Chapter Text
With an almost inaudible sigh he wrapped his arms closer around his long legs and rested his chin on his knees. It was as if he could hear Suiren’s comment about his improper posture in his head but he didn’t care. After another long day of paperwork without an end in sight he was finally alone. If he weren’t able to sit the way he wanted and felt comfortable now, when would he even have a chance to do so, constantly under observation?
He knew that his position didn’t allow him to be ever truly alone. His station in life made it inevitable that he was always surrounded by other people who were there to protect him or fulfil every wish he spoke out loud and even those he didn’t state directly. Sometimes the frustration about his situation was so overwhelming that he wanted to yell at them to go away, to give him some space to breathe the distant air of freedom, just a moment of being a normal person instead of a member of the Imperial family who were descendants of Heaven itself.
Jinshi didn’t feel like a child of Heaven. Like everyone else he needed to eat and drink and breathe to survive. He could become sick, he could be hurt. The scar on his right cheek was the best example for that, and so was the branding on his flank he had caused himself but nobody was allowed to see. Even more so the Emperor’s late condition, that was, to everyone’s great relief, finally better, showed how vulnerable they truly were. So what exactly made him so different from everyone else that he was caught in this Golden Cage? Why wouldn’t they just let him spread his wings to fly away and escape this life?
On the other side of the door he noticed how Basen suppressed a cough. Autumn had them now fully in its claws, strong winds were blowing around his pavilion and he could hear the rattling of the window shutters as well as the howling in the corridors. Lots of people were catching colds these days, his attendant was no exception to this. He still tried to hide it but Jinshi knew his milk brother very well. Instead of guarding his door he should lie in bed and rest properly before his cold broke through entirely and stopped even a man of Basen’s stamina.
He felt the urge to tell Basen to come in and share the tea he had received from Maomao with him to prevent himself from getting sick. His room was warm, the brazier radiated a comfortable heat so he didn’t have to shiver from the cold before going to bed. He caught himself staring at the door and his heart clenched. Even if he asked Basen to keep him company, he would mostly do so because everything Jinshi said was automatically interpreted as an order. Didn’t the situation the other day showed him that, despite he lived in all this luxury, he didn’t have the possibility to join the others to just go out eating some noodles?
Jinshi sighed again. As much as he wished to have true privacy just once in his life, he couldn’t help but feel incredibly lonely although he was perpetually surrounded by people. He missed the times of his childhood when he ran through a forest together with Basen, how they played as boys like children should do, that he had been his friend and his brother not by blood but by heart. They could never go back to these times, as much as he wished they could. It was a wish they wouldn’t grant him. Basen was not his friend anymore, he was his attendant, his bodyguard, and it was his duty to protect Jinshi, even if it cost him his life.
He didn’t like the idea of his friend dying for his own safety. He already had a bad conscience that Gaoshun had to punish his youngest son because Jinshi had let himself getting injured when he had led the Forbidden Army to destroy the Shi clan. One scratch, a scar that would mark him for the rest of his life, and for this one of the most important persons in his life had been beaten until he had lost consciousness.
There were very few moments he had felt they were back at their jauntily friendship. Basen had to play his role in society, just like Jinshi. They couldn’t be friends like in their childhood. And yet he wanted those times back when he had not been called Moon Prince by everyone around him but Zui or Yue, when he had been teased and was teasing back with a carefree heart, when they yelled at each other and almost went into thrashing without caring to hurt their opponent. He wished they would all go back to telling him straight away when he did something wrong instead of staying silent or rebuking him politely as if he were a child.
Was it really too much to wish for? Having more than one person in his life to call him by his given name? To experience privacy? To have friends he could trust and talk to about his concerns and ambitions? About what he truly desired in life? Couldn’t he be allowed to be vulnerable, just like a normal human being?
Perhaps he wasn’t modest enough. Probably he had to consider himself greedy. If not even those wishes became true, how could he ever expect his biggest wish to be fulfilled? There was just one thing he wanted more than anything else in this world.
His heart pounded hard in his chest and his cheeks felt warm by the mere thought of the woman who he had planned to seduce all those years ago as he had thought she could be useful for him and who had then messed with him so much that he had fallen for her quicker than he realized. It had happened what they had tried to condition him to not do since he had been a little boy—loving a woman that made it impossible for him to be interested in anyone else.
As the Emperor’s younger brother he was supposed to take several consorts, beautiful flowers, daughters from influential families, and fulfil his duty to produce as many heirs as possible. He had always hated the idea and his time at the rear palace as “eunuch” had just confirmed his opinion. He found nothing about those women endearing. They were fighting battles in their own way in a world that was connected to intrigues, deviousness and fake smiles. It was scary how far they went to catch the interest of His Majesty, and although they had believed he was missing one certain body part, they had made countless moves on Jinshi as well.
All the world saw was his pretty façade and his station in life. There wasn’t a week passing he didn’t receive yet another proposal from clans and families to make their daughters his consorts. They all were eager he planted his seed in those women’s wombs. Those children would be nothing more than pawns that were used to gain more power, to influence politics, to be in the Emperor’s favour. Feelings didn’t matter, neither did personal preferences. They were all puppets in a grotesque stage play and none of them had a free will.
He despised the role he had to play. No one seemed to be interested to take a look behind that beautiful façade to see the person beyond. Of course he didn’t deny he had used his looks to get his will. Indeed Maamei had encouraged him to do so even more often, to intimidate and influence those around him who didn’t show him the respect that he deserved in his position. They still didn’t take him entirely serious, after everything he had done in the Western Capital, after everything he had done to prevent the people of this nation to starve. They just kept pushing off their work and loaded it onto him, and even though he was supported by Baryou and Maamei, it didn’t become much better. Currently it was worse than ever before as he had taken over His Majesty’s work in addition to his own during his surgery and the post-surgical time.
His looks didn’t seem to grant him anything but a sheer endless flow of weird objects that were hidden in his palace and continued to find their way here. It was only thanks to Suiren that he wouldn’t find some stranger’s underwear in his bed. If that was the price he had to pay for his beauty, he didn’t want it. Some might consider it a gift from Heaven, for him it was a curse.
Even less than his personality his work seemed to be recognized, and all of this just added up the frustration inside of him. He knew that he was far from perfect, only average in everything he did, and that he still had to improve his skills. Perhaps he was too soft, too kind to decline requests from others, but he wanted to be helpful and do something useful for the sake of this nation.
She neither appreciated his work, but for other reasons entirely. It wasn’t even two weeks ago she had had dinner with him. He had been completely exhausted from his work, barely conscious when she arrived, and she had taken care of him although she had been similar exhausted. For him it had been a ray of light in all of the anxiety he had felt over the past several weeks, a moment of joy to just watch her eating while her presence was gradually recharging his energy.
She was the only person with whom he had the feeling to be just himself. Not Ka Zuigetsu. Not Jinshi, although she still called him by that name, at least when Taomei wasn’t near them. He was just Yue, the playful boy who chased freedom and did everything within his power to make this country he loved a better place for everyone. That boy was naive, he was painfully aware of that, and yet he couldn’t stop dreaming and fighting to achieve happiness in life. He had told her so and he would keep his promise—he would remove every obstacle there was to finally marry her.
They both knew that the biggest problem was his station. As the Imperial younger brother he would always be a potential candidate to succeed the Emperor. He had hoped that with the birth of the Crown Prince and just shortly afterwards another little prince he would finally be freed from the threat that was the throne. But children were fragile and until the boys reached a certain age Jinshi would still be an apparent heir.
She didn’t want him to become Emperor. Maomao hardly ever expressed directly what she wanted, but in this she had been clear, so it meant something to her. He was not suited to be Emperor, she had said, as he would die if he took over that position. Neither did he want to be Emperor or die from overworking himself. He never craved for the throne and he didn’t want to be the object of some factions who fought over who would succeed the Emperor. He had stated it several times already, he was ready to live as a commoner, because as soon as he was stripped from his titles he was no longer an enemy to the Empress and her son.
Yes, he would give up all of this to be with the woman he loved. To be free. And although he had gone so far as branding himself it still wasn’t enough for the Emperor to give up the idea of making him his heir to the throne. Jinshi wondered what else he had to do to make him understand, that there were other potential heirs even though it was probably not fair from his side either to burden that huge responsibility on infants, but something made the Emperor cling to him. And that reason was something Jinshi had always avoided to explore further.
He tried to bury the distant feeling of understanding deep inside of him. It was something he couldn’t explain anyway. It didn’t matter, he told himself, because in the end he wouldn’t have much of a choice when the Emperor made a decision. His very word was an order nobody was allowed to decline. And this meant he would lose her. Never could he marry her when it meant to make her a prisoner in this Golden Cage where they would never be equal. It would break him, but it would break him even more to see her break and him being the cause of it.
His heart hurt when he thought about all that. It had taken them so long to get to this point where they were both on the same page regarding their relationship and even now they still weren’t allowed to be together the way he wished for. With every passing day it got harder for him to restrain himself and she didn’t make it any easier with her actions. His cheeks felt warm and shivers ran down his spine when he remembered how she had run her finger over his hand back then in that carriage. He wanted her to do it again, not only with his hand but his entire body, but this would only lead to something they couldn’t allow themselves to do.
He groaned lowly and buried his face in his hands. He hadn’t seen her since their dinner as they both had a lot of work to do and he yearned for a dose of Maomao to gather some strength for the upcoming days. She was his medicine, the special person who gave him comfort by only being in the same room, and maybe he could allow himself to hold her hand just for a moment. He had learned from her that even the best medicine could become poison if you took too much of it. Jinshi didn’t think he could ever have too much of Maomao, but in their current situation the risk of losing himself was high and this would end in a catastrophe.
A quiet knock on the door made him look up. Suiren entered the room, a tray in her hand. “You should go to bed and rest, Young Master”, she suggested gently and started to collect the items on the table, putting them on the tray. “I don’t want you to catch a cold when you sit here for too long.”
“I’m alright”, Jinshi replied and he noticed how tired he sounded. Perhaps she was right about him going to bed, though. He constantly lacked of sleep and should use every minute he could get to relax and recharge instead of overthinking. It just wasn’t easy not to try to think of a way out of this so he could keep his promise to Maomao.
He watched Suiren picking up the tea can. Lost in his thoughts he hadn’t had much of it. “The tea should still be warm. Share it with Basen, would you? Maomao said it helps preventing colds.”
Suiren gave him a look that told him he should rather have had it himself and he could already sense her comment about it coming. “Xiaomao is always taking care of you, Young Master. You should appreciate her thoughtfulness by drinking what she is providing you.”
He had to hold himself back to not roll his eyes. “I did drink the tea. But I think Basen needs it more than me and I don’t want you to become sick. And if there are still herbs left, please use them for yourselves only.” He spoke with more emphasis this time so his stubborn chief-lady-in-waiting would unterstand he was serious about it.
“Very well. Thank you”, Suiren said, but Jinshi knew freshly brewed tea would wait for him the next morning despite his order.
He gave up trying to discuss with her, stood up and stretched himself. Suiren, always three steps ahead of him, was already bustling in the adjoining room that was his bedroom. It was warm there, too, clean sheets of the finest fabrics waited for him, a mattress not too hard or too soft, fluffy pillows. Only the best for a member of the Imperial family. And yet he would feel all alone again without the possibility to pull Maomao’s small body into his arms, her warmth giving him comfort and having the distant scent of herbs in his nose.
The feeling of loneliness only increased when he eventually lay in bed and stared up at the canopy above. It was one in a dark purple, not the cheesy one with flowers Suiren had used when she had prepared his room for Maomao’s visit. Jinshi was still embarrassed by it and wondered how his over-eagerly lady-in-waiting could have thought that this was something Maomao liked. His cat was very practical and her interests focused on one thing, so if it had been medical herbs or poisonous plants displayed on that canopy he would have had problems making her leave his bed.
He rubbed his face and groaned once more before rolling to his side. He really needed to stop these thoughts or he wouldn’t get any sleep at all that night. And yet this was the one thing that kept him going—the hope of finally being with the woman he loved.
***
Gyouyoh stared at the book in his hand. He already read the same sentence for five times already but just couldn’t process the words. It was because he wasn’t concentrated, of course. His mind was occupied with other things, too many things for one person to handle alone. However, he had to take care of those things by himself. He had his advisors, people who obeyed his very orders, but in the end it was expected from him to rule this nation all alone.
This burden was something he had grown up with. It didn’t mean, though, that he found it easy. One wrong decision and he would lose the trust of his subjects, he could anger the people and start a civil war, or a false word, an affront would lead to war with other nations even.
He didn’t take the daughter of some influential merchant as a consort?—They would lack of several supplies in the future. He didn’t share the bed with the daughter of a minister?—Word would spread the Emperor wasn’t able to produce enough heirs to guarantee the Imperial bloodline was safe. But did he get the wrong woman pregnant, it might give a family power that could be abused so easily.
Making Gyokuyou his Empress had been the right decision. The Western Capital was so far away that things could get quickly out of control. After his grandmother, the Empress Regnant, had destroyed the Yi clan who had been in charge of the region in the name of the Imperial family, it now was the Gyoku clan who had the power. To take a daughter of that family as a consort had strengthened the alliance with the west, and after she had not only borne him a daughter but also a son it was almost inevitable to take Gyokuyou as his legal wife and thus his Empress.
What had happened during Zui’s visit in the Western Capital was alarming. The boy had been vague in his report but if Gyouyoh added what Gaoshun had told him as well as what he had learned from the Mi clan gave him a good picture of the truth. Gyokuen was a smart man who had worked hard to make it to the top, but he was old and his family too big to control it properly. His oldest son Gyoku-ou, his heir, had not only influenced the citizens of the Western Capital to believe it was the Moon Prince who had brought the locust plague upon them, he had also played the role of their saviour when it had truly been Zui who had come prepared for the worst and provided food and medical supplies. And to make everything even worse, he had tried to talk Zui into starting a war with Shaoh.
He didn’t want to think bad about a man who had lost his life but for the peace in the nation of Li the death of Gyoku-ou was a lucky coincident. His oldest son had taken charge of the city and would become head of the clan and although he was a man who was rough around the edges, he at least was loyal to the Imperial family.
Gyouyoh had to be careful, probably more than ever before. He couldn’t forget that Gyokuen had started to fill several posts of the administrative machinery in the Capital with his own family members. It was a relief Zui had refused to take the young girl Gyoku-ou had adopted as his consort and that Gyokuyou had put her under her wings so Gyouyoh neither had to visit her in the rear palace.
Should Zui take a consort from the Gyoku clan as well it could tip the scales of power in a direction that would bring a lot of political unrest. Most people in the Central Capital still had their prejudices and over the last couple of months there were protests of naming a boy the Heir Apparent who was too much of a foreigner. If the Moon Prince would father a child that took after its mother as well, Gyouyoh feared the faction wars would begin anew.
All these matters exhausted him but it also showed that his biggest concern wasn’t solved yet. Wang Mu, the mother of the nation herself, had come from another country. The entire Imperial family had foreign blood. Although they did their best to form alliances for trade with other nations and the citizens made profit of all those supplies, they still couldn’t accept that their future Emperor was a man with the red hair of his mother.
He didn’t want his son to be the target of such hatred but he didn’t have much of a choice to put the boy right to the front although there was someone he would have preferred to be his heir. Zuigetsu was his son, not his brother, and nobody was allowed to know. In Gyouyoh’s opinion he would be the perfect candidate, a strong man, hard-working, intelligent, just. Sometimes he might be too kind, too compliant, too emotional, but that was something he could still learn.
But Zui didn’t want the throne. His poor stomach clenched at the thought of his son standing before him and burning a brand into his flank, claiming that he wouldn’t become Emperor, that he wasn’t Gyokuyou’s enemy, and that he wouldn’t accept any other woman as his wife than Lakan’s daughter. It had broken his heart that he had done this to himself, that he was so desperate. He even wanted to become a commoner, had asked him to grant him a name.
Zui was so much like his mother. Both were birds in a Golden Cage, wanting to break free. There just was a difference—Zui had been born into all of this because Gyouyoh had been egoistic and too much in love to let go of Ah-Duo. He had made her a prisoner, kept her by his side because he couldn’t do without her. Even now he couldn’t set her free completely and would visit her whenever it was possible. Zui, however, fought strongly to escape, and if he couldn’t break free he would rather let go of his love than to force her into this life.
He really had to love this girl a lot and as a father Gyouyoh wished to see his son happy. She surely had an interesting character, obviously something that ran in that family, a connection she liked to deny, but she was smart, talented and he came to appreciate her opinion on several matters. Her dry comments and her wit were refreshing. He had only witnessed those two a few times together, nevertheless he thought Zui and her were a good team. They complemented each other and he would die in peace if he knew they would rule this nation when he was no longer part of this world.
Gyouyoh had repeated his wish to make Zui his heir before his surgery. He hadn’t known if he would survive and had eventually set up a will with the aid of Ah-Duo. Yes, as a father he wanted his son to be happy. But as Emperor he had to make decisions that didn’t always comply with his own preferences and desires. He had to do what was best for the nation. And that was why Zui’s name was written there into his last will. Ah-Duo had smiled sadly at him and it wasn’t as if he did it to torture their son. She had switched the babies to provide him the best care. He was his only child who had made to adulthood so far. And although Zui didn’t see it himself, he was the best option.
He had to live with the knowledge that the woman he truly loved despised him for signing their son’s fate like this. Zui’s wrath would follow him into the afterlife and until then he had to live with the knowledge what he would do to his son. He couldn’t hate himself more for doing this, and yet. And yet. Zui was his son and Gyouyoh was an egoistic man. He couldn’t let him go.
“Gaoshun?”
“Sire?”
He looked at his attendant who stood calmly in the corner of his room. His milk brother, the man he trusted with his life. “Am I a bad man for still wanting Zui to be my heir?”
“I’m sure Your Majesty has taken all available possibilities into consideration to come to a decision. It’s a decision that isn’t easy to make and that is also what the Moon Prince will think when he learns about it.” Gaoshun was an intelligent man. Of course he wouldn’t tell him right into his face that he was a damn idiot. “I’m just curious how Xiaomao will take the news.”
“I hope she won’t let him send her away”, Gyouyoh mumbled. Another egoistic wish, but he still wanted it for Zui’s sake.
Gaoshun sighed quietly and for a moment he seemed to be lost in his thoughts. “Me too”, he eventually said.
Gaoshun knew Zui better than he did. He also knew Maomao. His opinion mattered to Gyouyoh. When he believed they could make this work, it would make him sleep better. As long as Zui didn’t continue his self-destructive behaviour there was still hope. Hope for the future of this nation. Hope for his son to accept the role he was born for. Hope for his love to bloom. Hope for grandchildren, perhaps rather sooner than later. And, this was something the Emperor would never speak out loud, it also had its advantages to have a daughter-in-law who could provide him his new favourite literature.
Gyouyoh picked up his book again but that night he wasn’t able to properly read even one page.