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If it were Ruyi’s choice, she would never have returned to Hongli’s manor. She had closed her eyes in her own courtyard, content in the knowledge that she would soon be in her peace; and when she opened them, she was in the sedan that delivered her to the palace as a ce fujin.
There was no hope of escape from that place, even in this strange dream. Ruyi could not wake no matter how hard she tried, and almost before she knew it, she was sitting in her room at the old prince manor with Hongli by her side.
You look beautiful in red, he told her.
You also look handsome in red, she replied. Somehow he did not notice that she was stunned and sick at heart, and somehow she endured the night that followed without bursting into tears. The emperor had not been gentle the last time he came to the step-empress’s bedchamber, and if not for the paralytic effect of her confusion, even Hongli’s uncertain hands would have sent her running out of the manor.
In the morning, she understood that this was no dream. She was bound to the Emperor again, though he was still only si ah-ge to the rest of the world yet, and once again she had nothing and no one to support her but Hongli.
Taihou was Consort Xi, and she hated Ruyi as she hated her gumu. Fuca Langhua and Gao Xiyue were still living, and both had opposed her since the day of Hongli’s wife selection. Jin Yuyan was not yet there, but she would be inducted into the harem the next four years; and after Hongli became Emperor, so would Wei Yanwan.
But it was not all bad. Luyun would arrive the year after next, and soon after that…
Hailan.
Not Hailan, she thought wildly. The Emperor must never touch her. At all costs, I must save Hailan from this place.
With no one left for Ruyi to rely on, there was only one way forward.
She picked up the jeweled bracelet on the table beside her bed, and opened the little golden latch that hid Fuca Langhua’s basil seeds inside it.
___
Yonghuang was born early the next year, and by then, Ruyi was Hongli’s di-fujin in all but name.
Fuca Langhua was punished with seclusion three months after her wedding, since her scheme with the basil seeds had been publicly revealed in such a way that even Hongli and Consort Xi could not deny it. Ruyi removed the seeds on the night her marriage was consummated, and placed them back into the bracelet some weeks after Jiang Yubin confirmed that she was pregnant; and after she took an intentional fall in the Prince Manor’s courtyard, the bracelet was smashed against the paving stones, and the basil seeds spilled out upon the ground in front of Hongli, Xi-fei, Gao Xiyue, and Jiang Yubin.
Langhua’s crime could not be concealed. Hongli still cared for his Qingying then, and he would not allow even his mother to say a harsh word to her when Jiang Yubin informed him that Ruyi’s good fortune had prevented the basil seeds from harming the royal heir.
“Check Mistress Yue’s bracelet,” he said to Jiang Yubin, when Consort Xi suggested that Ruyi might have obtained the basil seeds herself. “If there are seeds in her bracelet, the Princess Consort is the only one who can be at fault. Mistress Yue wears that bracelet night and day, so Qingying could never have tampered with it, even if she did have such a wicked heart.”
The basil seeds in Xiyue’s bracelet were proof enough, and Langhua was placed into seclusion while Hongli and Consort Xi continued to pretend that all was well in the Prince Manor. Emperor Yongzheng was not informed, so that good relations with the Fuca clan could continue; but Hongli did not set foot in Langhua’s chambers from that day forward, and he vowed that she would never have the privilege of becoming mother to a prince or princess.
Seclusion was the sole punishment. Langhua was still the Princess Consort and retained all rights to her title, but they meant nothing outside the walls of her courtyard. From her two preferred maids she retained only Lianxin; Sulian was sent to one of the Yongzheng Emperor’s less-favoured consorts and forbidden from contacting Fuca Langhua or her maiden clan.
Qingying would have bitterly regretted this, even knowing what Langhua had done to her. But as Ruyi rested in her wing of the Prince Manor, nurturing the child she already knew as Yonghuang, she felt no guilt. If anything she had spared Fuca Langhua a worse fate; she would not die mourning for Yonglian and Yongcong, fearing for Jingse’s future in Mongolia. She would be well, and quietly tend to her own affairs until the end of her days; and that was already better than anything than the pinfei of Ruyi’s past ever had.
In the wake of Langhua’s seclusion and Yonghuang’s birth, Hongli did not deny Ruyi anything. He indulged her wish to nurse Yonghuang herself, and he did not go to Xiyue at night, though this was out of his own desire. Gao Bin had not yet reached the prominence he would have in the future, and the wonder of a child was completely new to Hongli. He was determined that Yonghuang would live and grow strong; for he was just nineteen, not so warped as he became later, and to him his children were not yet things he could favor and discard as he wished.
So summer came again, and another fall and winter. Yonghuang completed his first year safely, and Emperor Yongzheng liked the child so much that he allowed Ruyi to pay a visit to her aunt.
Gumu wept when she saw the baby, and this time Ruyi knew she could keep her safe from Consort Xi’s machinations.
By the next mid-autumn festival, she was expecting another child; and her father-in-law, upon hearing the news, crossed the threshold of the Empress’s palace for the first time in two years.
Her aunt left seclusion for that New Year’s, and she was at Ruyi’s side when her child was born.
For Ruyi, the second childbirth was more difficult than the last. But when the baby was handed to her, after a labor that lasted a full night and day, she forgot that she had ever known fear or pain: for Yonghuang had come running to embrace her, unable to stay away from his mother any longer, and the small squinting eyes peering up from the bundle in her arms were Yongqi’s.
___
Though she had missed them sorely, Ruyi kept none of her friends at her side past the winter Yongji arrived.
She married A-Ruo away first, though she had nothing to fear from her. Ruyi kept Suoxin close for a few more years, for all of Hongli’s affection could not curb her loneliness for the women who had been as good as sisters to her. But while Ruyi was protected, Suoxin was not; and if she were ever implicated in some plot, as she so often had been during her past life, Hongli would not think twice before using Suoxin as a scapegoat to clear Ruyi’s name.
Jiang Yubin asked Suoxin to marry him two months after Yongji was born; and when Hailan entered the palace as a sewing girl, she remained in Ruyi’s service for less than a season before she was married off to Ling Yunche, who had been promoted some months past after saving Consort Xi from an assassin.
“He is a good man,” Ruyi told her, holding Hailan’s hands as they walked to the bridal sedan together. “He will make you happy, Hailan. You have my word.”
Hailan nodded, uncertain but not afraid. She looked at Ling Yunche shyly from under her veil, not knowing quite what to expect; but whatever she saw lifted her spirits, and she left gladly, with a dowry that would keep her family well for many decades to come.
Ruyi was lonesome after she left, but Hailan came back to visit her once or twice every year. She brought her first daughter the second time she visited, in the midst of the preparations for Hongli’s coronation; and the next year, Ruyi was huang guifei, and she had a healthy daughter of her own.
Jingsi was well and strong this time; and though Ruyi did not know it then, her daughter would survive to the age of ninety-two, and pass on only after a long, long life filled with safety and happiness.
___
It was not until Yongjing was four, and Ruyi past thirty, that she finally understood why she had lived her life over in the first place.
She had not thought of Qianlong, as she sat fading near her plum-blossom tree with Rongpei kneeling beside her.
She thought of Yongji, her last living child, of her mother and father, of her aunt and the sisters that went on before her, and then Ruyi had said this:
If Yonghuang and Yongqi could only be well, if Jingsi and Yongjing had grown up—Rongpei, how good would that be?
The love of a man was less than nothing; even this life had not failed to prove that it was so. Qianlong had many more children than hers now; Ruyi’s body had changed after Yongji’s birth and was no longer beautiful, and there were many other women in his eyes.
But in this life Ruyi had never seen a friend die, or wept in front of her children’s coffins, and after all she suffered as Qianlong’s Empress, that was all she could have ever asked for.
Suddenly, as she sat in her favorite courtyard watching Yongji playing soldiers with Jingsi, Ruyi found herself blinking back tears.
“Niangniang,” Rongpei called, concerned. “Are you ill? I will send for Jiang-taiyi if you’re feeling a chill.”
Ruyi smiled at her and wiped her wet eyes with a handkerchief.
“You needn’t worry. I am well,” she said. “Come, Rongpei. Yongji is calling.”