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identify what was going on, she was bombarded by that dark figure just arrived, dressed in red and vociferous with all sorts of impropriety, cries of anger and curses. Xi had poured on Li all the hatred accumulated in recent years:
- May the gods bring upon you and your offspring all sorts of curses! May you be cursed everywhere on earth! And finally when you feel despised by everyone and transformed into a human rag, serve as pasture for the vultures! Cursed, a thousand times!
Before Li could intervene, a bang was heard again. It was the door closing, with all the violence, with the exit of that sinister figure. The moments that followed that Dantesque scene, laden with hatred, gave Li a vision of terror... She couldn’t think about how much she had just seen and heard. In the moments that followed, no matter how much effort she made with her memory, she could not find a single reason that could give rise to such a crazy act. But whatever reason or motive Xi had, that was the drop of water that made the cup overflow. In her heart she pleaded to the gods to reverse all her enemy’s curses back to her, asking for justice for herself. She was fed up with all the intrigue and slander in which she lived. At that very moment she decided to leave the palace. It was time to return home. She wasn’t going to stay there another day! She immediately began to pack her personal belongings in her room, which she left moments later. As she left her quarters, she took the shortest way to the service gate so that no one would see her. On that day and at that hour the corridors and terraces of the palace were deserted. She had no difficulty in leaving the palace in anonymity. She didn’t said goodbye to anyone, for many reasons. That place was no longer hers. Without looking back, Li left with a confident step and decided not to return.
When Xi returned to the room from which she had left untimely moments before, she was delivered a message from the Emperor that the ceremony was about to begin. Her first reaction was to look into a large mirror. Only then did she become aware of how horrible she looked! Her dress in total disarray and her face totally disfigured! Time therefore imposed urgent measures. She looked around the room looking for a last anchor to save her from that distressing situation. She noticed that in one corner, on one of the shelves, there were several silk rolls and embroidery - they were orders from noble merchants bound for the courts of Syria and Arabia. Xi, in a reflection of a wounded and distressed eagle, performing perfectly instinctive acts, approached the shelves and, with sudden gestures, removed all the rolls stretching them out on the floor of the room. Then, screaming, she ordered the ladies to join the ends of two of these silk rolls and fix them, one on each of her shoulders, doing the same with another roll, but this time of lace, demanding that they created with it a small veil and put it over her head to cover her face. With the rest of the rolls she had an extensive trail added as an extension of her dress (all done in a fraction of an instant) and always screaming, while the ladies, stunned, strictly followed all her orders. Time was overwhelmingly running out! The seamstresses had barely begun what Xi had ordered and a second message from the Emperor demanded her presence, reporting the bride’s delay. Some time later, Xi, recomposed in her image, began the bridal march on the way to the imperial hall. With her face half covered in lace and about twenty ladies holding her immense tail, Xi entered the hall with all her pomp. The Emperor, as well as the whole court, was surprised by all that apparatus. The bride entered with a majestic semblance, walking slowly and cadently, wearing a dazzling dress ending in an immense tail held by two rows of ladies.
The wedding ceremony was brief, compared to others held in the palace in other times. The festivities, those lasted all day. In the late afternoon the newlyweds gathered at the palace of Earth Harmony, where they spent the night. In the morning of the following day they went to the summer palace, accompanied by a small entourage. With the departure of the bride and groom the imperial city returned to its almost routine, tranquil and bucolic condition, as in so many other exits of the Emperor. In the corridors, this time, a differentiating factor appeared, the strange absence of Li.
Since the day before, no one else had laid eyes on Li. As the discussion between the two rivals was not witnessed by anyone, speculative versions began to emerge between the ladies and concubines. That mysterious disappearance of Li began to give way. For some, she couldn’t bear to watch the Emperor marry her main rival and ran away. For others, they were facing kidnapping or poisoning ordered by Xi. The mystery thickened. When the Imperial couple returned, there was no talk of anything else but Li’s disappearance. However, conversations between concubines and others were made with great care, fearing reprisals from the new Empress. As time went by the subject was becoming more and more reminiscent of the silence of consciences, now tortured by the growing influence of the new Empress in the management of personnel and generating an environment one could cut with a knife. Early on, Empress Xi realized that, in personnel management, Zhu could be very useful. So, gradually, the Empress delegated powers to her right arm. For some, this delegation was commented on as retribution for the organizational effort at her wedding, for others, she was favoring the eunuchs over the other hierarchies in the palace. Those times were now of transition, no one had any doubts. As the months passed and with the permanent changes dictated now by the new Empress, the uncertainty of the following day reigned among the staff. The times brought silence and bitterness. Hallway conversations were no longer possible, for one never knew which side the person one was talking to was on. A conversation, apparently innocent, could be interpreted by the Empress as opposition to her and this was not tolerated in any way. As time went by, there were strange absences of people whose whereabouts were no longer known. The period of insecurity was followed by another, where fear began to take place. With a growing influence of the eunuchs and a particular prominence in Zhu, terror set in among the smaller personnel. One now looked back to the time of the former Empress Zizi. At that time peace and joy also took place, in contrast to the present moment where there is only room for malevolent insinuation or destructive threat, building a daily life where everything is demanded in exchange for almost nothing. Smiles slowly disappeared to give way to grudges and silent hatreds.
The Emperor, with the advancing of his age, far from the glow of other times, no longer sought the company of girls or concubines to awaken in him the pleasures of life. He lived in the palace ever more distant from everyday life and closed in on himself. In recent times, with the passing of the months, his health has been deteriorating markedly, increasing the protagonism of the Empress. The illness had been installing itself and to such a point that he had even stopped presiding over his own official acts. The entire imperial court was now wondering about the future. It was known that he had made a will, but its contents were unknown. When death finally came and the contents of this will were known, some of the old sages of the court left the palace quietly and definitively3.
The funeral ceremonies took place without the apparatus of olden times. The tradition, greatly altered by the Emperor’s will, however, retained some of the rites and forms, among them the verticalisation of the body, unlike most culture in other countries, where the body is buried in horizontal form. His reign had come to an end and with it began a paradoxical time, in which his son, only four years old, ascended to the throne now represented by the widowed Empress, Xi.
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2. Men in the service of the Emperor who agreed to be castrated, voluntarily, so that they could exercise permanent activity in the palace.
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The Decision of the Gods 19th century
Green fields of rice growing in the wind and bathed in the sun! It was with this landscape that Li found her home village again when she left the palace. Li’s youth had been spent in this paradisiacal setting. Relaxed and happy days! Fields full of farmers working under a burning sun, hidden in their straw hats, happy with themselves and with life, perhaps because from an early age they got used to appreciate what they had. Her sudden return did not arouse any great curiosity among family members, much less among the people of the village. No one had the courage to question her for having left the palace, not even her mother, who was used to reading her