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Translator: ¡ Beta:
I’m an imperial uncle1; his imperial majesty’s uncle.
But in truth I’m an uncle once removed. My dad was brothers with his current majesty’s grandfather Mingzong, the Emperor Tongguang. His majesty and I are actually cousins.
But the former emperor’s brothers are long dead and gone; therefore I as a cousin of his father’s generation have become an uncle dearer than any blood-related uncle.
Now, the most nauseating line that came just before — I wasn’t the one who said it.
The one who said those words was the Empress Dowager.
The first time she said it, his majesty hasn’t yet ascended to the throne. The former emperor had just pa.s.sed away; she spoke to me clad head to toe in mourning dress, her eyes swollen and red. She said, Chengjun, though you’re the younger cousin of the former emperor, I’ve always thought of you as his little brother. You’re the dearest uncle to Qizhe — dearer than any blood-related uncle.
I was grieving the former emperor then, painfully deep in mourning; her words jolted me so much they made my hair stand on end.
Sure enough, the next line that immediately followed this was, “From now on Qizhe will depend on your continued support. Please do watch over him.”
In retrospect, my mother said something that summed up that exchange most succinctly. She’d said, “When they’re using you, those circling the throne are closer to you than anything. When they’re done with you though they’d much rather you die.”
Once his majesty started holding court on his own, and his throne was so stable it may as well be cast whole out of iron, in my comings and goings from the palace I sometimes ran into the empress. The way she looked at me did indeed communicate quite clearly how she couldn’t wait for me to depart a bit sooner to serve the former emperor.
It would seem the former emperor and those close to him used to see my dad the same way; in his heart he pa.s.sed the thought back and forth, looking forward to the event for many years, finally managed to see my dad lowered into the earth without a hitch. I believe that when he died, he was likely able to close his eyes with immense satisfaction. But alas, his generation’s misfortune has been inherited by the next — his wife and child must carry on his old ways, and continue to find me a cause for concern.
Until I’m also placed in a coffin, this affair will never truly end.
I will be taking a few ‘shorthand’ conventions in this translation; the empress dowager will be referred to simply as the empress, princess-consort Huai simply Princess Huai, and imperial uncle, since it is used meaningfully — will be denoted like this: uncle. (Mouseover it!) In the same way, the emperor will use the p.r.o.noun I, but you’ll see the separate p.r.o.noun in a tooltip, like this: I, since the emperor actually used the more archaic “I”. As a rule, the linked p.r.o.noun is the more formal one. ↩︎