The Lotus with Fangs
The halls beyond her chambers murmured like silk being torn. Servants passed with lighter feet. The lanterns were trimmed too carefully. Something was stirring in the palace again and Ruyi felt it in the marrow of her calm.
She sat by the open window, needle in hand, embroidering a delicate swan cradling a lotus onto white silk, the start of a gift for Lady Su's unborn child. A token of peace. Or at least, what would appear to be one.
Every movement of her needle was slow. Intentional.
Every silence around her was memorized.
From the hallway, she caught the whisper of men talking. One voice she recognized instantly Zhao Long's.
He was speaking with a senior eunuch, voice taut.
"I shouldn't have walked past her that night. She'll never forgive it."
"You're the Son of Heaven, Your Majesty. She will, in time."
"That woman doesn't forgive. She waits. And I don't know what she's waiting for."
Ruyi didn't turn her head.
She only pressed her needle deeper into the cloth.
A Calm That Controls the Room
Later, as tea cooled beside her and the embroidery dried on a silk frame, Chen'er returned with a scroll of court reports.
"They've tightened the guards around the northern library," she murmured. "And the Emperor requested new astrologers. They think misfortune is coming."
"They're not wrong," Ruyi replied, eyes fixed on her next stitch. "But they're watching the stars while the fire smolders beneath their seat cushions."
Xiao He brought in a folded poem Ruyi had been working on for three nights.
"You're really sending this to the Dowager?" she asked.
"It's a poem about a willow tree bowing to winter," Ruyi said. "She'll enjoy the metaphor."
"Does she know she's the willow?"
"Of course not."
Ruyi smiled faintly. "She'll think I am."
Subtle Moves on the Gameboard
By moonrise, Ruyi had instructed her maids to prepare two gifts
One a poetry scroll for the Dowager Empress, written in soft ink and laced with a rare southern verse structure that only two living people still understood. The metaphor implied that power should bend but never break.
Two an embroidered infant robe for Lady Su, with white lotus and jade-green vines. The collar bore a phrase stitched in Ruyi's own hand
"Let those born in storms remember where thunder began."
The Psychology of Stillness
In the corner, Chen'er studied her mistress closely.
"You're giving them softness," she said at last.
"I'm giving them something to admire while they wonder what I'll do next."
Chen'er nodded, then whispered:
"You don't have to shout when you know they're already listening at the door."
Ruyi set her embroidery down and rose from the low table.
"I want them to wonder if the next gift will be a dagger."
And as Ruyi lit incense to scent the scrolls, she smiled not because she was at peace
But because the court still thought silence meant safety.
(The Gifts Arrive)
The morning sun filtered through the lattice of the Dowager Empress's eastern study, gilding the scroll Ruyi had written in faint gold and mist-grey ink. Her calligraphy was elegant, flowing, yet held a sharpness in its strokes that made the Dowager's aged eyes linger longer than she intended.
"A willow bends to winter not in surrender, but in wisdom. The frost is not her end. It is her memory."
The Dowager set the scroll down carefully and exhaled through her nose.
"She's grown teeth," she murmured to herself.
The old eunuch beside her nodded nervously.
"She grows quieter," the Dowager added. "That is the only warning I believe in."
Lady Su's Chamber ~The Second Gift
Meanwhile, Lady Su, still pale from her staged collapse, opened the swaddled bundle with trembling hands.
A hand-embroidered robe of lotus-thread silk unfolded across her lap, its seams marked with white lotuses and soft green vines, and stitched along the collar were the words"Let those born in storms remember where thunder began."
She stared at it for a long time.
Then slowly pulled it to her chest and began to cry. Not from joy.
But because she realized Ruyi had not punished her.
She had shown mercy.
And mercy, in Ruyi's hands, was terrifying.
The Court Responds
Later that day, the hall outside the Imperial Council buzzed.
"They say Consort Ruyi is quietly strengthening her favor with the Dowager"
"She gifted a robe to the mother of the Emperor's heir!"
"Does she seek the Empress title again?"
Even the Grand Chancellor, normally unreadable, looked unsettled.
"The woman doesn't threaten," he muttered to a scribe. "She evolves."
~ A Sudden Collapse~
The court assembled by late morning in the Temple of Eight Harmonies, where a seasonal ritual was being held to bless the empire's agriculture.
It was meant to be uneventful.
Until Minister Wen, who had once opposed Ruyi's presence at court, stood too suddenly during the incense ceremony and collapsed mid-prayer.
Gasps rang through the room. Servants rushed in. The Emperor stepped forward, as did two physicians but it was Chen'er who arrived first, already holding an herbal pouch.
"He's breathing," she said gently. "But shallow. Overheated pulse. Likely stress or spoiled tea."
Several eyes turned toward the gift satchels they had received from Ruyi the week before.
Ruyi remained perfectly still.
Then stepped forward and knelt beside the minister with practiced grace.
"Your Excellency," she said softly, "I hope you have not neglected the instructions I sent with the blend. You did read the part about oversteeping causing faintness in more traditional bodies, yes?"
The chamber fell silent.
The Emperor's gaze flicked to her something between awe, fear and the barest flicker of admiration.
~Later That Night~
Chen'er stood on the terrace, sipping sweet ginger wine.
"They're all paranoid now," she said with a smile. "Half the ministers had their servants brew a decoy tea instead."
"Let them," Ruyi said. "It means they're watching me. That's all I need."
Xiao He rolled her eyes. "You're terrifying."
"No. I'm invested."
She turned toward the scroll of Lady Su's robe and whispered almost kindly
"When the child is born, he'll remember who protected him when everyone else panicked."
And in the palace that claimed to value silence, the woman who never raised her voice had just become the loudest echo in every room.
~Whispers Beneath the Silk~
The corridors were quieter than usual.
Not out of reverence but fear.
Minister Wen was recovering, yes but the cause remained unnamed.
He had collapsed in public, clutching his chest mid-blessing, and his lips had turned gray before the court's eyes.
No poison had been found in his food.
No toxin in his tea.
But the tea he drank had come from Consort Ruyi.
And even though the Emperor refused to speak the implication aloud, the council had heard the silence and felt the weight of it.
"She offered him longevity," one official whispered.
"And he barely survived the gift."
~ In the Garden of Seven Leaves~
Ruyi returned to her private garden that afternoon, the sun golden above the lotus pond.
She was serene.
The butterflies did not avoid her.
"Lady Mei sent two of her spies into the kitchens this morning," Chen'er said calmly as she brushed Ruyi's sleeves with jasmine oil. "They lasted an hour before the Dowager's head maid sent them away."
"She's getting desperate," Xiao He added, balancing on the stone wall like a cat. "Losing her grip. Her ladies don't even look coordinated anymore. One wore winter silk."
Ruyi hummed softly, threading a new poem onto paper:
"Power bends. Influence flows.
But fear?Fear roots."
"She thinks I want the title," Ruyi said softly. "But I don't need the Empress seat."
Chen'er paused. "Then what do you want?"
Ruyi smiled faintly."To be unforgettable."
~The Emperor Watches from Afar~
Zhao Long stood behind the jade curtain of his own pavilion, watching Ruyi from a distance.
She was in profile composed, still, folding a red envelope by hand.
"She's not trying to charm me," he muttered aloud.
The eunuch beside him nodded. "Perhaps she no longer feels she must."
And that was what unsettled him.
He wasn't used to being unneeded.
He had lovers. Allies. Enemies.
But Ruyi?
She had become a presence, like wind.
He could feel her in every corner of the court and no longer knew how to summon her.
Lady Su Receives a Second Gift
That evening, just after moonrise, a second bundle was delivered to Lady Su's quarters.
Inside a box of hand-prepared herbal oils, a poem folded with care, and a note
"You do not need to be afraid of women who do not wish to be queens.
We protect what the throne forgets."
Lady Su trembled reading it.
Because it meant Ruyi had known.
Everything.
Even the staged fall. Even the herbs.
But she had said nothing.
She had chosen mercy again.
And that, somehow, was more terrifying than vengeance.
~Consort Mei Reacts~
In the West Pavilion,Consort Mei stared at her reflection, her fingers trembling on the lacquered comb.
"She's unraveling me," she whispered.
Her maid bowed low. "We can retaliate spread rumors, speak to the Chancellor's nephew"
"No," Mei snapped. "She'll only weave it into her tapestry."
She stood, wiping rouge from her lips with shaking hands.
"If we strike now, it must be without a trace.
Like her."
And in a palace where silence once meant submission
It now belonged to Ruyi who wielded it like a blade, and never once missed her mark.
The Poisoned Petal
~West Pavilion Consort Mei's Strategy~
The incense in Mei's private chamber burned thick and bitter sharp enough to sting the nose. It suited her mood.
She stood in front of her mirror, rubbing rouge from her lips until her skin turned raw. Her handmaid, Jinglu, sat nearby, quiet but visibly anxious.
"She's stolen the Dowager's silence," Mei whispered. "She's cradling Lady Su's guilt. Even the court poets are quoting her verses."
"She gives no speeches," Jinglu muttered. "But every word she pens becomes law."
"Exactly," Mei said coldly. "So we give her the one thing she's never taken for herself, scandal."
Jinglu tilted her head. "A rumor?"
"No. A trap." Mei's eyes narrowed. "There's a delegation arriving from the Southern Tribes in three days. Among them: Envoy Lie Xian, a prince by blood, and a former suitor of Ruyi's before she came to the palace."
Jinglu blinked. "You want them to be seen speaking?"
"No. I want them to be seen exchanging letters."
~The Plan Unfolds~
Mei prepares a falsified letter, sealed with Ruyi's household mark, forged in Ruyi's hand.
It will suggest political betrayal and secret sympathies with the envoy's tribe in exchange for their support in court.
The letter is to be slipped into Lie Xian's belongings, where it will be "found" by imperial guards the next morning.
Mei's voice went icy "It won't destroy her immediately. But it will make the Emperor ask: 'Was I ever hers at all?'"
Jinglu hesitated. "And if she finds out?"
Mei stared into the mirror, smiling without warmth.
"Then she'll learn what it feels like to be undone quietly."
~The Emperor & Ruyi~ An Unexpected Conversation~
That evening, Zhao Long stood alone in the Plum Courtyard again half-hoping, half-dreading she would pass by.
She did.
Ruyi was dressed in muted twilight lavender, with silver-threaded cuffs. No fan. No entourage. Just her presence.
He didn't speak first.
She did.
"Are you sleeping, Your Majesty?"
He blinked at the question. "Barely."
She nodded, not smiling.
"Your face wears silence differently now," she said, voice soft. "Before, it was pride. Now it feels like an apology."
Zhao Long stepped closer. "What would you do with an apology, Ruyi?"
"I'd listen," she replied, "and decide what you actually meant by it."
He exhaled, a quiet relief loosening his shoulders.
"I never stopped valuing you."
"You just forgot how loudly neglect speaks."
Silence again.
Then without being prompted he asked, "Would you sit with me?"
She tilted her head, considering then nodded. "But only if we don't speak of blame."
He led her to the stone bench.
They didn't speak for a long while.
But for the first time in weeks, they were together, not across a court, but beside one another.
And Ruyi gave him something far rarer than forgiveness,a listening ear.
~Back in the Palace The Whisper Before the Storm~
Chen'er stood in the outer court wall garden, moonlight touching her braid.
She held a tiny scroll slipped into her hand by a passing maid from Mei's court. She opened it with gloved fingers.
It read "Letter forged. Mark copied. Movement tomorrow. They think she's too calm to look back."
She smiled slightly and whispered to the moon,
"Then let the court blink. She never needed to look back to destroy what was behind her."
And while the court prepared to expose her, Ruyi adjusted her sleeves, poured her tea, and waited not to stop the knife, but to watch it fall on the wrong neck.