarity, that that reasoned protest is going to crash against exactly the same immovable wall against which I have been crashing since before I learned to speak in this world. I let out the morning sigh number… I have lost count.

"Very well, Mother", I tell her.

"I will wear what you tell me." My mother widens her smile and, without pronouncing a word, looks at Lianhua. Lianhua, without pronouncing a word in turn, advances and deposits me with care in the new chair. And as I sit in it, in my head the chair becomes the official portable throne of Zhāohuán Sun Wen, ceremonial vehicle designed so that anyone who sees its occupant pass by has very clear, without need of additional explanations, that that occupant is not a person, she is an institution.

Splendid, just what I wanted for this day. My mother, who has waited patiently for me to finish installing myself, positions herself behind the chair and, without hesitating, takes hold of the handles to begin pushing me toward the courtyard.

We cross the threshold of the pavilion and go out to the courtyard where, as was to be expected, we already have an escort of Nei Wei in closed formation awaiting us, so without need of any order, the escort closes around us and, like a single well-oiled organism, all of us together begin the way toward the precinct of the banquet.

We cross the park in front of the Pavilion of the Scent of Clouds with a paused and ceremonial pace that is neither too slow nor too fast, but which I suspect has more to do with the chair I am using than with any other reason. And as we advance along the path, I decide to ask a question that has been going around in my head for a few days.

"Mother", I tell her turning my head a bit so that my voice reaches better toward the back.

"I still don't understand why I am not allowed to bring a handmaiden to push my chair. Lianhua could perfectly well come with me and no one would be offended."

"Wen", my mother replies to me.

"It is rather logical, in reality. At the banquet there will be more than a thousand guests. If each guest were allowed to bring a handmaiden or a companion, in addition to the invited person, we would end up with more than two thousand people in the precinct, which would begin to be a serious problem."

"That I understand", I reply.

"But for people like me some reasonable concession could be made. I am not asking for the rule to change for everyone, only for the few of us who effectively need it for something concrete and not as a whim." My mother lets out a small laugh that only I hear from my position.

"Wen, if you expect the Minister of the Lǐbù to change centuries-old traditions for a dozen people in the whole empire who have a rank high enough to attend imperial banquets and use a chair, I warn you now that you are quite mistaken", she tells me with that naturalness of someone laying out facts.

"Several of those people have requested over the years exactly the same thing you are proposing to me now, and on every occasion the request has been denied them."

"Well, that is discrimination", I tell her sulking.

"If you want to change the norms and customs, Wen, there is a solution", my mother replies to me with absolute tranquility.

"You only have to become Empress." I freeze as I listen to my mother, and even before my head has finished processing what my mother has just said, my eyes are already moving in a series of quick sweeps checking that the Nei Wei are the only ones who are at a distance from which they could hear those words. Having confirmed that, I let out a sigh of relief so long that it has probably taken three years off my life.

"Mother", I tell her in a low voice but with all the resentment I am capable of.

"Please, have the kindness not to say things like that out loud again. In this palace a sentence like that, said in the wrong place, can lead to very unpleasant misunderstandings." My mother does not reply immediately and, for an instant, the only thing I hear behind me are her paused steps on the stone and the soft rattle of the chair. And when she speaks again, her tone is somewhat different, not entirely serious, but neither with the lightness of a moment ago.

"That, Wen, may have been a joke", she tells me.

"But there is something that is not a joke, and that is that you are growing up, and rather quickly. Soon you are going to turn fourteen, so you are going to be of age and from that moment on it will fall to you to begin deciding what you want to do with your life." I listen to her as I keep my gaze ahead, because I know she is completely right, and I know that I also know that I have spent too long dodging exactly that subject.

"You are right, Mother", I reply to her with sincerity.

"And I promise you that I will think about it. But I would also ask you, if you don't mind, that we leave that subject for another moment, because right now I prefer to concentrate on surviving my father's birthday without committing any grave protocolary offense, and we will have another calmer day to talk about my future with the calm it deserves."

"In that, Wen, you are the one who is right", my mother replies to me after an instant.

"But go thinking about it, because it is not good that when the moment arrives you should have to make an improvised decision only because you have not dedicated to it the time it deserved."

"I will do so", I assure her, and for once it is not a promise of those I make to settle the conversation, this time it is one of those I intend to try to keep.

And with that, we finish crossing the park in front of the Pavilion of the Scent of Clouds and we enter into the more crowded zones of the Imperial Palace, where we see luxurious palanquins transported by impeccably uniformed bearers, ceremonial carriages with embroidered roofs, groups of officials walking with the heavy dignity of their official tunics, and ladies of the court escorted by their own formations of guard.

All converging in the same direction, all heading, like us, to the Banquet of the Birthday of the Emperor of the Tianjing Empire.