Chapter Text
It was easy to drift off to sleep in the coolness of the night, with Rong Pei at her side. Ru Yi had waited for that drowsiness for so long, and she welcomed it when it came to claim her.
What she didn’t expect was to be able to wake from that sleep.
And yet, she did wake, to the comforting scent of sandalwood incense wafting about the room.
The light was too bright. It took several moments before Ru Yi’s eyes adjusted and she could take in the sight of the room around her.
The room was the first sign of change.
Even from this lying down position, with its limited vision, Ru Yi could tell this was not her bedroom in Yi Kun Gong. Everything about the room, from the positioning of the bed and the windows, to every piece of furniture that she could see, was different.
Where was she? She distinctly remembered falling asleep in the courtyard of Yi Kun Gong, so surely her servants would simply move her inside. Why would they move her to some place so completely unknown?
“Huang Hou Niang Niang! You are awake!” a voice rang out.
Ru Yi turned to see Rong Pei hurrying towards her; she allowed her servant to help her into a sitting position.
“Thank Heaven you are awake, Niang Niang!” Rong Pei was saying. “You gave us all quite a scare!”
Now that Rong Pei was next to her, Ru Yi couldn’t help but feel a prickling feeling at the back of her neck, that something had changed in her servant. She certainly looked concerned for Ru Yi, but there was also a strange hard edge in her eyes that seemed so foreign. Ru Yi felt like flinching at the cool touch of the woman before her, but she could not explain why.
“What happened?” Ru Yi asked, if only to give herself something to say, while she tried to figure out her bearings.
She still didn’t know where she was.
“You suddenly came down with a fever, and have been delirious for two days!” Rong Pei said. “No one could tell what was wrong with you. It is good that you are awake now.”
Ru Yi could not help but frown at this strange account. Jiang Yu Bin had been honest enough about how her illness would take its toll if she stopped taking her medicine, but fever and delirium had not been among the expected symptoms.
“What does Jiang Yu Bin say?” she asked.
For some reason, what was to Ru Yi a completely sensible and utterly mundane question made Rong Pei gasp, and her face whiten.
“Niang Niang, what are you saying?” her servant cried, sounding horrified. “Why are you asking about that unspeakable scum?”
Ru Yi stared as her mind grappled for some sense or understanding. If Rong Pei wasn’t right next to her, with her voice still ringing in the air, Ru Yi would almost think that she had somehow misheard.
But no, Rong Pei had called Jiang Yu Bin an unspeakable scum, with an inexplicable vehemence, and Ru Yi could not understand it. Just this morning, Jiang Yu Bin had come to Yi Kun Gong to check on Ru Yi, and everything had been cordial and well between Rong Pei and the physician.
This morning? Was it this morning? Ru Yi found that she was suddenly questioning even that.
Next to her, Rong Pei was blinking rapidly and staring at her in concern. Ru Yi did not know what was going on, but she could tell that, somehow, in the time it took for her to fall asleep and to wake again, Jiang Yu Bin turned from one of the few people unquestionably trusted in Yi Kun Gong’s affairs to being…what? Some hated foe that could not be spoken of?
Like a fog turning, revealing strange misty shapes, Ru Yi was beginning to realise that more in her world had changed than simply just falling asleep and waking up again.
“I mean…what did the imperial physicians say?” Ru Yi found herself asking slowly, if only to say something to fill the suffocating silence that followed the words of Rong Pei – if that was even who she was.
“Imperial Physician Hu…could not say what was wrong with you,” the woman who looked like Rong Pei said. “He simply prescribed some tonics and said to inform him when you woke so that he could check up on you.”
“Do that, then,” Ru Yi ordered. She had no idea what to expect from this Imperial Physician Hu, but at least it would give her time to contemplate this strange situation she suddenly found herself in.
While they waited for the physician, Ru Yi gave the room a better look now that she was sitting up. Nothing in it was familiar to her. She longed to ask where she was, but she had a feeling such question would be met with the same shock as her assumption that it should be Jiang Yu Bin attending her in her illness.
When Imperial Physician Hu arrived, he was a stranger to Ru Yi, and yet the physician simply took her pulse and asked her about how she was feeling as if they had known each other for years. Ru Yi answered as well as she could, based on what she was actually feeling, leaving out all of Jiang Yu Bin’s diagnosis. Her answers seemed to confuse the physician even more, who simply declared that based on her pulse and vitals, the empress seemed in perfect health, and there was no reason for the fever and two-day delirium.
“Perhaps it was only a bad wind,” Imperial Physician Hu concluded, sounding unsure and bewildered, which displeased Rong Pei. “Your subject would advise that Huang Hou Niang Niang rests, and take fresh air if she feels up to it. If you feel unwell, please summon the physicians immediately.”
Ru Yi nodded cordially and allowed Imperial Physician Hu to leave. Now that she had some time to adjust to her current state, she really did feel quite well. In fact, she felt stronger and more energised than she had been in months, with none of the chest pains and hacking coughs that had been her constant companions for longer than she cared to count.
“Well, how useless Imperial Physician Hu has become!” Rong Pei complained indignantly after the man himself had left. “He is getting on with years, maybe he’s just not capable anymore. Perhaps we should seek other opinions, Niang Niang.”
“No, it is fine,” Ru Yi said firmly. “I am feeling quite well. Come, I wish to dress.”
Rong Pei hesitated, but when Ru Yi simply stared expectantly at her, she nodded and turned to summon the palace maids.
Ru Yi watched as a line of timid maids entered the room and began preparing her clothes and accessories. These faces that she had never seen before only tilted Ru Yi’s world further, and she began to draw a conclusion that seemed entirely ludicrous but also was the only explanation for what was going on.
She might still look like herself – a glance in the mirror confirmed that – but everyone around her had changed, even Rong Pei, whom Ru Yi now realised she only recognised by face and not by manners.
The palace maid Ru Yi had rescued from a eunuch’s abuse had only ever seemed cold on the outside while her heart was full of righteousness, kindness and compassion. It was that inner strength that had drawn Ru Yi to her, and allowed Rong Pei to command respect within such a short time with everyone in Yi Kun Gong.
This woman before Ru Yi now might look like Rong Pei, but what radiated from the maids around them was fear. There was a coldness in the way she spoke to the younger servants that made the hairs on the nape of Ru Yi’s neck rise. If she was surer of where she was, of what this strange place she had found herself in was, Ru Yi would severely reprimand her. But everything that had happened since she woke had been so off-puttingly strange that Ru Yi did not know if it was even wise to place herself against the only person she recognised.
She tried to make it better for the maids by smiling at them as they helped her dress, but none of them seemed to dare meet her eyes. When she praised them, they all startled badly, glancing up at her, eyes wide with fearful confusion, before rapidly looking away again.
While Ru Yi certainly had had young, new maids acting intimidated upon first coming into her service, she always hoped that with time, after getting used to their work and to her, they would all learn to lose that fear. And they often did, at least in the world that she was used to. She expected obedience and respect from her servants, but she never wanted any of them to fear her. The fact that these maids could not even meet her eyes, though they were tasked with such intimate tasks as helping her dress, was disconcerting.
Ru Yi forced herself to stay silent after that.
Once she had been dressed in strange clothes she did not recognise, all opulent yellow gold instead of the warmer purple shades she usually preferred, the maids quietly withdrew. Ru Yi was left with this imitation of Rong Pei again. Not wishing to talk to her, and indeed, not knowing what to say, Ru Yi found herself walking about the room, trying to get her bearings.
It looked standard enough as a room of a woman of the palace. The furniture and decorations were fitting for an empress, which was clearly still Ru Yi’s title. Unmistakeably, this was supposed to be her palace and her home, considering no one had said anything to the contrary, but everything was strange, from the bed in the wrong position, to the white brocaded silk in the sewing basket in the corner.
With everything so strange, Ru Yi found herself unable to keep the seclusion she had forced upon herself for so long. Clearly, this was not Yi Kun Gong, so she no longer had to keep to her resolution to stay inside its walls and let her illness, which was now also no longer present, take over. She needed to find others whom she might recognise, someone other than Rong Pei, whose close scrutiny was making goosebumps rise on her arms.
“Let us go see Yu Fei,” Ru Yi said.
“Niang Niang, have you forgotten?” Rong Pei asked, clearly baffled by Ru Yi’s words. “Yu Fei Niang Niang’s father has recently died in Mongolia, so she is in mourning in Yong He Gong, and cannot see anyone.”
Yong He Gong? Ru Yi stared at Rong Pei for a long moment, unsure of how to answer. Even moving past the fact that Rong Pei could hear Ru Yi mention “Yu Fei” and assumed she simply misspoke Borjigit Eyinzhu’s title instead of speaking about Hai Lan, did this also imply that Eyinzhu was still alive and in favour? In Ru Yi’s memories, Eyinzhu had not survived the punishments forced on her after fabricating accusations of an affair between Ru Yi and Ling Yun Che.
I am definitely not in Yi Kun Gong anymore, Ru Yi realised. This was definitely not the inner palace that she left behind when she fell asleep.
Clearing her throat, and hoping her next words would not betray the fact that she knew nothing of this strange replica of the inner court she was supposed to preside over, Ru Yi clarified, “I do not mean Yu Fei, Borjigit-shi. I wish to go to Yan Xi Gong to see Hai Lan.”
Apparently, she did betray her ignorance, as Rong Pei looked positively alarmed. She rushed over and took Ru Yi’s arm. “Niang Niang, are you feeling all right? Your servant does not understand what you are speaking of! It is Ling Fei who resides at Yan Xi Gong. And surely you cannot be speaking of Yu Fei, Keliyete-shi! She has been dead for many years!”
Whatever anger Ru Yi was beginning to feel at the idea of Wei Yan Wan living at Yan Xi Gong – her and Hai Lan’s Yan Xi Gong – vanished upon hearing that Yu Fei was dead.
The world spun around Ru Yi, and she found her knees buckling so much that she had to grab on to Rong Pei, the only source of support currently available to her. Her mouth felt suddenly dry and she couldn’t seem to be able to take enough air into her lungs.
Turning to stare at Rong Pei, Ru Yi repeated the dreaded words ringing in her mind, not caring how she sounded, “Hai Lan is dead?”
Ru Yi didn’t know what it was exactly about what she said that sent Rong Pei into a panic, but immediately Rong Pei was pulling her towards the bed again and forcing her to sit down. Then, kneeling at her feet, Rong Pei took Ru Yi’s hands between her own and asked with genuine concern, “Niang Niang, Niang Niang, what is going on with you? Why are you speaking as if this is a shock? And why do you sound so pained that that fox spirit is dead?”
“Fox…spirit?” Ru Yi found herself repeating dumbly, wondering how many more ways the world could fracture around her.
“You remember, don’t you, how it was said that she lured Huang Shang in with her tricks all those years ago to gain a position of concubine when Huang Shang was still Bao Qin Wang?”
What Ru Yi remembered, was that Hong Li had drunk himself into a stupor after overhearing his father speak dismissively of his birth mother, the palace maid Li Jin Gui. Upon returning to the manor, he was so blindly drunk and it was Hai Lan’s misfortune to be the first person to stumble upon him after delivering some embroidery products to Gao Xi Yue’s chamber. Hong Li had pinned Hai Lan down in the middle of the garden of Bao Wang Fu. Irony of his actions with Hai Lan perfectly mirroring the one interaction between his father and mother was clearly too painful to think about, and Hong Li, who had been so eager just a few months before to accept Di Fujin’s maid Huang Qi Ying as a concubine, was determined to pretend nothing had happened with Hai Lan in the morning that followed.
Hai Lan’s humiliation had been so great that she tried to hang herself in the middle of the night. She only lived because Ru Yi, burnt with guilt about what the man she then loved did, ventured into the night to visit Hai Lan, thus interrupting her attempt at suicide. Even though Ru Yi eventually managed to convince Hong Li to do the honourable thing – though many times since, she wondered if it was the right thing – and Hai Lan was eventually recognised as Hong Li’s concubine, Hai Lan still suffered years of traumatic nightmares and crippling fear that could only be soothed by Ru Yi’s presence.
That people from the outside could look at the circumstances in which Hai Lan became Hong Li’s concubine, and accuse her of being a fox spirit, Ru Yi did not doubt. But for Ru Yi’s own servant to speak so…she didn’t know whether she was more enraged or heartbroken.
Yet…while Rong Pei did not exactly speak as if she was present in Bao Wang Fu when these events happened, she nevertheless spoke with such authority that seemed to imply she had been with Ru Yi for a long time, ever since before Hong Li ascended the throne at least. What happened to Ah Ruo then? And now that she thought about it, if Jiang Yu Bin was not to be spoken of, what became of Suo Xin?
Ru Yi could voice none of these questions. If she could trust this Rong Pei in front of her, perhaps she might be able to bring herself to confess the changes that she had perceived. But instead of the comfort that her Rong Pei had for so long provided, with this servant in front of her, Ru Yi only felt an unsettling sense of mistrust.
Shaking herself, Ru Yi forced herself to say, “Oh yes, I remember. I am afraid the fever has made me quite confused, and I am finding all my memories jumbled.”
“Perhaps you should lie down and rest, Niang Niang,” Rong Pei said with some suspicion in her voice.
Ru Yi shook her head and stood up. “No, I have been in bed long enough. I am sure a walk in the garden with fresh air will do me good. Do not follow me. I wish to be alone.”
From Rong Pei’s face, it was clear that she was not pleased at this instruction, but when Ru Yi simply gave her a quelling looking, she had little choice but to obey.
Once outside, Ru Yi began to regain her bearings and found, to her surprise, that she was in Kun Ning Gong. What was she doing, making her residence at Kun Ning Gong? While it was traditionally the seat of the empress, it has been long used as simply a location for ceremonies and worship since the Emperor Yong Zheng’s empress refrained from living in it and moved into one of the inner palaces.
Pushing this question aside, she walked on. Passing the path leading into Yang Xin Dian, Ru Yi hesitated. Was he in there? He must be, though she was sure seeing him was the last thing she needed right now, either as her old self, who knew how he would be, or her current self, who now had witnessed how everyone around her had defied her expectations and no longer knew what to expect from him. Her mind and heart were in too much of a muddle already, and she did not need to add him to the mess. After all, what she had learnt over the years was no matter how she suffered, he would likely be fine. She might have somehow been mysteriously transported into a world where she understood nothing, but she was sure he was ever the emperor with a tight, controlling grip of everything under the sun. She did not doubt that if she was to remain here, she would eventually have to face him, but it would not hurt at all to delay that inevitable meeting for as long as possible.
Ru Yi followed the familiar path to the imperial gardens, relishing in the fact that this, at least, had not changed. And yet, the journey only seemed to increase her discomfort, as it was clear that everyone she met, from servants to minor consorts whom she could no longer name, seemed to fear her. They avoided her eyes and stood as far away as possible, making excuses to leave her presence after only a few words. It was clear that whoever this woman was whose body that Ru Yi now inhabited was not well-liked or even respected in the palace. While she knew the position of empress would set her apart, and new concubines coming in who might not know her would certainly start off with being wary of her, she also never wanted for loyalty and respect from those who did know her. Now, it seemed she had none of that.
She did not even have Hai Lan.
Loneliness such as she had never felt before – not even while locked up in the cold palace – pressed down on her heart at the thought. Ru Yi tried to push it aside for now with a melancholy sigh. She meandered into more secluded corners of the imperial gardens, wishing to spare both herself and those of this palace any more uncomfortable encounters.
As she walked around a large rock structure, Ru Yi was suddenly met with a sight that made her heart nearly stop.
There, standing only a little distant away from her, was Yong Qi. He was peering up at something in a tree with amusement shining in his eyes and a wide smile on his lips. Ru Yi found herself breathless at how he seemed to glow with life. She was almost afraid to blink, fearing that he was simply an apparition and if she closed her eyes for just a moment, he would simply disappear again.
If there was any doubt left in her mind that she had somehow been transported into some alternative universe to live another woman’s life, the sight of Yong Qi now obliterated it all. Ru Yi didn’t think she could ever forget that day, when she had arrived at Rong Wang Fu, too late, only to find Yong Qi so still on the bed, unmoving, his face ashen. The only sounds Ru Yi heard then had been Hai Lan’s sobs and her own heart breaking. She tried to come to him, to hold him one last time, her precious child, but the grip that stopped her had been so strong that Ru Yi almost thought her wrist had been snapped broken.
She still felt the pain of that grip, and of losing Yong Qi, in her dreams.
And now…it took all of Ru Yi’s self-control not to let out a sob of relief at the sight of Yong Qi so brilliantly and gloriously alive.
“Xiao Yan Zi, come down,” he was saying to the tree. “I’ll get it for you.”
“I’ve got it!” a voice rang out from the tree, and then tumbling down from it came a girl, who would have fallen unceremoniously onto the ground if Yong Qi had not reached out to catch her.
The girl was clutching a whip of braided rope in one hand – a strange thing for a lady of the palace to have – and her arms were wrapped around Yong Qi’s neck. She grinned at him before hopping out of his arms and landing neatly on the ground.
“I keep telling you, you should be more careful. If I wasn’t here, you’d have fallen,” Yong Qi chided her, though he sounded more amused than anything.
“Well, it’s a good thing then that you’re always there, isn’t it?” she answered, which made Yong Qi smile.
Ru Yi did not recognise the girl, but the way Yong Qi was looking at her was enough for Ru Yi to understand the possible nature of the relationship between them. Ru Yi found herself having to fight the hurt that was threatening to overwhelm her as she remembered the time when someone else also looked at her that way, and yet also the panic at the sight of Yong Qi so freely giving his affection to a girl who might be trying to worm her way into his heart only to drive him to his doom. Ru Yi had to remind herself that this fear was at least a little irrational, considering this girl did not have a single feature resembling Hu Yun Jiao, and Ru Yi also knew nothing of this world and the people in it.
Before Ru Yi could really dwell upon the matter further, the two young people turned and spotted her. Yong Qi’s smile folded into a carefully neutral expression while the girl scowled, and had to be tugged forward to greet Ru Yi.
“Yong Qi pays respect to Huang Hou Niang Niang.”
Ru Yi couldn’t help but wince at the impeccable politeness in his tone and the cool neutral expression on his face. There was no smile and none of the affection to which she had been so accustomed from him. Ru Yi only learnt after Yong Qi’s death that the reason he had visited her so infrequently in his last years was because his heart had been so filled with insecurities and doubts fuelled by Hu Yun Jiao’s poisonous words. And yet, during the moments when they did inevitably find themselves together, he had still spoken to her with all the warmth and respect that he had freely given her all his life. Now, in this moment, this indifference in the voice of the doppelganger of the son she had raised and loved for so many years felt like a thousand knives to Ru Yi’s heart.
“Huang Hou Niang Niang jixiang,” the girl, whose identity Ru Yi still did not know, said. There was something like defiance in her tone, and unlike everyone else that Ru Yi had met thus far, the girl looked up and stared directly Ru Yi. There was an unspoken challenge in her large, round eyes. Ru Yi couldn’t help but feel like the girl was daring her to take her to task for something. Certainly, between the unladylike tree-climbing, the improper display of affection and the petulant tone, Ru Yi the empress had her pick.
Defying her expectations, Ru Yi simply said, “Rise,” to them both.
Yong Qi asked after her health and expressed concern over her illness, all very correctly, while the girl remained silent. Ru Yi was burdened with too many confusing emotions to really be aware of how she answered. Her distraction must have been clear to Yong Qi, though, because after a few perfunctory scripted words, he made excuses to depart.
“If Huang Hou Niang Niang is desiring a walk alone in the garden, then we will not disturb you further.”
Waiting only a beat and after not receiving any other response than silence from Ru Yi, Yong Qi nudged the girl, who gave a shallow curtsy, before the two of them turned to walk away.
“Yong Qi!” Ru Yi found herself calling out before they could disappear.
He froze in his track and turned around to look at her. She could see a confused suspicion in his eyes that made her wonder if her familiar use of his name had been strange. After all, she was “Huang Hou Niang Niang” to him, in all defiance of protocols that dictated he should call her “Huang E’niang”, regardless of the closeness of their actual relationship with each other.
“Huang Hou Niang Niang, do you have some other instructions?”
She didn’t know, even as she called for him, what she was planning to say. She only knew that the mother’s heart in her that had yet to stop mourning him just wanted a few more seconds to look at him.
Did he know how her heart was breaking, to see him stare at her without really seeing her, with such indifference in his eyes?
In the end, Ru Yi couldn’t think of anything to say, not to this version of her son who was a stranger to her.
“No, go on,” she finally said, and turning away, so that they could not see the tears in her eyes.
As she walked away, she could hear the girl saying without much discretion, “What’s gotten into her?” and Yong Qi shushing her.
Ru Yi had expected the walk in the garden to give her some space to sort out her thoughts, but then, clearly, she had not expected to run into Yong Qi. The brief encounter tossed her heart into a storm, and it was not just simply his indifference that hurt. As she walked away from Yong Qi and the girl, Ru Yi was assaulted with the realisation that this Yong Qi not only did not have any cordial relationship with her, she could not even be sure he knew Hai Lan at all.
Hai Lan had been dead for many years, Rong Pei had said. How many was ‘many’? How did she die? Was it possible that in this world, the physicians failed to save her that night that Yong Qi was born? Certainly, neither Yong Qi nor Hai Lan were meant to survive the birth, and only did so because Jiang Yu Bin caught on to the plot against them early enough to do some damage control. But if Hai Lan did not have the care of Jiang Yu Bin, it was only too easy to imagine that she died that night… It might be a miracle that Yong Qi survived at all…
Even then…what dangers must he have been in all these years? Did Yong Qi ever have any protection at all, or had he somehow managed to survive this long only by the grace of some heavenly god? Jin Yu Yan had been so displeased when he was safely born, stealing Yong Cheng’s thunder of being the first and thus far only prince born during the emperor’s reign. Even with Ru Yi’s protection, there had been enough evidence of failed attempts on his life, particularly in the early years when it would have been easy enough to dismiss his death to some common childhood causes. Though Ru Yi never investigated fully because her Yong Qi had made it through it all, she would not be surprised if those plots eventually traced back to either Empress Xiao Xian or Jin Yu Yan.
As Yong Qi grew, Hai Lan had advised him to hide his talents, to not let his natural brightness outshine Yong Cheng, precisely because there had been so many plots against him, indeed against the three of them, over the years. Hai Lan, too, only survived so long in the palace because she hid her true intelligence and talents, and allowed her competitors in the palace to draw the conclusion that she was meek, weak and without favour, thus not worth having to deal with.
Ru Yi understood what protection playing dumb had afforded Hai Lan over the years, especially during the time when Ru Yi was not physically there, or did not have the power, to protect her. Ru Yi herself doubted that such same tactic would work for Yong Qi, but she chose to not interfere with Hai Lan’s parenting. She understood, and she hoped that Yong Qi did too, that Hai Lan was only seeking to protect him. In the end, Jin Yu Yan and Yong Cheng’s own arrogance had been their fall, and it had not taken much for Qian Long to recognise Yong Qi’s worth, even if it had been for naught, in the end…
But it did not have to be for naught here…Ru Yi slowly realised. Was this some sort of twisted second chance she was getting? But a second chance to do what?
It occurred to her suddenly that, aside from clearly having been transported to some alternate universe, she also did not know what time period she had arrived in. Looking at Yong Qi, she thought he looked younger than when she last saw him, but she could not tell how much younger. It could not be much. If she had been taken back in time as well as to a different universe, was this a chance to save herself? Or to save Yong Qi?
How was she to do either, without knowing anything about this world she suddenly found herself in, with none of the people she so trusted and depended on for support?