Imperial Uncle Chapter 3

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Princess Huai begins to laugh. She rocks back and forth in place, laughing so hard she can’t catch her breath.

She points to me. “Do you know that you’ve ruined my life? I hate you! Live or die, I’ll never let you get away with it! That’s right, I’m going to make a scene today in front of outsiders! I want everyone in the realm to know that you, Prince Huai, have been cuckolded!”

Then she points at the rice dumpling by the side door. A gurgling sound accompanies her words as she says to me, “So? Your highness? Seeing this lover of mine, do you feel very much surprised? I wonder how you plan to punish him and I?”

The rice dumpling slowly raises its head. A pair of clear eyes turn to me.

My temples pulse with pain, making half of my head all a whirl.

I want to tell her, you’re wrong, the chief culprit who created today’s situation was never me to begin with.

In the several years since Princess Huai married me, her and I have indeed never consummated our marriage, but the root cause wasn’t because I didn’t want to. It’s fundamentally because she wasn’t willing.

Princess Huai is Li Yue’s daughter, and Li Yue was a famously devoted official of the court. In a court afoul with three great cancers, Secretariat Director Li Yue was seemingly a pure white pillar1 standing amid silted turbulent waters. The former emperor and the current empress heavily relied upon him. In the end, having overworked, he died in the yamen at mere forty-six.

Back then I was at the prime of my youth and had just reached the age to take a wife. Lest I marry one of w.a.n.g Qin or Yun Tang’s daughters and the cancers metastasise into a lump, the empress played matchmaker personally and promised me Li Yue’s daughter, so that Li Yue could at least act as some check on me, this one great cancer.

I agreed to the match quite happily, since Lady Li’s fair name was well known throughout the capital. According to some she had a face that could launch a thousand s.h.i.+ps, and she was also masterfully accomplished in the arts. Which young man would not love such a beauty? I even sent someone to ask about her, and found out that her maiden name was Ruru, that she favoured pale yellow, pink, and Bai Juyi’s2 poetry. The only thing I did not do was climb the Li estate’s walls myself, and write a few of poet Bai’s lines onto leaves and throw them into the garden beneath her chambers.

Yet later I heard that once lady Ruru got wind that she was to marry me, she cried her eyes out and went on a hunger strike in protest, not wanting to marry a treacherous prince like me. Li Yue and his wife set about lecturing her on responsibility for the greater good, and only after a few days of persuasion did lady Ruru decide to abandon the self and marry into my estate for the sake of all living beings under heaven.

Of course, to hear such a thing wasn’t exactly pleasant. But I thought, I was after all a prince, surely I’m not as loathsome as all that. And, that as soon as she crossed my threshold and saw my handsome appearance and my devoted, broad-minded soul, she would change her mind and get along well with me.

On our wedding night, I lifted her veil away and did indeed see the face of a most outstanding beauty. Her gaze was downcast; in candlelight she seemed especially demure, but she had no expression at all. Her countenance was as cool as a bowl of cool water.

I treated her coolness as shyness, and held her hand. I said to her, from now on you and I are husband and wife. You’re Princess Huai, I, Jing Weiyi’s wife. There’s no need for you to call me your highness. You can call me Weiyi or my courtesy name Chengjun as you like. You can even call me darling Yi or darling Jun, it’s all allowed.

I was hoping that ‘darling Jun’ would get a smile out of her, but her expression remained as cool as water, her hand ice-cold and faintly trembling in mine.

I lowered my head wis.h.i.+ng to kiss her lips, but with the expression of a martyr meeting certain death, she closed her eyes, and tears gathered slowly at their corners.

Ultimately, I stopped midway and did not kiss her. Sighing, I asked, “Does just a little touch from me make you feel so terrible?”

She did not utter a word. The pearls of her tears transformed into lines and drew their way down her cheeks.

I felt awfully depressed. I’m hardly the type to enjoy making anyone do things against their will; neither have I reached the stage where I lack company in bed. Why should I sit here and compel a virtuous woman to bed me?

So, as one who is reasonable would, I said to her, “Since you’d not consent to be touched by me, then I won’t touch you. When the time comes that you feel you could accept me, then we’ll do what married couples do.”

Having finished speaking, I went to the study, and pa.s.sed my wedding night with a lonely lamp and a cool quilt.

From that day onward, I treated her as my consort as before. The things she ought to have, I made sure she never lacked. I gave her whatever she wanted.

Once in a while I’d ask her: Princess Huai, have you changed your mind yet?

The first two years she kept giving me that cool water face; the next two years, she’d finally make a derisive sound through her nose, turning her face away. At last, in year five and six she was able to glance at me, then biting her lip, turned her face away again. I was just about to think that there’d been some progress, thinking perhaps one day soon she’d be willing, when today she’d gone and done this.

Indeed, Princess Huai has me utterly perplexed.

The more perplexing is how she’s pus.h.i.+ng all of the blame on me over and over again. She says I gave her the cold shoulder, and not only did she say that I wear a cut-sleeve, she even called me impotent.

Is it possible that all of it really is my fault?

Let’s put aside the matter of my wearing a cut-sleeve without comment for now; I could hardly become a monk because she didn’t want to pay any attention to me.

Then there really would be something wrong with me.

Right then the rice dumpling by the door started to speak, “Your highness, I have never done such things with the princess!”

The room is suddenly quiet again.

Yun Yu’s eyes, bright as snow, turn to him before turning to me.

The rice dumpling’s eyes are sincere and honest. “I am grateful for your highness’s favour, to be allowed to lodge at your estate. I would never do such things against the laws of heaven, violating Confucian ethics — I’d rather die a most terrible death.”

He closes his eyes. “Prince Huai, Princess Huai, you can kill me, punish me, but for her to dishonour my integrity so, and to insult Prince Huai’s reputation too, I absolutely will not tolerate it!”

One would not call his voice loud, and there isn’t much inflection to it either. But for some reason it carries the flavour of a fervent speech in this quiet room.

Princess Huai cuts him off with a resounding laugh. “Integrity? Someone like you dare speak of 'integrity’? That’s truly laughable — laughable! Why don’t I tell everyone what his highness brought you home for?”

Her words are br.i.m.m.i.n.g with bitter sarcasm. Now I’ve no choice but to speak. “Princess, He Zhong was hired on as a bookkeeper because I cherish his talent. You ought to know that.”

Princess Huai says, “Your highness, now that things have come to this, why must you keep up the act? Have you ever been chaste with the young men you’ve brought home?”

Yun Yu laughs out loud again in his guest seat.

He Zhong turns red in the face. “I …”

Now that things have come to this, I have little choice but to say to her furiously, “Princess, how long must you keep throwing around unfounded accusations? When have I ever brought home those I wasn’t chaste with?”

A fierce cough escapes Yun Yu, and he breaks out in riotous laughter. Countless flowers in a mult.i.tude of colours are blooming over minor imperial censor He’s face; seems he’s gone numb long ago.

砥柱 is an actual landmark on the Yellow River named Dizhu Mountain. (It’s just a big rock.) The idiom 中流砥柱 was named for it, and it means pillar of strength. ↩︎

Bai Juyi was a famous Tang dynasty poet. ↩︎