My name is Zhu Houzhao. Everyone says my father was the most benevolent ruler in history, and that he loved only my mother his entire life. Then I opened one of my mother’s keepsakes: a bloodstained flying-fish uniform and a waist token engraved with “Yanyun Guard, Number One, Class A.” As it turned out, my father had only one wife not because their love was boundless, but because my mother was the only person in the entire harem who could fight. She did only two things in her life: act as empress by day, and be his blade by night. Of the seventeen assassination attempts before he ascended the throne, she took the blow for him sixteen times. The one she didn’t stop was arranged by her herself. She wanted him to remember who was capable of taking his life. What she didn’t know was that the moment he lifted her veil, he recognized her eyes. He kept up the act for his entire life, waiting for her to confess. She kept her secret all her life, afraid to speak. They risked their lives to protect each other, yet never said those words before they died. And on that flying-fish uniform, she had embroidered the time and place of every assassination attempt. Beside the final stitch was a tiny line of writing: “I love you. These words are eighteen years late. Please don’t blame me.” At the end of the letter was his bold, aged handwriting: “I know. I’ve been waiting for those words all along.” The history books will only say that Emperor Jing of Xiaozong was a benevolent ruler without precedent, with only one wife. They won’t mention an empress in a flying-fish uniform, six madwomen who raised a benevolent ruler in the cold palace, or the words left unsaid across two lifetimes. I will remember their story for them.
