Empress Orchid - Anchee Min [145]
Around this time, I noticed that I had been shedding hair. One day An-te-hai picked up some from the floor after the hairdresser had gone, and I became alarmed. Was this a symptom of some disease?
I hadn’t trimmed my hair since entering the Forbidden City, and it was knee-length now. Every morning the hairdresser came, and no matter how hard he brushed, my hair had never fallen out. Now his brush filled with bunches of it, as if he were carding wool. I never considered myself vain, but if this continued, I told myself, I would be bald before long.
An-te-hai suggested that I change hairdressers, and he recommended a talented young eunuch he’d heard about, Li Lien-ying. Li’s original name was Fourteen—his parents had so many children, they gave up on more traditional names. The name Li Lien-ying, meaning “a fine lotus leaf,” was given to him by a Buddhist after he was castrated. Buddhists believed that the lotus leaf was the seat of Kuan Ying, the goddess of mercy, who was originally a man but took the form of a woman. Kuan Ying was a favorite of mine, so I was inclined to like Li Lien-ying from the start.
I ended up keeping him. Like An-te-hai, Li was cheerful and kept his misery to himself. Unlike An-te-hai, he was scrawny and not hand-some. He had a squash-shaped face, bumpy skin, goldfish eyes, a flat nose and sloped mouth. At first I couldn’t tell whether he was smiling or frowning. Despite his unlovely appearance, his sweetness won my heart.
An-te-hai loved to watch Li Lien-ying do my hair. Li knew an incredible number of styles: the goose tail, the tipping bird, the wheeling snake, the climbing vine. When he brushed, his hands were at once firm and gentle. Amazingly enough, I never found hair on the floor after he was through. He had worked wonders. I told An-te-hai I would take him on as an apprentice. An-te-hai taught him proper manners, and Li Lien-ying proved to be a fast learner.
Many years later, Li confessed that he had fooled me. “I hid Your Majesty’s lost hair inside my sleeves,” he said. He did not feel guilty, though; it was for my own good that he’d been deceitful. He thought that my hair loss was due to the stresses of my life and believed that I would heal in time. He was right. He was too young then to understand the risk he took in lying to me. “You could have been beheaded if I found out,” I said. He nodded and smiled. As it turned out, Li Lien-ying became my lifelong favorite after An-te-hai, and he served me for forty-some years.
Twenty
A MESSAGE CAME from Prince Kung asking for permission to be in Jehol for the mourning ceremony. According to tradition, Prince Kung had to make an official request and the throne had to approve it. Although Kung was Tung Chih’s uncle, he was by rank a subordinate. The boy had become Emperor, and Prince Kung was his minister. To my astonishment, Prince Kung’s request was denied.
Household law forbade Hsien Feng’s widows to meet any male relative during the mourning period. Obviously Su Shun was behind this. He must have feared that his own power would be threatened.
Nuharoo and I were practically imprisoned in our quarters. I was not even allowed to take Tung Chih to visit the hot spring. Whenever I did step out, Chief Eunuch Shim followed. I felt that Prince Kung needed to know how things were going.
But Prince Kung simply withdrew his request. He had no choice but to do so. If he insisted on coming, Su Shun had the right to punish him for disobeying the Emperor’s will.
Nevertheless, I was disappointed that Prince Kung gave in so easily. I wouldn’t know until later that he sought another path. Like me, he viewed Su Shun as a danger. His feelings were shared and supported by many—clansmen, Imperial loyalists, reformers, scholars and students—who would rather see