Story of Yanxi Palace, Side Story Chapter 4: Her Secret [Part 2]

   “…Where is this?” Zhaohua opened her eyes. “Why am I here?”

Before her was not her own bedchamber, but an abandoned, long-neglected loft.

Spiderwebs covered the corners, one of them trapping a snow-white moth. The moth desperately fluttered its wings but could not break free from the delicate threads.

“This is Chengqian Palace,” she suddenly lost control of her own mouth. Another voice emerged from within—cold, deep, hissing like a snake. “The place where the late Empress was confined.”

Zhaohua was startled. She forced herself up from the floor and took a few steps. Suddenly, she heard voices coming from outside.

“Zhaohua has already been missing for a day,” Fukang’an’s voice carried a trace of anxiety. “Are you really sure she’s here?”

“Jiangxue Pavilion, Yuhua Pavilion, Yinghua Hall… haven’t you already searched all those places?” Siwan’s laughter rang out. “Relax. I know Zhaohua better than you do. I know exactly where she hides when she has an episode.”

“Episode?” Lawanduorji’s voice was extremely cold. “What do you mean?”

What do I mean? The corners of Zhaohua’s lips curved into a cruel arc—an expression that had never appeared on her face before. It belonged completely to someone else.

   Even the way she walked had changed. One leg dragged slightly, as though an old injury to the knee still pained her, yet it did not slow her down. In fact, she moved lighter and faster than the three people outside—silent and practiced, like a eunuch long trained to walk without sound.

   She knew the layout of Chengqian Palace better than any of them. In just a few moments, she circled behind the trio and noiselessly locked the door—clang.

“Ah!!” Siwan’s scream pierced the air. “What—what was that sound? Ah!! Who locked the door? Let me out! Let me out!”

“Is that you, Zhaohua?!”

“You two stay here. I’ll go find her!”

Chaos erupted, and the three became separated.

“No—don’t!” Siwan, leaning on her crutch, cried and chased after the other two. “Don’t leave me here alone!”

“Don’t worry.” A pair of ice-cold hands reached from behind and closed around her neck. “I’ll stay with you.”

Siwan fainted from fright on the spot.

When she slowly came to, she found herself seated in a chair, a black cloth blindfolding her eyes, her hands bound to the armrests.

“Do you still remember, Siwan?” Zhaohua’s voice came from in front of her. “When you were eleven, Fifth Brother fell ill. You tricked me into going to Yinghua Hall to pray for him, saying it would save him. I went—and that person captured me.”

Siwan shuddered violently.

“He ran away, so he broke my legs and threw me into a narrow little room, surrounded by filthy sewage—dirty and stinking.” Zhaohua murmured, “Several times he pressed my face into the sewage, trying to drown me. But every time I cried and called for my mother, he would let me go. Later he started telling me stories. Do you know what story he told me?”

“No… no…” Siwan trembled even more violently. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“I told her, my name is Yuan Chunwang.” Suddenly Zhaohua’s voice changed—dark, terrifying, carrying a resentment too heavy for any living person to bear. “The first day I entered the palace, I was tied to a door panel. The moment I made a sound, someone next to me would shove a scalding-hot boiled egg down my throat. When the castration began, every single bone in my body hurt…”

He recounted his entire life sentence by sentence—from the agony of being deceived into the palace, to the brief spring-like warmth and blooming flowers when he met Wei Yingluo, only for her to betray and abandon him in the next moment, filling him with rage…

“Who am I? Zhaohua? Yuan Chunwang?” Zhaohua asked herself, then let out a strange, giggling laugh. “I am Yuan Chunwang… You have such great audacity to torment me. Let me show you what I’m capable of.”

Siwan suddenly felt a chill at her wrist. Drip, drip—liquid began trickling down her arm. Her face turned deathly pale. “You… what did you do to me?”

“I made a cut on your wrist,” Zhaohua said with a smile. “You won’t die right away. Listen—drip, drip—your blood will keep flowing. Once the very last drop leaves your body, you’ll die.”

“You lunatic! Lunatic!!” Siwan struggled desperately. “Let me go! Let me go! Help! Help! Lawanduorji, save me! Fukang’an, save me!”

“…Zhaohua.” A young man’s voice came from behind her—extremely complicated and full of pity. “Stop.”

“You’re Fukang’an?” Zhaohua slowly stood up, turned to face him, her eyes brimming with mockery. “I remember now. You’re the son of Fucha Fuheng.”

Her face looked so utterly unfamiliar that Fukang’an instinctively took a step back.

Zhaohua toyed with the blood-stained dagger in her hand and gave an eerie smile. “Just like your foolish father, you fell in love with a woman you shouldn’t have. Wei Yingluo, Zhaohua—they’re all cold and heartless at their core. They only think of themselves. The moment you become useless to them, they discard you like worn-out shoes. Can’t the fate of Fucha Fuheng serve as a warning to you?”

“Shut up!” Fukang’an gritted his teeth. “Who the hell are you?”

“I am Yuan Chunwang—the chief eunuch by the side of the late Empress, the mastermind behind the Jiangnan rebellion case!” The “Zhaohua” in front of him burst into loud, wild laughter. “I’ve killed many people—my own younger brother, my master, Jinxiu, a prince consort… and now it’s your turn!”

She lunged toward Fukang’an.

Not only had her voice and demeanor become completely like a man’s, even her strength had become that of a man’s. With a knife in her hand, she was actually able to fight Fukang’an on roughly even terms. In contrast, facing the woman he loved, Fukang’an held back, reluctant to use real force against her. In the end, he was caught off guard and knocked to the ground.

Zhaohua straddled his waist, raising the dagger high, about to plunge it into his chest—yet tears were already streaming down her face first.

“Am I having another episode?” she murmured.

“Zhaohua?” Fukang’an struggled to sit up. “Is that you?”

Zhaohua nodded, lowered the dagger, and said, “You should go quickly—while I can still control myself.”

“Zhaohua…” Fukang’an hesitated, words caught in his throat.

“You’ve seen it for yourself. I’m sick,” Zhaohua sobbed once. “Ever since I was kidnapped at eleven years old, I’ve been ill. Although that eunuch named Yuan Chunwang was soon captured and beheaded, I know… he’s still alive. He lives inside my body.”

Those seven unbearable days worse than death, and during those seven days, the words Yuan Chunwang poured into her ears without pause—about his past, his joys, angers, sorrows, and pleasures—had taken deep root in her young body, gradually giving birth to a second personality: one named Yuan Chunwang.

Once an episode struck, she would instantly transform from the innocent, willful Princess-Zhaohua into that man as sinister as a serpent. Within the entire Forbidden City, no one except Wei Yingluo could subdue her.

This was her secret—and the greatest secret of the Forbidden City.

“Yes, I’m still alive.” “Zhaohua” suddenly changed expression, letting out a sinister giggle. “But you are about to die. Tell me—tomorrow, when everyone opens the doors of Chengqian Palace and finds that Princess-Zhaohua has slaughtered everyone, including Princess-Siwan, a Mongolian prince, and you, the last surviving seedling of the Fucha family… won’t the scene be especially spectacular? I can hardly wait to see Yingluo’s expression. Hahahahaha!”

She laughed so maniacally that even Princess-Siwan stopped screaming, trembling and unable to speak.

But one hand gently caressed her cheek.

“Zhaohua, don’t kill them.” Fukang’an looked at her with both pity and guilt, speaking softly, “Just kill me. That’s enough.”

“Zhaohua” froze at his words.

“I have wronged you.” Fukang’an closed his eyes and guided the hand holding the dagger toward his own throat. “I’m a coward. I didn’t have the courage to take revenge on the Noble Consort, so I took it out on you… and in the end, I couldn’t bear to do it. I couldn’t avenge my mother, yet I also couldn’t bring myself to hurt you. I’m incapable of anything—I’m nothing but trash.”

“Why?” “Zhaohua” asked in a low, heavy voice. “That day in the ruined temple—why did you come out?”

If he hadn’t appeared, after suffering such humiliation at the hands of so many beggars, Princess-Zhaohua would surely have died. Even if she hadn’t died miserably beneath them, she would have taken her own life upon returning.

Wei Yingluo’s health was frail, and she doted on this daughter above all others. If Princess-Zhaohua died, at the very least Wei Yingluo would fall gravely ill. Wouldn’t that have achieved exactly what he wanted?

Why, after taking ninety-nine steps forward, did he give up at the very last one?

“Speak!” “Zhaohua” pressed the dagger harder against his throat, leaning her upper body down and snarling, “Why?”

Fukang’an let out a soft sigh. Slowly, he stretched out both arms and wrapped them around her back. Ignoring the sharp blade in her hand, he pulled her into an embrace and gently called out one word:

“…Little sister.”

“Zhaohua” trembled violently from head to toe.

It seemed as though a very, very long time ago—almost a lifetime ago—he had once cherished a woman in exactly this way: personally brewing medicine for her, sitting on the cold bench in the Imperial Garden for her sake, giving up everything for her, and then pursuing everything again for her…

“Yingluo.” Tears suddenly welled up in the cold, ruthless eyes of “Zhaohua.” She murmured, “My… little sister…”

All at once her body went limp and she collapsed into Fukang’an’s arms.

Behind them stood Lawanduorji, panting heavily… and the Noble Consort, Wei Yingluo.

“Yuan Chunwang is my sworn brother.” Wei Yingluo bent down, lifted Princess-Zhaohua into her arms, and said calmly, “He was implicated in a case of plotting rebellion and should have been executed by lingchi. But I begged the Emperor to spare his life and had him confined in Yinghua Hall. Who could have known he would successfully manipulate Princess-Siwan into luring Zhaohua there…”

“It was him!” Fukang’an finally remembered who the man was.

A man who was obsessed with exterminating every last member of the Aisin Gioro clan—yet he himself carried Aisin Gioro blood. The greatest secret of the Aisin Gioro family.

“From the look on your face, you must have remembered who he is. He did so many foolish things because he believed himself to be the Emperor’s son.” Wei Yingluo’s tone shifted, her words carrying a pointed implication as she asked, “And you, Fukang’an? Do you also believe you are the Emperor’s son?”

Fukang’an shuddered violently from head to foot.

   His secret.

   On the day of the grand wedding.

   Before the phoenix palanquin, Lawanduorji supported Zhaohua as she stepped up into the sedan.

The swaying red veil adorned with dangling pearls concealed Zhaohua’s expression. Only her vermilion lips hesitated for a moment before she let out a soft sigh:

“Lawanduorji, you have already seen what I look like when I have an episode. Why do you still dare to marry me?”

Lawanduorji’s voice was steady as a rock: “Because I love you.”

Zhaohua stared at him for a long moment, then lowered her head. Her voice sounded half like crying, half like laughing: “You… really are a fool.”

“I know you don’t love me, but that’s all right.” Lawanduorji was not a man skilled in sweet words, and precisely because of that, the vows that came from his mouth carried an even deeper moving power. “We still have a long time ahead of us. I will wait patiently—wait until you fall in love with me.”

If there was still anyone in the world who, after knowing her secret, could accept her completely and without reservation…

“Let’s go.” Lawanduorji glanced behind her and suddenly urged.

Zhaohua nodded, took his hand, and stepped into the sedan chair. The moment the curtain fell, she heard an anxious voice calling her name: “Zhaohua, wait for me!”

Her shoulders trembled slightly. Then she heard Lawanduorji’s voice ring out outside: “Lift the sedan!”

The bearers raised the phoenix sedan and set off toward the Shenwu Gate.

Guards stood solemnly along the entire route. No one—not even Fukang’an, the young master of the Fucha family—could break through at this moment.

And no one could stop this wedding, whose outcome had already been set in stone.

Lawanduorji sat astride a tall horse. He turned back once to look at the other man. In his ears echoed the words Wei Yingluo had once spoken.

“Fukang’an, hasn’t someone always been telling you that you are the Emperor’s son? And that if you want revenge, the best way is to make Zhaohua fall in love with you?” Wei Yingluo had smiled. “But are you really the Emperor’s son?”

   No wall in the world is completely airtight. What has been done will eventually come to light.

   The mastermind who had incited Fukang’an to seek revenge was soon exposed under thorough investigation. The man who had once held little Fukang’an’s hand and forced him to remember his dead mother’s appearance was Fucha Fuheng’s half-brother by a concubine.

   At the same time, he was also Erqing’s secret lover—and Fukang’an’s true biological father.

   How absurd it all was. Because of Erqing’s pregnancy, so many people had been forced to their deaths, implicated, or ruined—yet in the end, the child in her belly still bore the Fucha surname.

   “Zhaohua… she is not my sister.” Fukang’an’s eyes held both sorrow and joy, confusion and hope. “Not my sister…”

   But so what?

   Zhaohua didn’t know this.

   “This matter concerns the Fucha family’s reputation, so I have already dealt with everyone who knew the truth. Now only three people know: you, me, and Fukang’an.” Wei Yingluo’s voice echoed in Lawanduorji’s ears. “I will not tell Zhaohua the truth. What about you?”

   The corner of Lawanduorji’s lips curved upward.

The phoenix sedan finally passed through the Shenwu Gate. The brilliant sunset fell upon the chair, like amber descending from the heavens, fixing everything within it—forever, for a thousand years, ten thousand years.

“…This is my secret,” Lawanduorji said in his heart. “Even if my bones turn to dust after a thousand years or ten thousand years, I will never tell her the truth.”

THE END

 

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