Book 4: Chapter 13 (1/2)
Mary’s brow wrinkled as she crossed her arms. She was sitting on a wooden plank. It was a very large plank, about the size of the side of a boat. In fact, it used to be the side of a boat. She had fallen from the sky and landed on top of a boat. It shattered on impact. So now, she was sitting atop a piece of wood on a river that was yellow from all the silt within. After looking around some more, she couldn’t find what she was looking for: the owner of the boat. So, she shrugged and gave up. She rose to her feet and took a step towards the rushing waters, but when it was about to make contact with the surface of the river, the water shrunk beneath her feet, and her foot landed on the riverbank instead.
Gasping sounds filled the air, and Mary turned her head. Four men were staring at her, but when their gazes met, the men dropped to their knees and pressed their foreheads against the ground. They were wearing long clothes like robes but made of silk. They also had tall hats that they didn’t seem to care about getting dirty. Sweat trickled down the men’s necks, staining their clothes, but they didn’t say a word, not daring to look up. Mary tilted her head before clearing her throat and fixing her posture. Did the men notice she was an empress? “You may rise,” she said.
The men didn’t move.
Mary raised an eyebrow. “You greet me like an empress, yet you don’t want to listen to my words?” she asked. Her expression darkened as she was reminded of Vur, and the bottom of her foot itched. Perhaps she’d use these men’s backs to scratch it.
***
“Young Master, your cousin died.”
A pair of chopsticks clattered against the ground. “Eh?” A teenager raised his head, staring at the woman who had just entered the dining room. He was eating by himself with one servant serving him food. “Cousin? Which cousin?”
“You only have one cousin. The emperor.”
The young man recoiled. His cousin, the emperor died? “How?”
“Do you remember, a month ago, he was boating on the Yellow River and fell inside because he was drunk?”
“Yes….” The young man nodded. There was a huge uproar at the time. The residing emperor actually slipped and fell into the Yellow River because he drank too much. He was absent from court and had to take time off to recover. There were rumors that he caught an illness from an event. “Don’t tell me, the illness he got from that time took his life?”
“No, that’s not it,” the woman said. “The emperor fully recovered today, and to celebrate, he took another boat ride down the Yellow River.”
The young man leaned over and picked up his fallen chopsticks. He placed them back on the table and frowned. “Did he get drunk and fall in again…?”
The woman’s eyebrows furrowed. “He was drunk, yes…, and he also fell in….”
“But?” The young man folded his arms across his chest. “There’s a but in that statement somewhere. I don’t believe he slipped and fell and died after recovering from slipping, falling, and almost dying last time.”
“Yes,” the woman said. She exhaled, and her shoulders relaxed. “According to the four eunuchs who were with him, a celestial fell from the heavens and landed on the boat.”
“What?”
“And upon impact, the boat exploded.”
“Excuse me.”