Raven of the Inner Palace Vol. 1, page 7
Kogyo’s hand trembled. She took in a deep breath, then carefully wrote out her next letters. “The empress dowager.”
Kogyo went on to explain that the empress dowager had poisoned the Magpie Consort. The Magpie Consort was the emperor’s third-ranking consort. She was the daughter of the chief vassal and was young. She was said to be pregnant when she was murdered. And that was the incident that Han Ojo was accused of.
“The Magpie Consort was pregnant. Her father, the chief vassal, wasn’t on the empress dowager’s side, so they put the blame on poor Han Ojo. They bribed the servant girl to put the wolf’s bane in her cupboard. I saw her doing it. But…”
That was where Kogyo stopped writing. She drifted the tip of her brush through the air a few times again and again, but then bit hard on her lip and put it down.
“I ended up obeying the eunuch’s orders too. He told me he would kill my family at home, so I left Han Ojo to die.” Kogyo shuddered, then paused her writing.
“I learned to write in the hope that one day, I would at the very least be able to let people know the truth. I take it that you are on Han Ojo’s side if you have her earring.”
“What?”
Kogyo looked up. “Am I wrong?” she wrote.
Jusetsu didn’t know why Kogyo assumed she was an ally of Han Ojo’s, but then explained that Koshun had picked up the earring in the inner palace and that it was haunted by her ghost.
When Kogyo heard the word “ghost,” she turned pale. “Han Ojo’s ghost?” she wrote.
“If this earring did belong to her, then it must be,” Jusetsu replied, showing her the earring that was sitting in her palm.
“The earring is definitely hers. I remember it well. It sticks in my memory because she only had the one, you see.”
“Only one?”
“Yes. She only had one, but niangniang always insisted on wearing it anyway.”
The “niangniang” she was referring to must have been Han Ojo. Kogyo stared off into space—she seemed to be thinking back on something.
“She told me about it once. She said that she gave one of the earrings to her fiancé in her hometown.”
“Fiancé?”
“Niangniang was engaged to someone since she was a child, but her father was an official here and forced her into the inner palace. Before she came, she gave one of her earrings to him. Whenever she touched it, she thought of him.”
She continued writing. “Niangniang wasn’t a cheerful person, but she was kind. My family owned a small noodle shop, but I was picked to work here as a court lady. Most of the other court ladies come from surprisingly respectable backgrounds, and I struggled as I couldn’t read or write very well and had no education. Niangniang couldn’t allow herself to stand by and watch, so she took me in as her lady-in-waiting. And yet…”
Kogyo stopped momentarily. Quickly after, though, she seemed to pull herself together again and went on. “One day, niangniang ended up giving that earring to someone.”
“Really?”
“When she came back from the courtyard, she wasn’t wearing it anymore. I was surprised and thought she dropped it, so I asked her where it went. Instead, she smiled and told me she gave it away to someone—someone who was crying, apparently. Maybe they were upset about something that happened in the inner palace. I’m sure they knew what a kind person niangniang was. Niangniang would never even dream of poisoning anyone.”
“So that’s why I wondered whether you were the person she gave the earring to, or someone else who knew them. If so, you would have known that she was innocent.”
Kogyo put down the writing brush and exhaled. Jusetsu placed a hand on her forehead. It was hot. The woman’s temperature might have gone up from exertion.
“All right. You should rest for a while,” Jusetsu said, but Kogyo had other ideas.
She picked up the brush again and quickly wrote something down. “Niangniang wasn’t just framed for something she didn’t do. She was murdered. The eunuchs murdered her. Please find a way to punish them. I will accept my punishment too.”
That was all Kogyo managed to write before she passed out. Jusetsu let her lay down and used the leftover hemp paper to write down the names of three items—thorow wax, goldthread, and crow-dipper—and gave the paper to Onkei.
“Tell the medicinal department to prepare these treatments for me,” she said.
Onkei left the room immediately with the paper in hand. Jusetsu left Jiujiu to look after Kogyo and went back to her own room. She placed the earring on the table and stared at it.
She was killed for a crime she didn’t commit. That must have been why Han Ojo ended up as a ghost and was haunting the earring.
Who did she give it to? That person probably dropped it. Since it was found in the inner palace, that meant they must have still been working there. Could it have been a long-serving court lady, or maybe a eunuch who had been around since the previous emperor’s time?
Jusetsu pressed her temples. What was going on? At any rate, she needed to tell Koshun what she’d found out. She ran her finger across the jade. If they could get revenge for Han Ojo, would it satisfy her enough to save her soul? On the other hand, if they left her injustice unavenged, not even a repose of the soul ritual would do the trick.
Jusetsu picked up the earring and dangled it in front of her eyes.
Jusetsu used the ingredients Onkei fetched for her to boil up a concoction and gave it to Kogyo to drink. The next day, the woman’s temperature had gone down. When she fed her gruel containing ginseng and licorice to strengthen her body, her sickly complexion improved considerably. They spent the whole day taking care of the ailing woman, and before they knew it, the sun had already set. Before long, Koshun turned up at the palace, as Jusetsu had sent a message to request his presence.
“Do you know the name of the of the eunuch who took away your tongue and killed Han Ojo?”
When they explained to Koshun the series of events, Koshun didn’t look particularly surprised. He simply asked Kogyo this question. Kogyo nodded and then wrote his name on a piece of paper. Koshun glanced at it before giving the paper to Eisei.
“That man isn’t anybody important, but he is the empress dowager’s lapdog,” he remarked. “He works in the palace registry now.”
“I’m glad we chose not to dispose of him back then,” he added in a murmur so quiet that only those next to him, Eisei and Jusetsu, could hear it. “Do you know the name of Han Ojo’s fiancé?” Koshun also asked.
“Niangniang always called him Juro,” Kogyo immediately wrote. Then she looked as if she was pausing for thought for a moment.
The name “Juro” referred to a person’s seniority within their family. It was always used to refer to the tenth man born in a particular generation.
Something seemed to come to mind a brief time later, and she hurriedly scribbled down a few more letters. “Kakuko,” she wrote.
That was his name.
“Kakuko…” Koshun whispered curiously.
“Do you know him?” Eisei asked.
Koshun put his hand to his chin, trying to remember. “I feel like I’ve heard that name before. I’m sure it was Meiin who mentioned it.”
Meiin was the scholar who acted as the emperor’s adviser.
“He excelled in the imperial exam, passing with the highest grade. He’s now working in the imperial library as a bookkeeper.”
He has a good memory, Jusetsu observed.
Koshun crossed his arms and became lost in thought. “If her family were reputable enough to get their daughter a position as an inner palace concubine, her fiancé must have come from a suitably good background. It’s no surprise that he would be an official. Still…”
How did Han Ojo’s fiancé feel about what had happened to her? She was snatched away from her fiancé by the inner palace—or, that is to say, the emperor—and subsequently died there.
Jusetsu pressed her hand against her belt. She had stowed the earring away somewhere underneath it again.
“Could I…meet him?” Jusetsu asked Koshun, looking up at him.
“Could you meet him?” he asked back.
As a rule, the consorts in the inner palace were not permitted to meet with people from the outside unless they were related.
“It sounds like Han Ojo remembered her fiancé fondly, even after coming to the inner palace. I want to ask him what kind of relationship they had.”
If Han Ojo loved him that deeply, perhaps it was him that kept her anchored to this world. If he were in their hometown, it would be harder to meet with him as Jusetsu would not be able to leave the imperial estate, but since he was a palace official, it had to be possible. Koshun just needed to help facilitate it.
Koshun appeared to give it some thought, but soon replied, “Okay. Let’s arrange for you to meet.”
Jusetsu gazed at Koshun’s face for a moment. Despite it being his request in the first place, the emperor had gone far out of his way to visit a single court lady to listen to her story, and he was now readily complying with Jusetsu’s wishes. Why in the world is that jade earring so important to him? Jusetsu wondered to herself.
“I posed this question to you since the offset, but…why are you putting so much effort into this? As insensitive as this may sound, it is nothing more than an earring you found on the ground.”
This was not normal behavior for an emperor.
Koshun glanced at Jusetsu and rose from his seat without saying a word. Annoyed that he ignored her question, Jusetsu followed him as he left the room.
Once they were out of the palace, Koshun stopped in his tracks. He didn’t even bother to turn around and face her as he spoke. “I think I made it clear when I first came to see you,” he began quietly.
Jusetsu stood beside him, looking up at his face.
“I just want to know who dropped that earring.”
“I told you that I couldn’t…”
“I thought that if we found out who was haunting it, I’d be able to do some investigating.”
“…So you made me do the investigating instead?”
“Thanks to you, we found out that the earring belonged to Han Ojo. I appreciate that.”
“But that doesn’t help us find out who dropped it now.”
The person who lost the earring had to be the person who Han Ojo gifted it to. They were either a eunuch or court lady from the previous emperor’s era, but there were too many of those to count.
“You still haven’t told me why you want to know that in the first place,” Jusetsu argued.
Koshun may have seemed like he was giving a proper answer, but he was evading the real question. He had been doing that since the very start. As earnest as he seemed, the emperor wasn’t a trustworthy man.
Koshun looked down at Jusetsu from the corner of his eye, then bent over slightly. His face got closer to hers and she almost backed away, but what happened next made her stay still.
In an even quieter voice, he said, “I think it would just cause further trouble for you if you asked me that.” He must not have wanted anyone to hear the truth.
“You’ve already caused me more than enough trouble—I doubt any more would make any difference.”
“It wasn’t me that picked up that earring.”
Jusetsu gazed up at the emperor. “Then who did?”
“My spy in the inner palace.”
“Spy…” Jusetsu echoed.
“The person who dropped it may have witnessed a certain plot being carried out. And if so, they could be of great help to me.”
“Master,” Eisei called out, “You don’t need to go into too much detail.”
Koshun cast a brief glance toward him to make him be quiet.
A plot? So the person who dropped the earring was a witness.
Jusetsu scowled. “I see. That is why you were putting so much effort into this. Not for the ghost.”
It was all a lie—even what he said about feeling sorry for her.
The look on Koshun’s face remained unchanged. He simply said, “I’m just answering your question.” And with that, he began to walk away.
Jusetsu stayed in her place and gave him a fierce glare as he went off into the distance—but then, a memory of something Koshun said came flowing back to her.
“Won’t you save her for me?”
She released the tension from her furrowed brow.
If he only wanted to track down the person who dropped it, there would have been no need for him to make that demand. But when Jusetsu came to this realization, she was confused. What was that all about? She was certain that Koshun was still not telling her the truth.
Jusetsu was silently watching Koshun disappear out of sight, but she suddenly stepped forward.
“Wait!” she called out to the emperor, who was heading toward the passageway.
When he turned around, she added, “I still have something I want to say to you,” and drew closer still.
“If it’s something to do with the earring, then I’m not…”
“It’s not!” Jusetsu interrupted him.
There was one thing she needed to ask. She couldn’t just leave it be.
Koshun stared at Jusetsu for a moment, then gave Eisei a signal. Eisei gave him a hesitant look, but bowed and went away regardless. Koshun turned to walk toward the pond. There was no breeze that night, and the moon’s reflection floated on the black surface of the water.
“…Why did you turn a blind eye to what you saw? I don’t understand your intentions,” Jusetsu asked, looking up at Koshun at the side of the pond.
She couldn’t even begin to comprehend why he would pretend not to know her true identity. What could possibly be going through his mind? That thought constantly raced around her head.
Koshun looked down at her, then began to speak. “I wouldn’t gain anything from exposing the truth.” His voice was quiet, emotionless, and as subdued as a beam of sunlight in the winter. You couldn’t infer any emotion from it, and his facial expression was just the same.
“On the contrary, it would cause more problems than good. If I were to execute you, I would no longer have a Raven Consort, and my people would condemn me for being so cruel. My grandfather took things too far,” he said, staring at the water’s surface. “As soon as he became emperor, he turned into a terrifying person. The older he got, the more paranoid he became, and he convinced himself that everyone around him was trying to steal his throne from him. It even drove him to kill his own sons.”
The Flame Emperor had indeed had his two sons executed for treason.
“There’s no need for me to have you killed. If you wanted to kill me, though, that’d be a different story.” Koshun looked at Jusetsu.
“…I have no desire to do so,” she replied.
Koshun examined her expression, trying to work out if she was lying. “Do you not hate me? Or my grandfather? Or my father?”
Jusetsu avoided meeting his gaze. Moonlight shone on the water, its cold surface glistening. “I don’t know. I’ve never experienced hatred toward another person. If I were to hate anyone, it would be myself.”
Koshun raised an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because I left my mother to die. When my mother was caught, I was sitting down on the ground, trying to hold my breath…so they wouldn’t find me.”
So that I, alone, would be spared.
“I left my mother to die,” she whispered, looking at the reflection of the moon on the water.
This feeling had been tormenting and tearing up Jusetsu’s heart for all this time. All she did that day was cover her ears and tremble. She stupidly thought that if she just waited for the situation to pass, everything would go back to the way it once was. It was so foolish of her.
When she saw her mother’s head, her heart shattered with regret. Why had she sat by and let that happen? Why couldn’t she have worked up the courage to dash out and do something?
Her sorrow chipped away at the recesses of her heart, and there was nothing that could seal the wounds that it had made.
“If you wouldn’t kill me because it wouldn’t benefit you…that must mean that you might in the future, if it ever did,” Jusetsu said casually, turning on her heel. Despite saying it, this didn’t particularly bother her.
“Jusetsu.”
That was the first time the emperor had called her by her name. The sound of it was strangely soft and quiet as it beat against Jusetsu’s chest.
When she turned around, he had taken something off his belt and was holding it out for her.
“What’s that?” she asked with a frown, not understanding what he was trying to do.
Koshun took one of Jusetsu’s hands and placed the decoration into it. It was a small, fish-shaped ornament made of amber. “I am giving you this as a symbol of my promise. Take it.”
“What promise?”
“My promise that I will not kill you.”
Jusetsu looked at Koshun and the amber fish in turn. His eyes were the darkest shade of black and were as clear as running spring water.
For some reason, she didn’t feel like she could look right into them for any longer. She averted her gaze.
“You can keep it,” she said. “I wouldn’t like anyone to think I stole it from you.”
Jusetsu stuck out the hand that the amber fish was resting on. Koshun wouldn’t take it and just turned away.
“W-wait!”
He glanced back at Jusetsu, who was trying to chase after him.
“Jusetsu, the same thing happened to me,” he said.
“Pardon?”
“I left my mother to die too.”
His words were void of emotion, and his deep, black eyes almost seemed to absorb the darkness that surrounded him. They looked empty. This man’s heart is missing something too, and nothing will fill the gaps, Jusetsu sensed.
The moonlight shone down on him as he walked and disappeared into the distance. Even the amber fish that sat in Jusetsu’s palm was gently illuminated by its pure, white light.
***
Koshun was ten when his mother died.
His mother was often plagued by melancholy in those days, but Koshun still paid her regular visits. These bouts of depression were caused by the harassment she received from the empress dowager—who at that time was still the empress.
