Chapter 30: Wu Mei, How Do You Think I Should Deal with You?
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Chapter 30: Wu Mei, How Do You Say I Should Deal With You?
Sunlight streamed into the hall, spilling across the bright yellow robe of the man who had just arrived. He strode in with the imposing gait of a dragon and tiger, taking great, confident steps.
Empress Wu found the reflected light from his robe painfully dazzling. Raising her sleeve to shield her eyes, she called out, “Who are you?”
“After several decades apart, Lady Wu, have you actually forgotten me?”
The newcomer’s voice was deep and resonant.
“Arrogant!” Empress Wu flew into a rage.
The title of Lady Wu was the festering scar she could never erase from her heart. Today, someone had torn it open without mercy, ripping away the scab together with the blood beneath. How could she not be furious?
“Guards! Seize this insolent wretch!”
“Let me see who dares!”
The palace attendants who had been moving forward to arrest him froze beneath his blazing gaze and shrank back, not daring to take another step.
Even while Emperor Gaozong was alive, he had never possessed even one ten-thousandth of that imperial bearing.
The man slowly advanced until he stood before Wu Meiniang. With a cold smile, he asked, “Lady Wu, take a good look. Who do you think I am?”
Without the attendants at her side, Empress Wu had shed the terrifying mantle of her rule and was now utterly flustered. She could not understand why a single shout from this man had been enough to make the attendants lose their nerve.
She raised her head. The robe was strangely familiar, embroidered with a five-clawed golden dragon. Then she looked higher—and saw a face she could never forget, not for as long as she lived.
“You... You are Emperor Taizong?!”
Empress Wu’s face went deathly pale. She asked the question in disbelief.
At that moment, the ministers in the court who remained loyal to the House of Li also heard her terrified cry. Their hearts leaped with joy, and they fell prostrate in worship as spontaneously as children greeting their mother.
“Welcome, Your Majesty, Emperor Taizong!”
“Empress Wu has acted against the natural order, behaving like a ravenous wolf and doing whatever she pleased. The court has been filled with resentment, yet she has shown no desire to repent. Driven by her selfish hunger for power, she even schemed against and murdered her own son!”
Li Shimin listed Empress Wu’s crimes. When he reached this point, the corner of his mouth lifted into a contemptuous smile.
“Guards!”
“Present!”
“Summon the Emperor, Li Zhi, and the former Crown Prince, Xian!”
When Li Zhi entered the hall carrying Li Xian’s body, even the most stubborn of the opposing faction completely lost their composure.
They might not have recognized Emperor Taizong, Li Shimin, but Li Zhi had been dead for less than two months. How could they fail to recognize him—even if this Li Zhi appeared several decades younger?
“We pay our respects to Your Majesty!”
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The ministers loyal to the House of Li felt as though they had drunk honey. Their spirits, which had sunk to the very bottom, now floated back to the surface. But when they saw the unconscious—or perhaps lifeless—Li Xian in Li Zhi’s arms, their hearts turned cold.
“His Highness the Crown Prince...”
Li Xian had long enjoyed great popularity among the ministers, many of whom regarded him as the most suitable successor to Li Zhi. To see him suddenly struck down was heartbreaking.
When Empress Wu heard that Li Zhi had arrived, she raised her head with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. What met her gaze, however, was a pair of eyes as dead and still as a stagnant pool.
The disgust, loathing, and bone-deep hatred within them were utterly unfamiliar to her.
The once high-spirited Empress Wu instantly withered. She allowed the armored soldiers to drag her down from the dais without offering the slightest resistance.
Li Shimin sat upon the imperial throne with his legs planted wide, proclaiming that Emperor Taizong had returned once more to his loyal Luoyang Palace.
Pei Yan and the other two men who had been taken away were brought back as well. Their earlier dejection had vanished completely; they now stood in the hall with their heads held high.
Emperor Taizong had returned. At last, justice had come!
Emperor Taizong had returned. The Great Tang was saved!
“I, Pei Yan, pay my respects to Your Majesty, Emperor Taizong.”
Pei Yan first bowed in formal obeisance, then drew a scroll from within his robes and presented it.
“This is Li Jingye’s Proclamation Against Wu. I humbly ask Your Majesty, Emperor Taizong, to read it.”
Being addressed as “Emperor Taizong” made Li Shimin deeply uncomfortable. A posthumous temple name was something given only to dead emperors. He was in the prime of life, vigorous and full of strength. Calling him that felt terribly inauspicious.
Li Qing stepped forward and accepted the proclamation.
He glanced over it, then asked, “Which one of you is Shangguan Wan’er?”
“This woman is here.”
Li Qing followed the voice and saw a woman of extraordinary beauty, her bearing as refined as an orchid. Her brows and eyes were clear and cool, as though an entire season’s worth of melted snow had gathered within them.
No wonder she would later become the woman who weighed and measured the affairs of the empire.
Li Qing admitted that his collector’s instincts had been aroused.
“Bring me a stool. Then take this and read it.”
Shangguan Wan’er bit her lip lightly and glanced at Empress Wu, who was kneeling below. She obediently brought Li Qing a stool and accepted the proclamation from his hand.
Li Qing was very pleased by her ability to read the situation.
Perhaps... he should bring her back to tutor the fourteen-year-old Wu?
A wicked thought suddenly occurred to him. Wu Meiniang and Shangguan Wan’er had a grudge between them—a blood feud, in fact.
Judging from her current appearance, Shangguan Wan’er probably did not yet know the truth behind the destruction of her family. It was time to let her learn just how cruel the world could be.
Shangguan Wan’er had no idea what was going through Li Qing’s mind. She unfolded the proclamation, but after reading only the first sentence, her brows knitted together.
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“This... Young Master, do you really want me to read this?” she asked hesitantly.
“I told you to read it. So read it,” Li Qing ordered.
“Yes...”
Shangguan Wan’er did not dare object. She parted her vermilion lips, her voice flowing like a murmuring brook.
“The false Wu usurper who rules from the court possesses neither a gentle nor an accommodating nature; her origins are in truth humble and lowly. Once, she served beneath the late Emperor Taizong...”
When she reached the phrase about “entangling our sovereign in the sharing of a doe,” Li Shimin’s face darkened. He turned and kicked Li Zhi, who was standing nearby, nearly sending him sprawling.
The expression “sharing a doe”—pronounced like “you”—was an elegant way of saying that two stags shared one female deer. Put plainly, it mocked the elder Li and the younger Li as men of the same kind.
Still, at least the son bore the surname Li. That was better than Yan’er bearing the surname Wu.
“Jingye, an old minister of the imperial Tang house, the heir of a duke...”
At this, Li Shimin interrupted her.
“Jingye? Who is this man?”
“Your Majesty, Li Jingye is the grandson of the late Duke Ying, Li Ji,” Pei Yan immediately replied.
Li Shimin gave a slight nod, neither approving nor disapproving. Then he said to Shangguan Wan’er, “Continue.”
“Yes. Having inherited the achievements of the late emperor and received the abundant grace of the present dynasty...”
“...The soil upon his grave is not yet dry, so who will care for the six-foot orphan?”
“What splendid writing!”
Li Shimin could not restrain his admiration. He repeated the line several times, finding it truly exceptional.
Its meaning was that the soil on Li Zhi’s grave had not even dried, yet his heir had already been left with no one to protect him. After savoring the words again, Li Shimin lifted his foot and kicked Li Zhi in the backside.
“With such talent, you failed to bring him into the court? What were you doing, Foolish Slave?”
The kneeling ministers below watched with faces twitching uncontrollably.
Good heavens—the late emperor was being beaten in broad daylight. Yet this was also nothing more than a father disciplining his son, and therefore perfectly proper. They wanted to intervene, but when they recalled how Li Zhi had poisoned the court over the years and appointed worthless men to office, they extinguished the thought of offering any remonstrance.
Some even secretly thought:
Well done! Hit him harder!
When the proclamation had been fully read, Li Shimin looked toward Empress Wu, kneeling below, and asked in a cold voice, “Your crimes are laid out with perfect clarity in this proclamation... Wu Mei, how do you say I should deal with you?”
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