Hushiyi (2)

Hushiyi sat on the porch outside Yinyue's room, gazing at the stars in silence. He gathered the quilted blanket around him. Under the flickering light of the lantern hung on the beams, vapours from his nose flowing out each time he exhaled.

He rubbed his hands together over the heat radiating from the basket-like copper censer, the size of a water bucket. It could heat a small room, but in the open, the cold air ruled.

The door creaked open, and he turned around. It was Ayi bringing a weaved basket of fresh coals to refill. She took off the hollow cover with its decorative serpent shaped holder.

With the long metal chopsticks, she added pieces of coal from her basket and added into the censer's smouldering basin.

"Why don't you return to your room?" She asked, noticing how often he rubbed his hands together.

Ayi treated Hushiyi and Yinyue like they were her long-lost children when they first arrived in Yandi.

They knew her since they were children and she helped mother look after them in the village before their Emperor-father sent for them.

Those were once happy childhood memories. Ayi was their late mother's personal maid, who underwent their maternal grandfather's special training as a physician and a bodyguard.

After mother died, their maternal grandfather took Ayi back into his service. Their Emperor-father ordered that no one from his grandfather's side should follow Hushiyi and Yinyue into the palace.

"I can't sleep until I know she's ok."

"She'll awake before dawn," she replied.

Ayi placed the basket on the floor, dusted the ground, and sat near him.

Brother and sister were alike — stubborn.

Ayi remembered Yinyue's worrying, docile personality in her childhood. The young girl, whom Ayi once worried about, transformed from a pushover to a very dangerous person hellbent in her ways.

"I thought most sleeping drugs won't work on her?" Hushiyi asked, aware of Yinyue's poison resistance training.

He shuddered at the thought of the poison resistance training. Princes underwent only the basic training, which meant sitting in the blackish pool of several poisons for three days. Contact with the water caused excruciating pain at first. Like being burned alive, down to their bones.

The advanced poison resistance training in elite assassin training included controlled bites from poisonous snakes and insects. Many did not survive the ordeal, according to his elite personal bodyguards.

Hushiyi recalled how their two older half-brothers died at ten during the training. Yinyue was the sole surviving imperial member of their generation to qualify as an elite assassin.

Ayi pulled out a shiny silver needle from her sleep and held it up with a mischievous grin. "I have my methods."

"She'll be furious when she wakes up," said Hushiyi.

"It's your maternal grandfather's order."

His eyebrows furrowed and his head tilted to the side, trying to make sense of her words. He parted his lips as though about to say something, and pursed them.

Their maternal grandfather, Hua Dushen, held the infamous but legendary reputation of the Sage Ghost Physician across the Central Plains. Most ordinary physicians would save any life in imminent danger. Ghost physicians, like Ayi and Dushen, choose who to save.

Even state rulers feigned respect to him, in case they needed his services in the future.

Dushen was famous for being able to treat and cure cases inflicted with rare poisons, or those with rare ailments, hence the title of sage. To treat poisons, one needed to understand how to make and use poisons.

Underworld syndicates refer to Dushen as the Sage of Poisons and the rumoured leader of the Qisha syndicate. They kept a respectable distance from him and his syndicate.

Never piss the top expert poisoner off unless one wished to be at the receiving end of his experimental poisons.

"Your sister's body will suffer in the long run," she said. "That's why he sent a message to me."

Hushiyi narrowed his eyes.

"Tell me if there's anything wrong with Yinyue."

"Exhaustion can lead to long-term ailments if she isn't careful," Ayi said. "Her body is weak, but her spirit isn't…though odd…"

Ayi's voice trailed off, and her eyes gazed at where the sulphur hot springs were, deep in thought.

"Odd?" Hushiyi asked.

"Her body recovers faster than anyone I've seen. I treated many people while alongside your grandfather... maybe it's the hot springs."

Hushiyi heaved a sigh of relief. He expected the worse.

Ayi glanced at him for a while, studying his face.

"What is it?" He asked. "Something wrong with my face?"

"You just look so much like my late mistress…your mother," Ayi said.

From a young scrawny boy, Hushiyi had grown into a tall strapping young man who towered over her by two heads. He resembled his mother, a beauty in her heyday. Especially his phoenix shaped eyes and the elegant sharp features.

He fell silent at her words with that fateful night ten years ago — the way their mother died carved into his memory. His fingers curled up into clenched fists at the vivid recollection of how her life ended from the assassination attempt.

It wasn't a fast death.

Despite injuries, grandfather worked through the night, trying to save mother. Acupuncture, herbs, drugs…everything and anything grandfather could use. Uncle and he helped while Ayi kept the young Yinyue away from their mother's bloodied body.

Tears welled up in his eyes. If only he didn't run out of the compound to play with his friends when grandfather told him to stay inside that day, mother wouldn't have died.

He pretended to rub his eyes so that Ayi won't see him cry.

"It isn't your fault," Ayi whispered. "The one at fault is the one who took action."

"If she hadn't died, our father wouldn't take us back in the cannibalising den of a palace," Hushiyi said. "And my sister wouldn't be like this…or used by our father as his personal sword."

He covered his face with his sleeves, taking deep breaths to force the sobs from spilling out.

The thought occurred to him to be a Grand Prince. He wanted the throne for revenge on the person responsible for his mother's death. Nothing more.

Only when Yinyue earned the title, he held back, to avoid the serious consequences if both became Grand Prince at the same time.

"You know…your father has a painting of a woman who is a splitting image of your sister," Ayi said.

"How would you know?" He turned and looked at her in confusion. Ayi hasn't been to the palace since they left with mother. And why did she mention a painting out of the blue?

"I saw it whenever I accompanied your mother, then an imperial concubine to his study …I thought it was one of the women in his harem," Ayi said. "And the artist painted that woman in full military armour on a horse."

He racked his head. None of the women in his father's harem seemed like the military type. The idea of their Emperor-father obsessing over a woman who resembled Yinyue's sent his skin crawling. His stomach twisted.

"Your father may treat her as a substitute. Why would a Dayan Emperor grant a girl an Imperial Prince and then the Grand Prince title? That's the first in the history of Dayan. And I bet a lot of court officials would have opposed it," Ayi added further to his growing discomfort.

Hushiyi remembered the long drawn out arguments in court against setting the precedence. The conservative male officials didn't want a woman in power. However, the generals didn't protest her appointment.

"Why did our father allow our mother out of the palace?" He asked, hoping to change the topic.

This was what he wanted to know. No one told them the reason.

"Because your mother and two of you faced a grave danger in the inner palace," Ayi said. "Your grandfather promised to keep her and both of you safe…"