Story of Yanxi Palace, Chapter 33: Snowy Vengeance

   The prison cell of the Department of Careful Punishments.

   Two filthy hands clutched the wooden bars. In a pitiful voice, the prisoner begged the guard outside: “Big brother guard, could you… could you possibly give me a basin of water? Just so I can wipe myself down. I haven’t… I haven’t cleaned my body in seven days already.”

Not bathing for several days was bad enough, but the most terrifying thing was that this place was infested with lice. The itching was unbearable. When she slapped at them, her palm came away sticky and disgusting—black and red mixed together: crushed lice corpses and her own blood.

Linglong felt she might go mad before any execution sentence was even carried out.

“Water… give me some water…” Linglong lowered her head, her voice trembling with a hint of tears.

A faint rustling sound approached from far to near.

Finally, a pair of shoes stopped right outside the bars—snow-white uppers without a speck of dust, cleaner even than her own hands. Linglong slowly raised her eyes along those shoes:

“…Wei Yingluo!”

Wei Yingluo stood beyond the bars, looking down at her with an ambiguous half-smile that wasn’t quite a smile.

“You actually dare to come see me, you lowly woman!” Linglong thrust both hands through the gaps between the bars like a vengeful ghost collecting a debt, desperately trying to grab at Wei Yingluo outside.

Wei Yingluo lightly stepped back, evading her blackened fingertips.

“To get permission to come in and see you, I had to spend a full two taels of silver.” Wei Yingluo slowly crouched down. With an expression that made Linglong’s skin crawl, her eyes gleaming, she stared fixedly at her. “Of course I had to look—look properly, look carefully, look in detail…”

A chill ran down Linglong’s back. Her lips trembled as she asked: “I have no enmity with you. Why did you frame me like this?”

“No enmity?” Wei Yingluo actually laughed at her words, her shoulders shaking. “Then where do you place Jixiang? Linglong, everything is your own doing. I was still wondering how best to lure you into the trap, but before I even brought it up, you yourself suggested the competition. Very good—excellent… Linglong, I understand you too well. You’re consumed by jealousy, yet you have no real talent. You were bound to lose this contest, but you would never accept defeat. In the end, you were certain to steal the ordinary robe I had already finished—”

She didn’t need to finish the rest; Linglong could already guess what came next.

Wei Yingluo had secretly sewn a single silver needle into the collar. It was hard to notice under normal circumstances, but once the Emperor put it on and moved, the needle would shift and prick him.

Sooner or later, the Emperor—wounded by the needle—would fly into a rage and send people to investigate.

“…I know you and Jixiang were like sisters, but you can’t just frame an innocent person like me because of her!” Linglong could only cry out in aggrieved tones, trying to win sympathy with her tears. “She was beaten to death by Chief Steward Wu for stealing! What does that have to do with me?”

“Do you take me for a fool?” Wei Yingluo laughed. “Why would Jixiang steal from me? And why, the moment Chief Steward Wu came to investigate, was the item found on her person? And how did you know it was on her? That day… was her birthday. I think you must have used the excuse of celebrating her birthday to give her an embroidered sachet containing the planted evidence as a ‘birthday gift,’ didn’t you?”

Linglong stared at her in horror.

She was right. Every single word, every single step—she had guessed correctly.

It was as if she had personally witnessed the entire sequence of events.

Linglong had always known Wei Yingluo was clever, but she never imagined she could be this clever. She had known Wei Yingluo would take revenge, but she never expected the revenge to come so quickly, so ruthlessly.

“Yingluo…” Linglong crawled forward on the ground, stretching one hand through the bars until it touched Wei Yingluo’s leg. She adopted the posture of a fawning, begging cat.

“Save it. I don’t fall for that.” Wei Yingluo was still smiling, but there wasn’t the slightest trace of amusement in her eyes. “No matter how much you beg me, I will never let you go. Your tears only make me happy. Only when you bleed will Jixiang’s spirit be properly avenged.”

Linglong stared at her carefully for a moment. Her expression gradually changed—from pitiful and fragile to wildly distorted. Suddenly, she burst into manic laughter, laughing so hard she sat down on the ground, looking utterly fearless and smug:

“That’s right, it was me! I stole the things, and I’m the one who caused Jixiang’s death! So what? There’s just one extra needle in the garment—what’s the big deal? At worst they’ll call it a momentary lapse and give me a few dozen strokes of the board.”

“A few dozen strokes, exile to Ningguta, never to return to the capital.” Wei Yingluo said slowly, her voice calm and drawn out.

Linglong froze. “What did you say?”

“Your sentence has already been decided.” Wei Yingluo repeated with a smile. “Eighty strokes of the heavy rod, exile to Ningguta, banished from the capital forever.”

Linglong’s face drained of color bit by bit until not a trace of blood remained; she was as pale as a ghost.

“Eighty strokes—you might just manage to survive them if you grit your teeth. But Ningguta is the land where the Great Qing banishes its criminals. The climate there is extreme: in April the wild winds cut like knives; from May to July the endless cold rain pierces to the bone; in August heavy snow falls without end; by September a thousand miles are sealed in ice, snow blanketing everything—not a place that resembles the human world. You might endure the beating, but you’ll spend the rest of your life doing hard labor in purgatory.” Wei Yingluo slowly stood up, turned her back, and let her long, lingering words trail behind her. “Unable to live, unable to die—this is what you deserve.”

“Come back! Wei Yingluo, come back! You can’t leave! Someone—stop her! She’s the real culprit—I’m the one who’s been wronged!” Linglong desperately tried to squeeze herself through the gaps in the railing. One hand stretched out straight, only to fall limply in the end. Beneath her disheveled long hair came the sound of broken, sobbing cries.

Wild winds like knives, bone-chilling rain, swirling blizzards, a thousand miles of ice—did she really have to endure all of that with her own body?

   Even if she could endure it, what then? Beyond the natural disasters, there were human evils.

   The place was filled with the most vicious and ruthless criminals. A defenseless, unsupported young woman like her—once there, she would become nothing but tender prey in their eyes. Anyone who felt hungry could take a bite.

   “I’m not going to Ningguta.” Linglong’s voice came out like a sleep-talker’s murmur from deep in her throat. “I’d rather die than go to Ningguta…”

In that instant, a scene suddenly flashed before her eyes.

In the scene there was a steaming bowl of long-life noodles, and a tiny Jixiang with innocent, wide eyes.

“Good, I swear to heaven right here.” Linglong pressed three fingers together and pointed to the sky. “If I ever harbor the slightest ill intention toward you, toward Wei Yingluo, may heaven punish me by making me smash my head against a wall and die a miserable death!”

   Ha! Linglong almost laughed until tears came out. So this damned heaven really did have eyes!

After laughing like a madwoman for a while, Linglong suddenly turned and looked at the grayish-white wall beside her. An extremely twisted smile contorted her face:

“Wei Yingluo, don’t think everything will always go your way. I may not get to choose how I live—but can’t I at least choose how I die?”

Linglong smashed herself against the wall and died.

When the news reached the embroidery workshop, Wei Yingluo was working on a garment.

Deep sapphire-blue satin, embroidered all over with bats—a play on the word for “blessings/fortune.” It looked a little old-fashioned on a young person, but on an elder it radiated auspiciousness and dignity.

“Everyone out.”

A chaotic flurry of footsteps sounded. When the last palace maid’s steps faded beyond the door, only Wei Yingluo and Momo Zhang remained in the embroidery workshop.

“…She didn’t have to die.” Momo Zhang’s voice came from above her head. “After His Majesty’s anger subsided, he realized it was merely a momentary mistake—her crime did not warrant death. He clearly issued an edict: fifty strokes of the rod and assignment to the Labor Department. Yet Linglong took her own life beforehand! People say that right up until the end she kept screaming that she would never go to Ningguta.”

“Momo, look.” Wei Yingluo answered somewhat off-topic. While Momo Zhang questioned her about the reason for Linglong’s suicide, she simply spread out the garment in her hands for her to see. With gentle eyes she smiled and said,

“Jixiang’s grandmother is over seventy. She depended entirely on Jixiang’s meager monthly stipend to survive. She kept holding on, waiting—waiting for the day her granddaughter would complete her service and leave the palace. Jixiang often told me that when she went home, she wanted to bring her grandmother a garment she had made herself: sapphire-blue satin, embroidered all over with bats, to symbolize blessings and longevity…”

“Yingluo!”

“Now Jixiang is gone, and that old lady… I don’t know if she’ll be able to keep living once she learns what happened. One life—or maybe two.” Wei Yingluo slowly lifted her head to look at the other woman. “Momo, do you think the true culprit behind all of this can be let off with just a light fifty strokes?”

In her eyes there was only calm acceptance—no regrets.

No regret for anything she had done!

Momo Zhang met her gaze for a long moment before finally letting out a soft sigh. “Yingluo, with your intense loves and hatreds, your readiness to repay even the smallest grievance… you truly are not suited to remain in the palace. After all, you are only a palace maid…”

If she were a mistress of high rank, such a vengeful, uncompromising temperament might not be a flaw at all. A hard-edged attitude could even help her suppress those beneath her.

But Wei Yingluo, like herself, was merely a servant who served others…

“You will soon be going to Changchun Palace,” Momo Zhang voiced the worry that had been weighing on her heart. “Once you’re there, if you keep this same personality, sooner or later you will bring disaster upon yourself.”

“What are you afraid of, Momo?” Wei Yingluo chewed over her words, understood what she feared, and reached out to pull her down to sit beside her. She nestled against her like a little granddaughter leaning on her grandmother, gently resting her head on Momo Zhang’s shoulder. Her voice was soft and full of comfort. “For now, I have no intention of doing anything to Fucha Fuheng. Even if I were to do something later, before that I would first make sure to clarify the truth from him…”

These words did not dispel Momo Zhang’s unease; instead, they deepened the anxiety in her heart. She stared straight at Wei Yingluo for a long while before finally asking in a probing tone: “And if your sister’s matter really was his doing?”

Wei Yingluo smiled.

That smile was so beautiful it seemed, for a fleeting moment, to summon the images of those legendary beauties of ancient times.

Daji, whose rise on the Deer Terrace Platform brought down the Shang dynasty; Baosi, whose single smile at the beacon fires doomed the Zhou; Yang Yuhuan, whose galloping horse in the dust buried the Tang dynasty.

   A beauty like a blade—capable of toppling cities and kingdoms.

   That night, Wei Yingluo completed the very last embroidery piece she would ever make in the embroidery workshop.

A sapphire-blue robe embroidered with a hundred blessings.

After entrusting the garment to Momo Zhang, asking her to have someone deliver it back to her hometown the next morning along with Jixiang’s remaining possessions, Wei Yingluo thought for a moment. Then she fastened the jade pendant her sister had left behind at her waist. Her fingers gently traced the name engraved upon the jade, and she murmured softly:

“Changchun Palace… Fucha Fuheng… I’m coming.”

STORY OF YANXI PALACE CHAPTERS HOME