Chapter 92: Imperial Prison

The Imperial Prison was as still as the dead, the weak light dispersing from the torches flickering in the corners of the walls, and the weeds growing out of the cracks in the walls cast mottled shadows on the ground. The air was filled with the scent of mold, clinging to one's body and impossible to get rid of. It was as if, from the moment one entered the Imperial Prison, this moldy scent would grow upon them.

The environment of the cell that Yang Zhuofei was in couldn't be said to be good. In the empty cell, only a single, palm-width strand of sky could be seen, no luxury of brocade and fine meals, nor silk and a soft bed, only water-like porridge and a pile of rotten straw.

Though Yang Zhuofei hadn't been born in a well-off family, but the past half of her life had been lived in what could be counted as luxury, and there were always a few people around her serving her, and even if, in recent days, she'd been put under house arrest by Jiang Changbai, she'd had good food and been waited on, and from the moment she'd been born, she'd never had a time she was in such a wretched state.

Naturally, she couldn't adapt to it.

The food was too thin, and it was tasteless and hard to swallow, and she could only leave it there. The straw pile was too lousy, the ground too hard, and she couldn't sleep, and so she gazed at the sky with open eyes, watching the moonlight penetrate through the seam-like window.

These few days, she'd passed in a daze, and if it weren't for the palm-wide window, she wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between day and night.

Naturally the environment in the Imperial Prison couldn't be compared to anywhere else she'd been before; there was no one to sweep the floors, and rats, cockroaches, and ants didn't even shy away from people, strutting about beneath the sunlight, and no one felt it odd.

When she really was too tired of it, she'd stare at the ants crawling by the grass mat and count them. But when the one thousand six hundred and fifty-third ant of the day crawled by her, a rattling sound suddenly rose in the Imperial Prison, which had been silent for who knew how long.

It was the sound of iron chains striking each other, and listening to it, ti sounded like someone was wearing ankle shackles and being brought under escort. Before she could stick her head out, a voice rose.

"You really are lucky," the jailer said in a low voice, and who it was being spoken to wasn't clear, "thanks to the arrival of the current Emperor, and the arrival of Yun-daren, otherwise you'd have stayed in there for a lifetime. Stay here properly, why don't you—don't try and commit suicide, and after another few years, you'll be able to get out."

"It's as Daren says, but now I'm alone in the world, and anywhere would be staying, and there's no importance in if I get out or not."

The person who spoke was a woman, her voice somewhat hoarse, sounding to be around thirty or forty years in age. Not the slightest vitality could be heard in the voice, just an apathy towards everything.

Yet it was as if the jailer didn't much agree with her views, or perhaps because of her identity, she didn't immediately pick up the conversation, but rather stuck her neck out to look at the jail cells all around. Glimpsing the jailer look over, Yang Zhuofei immediately closed her eyes, and feigned at a dozing posture.

The jailer was clearly used to seeing Yang Zhuofei looking dazed and aimless, and didn't think much of it, merely taking it as her having fallen asleep, and turned her head, lowering her voice to say to that woman, "You can't think like that. The previous hardships are what they were, but it would really be a pity if, with such a good life now, you weren't able to get out and see it. I've heard people talk about you, and you were someone whose luck was bad; if you you'd been able to make it until the current Emperor ascended, perhaps you wouldn't even have gone to prison, and would never have needed to have these years of hardships."

"Is it really as good as you say?"

The woman was clearly doubtful, and before the jailer could speak, she said to herself, "A lot of new men entered the water cells^[1] recently, and when mentioning the new Emperor, they were so hateful their teeth ached, and even in that state, they were still cursing her. I only heard that the new Emperor is a woman—"

Yang Zhuofei had just concentrated her attention when, in the next moment, she felt an inexplicable weight on her body, moving with a rustle. She felt her body itch, and couldn't stand it, opening her eyes, and came face to face with a grey rat's beady eyes.

Yang Zhuofei drew in a cold breath, about to call out in alarm, but she withstood it. However, a person could endure it, but animals usually didn't have such guts, and suddenly being stared at by Yang Zhuofei, the rat startled, and with a rustle, it fled. When it fled, it was too panicked to choose a path, and it ran into the wall, letting out a muffled thump.

"Who's there!" the jailer, growing alert, called out loudly, cutting off the prisoner's words.

She unconsciously clenched her hand around the weapon in her grasp, and cautiously approached to investigate. Yang Zhuofei hurriedly closed her eyes, not daring to move a hair.

Only after watching for a long while and ascertaining there was no sign of movement did the jailer let out a breath. But even so, she didn't have the intent to keep speaking, and merely properly locked the prisoner away into the cell, and turned, leaving.

Yet the prison building didn't return to silence as Yang Zhuofei had expected. Before this prisoner had arrived, this prison building had only had Yang Zhuofei locked away in it. The surrounding inky-black stone walls seemed to swallow up all sound, and there was no one who spoke with her, nor anyone she could speak with.

But though this new prisoner was someone who spoke of hopelessness, her motions were even more vigorous than anyone else. She tidied up with a rattle, and though she couldn't see it, Yang Zhuofei could guess at the situation in her cell.

The two people who originally ought to have been from two different worlds, at this moment, were actually locked away in a prison separated only by a single wall Yang Zhuofei didn't want to speak with her; after all, talking only led to trouble, and now, having fallen to such straits, she was even more prudent. But the prisoner on the other side of the wall didn't think the same, and after only a short while, she knocked on the wall. "When were you locked away in here?"

Yang Zhuofei didn't speak.

The prisoner continued, "Don't keep acting, I saw perfectly well just now, you're clearly awake. The environment here is far better than where I was before, and I'm so excited at having moved here that I can't sleep, and since you're not sleeping, why don't you chat with me some."

Yang Zhuofei, hearing her words, startled, and wondered to herself at how there could be places in the Imperial Prison with even worse surroundings than here. After all, Yang Zhuofei knew she'd committed a capital offence, and had expected that she'd been locked into the most wretched of places.

Actually, her guess wasn't wrong; according to the Great Li's laws, she really ought to have been locked away in the most severe of places in the prison. There was dark and never saw the sun, and the ill and hale were locked in together, and no one would have treated them. Waking up in the morning to discover that the person by one's side had already gone cold and stiff was a common occurrence.

Only because Jiang Changbai had felt bad and let her off easy had Yang Zhuofei been able to drag out an ignoble existence in this place. But even if Yang Zhuofei hadn't been to any dilapidated places in her life, in her eyes, the place she was in now was the most run-down and wretched prison cell. Now, suddenly hearing this prisoner say that, she couldn't help but feel curious.

But even so, she didn't say anything.

The prisoner didn't take offence either, muttering to herself, "Never mind, you look soft-skinned and tender, and before you came here, you must have been the young mistress of some wealthy family. That you disdain common people like me, and aren't willing to talk with me isn't strange either."

But before she'd finished speaking, she grew a bit defiant. "But even if you were more respectable, now we're both imprisoned together, separated by a single wall—is that really an insurmountable barrier? You're still putting on the airs of a young mistress—if there weren't a separating wall, I'd have killed you too!"

The prisoner unexpectedly wasn't concerned with thirst, and rambled to herself for half the day, the ruckus making Yang Zhuofei's head hurt. Finally, she couldn't endure it, and said, "Shut up!"

"Yoh," the prisoner was startled first, and then immediately added, "ah, you can speak—you didn't move the entire time, and I assumed you were mute. Come on, tell me, why were you imprisoned?"

Yang Zhuofei didn't want to talk to her, and only rebuked her, "Don't ask about what you oughtn't ask about, or else one day you'll lose your head."

Yang Zhuofei had been in a high position for a long time, and she'd long since cultivated a singular sense of dignity. Even in such a wretched state, as soon as she spoke, that grandeur naturally showed through, oppressive such that one couldn't speak.

Naturally that prisoner was startled as well, and only after a long while did she slowly say, "Losing my head—I don't fear losing it. I should have lost this head of mind long ago, and it's only my good luck that I've lived so long.

"Actually, I don't know if it would be better for me to live or to die; after all, prison isn't a place one's meant to live, and day after day, I just felt that death would be better than living. But living long enough, one can see anything—as a matter of fact, the newly-instated Yun-daren overturned my case, and not only did she reduce my sentence, she even changed the place I'm held in."

Actually, the prisoner didn't know how long she hadn't spoken with someone for. In the prison building she'd been kept in before, if the prisoners weren't murderers, then they lacked the will to live entirely. Only on coming here did she run into someone was a bit more normal, who, looking at her identity, must be learned. It was just thinking on that that she'd spoken so much.

"Really, don't disbelieve me, I was arrested for killing someone. And not just one person—with the blow of the axe, I killed at least three people.

"From birth, my father was insistent on marrying me off to someone I'd never heard of as a wife, just for a meagre bride price. My younger brothers were the same, and even though I was the one who'd raised them, because of the bit of money from the bride price, they didn't even have the slightest bit of affection.

"I said, if they really wanted to marry me off, I'd kill myself along with them. They thought I was joking, and locked me in the shed with the firewood. Luckily, the firewood was usually chopped by me, and just a few days before I was locked in, I'd broken an axe, and being afraid of being blamed, I'd hidden it in the shed.

"Since they weren't kind, I wasn't kind either; with a few blows, I hacked the ground bloody, and couldn't tell what was whose. Afterwards, the ruckus was too loud, and the neighbours called the authorities, and it was only because of that that I was caught—"

Yang Zhuofei finally couldn't bear it, and before she could finish speaking, she cut her off. "Then do you not have the slightest bit of regret?"

But if Yang Zhuofei were to be asked this, she would have answered "I don't" as well. But she really didn't want to listen to the prisoner's rambling; she had too many things she needed to think about in silence.

After all, not everyone could be like her, Yang Zhuofei thought.

Once the prisoner on the other side of the wall was cut off by these words, as expected by Yang Zhuofei, everything returned to silence. But the silence didn't last for long, and before Yang Zhuofei could rejoice, she heard that prisoner sigh, and say, "I do—how could I not regret it."

Just when Yang Zhuofei felt that this even more fierce "murderer" was only a common person, felt that she was only that, the next words of the prisoner shocked Yang Zhuofei.

"I regret I didn't hack the some more, regret that the ruckus was too loud, that it alerted the authorities. The new male prisoners all curse her majesty, and say that she's a woman usurping authority, not abiding by a woman's role. If I'd been more thorough, perhaps I could have seen what the Emperor looks like outside."

Yang Zhuofei couldn't hear the slightest bit of reminiscence for those who shared her blood in the prisoner's voice, and could only hear that regret she felt towards her own lack of thoroughness. In a daze, she felt that the two of them really were of a similar place; after all, Yang Zhuofei felt that, if she'd listened to Liu Zihe and Wu Dongmu's incitement a. little less, and had been a bit more thorough, then perhaps things wouldn't be as they were now.

The prisoner suddenly pressed, "I've said all that now, and you ought to speak—why are you here?"

Yang Zhuofei suddenly felt herself pondering, and she said with a sneer, "Plotting rebellion."

"But listening to you, you're a woman too—it was so hard for a woman to become Emperor; you ought to have endorsed her, so why did you plot a rebellion?"

Regardless of if the Emperor is male or female, only one person can sit atop the Dragon Throne, Yang Zhuofei thought to herself, but she didn't say it. Because the next moment, that jailer returned, but this time, she opened Yang Zhuofei's door.

"Quit laying there—wake up, you're moving somewhere else!"

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Translator's notes: 

[1]: 水牢 (shui lao), a type of prison cell which is partially filled with water.