REGRET

A court lady turned around. "Ah, Mr. Su! You come at the right time! Queen Dowager suddenly goes limp and can't wake up!"

Zhu Su took the queen dowager's pulse. He also observed the queen dowager thoroughly.

"Nayin, get the acupuncture needles and insert them into the points of Yintang, Renzhong, Neiguan, and Sanyinjiao!" Zhu Su gave instructions to Hu Nayin, who withdrew the acupuncture needles from her bag swiftly and began carrying out her work. While he himself now rushed to the medical chamber to concoct medicine.

When the concoction was finished, and when he was carrying it for the queen dowager, she could now start to move a little.

"Master, Her Majesty is starting to open her eyes," Hu Nayin informed.

Zhu Su exhaled at ease. He gave the concoction to the senior court lady, who fed it to the queen dowager.

Slowly, the queen dowager's consciousness recovered. Now her eyes could be fully opened. And she was also able to lift her body up to a sitting position upright, like a healthy person.

"Thank you... all of you..." Queen dowager smiled weakly, "I am..."

Queen dowager's face turned pale. Sweat ran down her face, which was grimacing as if she was suffering from extreme pain.

"My arms... no!" She screamed. "I can't move my arms and legs!!!"

***

The jailers pushed Zhu Su and Hu Nayin so violently that they soon fell onto the dirty, disgusted dungeon ground. As they had been lying on the ground, the jailers closed the cell door, while giving a disdainful smile before he left them.

Hu Nayin's entire body quivered so badly. She had never been prisoned before. Eyes going round in fearful, she looked around at this damp, dreadful dungeon. "If Queen Dowager's extremities can't be back to normal... will we be sentenced to death?..."

Unlike Hu Nayin, Zhu Su instead felt futile. He was no longer afraid, he just felt futile. His mind was very tangled, and at the same time, very tired. He had been in and out of dungeons so many times, hit by miserable punishments so many times, as though dungeon and punishments had become his best friend, how could he feel scared right now?

He looked heavenward, staring at the ceiling. The moment when the queen dowager screamed loudly and said that the right part of her body was palsied, still echoed in his ears. The entire corridor became the tumult, the queen dowager had tried her best to move her leg and arm, but it was useless. The king soon came as he heard a fuss which concerned with his mother. "Mother... why on earth is going on?!" The king's voice rose up, he was unable to restrain his panic.

Replacing the queen dowager, the senior court lady replied, "The Queen Dowager cannot move the right part of her body, after being handled by Mr. Su and Miss Hu!"

Zhu Su and Hu Nayin immediately turned white. "Just now Queen Dowager suddenly passed out, and we have helped her to regain consciousness..."

"But now why does it turn out like this?! Look, because of shock Her Majesty has almost fainted again!..."

"Mr. Su, I'm fed up with you who is always looking for trouble!" The senior official who was antipathy to Zhu Su joined in the tumult. "Trying to seduce the Princess, and now you take the life of Queen Dowager. Huh! For all this time I never like the Ming. You Ming people always have your tongues spinning here and there, once say north, but later can say south, depending on your own interests!..."

Zhu Su gasped. This senior official's accusation... was leading to racism! With sudden temper rising to his crown, he watched the official who was speaking loudly to the king. "Your Majesty! The time for you to defend this unknown foreigner is over! Now the law of nation must be carried out! Anyone who does harm to the royal family must be severely punished!"

This time, the king's attitude had changed. His face was cloudy and his eyes were glazed as he looked at the queen dowager. And when he opened his mouth, his voice was sharp and cold like an ice knife. "Put both of them in prison."

"Foreigner..." Zhu Su whispered in a weak voice. He remembered at the lesson of Chinese Philosophy he studied before about I-Ching. I-Ching is an ancient Chinese symbology, consists of 64 hexagrams. One of the hexagrams is called "The Wanderer" - Lü Gua. "The Wanderer" is telling about those who are forced to leave their motherland and wander abroad.

"Hexagram Lü emphasizes; no matter what achievements we have gained in other countries, the natives will still label us as foreigners. Moreover, the higher the position we get, the more they are unhappy with us. Is the King of a foreign country happy when we have surpassed him? Definitely not. They even think that we are about to colonize them, so what to do in this Hexagram Lü? Be careful, be cautious in our words as well as our behaviors. Only then everything can be fine. Here, to be careful means, do not try to take the position of indigenous people. We must be very... very humble. Even though we have the ability to surpass the natives, we must be humble and can't show off. Give them face. Yes, it is the disadvantage of living in a foreign country, even if you have the ability, still, you can't maximize it... Therefore, whatever happens, no matter how difficult it may be, we should exert our best effort not to leave our own homeland. No matter how bad our motherland is, it is still our own motherland..."

Zhu Su looked down again. His lips curled into a satirical smile.

Not only I have abandoned my motherland, I even have disposed my family name. I really hate my motherland, as well as the clan of my ancestral heritage, and now even try to find a new identity in another country. Ah... why do I remember this advice only when I am hit by punishment? My disgust towards my own country has made me forget that advice...

Sometimes, he must admit it, when he was extremely happy, he forgot that he was a Ming. He was even sure that he was an Ava. The moment when the king was so proud of him and bestowed him with high appreciation, the moment when the princess valued him so highly as she was eager to hear lessons taught from him, when he saw the sparkle of their appreciations, Zhu Su somehow forgot, that his surname was Zhu, that his name was a two-letter name written in Chinese characters, that his native language was Chinese...

That, in spite of everything, he was a Ming, a person of the Central Plain.

He really forgot about it.

Until now.

This is the punishment from Ancestors. Of course, it's impossible if Fu Huang doesn't get angry at his descendant who refuses to acknowledge the origin of his blood and disposds his ancestors. This is my karma - the karma for the traitor who would prefer to be a foreigner. Those who are ashamed of their own origins, who insult their own ancestral lands, should get this kind of karma.

"Blood is thicker than water. Even though you deny your blood, even though you deny your motherland, even though you try to be people of another country... you can't do it in the end. You understand it very well, right? You are a Ming, even though you master the language and cultural customs of the local community and successfully mingle with the natives, but the reality is not negotiable. They keep labeling you as the Ming... because that's the way it is."

Zhu Su dropped his head into his arms. Depression made his energy drained away.

Even if he must die, he did not care about it anymore... But still, he was not ready to face his father, mother, and the other ancestors in the Hereafter.

He was very afraid to face the wrath of his ancestors.