HLCOB C26
by berryChapter 26
It was an absurd proposal.
“Ha.”
At Jaheon’s words, Lady He let out a brittle laugh.
“Now you tell me to accuse the Empress?”
This male favorite, whom she had been inclined to indulge as one might a younger brother because he acted so prettily, was leaping beyond his station. Biting her lip, Lady He asked again.
“Go on, then—tell me. For what reason should I accuse the Empress?”
Yet Jaheon remained composed, even before her ominous tone.
“By merely sitting still, the seat will come to me; then for what reason must I be the one to accuse the Empress, who is Empress in name alone?”
Yesterday, Chief Attendant Wang Bo had visited Lady He.
Wang Bo had said he intended to depose the Empress soon. He would submit a memorial to depose her on the charge that she cast curses upon the Emperor, and would sweep away the ministers supporting her together with her. In that case, he said, Lady He could easily ascend to the Empress’s seat with the ministers’ backing.
Empress.
The position Lady He had so fervently desired. If she became Empress, anything would be possible. And now—accuse the Empress at once? What nonsense was this?
“You there! Remove this man at once…!”
Lady He was on the point of calling her attendants to drive Jaheon out in a rage when—
“My lady. Even if you ascend to the Empress’s seat, you will not be able to behold His Highness the Imperial Prince.”
“……?”
Jaheon spoke.
“Does your ladyship think that simply because you become Empress, His Majesty will permit the Imperial Prince’s return to the palace?”
“……!”
It was a fact known to only a very few in the imperial household.
That the Imperial Prince—believed by all destined to become Crown Prince and the beloved son of Lady He—was being raised outside the palace. But Jaheon, armed with a modern memory, knew it.
He also knew that Lady He had never once held her son in her arms.
“Even as Empress, you are beneath the Son of Heaven. What His Majesty does not permit cannot be done.”
Lady He’s elder brother, He Jin, to raise her to Empress, had colluded with the eunuchs. From the Emperor’s standpoint, it was an alliance between the inner guard and the outer clan that should oppose each other. He was not a man to sit idly by.
“His Highness the Prince will not be able to return to the palace.”
Therefore the Prince had been sent out.
An imperial prince’s very existence could become legitimacy, could become power.
“So long as your kin, General of the Household He, retains his might, His Majesty will not permit it.”
Unless He Jin chose the weaker Qingliu, unless He Jin died, Lady He’s son—who would serve as rightful justification for He Jin’s power—would never be allowed to return. So it was in the record of events: even after returning, it took long years before Lady He’s son became Crown Prince, on the pretext that, raised outside, he did not know decorum. At Jaheon’s words Lady He laughed.
“Ha ha ha.”
Because Lady He knew it as well.
Though an outrageous omen had expelled her son on the grounds that “to live in the palace is to die,” that was a surface reason only—Lady He knew this too. She had lived with the Emperor for these ten‑odd years; how could she not? How could a wife not know a ruler’s nature, who used even his children as chess pieces?
“Ha ha ha ha!”
After laughing and laughing, Lady He spoke.
“You think I do not know that?”
Anger rose in Lady He toward Jaheon. Yet at the same time, she understood why he was so favored by the Emperor. He possessed the ability to grasp exactly what the other desired. Barely half a day had he seen Lady He; how had he so easily picked out what she yearned for?
But understanding was only that.
“Therefore, I wait.”
The anger remained. Clenching her fist, Lady He murmured.
No matter how she begged, no matter how she pleaded—no one cared about the child. Neither her elder brother, nor the eunuch Zhang Rang who would push her to Empress—none of them spared a thought for the boy. To them the Imperial Prince was a scarecrow. To them the child needed only to live.
“Until the day I can seize the power to bring my child back.”
And to them, Lady He was the same.
Tall and willowy, with white skin, young Lady He possessed all the beauty standards of the late Han—and was, by her own brother, sold into the harem. She need only live here, as a favored concubine.
“To snatch back my child, to gain the strength to protect me and my child from that damned brother who sells us both—I will wait for the hour!”
Thus did Lady He plan to become Empress—to be strong.
It was a chance to overturn a past lived as someone else’s piece. If she became Empress and made her son Crown Prince, she could gain power. But at that, Jaheon smiled bitterly.
“…You laugh now?”
Lady He’s eyes turned razor‑cold.
“Yes. That is so.”
Yet Jaheon met her gaze without flinching.
“What?”
“Power won by bowing one’s head to men is not true power.”
Then he asked:
“Does your ladyship truly think the power they permit is power?”
“……?”
It was a question regarding a premise Lady He had never once doubted. It had been natural to follow her brother’s words; it had been natural to follow her husband the Emperor’s words; it was a doubt she had never borne.
“Let me ask again. Has that power ever become strength for you?”
Doubt begets suspicion.
“Has it not become strength for your brother rather than for you?”
As memories flashed across her mind, Lady He’s hand began to tremble. With that shaking hand she gripped the armrest and looked at Jaheon. Gold—the color that symbolized the Emperor—wavered in Jaheon’s eyes as they fell upon her.
“Or—has it not become strength for the eunuchs?”
Such is the power “permitted” to women by men: used merely in words; it does not function as power. So it had been for Lady He in the record of events; so it had been for Choseon in that record.
“Does that so‑called power remain by your side?”
Lady He could not even keep at her side the son she had borne in pain. For an imperial prince could, in time, become true power. Thus the Emperor took away her son. Realizing this, Lady He began to laugh again.
“Ha ha ha!”
One could not tell if she wept or laughed.
At the sight, Jaheon added:
“In the end, your ladyship will lose everything.”
In that record of events, Lady He, with the help of her brother and the eunuchs, became Empress Dowager—but she could not protect the beloved son from Dong Zhuo. Lady He’s son, Liu Bian, abdicated within five months and was poisoned. Lady He, too, met death in the same manner.
It was the end of one who believed power permitted by men to be real.
“…And you, being a man, wag your tongue well indeed.”
Eyes reddening, Lady He murmured.
“Yet because this humble one is a man, this humble one can aid your ladyship from outside the palace.”
Despite the edge in Lady He’s words, Jaheon spoke firmly to her.
“It is not yet too late.”
“…….”
“Accuse the Empress at once on the charge of jealousy; if you charge her with jealousy, she is no longer a traitor, and collective punishment will not arise—thus the scholar‑officials will not attack your ladyship.”
At his urging, Lady He snorted.
“Attendant Wang said he would submit a memorial at court three days hence, foisting treason upon the Empress. And you think my accusation can alter the situation? It is not as if the Empress’s sorcery is false.”
The Empress, to seek the Emperor’s love, had indeed practiced minor sorcery. If Wang Bo set himself to forge evidence, it would be hard to escape the charge of treason. But Jaheon was untroubled. He did not seek evidence.
“…The situation does not change with truth or proof.”
“……?”
“What changes the situation is people’s reactions.”
At his words, Lady He lifted her head.
“This humble one asks that your ladyship accuse the Empress’s sorcery to spark strife between your brother the General of the Household and the eunuchs.”
Indeed, at first she had thought Jaheon merely a male favorite.
“If strife arises from this, the Qingliu will be able to breathe.”
But on reflection, there were other rumors about him besides the malicious talk of a “male favorite.”
“At that time, under the pretext of seeking a tutor for the Imperial Prince, reach out to the Qingliu.”
Even to Lady He, who lived within the palace, the rumors had come: Jaheon is talent fit to contend with the eunuchs; he is the sage heaven has sent to save Han. And…
A minister beneath one, above ten thousand.
Beneath only one man, above ten thousand men.
“If that comes to pass, even His Majesty will not block the Imperial Prince’s return to the palace.”
In other words: whoever possesses Jaheon possesses the Emperor.