The Ant Woman Ch. 04

Nodding so fiercely that her hairstyle nearly fell apart, Nuan folded her hands and half-knelt to Wen. "Everything's fine, Mistress. Was your visit with the Empress Dowager fruitful?"

Wen nodded and sat down in one of the dining chairs while Moto turned to give Nuan a strange look. Her eyebrows were high and her lips parted a bit. Then her tongue curled outside of her lips and she looked down at Nuan's fidgeting hands. "Go boil water for some tea for Mistress."

"Yes ... uh?" Nuan was tugging on one of her own thumbs as she stood up. "Which tea was her favorite? I forgot?"

Moto groaned a little. "The green tea she likes to have with rice crackers." As Nuan went off to get that tea, Moto turned back to Wen with a gentle smile. "I'll go prepare the crackers. Please wait here, Mistress."

After the snack, Wen wrote at her desk for a while. While she was in the middle of writing a character with many strokes, Moto quietly moved to her side and whispered something in her ear. "Mistress, Nuan's been making a pair of man's shoes."

Wen's brush rose after finishing one stroke, but still leaving the character incomplete. She laid the brush on a tray and sighed.

The Emperor himself came to visit the Sweet Carrot Palace after dinner. It was dark, and that meant it was close to his preferred "grace giving" time. Of course all the women in the palace fawned over him, or they fawned as much as he allowed. He asked for Wen, and Wen came. Thankfully, she was able to keep her fingers from twitching.

In view of several women in the palace's main reception room, Wen knelt before the Emperor and greeted him. He told her to get up. Then he asked her to walk with him in the palace's garden.

It wasn't a private walk. He had his favored eunuch, Min Ji. Wen had Moto. And there were quite a few bold concubines pretending they were admiring plants under the glowing lights of paper lanterns. Everyone knew what they were truly interested in.

Wen decided the best way to conquer her fear was to seriously alter her way of thinking, basically pretend the Emperor wasn't frightening and perhaps even actively seek out a trait of his that made him seem more ordinary. So, after a few moments of wordless walking, Wen patiently kept alert, waiting to hear him speak. If he spoke, that meant he could show more of his personality, which could make her mental trick easier.

And besides, it probably wasn't healthy to be so afraid of the man she was married to. The stress might cause health problems. It was best to do whatever could be done about it.

They walked for a good while. Wen's feet were starting to hurt. Why wasn't the Emperor speaking? Did he just want to be seen walking around with her? Wen wanted to pout. She knew better than to do it, though. Instead, she pretended she was bored. Her eyelids lowered and she turned her head to look at whatever pretty thing that could be seen, anything that wasn't the Emperor.

His boots clicked and stopped near a tree and a stone bench. Wen stopped a few steps behind him.

Most of his hair was tied up, but a little braid was allowed to fall, and that braid swung as he turned around. His face seemed slimmer and crueler in the lamplights. He looked like an angry demon waiting to take advantage of a lone traveler in the night. "Little Seafoam," the Emperor said, his posture confident, his shoulders back, "have you written anything today?"

"More tiny stories, Your Majesty," Wen said with an empty sort of tone. She stared at a tree branch that looked so dark against a very bright lamp, like a silhouette against the moon. Wen wasn't a skilled painter, but she considered herself good enough for making something that was at least pretty. Time could be excruciatingly slow and dull, and so many people dabbled in multiple hobbies.

"Would you accept a commission?" His voice was much lower then. It took Wen a few seconds to realize he'd bent in close and was speaking close to her ear.

Wen resisted the urge to turn towards the voice. She only focused on how it sounded. The Emperor had sounded completely ... ordinary ... and he'd made a request instead of an order. It was as if ... as if he wouldn't mind at all if she said no.

Her eyes still targeting the tree branch, Wen responded very carefully, "I'm only a concubine. How can this humble concubine accept any payment from her husband other than her normal allowance?" She thought she heard her maid titter. She ignored her for the moment.

"Then," the Emperor whispered with seemingly just as much discretion that Wen had shown, "would you accept a reward instead?"

Wen didn't know why he was hiding such dull and innocent words with his whisper, but she'd play along regardless. "Your Majesty doesn't need to reward this concubine."

That was when he finally told her what he wanted. "Write a novel for me. It should be about three warring countries, all of them almost extremely different from each other. Normal methods at peace haven't been successful, and so new and more inventive methods must be used."

"Does my Great Emperor have any other requests?" Wen said as she heard the man's boots grind away.

"No more," he said a bit louder, since he was no longer close enough for a whisper. "You're dismissed."

Wen finally turned to look at the man, but he was already walking away with Min Ji. Wen and Moto knelt down as he left, and Wen told him goodbye.

Some moments after all that, as Wen was making her way back inside, Pollen Lady Kumi emerged from seemingly nowhere and took her arm. She whispered to Wen, "He hasn't given you any grace, but he speaks to you for fleeting little sections of time."

Wen also thought it was strange. She was no less confused than the Pollen. She pulled her arm from Kumi's grasp and said, "This concubine would never assume to know the mind of the Emperor."

Her thin eyes narrowing even more, almost closing, Kumi adjusted her shawl and looked away. "I don't know what you're doing, but please try to gain at least a fraction of the Emperor's favor. Preferably near the winter."

"Hm?" Wen's head tilted a little as she asked, "What's so significant about the winter?"

Pollen Lady Kumi shivered, actually shivered. She even hid her hands under her shawl. "The Fuel Department ... isn't known for being just towards forgotten palaces."

Her thoughts rubbing together, Wen asked, "Does His Majesty know?"

"No." Kumi shook her head. "Nobody would dare to complain. If you cry out unfair treatment, people will wonder if you're seeking out attention for being a victim."

Victimhood usually brought pity, and pity could lead to love. Of course a concubine would want to be a victim for a short while. That would only gain the Emperor's care.

And while Wen wrote her book, the Emperor just might leave her alone. After all, he didn't seem interested in her physically just yet. Why exactly he'd wanted her as a concubine in the first place was still out of her brain's reach, though.

But what if she finished her book during a time in winter when the cold was the fiercest?

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