Consort Lihua’s condition was worse than Maomao had
thought. She changed the millet porridge for thin gruel, but Lihua could hardly sip it from the spoon. Maomao had to work Lihua’s mouth open, pour the gruel in, and gently help her to swallow.
Not the most decorous routine, but then, this wasn’t the moment to be worrying about decorum.
This was the biggest problem: Lihua wasn’t eating. An old proverb held that a healthy diet was as restorative as good
medicine, and Maomao knew her patient wouldn’t get better if she didn’t have some food. And so she persisted obstinately in trying to feed Lihua.
She had the air in the room changed, and the cloying scent of incense lessened, replaced by that characteristic odor of a sick
person. They must have been burning the incense in hopes of covering the smell of Lihua’s body. How long had it been since
she’d had a bath? Maomao felt ever more enraged at the witless ladies-in-waiting.
At least the young woman Maomao had upbraided seemed to have learned something from it. The whitening powder she’d been using on Lihua had been from her own secret stash. Sad to say,
the eunuch who had failed to find and confiscate the powder was condemned to be beaten. Birth could affect even the punishments one received.
Maomao derided the eunuch in charge of all this as a worthless idiot to his face, but it didn’t seem to mean much. He turned out to be one of those high-born people with “special” proclivities.
Maomao had a cloth and a bucket of hot water prepared, then summoned the other ladies-in-waiting to help her wash Consort Lihua. The ladies looked uncomfortable, but at a glare from Maomao they meekly went along.
Lihua’s skin was so dry the water hardly beaded on it, and her lips were painfully cracked. They applied honey rather than red
makeup to her lips, and her hair was tied back in a simple knot.
Now they just had to get her to take some tea whenever they could. Once in a while, she was given watered-down soup
instead. It would help her get some salt. This would cause her to use the toilet more, expelling the toxins from her body.
Maomao had thought the consort might reject this unusual new caretaker, even think of her as an enemy, but Lihua was as pliant as a doll. Looking at her vacant eyes made one doubt whether she even knew one person from another. But then they were able to increase her portion of gruel from half a bowl to an entire bowl, and then to add some rice and grains. When Lihua was able to chew and swallow without help, meat stock was
added, making a savory soup, along with mashed fruits.
One day when she had managed to use the toilet on her own, Lihua suddenly spoke: “Why ie?”
Maomao stood closer to catch the whispered words.
“Why didn’t you just let me die?” The voice was vanishingly small.
Maomao frowned. “If that’s what you want, then just stop
eating. The fact that you keep taking your gruel tells me you don’t want to die.” And then she offered Lihua some warm tea.
The woman gave a gentle cough. “I see…” She smiled, however faintly.
Lihua’s ladies-in-waiting tended to have one of two reactions to Maomao: either they were terrified of her, or they were terrified of her but still fought back.
Guess I went a little too far.
Once Maomao’s emotions hit a boiling point, she was wont to boil over herself. She knew it was a bad habit. She’d even
abandoned the delicate language of the court for more uncouth expressions. Maomao might not show much emotion, but she had a warm heart, and it honestly hurt her to see people regard her from afar as if looking at a devil or a monster. She rationalized this latest outburst: it had been in the service of taking care of Lady
Lihua. It had been necessary.
Jinshi himself put in frequent appearances. Whether on the orders of the Emperor or at the behest of Consort Gyokuyou,
Maomao didn’t know. Bent on making use of anything that was provided to her, though, she asked him to have a bath added to the Crystal Pavilion. The extant bathing facilities were expanded to include a steam bath.
Maomao tried, indirectly of course, to communicate to Jinshi that he could not help and was not wanted here, but he still
stopped by to smile at her at every opportunity with the tenacity of a ghost that was haunting her. He clearly, Maomao concluded, was a eunuch with far too much time on his hands. She wished
he would take a cue from Gaoshun, who at least had the decency to bring treats whenever he showed up. A person as thoughtful as that might make someone a good husband—even if he was a
eunuch.
Lihua, meanwhile, was encouraged to consume fiber, drink water, and to sweat—anything that would help move the poison out of her system. Two months passed focused on this and only this, and finally Consort Lihua was even able to walk on her own.
She had already been in a severe condition on account of her emotional malaise. Maomao judged that as long as she didn’t take in any more of the toxins, she would be all right. It would take
some time yet for her to regain her healthy figure and the flush in her cheeks, but she no longer seemed to be standing on the banks of the river that divided this world from the next.
The night before Maomao was to return to the Jade Pavilion, she went to pay her formal respects to Consort Lihua. She half expected to be dismissed as someone too lowly to merit the
consort’s notice, but this was not the case. Lihua, she learned,
had her pride, but she wasn’t prideful. With all that had happened surrounding the prince, Maomao had come to think of Lihua as
quite a disagreeable woman, but in fact she had the comportment and personality of a true Imperial consort.
“I’ll take my leave tomorrow morning, milady,” Maomao told her. She added some instructions regarding what the lady was to eat, and a few other cautionary pieces of advice, and then went to leave the room.
But Lihua said from behind her: “Young lady, do you suppose I will ever be able to bear another child?” Her voice was flat and
affectless.
“I don’t know. The only way to find out is to try.”
“But how, when His Majesty no longer has any interest in me?”
Her meaning was clear enough. She had only conceived the prince because the Emperor happened to visit her after his time
with his favorite, Consort Gyokuyou. The fact that there was three months’ difference in age between the little princess and the little prince revealed the truth of the matter.
“It was His Majesty who ordered me to come here in the first place. Now that I’m leaving, I must think you will see him again.”
It wasn’t a political or emotional problem. The issue was the same for both of them. The rear palace being what it was, love and
romance had no place here.
“Do you think I can yet win out over Consort Gyokuyou? I, who ignored her advice and killed my own child doing so?”
“I don’t think it’s a question of winning. And as for our
mistakes, we can learn from them.” Maomao took down a vase that was decorating the wall, a slim thing designed to hold a
single flower. At the moment, it was occupied by a star-shaped bellflower. “There are hundreds, even thousands of kinds of flowers in the world, but who would dare say whether the peony or the iris is the more beautiful?”
“I don’t have her emerald eyes or fiery hair.”
“If you have something else instead, then there is no problem.” Maomao’s gaze traveled down from Consort Lihua’s face. They always said those were the first things to go when you lost
weight, but Lihua still had her ample endowment. “I think size like that is quite a treasure.”
Maomao had seen a great deal in the brothels, so she should know. She would keep to herself the fact that she’d been struck by a certain amount of amazement every time they bathed the consort.
Given that Lihua was the rival of her own mistress, Maomao couldn’t help her out too much, but she decided to give the
woman a last gift before she left. “May I whisper in milady’s ear?” And then, quietly so that no one else would hear her, she gave
Consort Lihua some advice. A secret technique one of the older ladies of the night had told her it “couldn’t hurt to know.” Sadly, Maomao lacked equipment of the necessary size. But this
particular technique seemed the perfect thing for Consort Lihua. Lihua’s face went as red as an apple when she heard it. What
Maomao might have told her was a subject of lively debate among Lihua’s ladies-in-waiting for some time afterward, but it was all
the same to Maomao.
There was a period after this when His Majesty’s visits to the Jade Pavilion became noticeably less frequent. With a mixture of
irony and real relief, Consort Gyokuyou only said: “Phew! Finally, I can get a little sleep!”
Maomao gawked in surprise. But that’s a story for another time.
