The Sunlight Temple was an appropriately bright place. The supporting beams and columns were blood red, but the many roofs had blue and yellow colors. The walls were white with thin carvings of trees, flowers, birds, and dogs. Gentle, sweet incense was burning as the Empress Dowager and Wen knelt before a statue of an elven god and silently prayed, holding prayer beads. Whenever they finished a prayer, they moved a bead down to keep track.
When all the prayers were finished, the women prostrated themselves before the statue. Then they put small vegetables in little ashtrays to be burned as a sacrifice. After that, the women went of to a dining area on a patio to have a pleasant lunch. Warm, thin noodles in a meaty soup. Boiled shrimp coated in sauce. And dumplings filled with cabbage and ground beef.
After lunch, the women both recited old religious texts. Then they watched some priestesses give solemn dance performances. More praying. Then dinner. In the morning, breakfast. Then more prayer.
These sort of things were done for around four days. Whenever there was time for conversation, jokes, and all around innocent fun, Wen found herself blooming under the Empress Dowager's smile. Winning this old woman over wasn't too difficult. She had a heart as everyone else did, and it needed warmth.
When it was time to return to the Tree Cage, Wen almost felt sad. But in the carriage ride, she hugged one of the Emperor's old boots and let romantic thoughts grow in her mind. The Empress Dowager chuckled behind her sleeve and asked if she planned on keeping the shoes for the rest of her life.
"If His Majesty allows it," Wen answered.
The Empress Dowager looked down at her hands, adjusting her fingernail guards. She was still smiling a little. "So, you aren't going to make a pair of shoes for him?"
Lightly scratching at one of the frayed laces, Wen said, "No doubt, many other consorts have done the same, and His Majesty has hired servants to make his clothing. He doesn't need anything from this weak concubine."
***
Back inside the Tree Cage, in the Sweet Carrot Palace, Wen was accepted with as much fanfare as a highly desired guest. Pollen Lady Kumi had arranged a small party of sorts. Plenty of music and dancing, the best food they had, even a specialized female performer from the capital was hired to entertain Wen. She mostly juggled and performed magic tricks, but she could sing too.
On the next morning, the Emperor sent a message to Wen about how she needed to go to the Younger Embroidery Department to judge the outfits from the little contest he'd arranged. Lien keeping close, Wen walked off to that workshop. The Emperor and several of his eunuchs were standing at the entrance door. Or to be more accurate, the eunuchs stood while the Emperor sat on a chair and sipped hot chocolate. It was a rare treat imported from a foreign country. The Empress Dowager had once told Wen the Emperor was oddly fond of that beverage.
Once Wen and Lien were kneeling before the Emperor's feet, he smiled and drew in the last mouthful of his drink. Then he wiped his mouth with a napkin and got up. His eyes were clearly expecting good things. "Rise, Little Bamboo, and come inside with me.
The sweet-natured, excited grin on his face made Wen want to squeal like a giddy child. She didn't, of course.
Inside the workshop, where several young women sat at rows of workstations to concentrate on their tasks, Manager Ri and some assisting eunuchs had several beautiful outfits hanging on racks with multiple rods, this way each blouse could be properly displayed with each skirt. With the Emperor as a sort of assistant judge, Wen walked around to admire each set of clothes as if she was shopping.
Eventually they found two outfits that looked so similar it was as if they were made by the same person. Both blouses were dark blue with brown and orange leaves fluttering from the collar to the long sleeves. They were perfect for this cool autumn season. The skirt was dark green with vertical white stripes. There were silvery border lines on the large open cuffs on the blouse, the neckline, the and on the skirt's hem.
Further inspection showed some minor differences. The outfit on their left had more definition in the leaves. They seemed much more lifelike. The silvery borders were also a little thicker, and two very similar variations of that silver color had been used to make a hidden pattern of pinwheels.
Wen and the Emperor both agreed that the outfit on the left was the winner and the one on the right was the runner up. The Emperor's fingers patted the back of one of Wen's hands as he suggested that she try her new clothing on. He wanted to see it.
The eunuchs carefully put the winning outfit in loose bundles on a stacked tray. Lien took that tray and followed Wen into a more private area so she could be dressed. It was quite exciting.
Right when she put her arm through one of the blouse's sleeves, she felt a sharp, scratching pain. Lien frowned and wordlessly rolled the sleeve away. Wen's wrist and arm had been scraped. She even bled a bit. There was a pin in the fabric. It seemed that the embroidery maid who'd made this blouse had been very careless.
Wen returned to the Emperor and company wearing the pretty clothing, and she tried to smile about it, but Lien had wrapped some cloth around her arm and the Emperor caught a glimpse of it under the sleeve. His clean teeth were soon displayed in a brutish snarl. He marched over to her and plucked up her wrist.
Hiding her arm with his body as he drew the sleeve up and examined Lien's work, he asked, "What's happened? Why are you injured?"
Those questions were enough to have everyone in the room stop what they were doing to nervously look at the couple.
With what she hoped was a comforting smile, Wen told him, "It happened before breakfast."
Alas, Lien knelt down and said, "Please forgive this servant, but Mistress is only trying to soothe Your Majesty's temper with a lie." Wen turned and gave her a tight, furious look, but that didn't stop Lien. "It's a crime to deceive the Emperor, but Mistress only did so with his health in mind. This is a minor issue, and it wouldn't be wise to have Your Majesty jeopardize his health." Some people truly believed getting too angry could lead to health problems.
Tightening his grip on Wen's wrist, but not hurting her, he looked right at her blue eyes and asked, "Then when did this happen?"
Giving a futile little tug, knowing he wasn't about to release her, Wen puffed out a sigh. "While I was putting the blouse on, I was scratched by a pin that seemed to have been left behind."
The Emperor let her go then.
But his face was reddening.
With both hands, he grabbed one of the clothing racks and threw it out the nearest open window. Everyone, even the maids that were supposed to be sewing, got to their knees and begged the Emperor to calm down.
After some more pointless begging, the Emperor demanded to have the responsible maid brought here. Then he told everyone to get up because people are "so useless when they're always kneeling."
A somewhat portly (or portly by elven standards), short elf woman, perhaps a little shorter than the Empress Consort, was brought out by Manager Ri.
She tried to say, "That's not my work!"
Manager Ri said, "You personally handed into me. You were the first one to hand your work in."
Trembling, the maid said, "It looked so similar to what Yuwei's that I mistakenly took hers!"
Manager Ri folded her arms. "I complimented you on the finer details of the silver embroidery. You said you thought of hiding a pinwheel pattern to remind the wearer of pleasant breezes. You also said you had the drive to make the autumn leaves as detailed as possible because of a dream you had. How can you claim this isn't your work?!"
The Emperor was trembling ... trembling ...! He gripped a small rack of spools on a maid's workstation. The spools soon imitated his shaking. Wen quietly approached at one point to touch his arm and whisper, "Please don't be too angry. It was only a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes."
"Are you trying to say that you switched your work with hers?" Manager Ri said after a time, her eyebrows rising as if the idea only just then came to her. "Are you going to confess such a crime?! Goodness, I thought that during this contest Yuwei was copying your work but it was actually the opposite, wasn't it?" That frightened embroidery maid's face turned a little bit green at that statement. "You planned this so Yuwei wouldn't immediately notice when you switched your work with hers, likely early in the morning or late at night. Otherwise Yuwei would've realized sooner and tried to stop you."
The Emperor picked up a spool of silver thread and threw it at a potted plant. Thankfully, other than frightening some people, nothing much came from that.
Manager Ri wasn't finished chewing out the maid that knelt before her. "Assuming this was your work, you should've completely inspected it before handing it to me. Assuming it was Yuwei's work, it makes sense that there would be a pin in the blouse. She hadn't been able to properly inspect it because you stole it and hurried to give it to me. And not only that, you'd be called a liar and a thief for rewards. It doesn't even matter which one you are, because you'll have a beating no matter what!"
Manager Ri was right.
The Emperor soon decided he'd heard enough. He demanded that the accused embroidery maid be beaten one hundred times and expelled from the Tree Cage. That maid wept for mercy, even as she was being physically taken away by some eunuchs, but no mercy was given.
