Forbidden City relied on spies. So to become useful to the dowager, all Ji Yue had to do was offer to become one of her spies. 'I pretend to lust for him,' she answered with a sly tone.
The dowager's charcoal-painted eyebrows rose in surprise. 'Very wise of you. The lust is not real?'
Ji Yue shrugged. 'He is a friend to your son. I can survive a beating if it means we women have a better understanding of the influences upon the great leader of our people.' There, she had just shown the dowager that she was smart enough to be a spy. Now she had to convince the woman that she was no threat. But how?
She glanced to Hua Si's side of the room, and the idea came to her. Oh, it was so easy! She just had to convince the dowager that she could be controlled. She had to show the dowager that something very simple would keep Ji Yue completely in her grip.
So she looked down at her hands, her expression vulnerable. 'Can I tell you a secret, my lady?' Ji Yue whispered.
The dowager quickly leaned forward. 'Of course, my dear!'
'The poets talk about love. Sun Bo Tao is consumed by lust. I fear I am an alien creature because none of those things draw me.' Ji Yue bit her lip as if she were betraying a great deficit. 'There is only one thing that I crave.'
'Really?' The empress was at the edge of her seat. 'What is it?'
Ji Yue chewed on a fingernail and tried to look guilty. 'My parents don't have a lot of money. I have two brothers who want to take the exam, but tutors are very expensive. And Mama says that the boys are our future.'
'Quite right, quite right,' the dowager said. 'So you wish money for your brothers?'
Ji Yue blinked just like an ox. 'Er, yes. Of course.'
The dowager smiled and patted her hand. 'What a noble goal, Ji Yue, but that is not really the truth, is it?'
Ji Yue hunched her shoulders and shook her head. 'Um, no. Not really.'
'So what do you want?'
'Um…' She kept her voice low in case Hua Si was indeed listening through the walls. 'Do you like candied leechee nuts?'
She frowned. 'Candied fruit?'
'Have you ever tasted honey? I did once. My father had it.' She closed her eyes in pretend rapture. 'It was the most amazing thing I have ever tasted.'
'You like sweets?'
Ji Yue felt a blush heat her face. It was shame because this had to be the biggest lie she had ever told. 'Would you like to see?' She pulled the dowager consort over to a space behind Hua Si's trunk, then she pulled out a cache of candied sweets.
'But that is Gao Hua Si's trunk.'
Ji Yue giggled. 'I know. I put it there so people would think it is hers.'
Meanwhile the dowager frowned as she leaned back and looked hard at Ji Yue. 'You want sweets. That's it?' She didn't sound as if she believed it.
Ji Yue quickly replaced the stash after stealing a couple of pieces. Then she looked at the dowager with calm, honest eyes. 'You are right that I am smart. A smart woman understands what she wants and how to get it. Do I want to carry the emperor's son? Of course. Do I know that there are spies and manipulations everywhere in the Forbidden City? Of course. And if I wished to hold the reins of influence, then someone might indeed fear me. But…' She shook her head, and her expression turned genuinely sad.
'But?' the dowager prompted.
Ji Yue thought of Bo Tao, of the things they had shared and done together. The tears that flooded her eyes were genuine.
'But I am working to manipulate one man and already it has cost me. I do not wish to do more.' She abruptly leaned forward, wincing as if in great pain. 'My lady, I will do whatever you ask. I will use my intelligence to watch and report whatever you want. The only thing I ask is that I become one of your pampered pets—the girls who are always at your side during meals. That I never go without food ever again!'
The dowager pursed her lips. 'For a girl who is so hungry, you have missed many meals.'
Ji Yue nodded. 'Mama said I must. She often denied me at home because she said I would get fat.'
The dowager studied Ji Yue's figure critically. 'Fat women squeeze their babies.'
'I know!' Ji Yue snapped. Was she really that fat that people could so easily believe this lie? 'My lady, I am smart enough to know my weaknesses and my desires. I could be a great aid to you.'
'Humph,' was the woman's only response. She wasn't convinced, but she wasn't unconvinced, either. Ji Yue allowed her gaze to drift back to the secret cache. The candy had been delicious and she had missed dinner. Her mouth was watering for more.
'Go on,' the dowager said softly. 'Take another. I don't mind.'
'Do you…do you want one?' she asked.
'No, no, dear. You go on.'
Ji Yue flashed a grateful smile then dashed over to the candy. With her one stolen taste of food, her stomach was cramping in hunger. It was all she could do not to finish Hua Si's entire hoard.
'Careful,' the dowager admonished. 'There will be nothing left for tomorrow.'
Ji Yue reluctantly put back what she had in her hand, then returned the whole cache to its hiding place. 'Oh. Of course.'
The dowager nodded then pushed to her feet. 'Good night, Ji Yue.'
Ji Yue had her mouth full and could only scramble to her feet. She didn't dare speak. With a distracted air, the dowager consort waved casually and glided out. Ji Yue barely had time to scramble back to her bed before Hua Si came bursting in.
'What happened? What did she say?'
Ji Yue shrugged, too tired to play games anymore this day. All the deception, all the court politics were giving her a bad headache. So she simply twisted her hair into her sleeping braid and climbed into bed. Behind her, Hua Si huffed in disgust and began to undress. Ji Yue closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but her thoughts would not stop whirling in her mind.
Was this what her life would be like from now on? Would she spend her days pandering to the dowager consort and her nights praying that a child took root in her belly? She winced at the idea of letting the emperor touch her as Bo Tao had. But what would happen to her if he did not choose her? Would she really end up like the concubines in the window? Of course not, she realized. She didn't lust after another woman's touch or even the emperor's caress. She wanted Bo Tao. No one else would do for her now.
How could she have been so stupid? How could she have fallen in love? And with the emperor's best friend? She curled onto her side and cried for real.
SHE WAS WOKEN hours later by a soft finger poking insistently into her side.
'Virgin!' It was a man's high voice. 'Virgin Chen Ji Yue, you must wake.'
She blinked, then groaned as she rolled over. How could an afternoon of such pleasure create so many aches now?
'Virgin Chen Ji Yue is called.'
She blinked in the darkness and finally made out the moon face of a eunuch she'd never met before. 'Called where? By whom?'
The man lowered his voice to a dark whisper. 'The master of the festival calls you.' Then when she didn't answer, he frowned at her. 'Sun Bo Tao.'
'I know who the master is,' she snapped, irritated not by the interruption but by the sudden tightening in her throat, the leap of her heart in her chest and the rapid moistening in her womb. How would she ever be the emperor's wife if the mere mention of another man's name set her entire body tingling?
'You must come now!' he ordered.
It took everything in her to resist the eunuch's command. She didn't know if Bo Tao had truly sent the summons. It seemed an extremely risky way to call her, though he had used eunuchs before. If this was a fake summons, then she was being led into a trap. No virgin could be caught sneaking out at night to meet a man, even if he was the master of the festival. Especially if he was the master of the festival, since he was the one
