The Incriminating Letter

Pangs of grief tightened Emika's chest, and overwhelmed her so completely that it became a nauseating pain. The grief made her angrier. And the rage in her heart was latent growth madness.

"It seems so unreal and unjust that I now have in my possession the only evidence which could have absolved my father from the charges of treason. If he only had not been murdered..." her round eyes drilled holes in his face, "before he had the chance to reveal where it was hidden."

His expression slid into a frown. "Em, where is the letter? Have you got it with you? Show it to me. Is it somewhere safe? Does anyone else know?"

Before Shufeng's restless and eager stare, a smug grin took perch on her begonia red lips like an ugly vulture. She was howling in her heart—how dare you blatantly expect I'll hand to you the only evidence of your crimes! She believed that he was indeed so far beyond the limit of decency, a man monstrously evil; not at all the good-hearted and righteous man with feelings so quick, so warm and so tender, she once thought he was.

Shades of spite and contempt flickered across her delicate face. She sniffed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "What good is that letter for me now? I have lost my entire family."

Why did she seem so reluctant to go ahead with their plan? Shufeng felt there was something wrong which he didn't understand.

This evidence would finally allow him to claim the throne, to become the new emperor; and last but not the least, exculpate her father, General Yun Hishoku, accused of the assassination of Emperor Akishino. Hope was now palpable!

"Emika, I promised you that once I am the new emperor, I will ensure that your father be fully vindicated, and your family name restored to its former glory. This was my loving promise to you and it still holds."

She was  shaking her head as she chuckled bitterly. "You, the emperor? You are but a toad lusting after a swan's flesh.*"

His heart stopped for a moment. Her cruel remark left him with a seed of disquiet. After a brief silence during which he stared at her wringing her hands--her expression equal parts fear, rage and aversion with a dose of guilt in her demeanour too--he said:

"You must hand me the letter."

  "I don't have it."

Thereupon, she laughed harder like a woman possessed, her hollow cheeks drenched with both tears and rainwater. An indescribable emotion of dread was slowly rising within him.

A bone-chilling gust of wind flung some more rain into his face. As he quickly wiped it off with his sleeve, he asked: "Then, did you hide it somewhere safe? Many lives, including mine, are at stake."

Ultimately, all the hostility locked up inside Emika spiked her voice and delivered the fatal blow: "I gave it to your brother!"

His head bobbed like his neck was hanging from a string, eyes wide-open and mouth agape with disbelief. Why would she shot herself an arrow in the foot? Betraying me and forfeiting to avenge her family?

"I cannot believe it. You must be crazy."

"All this time I have wondered if it could be true," the consort murmured.

"Did my brother threaten you?"

'Please, tell me he did!'—he begged in his heart.

Her mouth twisted in a grimace when she answered in carefully spaced words, "Why would Taizong do such a thing?"

"You read it, and yet, you willingly gave it to him?" He stretched out each of the last six words for emphasis.

"Yes, I gave it to the new emperor, my husband-to-be."

His shoulders sagged. The whole world seemed to be moving in slow motion. 'Husband-to-be'... Shufeng felt as if he was walking in a dream world; a horrific, nightmarish dream world. "You are still going ahead with the nuptials? What about me?" he retorted, his eyes rapt on her face.

The rain who had been falling intermittently was now unabashed. With the help of a rising strong wind from the north, the moon escaped from the shackles of the mighty grey clouds. Sick and lonely, she cast down splinters of white-silver beams, not just enough to devour the darkness; yet it was enough for Shufeng to glimpse something akin to murderous intent in Emika's eyes, but it was gone before he could be sure he had seen it.

He studied her with piercing scrutiny. And he felt as though the temperature had suddenly decreased by a few more degrees to match the coldness in her soul.

Her smile grew broader as she ignored his quizzical and imploring gaze. Then her nose went all wrinkled as if she had caught whiff of a skunk, spatting out: "'What about me?' you dare ask. Ha! A man without power cannot change anything."

Her fists drew up like angry stones. "Thanks to Taizong, my father's name is now vindicated, lifting up the fear of my execution. I am now a free woman and I can give my family a dignified burial."

His breath exploded from his mouth. "You know what this mean? My death warrant!"

His face was full of bewilderment, and he was failing to understand the current situation—do I not own your heart? Do you not wish justice for your family anymore?

Emika sourly cackled at him."You did not expect that I would find out about your evil deeds, did you?" She let out a harsh breath. "And now that I have, were you still contemplating the idea that I would forgive you?" Shufeng didn't know if he would yet call fear, that sharp taste at the back of his throat, but her words kept on swooping down at him like angry crows coveting their next meal. "I would never choose a man's love over my family."

The numbness in his mind would not fade away. No matter how much Emika thought she knew about her brother's death, Shufeng couldn't fathom that she would side with the enemy and destroy the evidence, thus ultimately causing her to forfeit the truth and justice for her whole family; and condemning him to die, solely to avenge Ishirō?

Could it be that she hates me to the full so that she took such a drastic and absurd action? Chaotic thoughts clashed with each other in Shufeng's mind and all of it seemed to make sense, but at the same time certainly did not:

'In that one action of hers, I have no other means of proving that I was framed as the mastermind behind the assassination of my father; therefore removing me as a contender, my brother has now the absolute claim to the throne. So, as to clear her father's name and restore it to its previous glory, framing me as a traitor was her price to pay? How could this sweet and innocent woman be so heartless?

'The almost unthinkable must now be considered—Taizong and Emika have come to an agreement for each their own advantage.

'No! Impossible! My brother has manipulated her with lies... But she clearly read the letter, how could she have been deceived?

'Does she love him? Or else, she couldn't forget so simply those responsible in framing her father and I. Still, no human being could show such a Godlike forgiveness! Yes, she said she would never choose a man's love over her family...

'None of her actions make sense! Something is amiss...'

... Yes, his heart was, oh, so very willing! It made thousands of excuses for her wrongdoing, trying to explain what he couldn't believe. What he couldn't comprehend.

Emika had grabbed his left shoulder, whipping Shufeng back from the black hole of his mind, as she was digging angry fingers deeply into his unhealed wound until he groaned. His breath stalled, and he just stared at her blankly while his right hand cradled his wound.

"I now have clarity of thought," her words were emphatic as her frantic eyes saw the blood dripping from under his sleeve and to the tips of his fingers, "it was indeed—you!"

She had read her father's testimony, and he claimed that he had slashed with his sword the traitor's left shoulder; but the magistrate didn't believe him. In fact, without reasonable grounds for suspicion, out of nowhere, the General who was a witness became the criminal. Then the Board of Justice in charge of investigating the allegation of high treason was made to expedite the case straight to the Board of Punishments; the most likely scenario was that someone from the Imperial House was behind all of this, using her father as a scapegoat.

And now she was more than ever convinced of his guilt.

Looking at the scarlet droplets, it was indeed one more unequivocal proof of Shufeng's crime and deception. She presumed that he was the one who had scapegoated her father.

Once doubts devour one's soul there is no room for the knowledge of the truths, subsequently causing Emika to be sent on a treacherous road.

Shufeng would suffer her retribution.

She would be his apocalypse, not only to him but also to all of those supporting him.