The Prince of Chenliu (1)
Naturally enough, the banquet did not end in a single day.
The last time we threw a feast to welcome the Zhuge family, it took three full days before the festivities wound down. An imperial wedding was bound to be worse.
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say this one would run a full week.
Yesterday the hall had been abuzz thanks to Zuo Ci's spectacular Daoist tricks; today, the guests were murmuring over something else entirely.
And what, you ask, was that something else?
"H-hello."
"...The Prince of Chenliu?"
The Prince of Chenliu. Readers familiar with Romance of the Three Kingdoms would know this person better under the title Emperor Xian.
The man who, in the original history, would have gone down as the last emperor of the Han Dynasty had just appeared in the middle of the banquet hall.
Emperor Xiaomin of Han, known in brief as Emperor Min.
Emperor Xiaoxian of Han, known in brief as Emperor Xian.
Both names refer to one and the same person.
Liu Xie, courtesy name Bohé.
The figure whom Dong Zhuo, seeking to rule through a puppet, enthroned after forcibly deposing the young Emperor Shao.
Why did he carry two posthumous titles, you wonder? Because they were each bestowed separately — one by Shu, one by Wei.
No love was lost between those two kingdoms, so naturally they had to spar even over something like this.
Liu Xie had ascended the throne just as the Han began its long, true decline — a man swept along by the currents of his era, powerless to swim against them.
He did manage to rid himself of Dong Zhuo one way or another, but afterward Li Jue and Guo Si began running rampant, and the dynasty rotted to the point where even a stray band of brigands could no longer be kept in check.
Provincial governors like Liu Yan and Liu Biao resented the emperor, busy as they were playing at being kings in their own territories, while Yuan Shao — who had never recognized an emperor installed by Dong Zhuo in the first place — moved openly hostile, going so far as to attempt elevating Liu Yu as a new sovereign.
And what was Liu Bei up to during all this?
After clashing with Cao Cao once, I believe she was busy diligently reclaiming Xuzhou.
Cao Cao had made such a catastrophic mess of things in the name of filial vengeance that there was simply no dealing with Li Jue and Guo Si.
Distance was a problem, too, for that matter.
Harried and hounded by Li Jue and Guo Si, Liu Xie had no real choice. He threw himself on Cao Cao's protection and poured his everything into reviving the Han.
Except the Cao Cao he had leaned on was not the capable minister of a golden age, but one fallen wholly into the Hero of Chaos — the archetypal villain of a collapsing world.
Failure after failure piled up until Liu Xie at last resolved to assassinate her — and even that plot was discovered. The concubine pregnant with his child was executed, her maternal kin exterminated to the last: the blows just kept coming, each one more agonizing than the last.
Even after that, his own wife, the Empress, was dragged away by the hair, imprisoned, and left to die. The children she had borne him were killed as well, and one after another the allies who might have been called his own perished around him.
To be fair, Cao Cao never laid a hand on Liu Xie himself — it was everyone around him that she annihilated, root and branch.
With things drifting down this path, what could the man do?
Liu Xie abandoned any thought of resistance and became a puppet in the truest sense; and after Cao Cao's death, under pressure from her son Cao Pi, he performed the shanrang — the ceremonial abdication of the throne.
If there was any small mercy in it, perhaps it was that Cao Pi, acknowledging the graceful manner of the surrender, granted him the title Duke of Shanyang and let him live out his final years in quiet comfort, far from the corridors of power.
Crowned at the tender age of seven, shoved and buffeted from every direction until the day he closed his eyes for good.
In terms of fiction, his was a life so turbulent it could have carried the "regret" and "emotional damage" tags without blushing. That was the man known as Liu Xie.
"Your Highness, what brings you to a place like this...?"
I addressed the figure before me with thinly veiled bewilderment.
What on earth was she doing here — the one person who had done everything in her power to stay out of sight at every official occasion?
A girl slightly shorter than Her Majesty, her hair cropped into a neat bob, spoke up in a small voice.
"It's the day Her Majesty and the General-in-Chief are wed. I couldn't go on hiding, even from a day like this."
A nervous voice, heavy with the sense that she was keenly aware of every eye around her.
Liu Xie looked at me with black eyes that proclaimed her imperial blood beyond any doubt.
As I gazed into those obsidian eyes, glittering like polished gemstone, my gaze traveled up to the black hair that matched them exactly.
There was a healthy sheen to it — clearly she had prepared properly. Or perhaps her hair was simply that fine even without any particular care.
Liu Xie, whose gentle, mild gaze put Her Majesty's fierce one to shame — so much so that I felt almost guilty drawing the comparison — favored me with a faint smile.
Watching her, I understood at once why she had abandoned her seclusion and shown herself at the banquet.
She was terrified that by absenting herself from the festivities, she might incur the resentment of the reigning Emperor — her own older sister, Liu Bian.
"..."
"Hehe..."
What do I even call this? Consistency?
Liu Xie knew full well that her own existence could pose a threat to the throne, and it showed in how extraordinarily careful she was.
Yes — so careful that she second-guessed the moods of the only blood family she had left.
Otherwise, why would she have refused every visitor and sealed herself away in her private palace?
Why is it that even in this world, this girl keeps getting cast in tragedy?
Her Majesty, for her part, had come to cherish the Prince of Chenliu with a sister's affection — but Liu Xie seemed entirely unaware of it.
Then again, how many purges had Her Majesty carried out by now?
Imperial kin had been granted no exemption from the list of targets.
Having witnessed that blood-soaked brand of politics from up close, it was hardly strange that Liu Xie should feel fear.
The ones who openly insulted me to my face.
The ones who schemed in the shadows, working to shrink my standing.
The moment any of them landed in the Emperor's web of surveillance, they were stripped of office or disappeared into confinement somewhere.
And the ones who went a bit too far? They found themselves physically bisected, as I recall.
...Come to think of it, saying all this out loud, I rather think I bear some of the blame for the awkwardness between the two sisters.
Her Majesty carried out her purges in blood against those who meant me harm, and the Prince of Chenliu watched it all unfold and learned to fear.
No, it's true. I did have a hand in it.
Follow the chain of responsibility far enough and the fault lay with the fools who misread the room and set themselves against me — but how exactly were they supposed to answer for it?
They were either living out their days in some quiet corner of the countryside, or buried in the ground trading greetings with earthworms.
In any case, I had worried about the Prince of Chenliu shutting herself away in her chambers, and I called on her more than once in the past.
She turned me away the first time or two, but as I kept coming back, she eventually opened the door.
Being young, her curiosity had evidently gotten the better of her fear.
After that, I did my level best to win her over, playing this game and that with her.
It was a moment when my experience caring for children orphaned in Bing Province finally paid dividends.
...Though she was such a remarkably composed young lady that somewhere along the way it started feeling more like Liu Xie was politely humoring my antics than the other way around.
At any rate, with the Emperor's tacit blessing — she who held her sister's affection — I made a point of meeting with Liu Xie whenever I visited the palace.
Yet it seemed all that effort had not been enough to close the distance between the two sisters.
"...Hm."
Her Majesty stared at the Prince of Chenliu standing before her in the banquet hall, lost in brief thought.
No — not thought. Staring is the word. Glaring at her like that, you'll frighten the poor girl. She's still a child.
Born in 181 AD, Liu Xie was fourteen years old — a young girl who had not yet even come of age.
"..."
There, see? Even now she's showing faint traces of fear.
Her Majesty must have caught my desperate, pleading look as well, because she spoke up a beat too late, with a flicker of oops crossing her face.
"Prince of Chenliu. Come sit beside Jim."
"I am... grateful for Your Majesty's consideration."
At the Emperor's words, Liu Xie took her seat — and her complexion darkened ever so slightly.
I had a fair idea what was going through her mind.
She was afraid that being kept at the Empress's side meant she was about to be dealt with personally, then and there.
Watching her, I spoke up.
"I know what you're worried about. But that is not going to happen."
"...General-in-Chief?"
At my sudden remark, Liu Xie looked at me in puzzlement.
I did my best to keep my voice gentle and reassuring.
"Her Majesty wishes to be close to you, Your Highness."
"..."
"Trust in the bond of family."
A laughable thing to say, in a royal house where fraternal bloodbaths flared up at the drop of a hat.
But there had been siblings who truly got along, so it wasn't an argument that could be dismissed out of hand.
"And if you're still afraid — then trust in me."
I put on my most confident expression.
"It's common knowledge that Her Majesty turns to jelly the moment she looks at me, so if I put in a word, Her Majesty will surely—"
"Enough of your nonsense. Get over here."
"Yes, ma'am."
Catching a distinctly sour note in the Emperor's voice — and a hint of embarrassment beneath it — I hurried into the seat beside her.
As for that hint of embarrassment, I shall keep it a secret, for the sake of Her Majesty's imperial dignity.
The high officials around me, who had noticed it just as I had, exchanged the fond smiles of grandparents watching a grandchild.
Nearby, Sima Yi pressed a hand to her temple as if her head ached — but I saw nothing. Nothing at all.
"..."
Liu Xie, who had been warily scanning the room the whole time, seemed at last to realize that the Emperor was making no particular effort to deny my words. She lifted her head and met the Empress's eyes.
By some measures it was a breach of etiquette — but there was not a single soul present thoughtless enough to call her on it, not here, not today.
The sisters held each other's gaze for a long moment.
"I... I look forward to serving you, Your Majesty!"
"...There is no need to be so tense."
And so the two sisters, bound by the same blood, began at last to talk.
Operation: success.