Lament at Long Gate Palace

Nine

Disclaimer: This is a translation of the Chinese novel 长门怨 by Qiao Xi/乔夕 and not my own work.

Translated by: Catharcity
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The 5th year of the Yuanguang era of the Han Dynasty. Spring.

By the fifth year of the Yuanguang era, Changmen Palace had long fallen from its days of resplendence to become a cold palace.

The Spring which arrived that year brought with it the most bitter cold I had ever experienced in my twenty-six years of life.

You arrived at Changmen Palace, bringing with you the entirety of the harsh iciness of Chang’an city. You said that my heart was as vicious as a serpent’s, and I was incapable of benevolence. You said that I was unsuitable to be an Empress, the virtuous Mother of the country.

You announced the decree to depose me.

I accepted your scroll from the hands of the eunuch.

Slowly, I said to you: if you announce this decree once more, I will accept it.

If – you – announced.

I thought that a silver of compassion would have risen in your heart. Even if I became a disgraced, deposed Empress, I would still have a place within your heart.

A position which could never be replaced by another.

How could you not know that from the beginning till the end, I did not care for that precious crown belonging to an Empress? I was only afraid that from then on, I would lose you forever.

But I still lost you.

You had that one moment of hesitation. I saw the tears in the corners of your eyes.

Then you turned your head away.

With your back towards me, you repeated that decree once again.

I asked, would you still come to Changmen Palace? Would you?

That day, for the first time, I danced for you.

Yet my very first dance accompanied my abandonment. Your desertion.

That day, everyone within the city of Chang’an was crying.

The accusations of my dabbling in witchcraft implicated hundreds of people, and you gave an order for all of them to be executed without exception. I heard that at the execution grounds, even the most hardened executioners were visibly struck by the bloodbath.

That day, Wei Zifu was named the new Empress of Great Han.