TWO YEARS HAD passed since I left Luoyang when a terrible winter cold confined me to bed. It took me longer than usual to recover; I had to suspend the morning salutation for a month. Even when I was well again, I could no longer walk without help. I was horrified by this deterioration, convinced that I had fallen prey to the evil spirits of my rivals. Fifty years after their death, the Empress Wang and the Splendid Wife had surged suddenly in my dreams, accusing me of having ordered the murder of my own daughter. I hastily fled Long Peace. Luoyang welcomed me with acclamation and tears.
THE COURT WAS like a merciless mirror, reflecting my decline: The Supreme Son grew more stooped every day-so much waiting for the crown had turned him into an old man. Moon was nearly forty, and she was a grandmother herself. The kings, my nephews, who were still involved in endless intriguing, had to dye the hair black at their temples, and their foreheads were ravaged with creases. The great voice among my ministers had fallen silent: The chancellor Di Ren Jie had died. The government had lost its soul and I my right hand man.
The Empire continued to flourish, although I had less energy to bear the weight of prosperity. My judgment had slowed, and it took me twice as long to study a dossier. I was no longer a wizard of solutions. I secretly longed to retire, leaving Luoyang with my lovers. I dreamed of spending my last days in the Palace of Solar Breath far away from earthly matters: In the spring, there would be the cruise along the River of Rocks; in the summer, open-air concerts; in the autumn, poetry competitions would be washed down with chrysanthemum wine; in winter, my palace would be surrounded by snow, and puppets would act out plays that I had written.
I accepted when the Court offered the Zhang brothers the title of Great Lord, but refused my children’s hypocritical suggestion that they be raised to the rank of kings. Favorites should be kept far from the circle of power. But my rigorous attitude failed to reassure my anxious ministers. Some leagued against the two brothers and queued before me, trying to convince me of their ambition. I took note and made no comment. I left my government to its worrying. I left my sons, daughter, and nephews to their hateful jealousy. I left my favorites to pursue their pleasures in torment. My loneliness was bleaker than ever. Paralyzed by fear and despair, I watched my eightieth birthday draw nearer and nearer.
How could I abandon my empire, my lovers, and my descendants? How could I leave Luoyang, its peonies, canals, and bewitching loveliness? How could I exchange the comfort of my bed for a coffin, my sumptuous palace for an underground chamber? How could I close my eyes, stop hearing, or let myself forget? How could I stop breathing, stop existing? What would my next life be? Would I be a beggar having been a sovereign? Would I change into a bird to fly away from the very pinnacle of humanity or into a stone thrown down from the summit having fulfilled my destiny?
I called exorcists to my palace. Monks in monasteries recited purifying sutras and prayers in my name. I offered up my sacred veins to leeches, my divine scalp to the acupuncturists’ silver needles. I braved snakebites and suffered in hot mud and iced baths. There were brief periods of improvement, occasional miracles, but evil continued to make its progress through my body. I could no longer walk; two sturdy serving women carried me in a litter. My words became confused and Gentleness served as my interpreter. The most simple tasks and gestures became personal battles. Something stronger than my own will was triumphing over me. The gods punish men in their arrogance and pride. Little Phoenix, so indolent and offhand, had ended his days in a morass of pain. I who had held the reins of my destiny so firmly, I who had commanded the greatest Empire beneath the skies, was robbed of authority over my own flesh.
Every day I lost a little more control over myself. My deterioration bewildered the high-ranking dignitaries so accustomed to my energetic authority. There was talk of the Supreme Son and his wife growing impatient, of my nephews adjusting their strategies, of more and more courtiers abandoning Simplicity and Prosperity to join the heir’s camp. Terrified by the slander, my favorites sought more privilege and fortune to insure their future.
The internal conflicts that had been kept secret burst out into the open one day. The prosecutors from the Lodge of Purification opened the hostilities by accusing Prosperity’s and Simplicity’s three brothers of corruption. My lovers rested their heads on my pillow, sobbing, and pleading their family’s innocence. The ensuing investigation attracted further complaints: more and more people came forward as witnesses with various forms of proof. I was unable to act against the rulings I myself had imposed and was forced to exile the guilty parties to distant provinces. But I also banished two of my eminent ministers who had lead the hostilities against Prosperity and Simplicity. These judges were insisting-on the grounds that the law saw all close relations of condemned men as guilty of a comparable crime-that my favorites be stripped of their positions and their nobility. I had to be very wily to extricate myself from the situation. Under my instructions, Great Minister Yang Si Jian stood up indignantly, exclaiming, “The Lords Zhang have helped ensure the Emperor’s longevity, and for this the Empire is deeply indebted to them. They are, therefore, protected from crimes committed by their relations.”
A few months later, the prosecutors made the charges again, issuing a writ against Prosperity for annexing good farmland so that he could extend his residence. Once again I had to negotiate with the government, and the young man was punished with a fine.
Prosperity lay weeping in the gynaeceum, tears rolling down his lovely face, transparent droplets, morning dew on a pale peony. When he was tormented and distressed, he was even more intoxicatingly beautiful. I secretly relished his charms as he wept, and I forgot to scold him for his lack of judgment. I promised I would remove his enemies from power-just to see him smile.
The world did not know that Prosperity’s idleness meant as little to me as the government’s obsessive tendency to see him as a challenge to the Supreme Son. I wanted to be done with it, and I was afraid of dying. I was making preparations for my final hour, and all the while hoping for another outcome. I concentrated what little strength I had left on fighting the terror every night before I fell asleep. One day I should never awake.
THE TEMPERATURE HAD plummeted in Luoyang, and autumn rains had turned to winter snow. The sky never cleared and was heavy as a sheet of iron. The roads became impassable and travel along the rivers had been stopped. Cut off from the world, the Capital began to deplete its reserves. I ordered for the imperial grain stores to be opened to save the poor, and for blankets to be handed out to vagrants.
The city was struck by an epidemic. Despite its deep ditches, high crimson walls and closed gates, the plague penetrated the Inner City. Nothing could hold it back, neither the medicinal herbs I had burned, nor their thick smoke that hung in every room, nor the monks’ prayers and conjurations against the spirits spreading this sickness. Along with many of my officials, I succumbed to a violent fever. I lay in bed in the Pavilion of Gathered Immortals and lost all notion of time.
Shadows danced against the walls; sobbing and murmuring came to me as distant waves. I was wandering through the dark, murky corridors of a world with only two seasons: winter, which turned me to ice, and summer, which grilled me in the sun. All of a sudden I stepped over the horizon and saw a lilac-colored sky dotted with mysterious twinkling. A moment later I realized I was seeing my embroidered velvet bed-hangings. I summoned my strength to turn my head to one side. In the lamplight I saw Simplicity and Prosperity sleeping on the bare floor, huddled together like two lost, frightened children. My heart beat with fierce emotion and images came back to me: I remembered Prosperity soothing my burning brow with ice-cold cloths, and Simplicity cradling me in his arms to feed me. I looked at their beautiful, pale faces and thought of their future, which was no longer a future. A son’s Court would take revenge on his mother’s favorites. All the pomp and wealth of the present would be their downfall. In the glory they enjoyed today was inscribed the punishment they would suffer tomorrow.