I Became the Prince Who Hates a Million - 3
My father-in-law, a man I had never even seen face to face, was dead. Hearing the news in a foreign land ten thousand li from home, Xiao Zhen wept without end.
It was, in fairness, a sudden death. Life expectancy in this era was indeed short compared to the twenty-first century, but that figure was dragged down by all the children who dropped dead left and right at tender ages. Survive childhood and grow up hale, and you could reasonably expect to see your sixties.
My father-in-law, by contrast, had been only in his forties. Even by sixth-century standards, that was no old man.
'Was it all the hardship he suffered in his younger years?'
Eight years ago, when Northern Zhou — the dynasty that would become Sui — destroyed its old nemesis Northern Qi, my father-in-law had presented himself in person at Ye, Northern Qi's former capital, to offer his congratulations. Four years ago, when Yang Jian toppled Northern Zhou and founded the Sui Dynasty, he journeyed all the way to Chang'an to pay the same respects.
An emperor in name, and yet he had bowed his head to a great power just to stay alive, forced-marching between Jiangling and Ye, then Jiangling and Chang'an. Mentally and physically, it was the perfect recipe for illness.
'Surely it was no assassination.'
So my father-in-law's death could not have been anyone's scheme. Sui had no reason to dispose of a puppet ruler who obeyed so faithfully, and Chen down south... lacked the strength to spare for covert operations of that sophistication.
"My lady, weep as long as you need, until your heart grows even a little lighter. It is only right for a child who has sent her parents before her to grieve."
And so I gently soothed Xiao Zhen, who shed her tears in silence, careful not to let a single sound escape. I comforted my pitiable guest, who could not even mourn her own father's death as she pleased.
So long as Yang Jian and Sui had not killed my father-in-law, I could offer that comfort with an easy heart. At least then it would not be loathsome hypocrisy.
"N-Nanggun-nim..."
At my words, Xiao Zhen pulled me into her arms with trembling hands.
Thankfully, this once I could comfort her without a twinge of guilt. Two years from now, however blameless I might be, I would never have been able to bring myself to speak to her as a prince of the Sui imperial house.
Because in two years, the nation of Later Liang itself would perish at Yang Jian's hand.
She was the one who had stayed at my side through a time of mental anguish. If a man had even the barest minimum of feeling and duty, he could not help but be grateful.
Perhaps because of that, ever since Xiao Zhen had broken down and wept her fill, the distance between us had visibly closed. Where once we could not hide the awkwardness, now we would smile of our own accord whenever our eyes met.
Even bonds with sworn enemies soften when you owe them your life — and whatever else it was, arranged match or not, we were still husband and wife. If we hadn't grown closer, that would have been the stranger thing.
"Prince of Jin. It truly delights this mother to see such harmony between you and your wife — but it grieves me that you have yet to grant us a grandchild."
There remained, however, the small matter that three years had passed since our wedding with no child to show for it, and so Dugu Qieluo pressed us for a grandchild about once a week.
Considering I came to pay my morning respects every single day, once a week showed real restraint on her part. Had I not cut such a figure of a model husband, she would have raised the subject three times a day.
"My wife came to us from a foreign land thousands of li away, so I have kept my distance to give her time to adjust. I thought that a child arriving while she was still struggling to adapt would only leave her bewildered."
"On the contrary — it is by bearing a child that she will come to love this place and devote herself all the more to this family."
"Your words are only right, Your Majesty, my mother. This unworthy son erred through dullness and shortsightedness. However, my wife has just suffered a heartrending loss, so I would postpone correcting my mistake until a later day."
At that, Dugu Qieluo let out a sigh, but nodded.
It was not as though I were scrambling to contradict her. I acknowledged my error and agreed with her point — but my father-in-law had only just died, and I intended to abstain from my wife's bed for the present. What more airtight justification could a man ask for?
"When three years have passed, I shall bring joyful news to His Majesty, my father, and to Your Majesty, my mother."
"Three years, you say."
Three years — the span during which a child wears mourning white and keeps vigil at a parent's grave.
Naturally, the notion of a son-in-law abstaining from his wife's bed for three years to honor his father-in-law's passing was complete bullshit. Sure enough, Dugu Qieluo's eyebrows were twitching at intervals.
"...If that is the Prince of Jin's wish, then have it so."
But I was neither seized by the collar nor slapped for talking nonsense.
Abstaining from the marriage bed to honor a father-in-law's death was not, in itself, strange. But three years instead of three weeks was a very serious problem indeed.
The only reason Dugu Qieluo did not raise a storm was that, with the in-law barely buried, pressing her son to bed his wife would have been mortifying even for her.
So she would let it pass for now, and in a few weeks' time she would come to persuade me. Something along the lines of: surely it was about time we resumed sharing a bed?
'Not a chance.'
But I fully intended to hold out for three years. I would take no consort besides Xiao Zhen, and harmonious as our life together might be, I would not be making any children.
In two years, Later Liang would fall. Her husband's country would annihilate her own; her father-in-law would become her nation's enemy in an instant. And her husband would become the son of that enemy.
And in that situation, to hold the enemy's grandchild in her arms? How tangled, how tormented she would be. So until Later Liang fell — until Xiao Zhen, despite her homeland's destruction, had made her peace with it — I could not father a child.
'Only after three years would I even be twenty.'
And perhaps because I had not yet fully shed my twenty-first-century sensibilities, the thought of fathering a child while still in my teens made my head swim.
Something about bearing fruit before the age of twenty... I half expected men with handcuffs to come for me across the space-time continuum...
"Prince of Jin."
"Yes, Your Majesty, my mother."
Just as I finished my morning greetings and rose to take my leave, I straightened at Dugu Qieluo's voice.
"Not only this mother — His Majesty, too, holds great expectations of you, Prince of Jin. Pray continue as you are, and become a model for the imperial clan."
A model for the imperial clan. A remark that found me endearing as I trod the Confucian Man route with steady steps — while drawing an unmistakable line: the Crown Prince was the elder brother, Yang Yong.
For my part, it was a welcome remark, and I smiled. Being the Emperor's little brother beat being the Emperor any day of the week — the Emperor had to answer for a unified empire, while the Imperial Brother simply breathed and watched the dignity-maintenance stipend roll in.
"I will strive to be a son you can both take pride in, and a younger brother who brings no shame before His Highness the Crown Prince."
At that, the gloom that had settled over Dugu Qieluo's face at my declaration of three years without the marriage bed lifted at once.
When the totem meant to exalt the Yang clan's virtue and legitimacy declared himself content to remain their totem for life, she had every reason to be satisfied — as a mother, and as Empress alike.
Time flowed on without incident.
I paid my morning respects to Yang Jian and Dugu Qieluo each day, shared whatever fine things came my way with my family, and did my utmost to stay on loving terms with my brothers — "hearty and forthright" if you wanted to be generous, "delinquents" if you didn't.
Thanks to all this, my image within the palace and the court settled into "a gentle, exemplary prince who does no harm to man nor beast." A beautiful state of affairs: a prince of the direct imperial line, a mere two years younger than the Crown Prince, showing not so much as a speck of ambition.
'By now, the hope that this age of chaos was finally ending must have been running high.'
The standoff of Wei, Shu, and Wu, formed over the corpse of Later Han; the spectacular collapse of Western Jin after it unified the three; and then the centuries-long era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
How many states had risen and fallen along the way, how many imperial and royal houses exterminated root and branch? And yet that long, long age of turmoil was at last drawing to a close, and the Yang clan, at least on the surface, was affectionate and harmonious.
Who could help but hope that the blood-soaked years were ending at last, and a golden age of peace was about to dawn? Generals who lived off the glory of conquest might feel otherwise, but surely the Confucian-schooled bureaucracy was lying awake at night, hearts pounding.
Call it the price of that hope, but people were beginning to whisper about my continued childlessness.
'So what?'
It was the road I had chosen; I had no regrets.
What's more, I was still in my teens and exercised diligently, so rather than suspicion — "Could it be that his seed is wanting?" — the prevailing opinion ran more toward "He must be a Crazy Confucian Man."
That was quite enough. The more entrenched my reputation as a mad dog rabid for Confucius became, the more unshakable my tranquil life as a Slacker Imperial Family Member would be.
"My lady, I have brought your meal. At least fill your stomach with something light."
And what mattered now was not the murmuring of a handful of officials.
The year was 587 AD, six years after I had crossed into this body. And at last, Xiao Zhen's homeland of Later Liang had fallen.
If there was any mercy to be found, it was that the Xiao clan, Later Liang's imperial house, had not been wiped out. Whether that was a reward for their years of faithful service as Sui's puppet state, or the magnanimity of a ruler with unification within his grasp, I could not say. Perhaps it was simply because a daughter of the Xiao clan had become his daughter-in-law.
But even with her clan spared, her country was still gone. Even Xiao Zhen, who might well have braced herself for it deep down, could hardly help being shaken.
"I will leave it at the door, so eat when it suits you—"
"Nanggun-nim."
As I set the tray down before her door and turned to withdraw, the door — shut for only a few hours — opened with care.
"I am... quite all right."
"My lady."
A sigh escaped me unbidden at the sight of her face, which looked anything but all right to any eye.
How could she be? The land she had been born and raised in had just perished at her father-in-law's hand. Even princesses sold off to those northern barbarians dreamed of vengeance when their homelands fell.
"I am your wife, Nanggun-nim. The Princess Consort of Jin of this realm, and a daughter-in-law of His Majesty."
Even so, Xiao Zhen strove to summon a smile.
"And His Majesty has, in his mercy, taken my kinsmen under his protection. How joyful a thing that is."
Xiao Zhen took my hand. Her small, warm fingers closed over mine.
"So there is no need to worry over me. Thanks to you, Nanggun-nim, I have become one of this family's own."
Hers were steadier hands than I had expected.
Liang was in our hands. Jiangling, the Liang capital, had been successfully secured as well.
Long ago, Western Jin had conquered Shu and held Jiangling, and that was what had let it drive the Kingdom of Wu before it with unstoppable momentum. Now that we had recreated that very picture, everything would be over within five years.
"What say you, Left Vice Director?"
And so Yang Jian spoke, looking down at the Left Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs — Gao Jiong.
Gao Jiong had laid out the strategy to destroy Chen, and its opening move had been the seizure of Jiangling. Chen's fall was now as good as decided.
"This servant's view differs, Your Majesty."
Yet Gao Jiong flatly disagreed.
"Three years at the latest will more than suffice."
"Is that so."
It was a satisfying answer.
Yes — three years would be enough. A nation ruled by an incompetent sovereign, its line of defense already crumbling; even five years had been a generous estimate.
'All under heaven lay within reach.'
The long, long age of division was racing toward its end. Break Chen, and the name Yang Jian would be written into history forever.
"But tell me, Left Vice Director."
"Yes, Your Majesty. Pray give your command."
"And how fares the Prince of Jin?"
He had spoken the Prince of Jin's name, but it was the Princess Consort he truly had in mind. Gao Jiong understood this as well, and bowed deeper still before answering.
"They appear to be living in harmony, as ever."
That, too, was a satisfying answer, and he nodded.
It had been a decision made for all under heaven and all its people — and yet he had destroyed his daughter-in-law's homeland, and he had worried that some resentment might take root between the two of them.
But the Prince of Jin was, as ever, a splendid son and a splendid husband. He had overcome that small worry all on his own.
'Hmm.'
Still, it remained true that the Prince of Jin had been put to some trouble for the sake of the greater cause.
He would see to it that a great reward found its way to the Prince of Jin before long.
A reward wrought of resplendent honor and merit beyond all comparison.