Free My Last Empress by Da Chen Page A

anyone know of this name: it would render my service here improper and disrespect the Heavenly One.”
    “Why did you tell me then?”
    “You are to be my protector to whom I shall enslave myself. No secrets are to be hidden from you because a secret would be a genuine act of disrespect. Please tell no one of this secret, and many secrets I shall hide for you.”
    “Shall you?”
    “That is the only way one stays safe, out of misfortune …” He stole a glance at me, trailing off. “I have already overspoken, haven’t I? From now on, I shall be mute with what I say, deaf to what I hear, and blind to what I see. I am your wind and its shadow. I am here, but I am not here. I will carry out any chores you please. I will keep clean every inch of this apartment and replenish it with fresh goods acquisitioned and gifted to you from the Heavenly One. In the morn, I shall be up before you making the early tea and fetching breakfast foryou. Lunch you shall have in your office together with other royal tutors, and supper is to be served from the servant’s kitchen with a special menu you shall select at daybreak so goods of your choosing can be secured and the bill be written for the Neiwufu’s review and approval.”
    “Their approval?”
    “It’s merely perfunctory. There will be no full board reviews, save for the seasonal one conducted by the Fu’s royal trustees and assignees. Have I spoken too much already, master?”
    “You have not. I have much to learn from you. Will you be my guide?”
    “I have many rules to adhere to, as stipulated by the chief eunuch. If my service to you fails in any manner, punishment awaits me.”
    “What rules do you speak of?”
    “Many that I have had to commit to my memory since the day of my arrival, speaking of which, I should not be having this conversation with you, as you are new, lofty, and …”
    “And what?”
    He stole another glance at me and whispered, “… alien and vastly strange and different from us.”
    The boy’s utter candor caught me off guard, contradicting the rumor of the perversion and corruption of the entire eunuch corps surrounding the titular emperor. I gifted him with a Dobereiner’s lamp, a lighter, so to speak, that I bought off a legation staff member. When flame ignited the contraption, In-In’s face lit up. He kneeled again and rose only after I had departed the hallway and entered the room I was to dwell in for the foreseeable duration, leaving the scantluggage I brought to be dealt with by my new boy servant. That night, after a meal of rice with four dishes and a soup were served to me—each officialdom is ranked by the count of dishes served per meal; four dishes with a soup put me, much to the anguish of Neiwufu personage, among the ranks of royal tutor—I retired for the first time to my sleeping chamber, the location of future sins and later shame.
    That night, I dreamed of her, my dear darling Annabelle; it was the longest duration we have been apart. She came in a blur of angst, not in any physical solidness. In the background, there were sounds of waves. Amidst the hushing whisper of the sea, I heard her say, “Find her,” and repeating such till both her presence and her voice were no more.

14
    In the graying twilight, In-In led the way along the walled lanes, our footfalls echoing down the courtyards, a lantern dangling from his hand casting our diminished shadows against the walls. I had endured an unbearable audience with the Queen Mother, a painted and bejeweled dowager in her full glory, who had acquired her title by way of an infamous arm-twisting adoption, wrangling the emperor at the age of two from the bosom of his own mother. After a thorough inspection, she dismissed me curtly with a wave of her silky handkerchief. A fan would have been more fitting, but she was being fanned by two young maids, sweeping away the morning flies buzzing over her painted veil.
    I next met four fellow tutors, old scholars who, though