Lotus in a Bottle - Chapter 29

Section 47

Tan Lian’s Previous Life: Side Story

Tan Lian lost his mother not long after he was born.

Ever since he was a child, his father had told him, “Your mother died because of you. She died because of that Dog Emperor. If you have even the slightest shred of conscience, you will avenge her.”

His mother had once been known as the Number One Beauty Under Heaven.

She and her childhood sweetheart, Lord Tan, had long been in love and were already engaged. But at a palace banquet one year, the emperor used his drunkenness as an excuse to force himself on her.

In the end, his mother still married the man she loved, but that night had left her pregnant with Tan Lian.

No matter how many times Lord Tan said he did not mind, she could never move past it. Consumed by anguish, she died not long after giving birth to Tan Lian.

The sprawling Tan Manor was as lifeless as a haunted crypt. In public, Lord Tan was as gentle and refined as polished jade, seemingly harboring no resentment toward the emperor whatsoever.

Only at home did he reveal his vicious true face to Tan Lian.

He never abused Tan Lian. He merely watered this flower, destined to bloom, with hatred, hoping Tan Lian would blossom into the kind of evil he desired.

Under his constant influence, Tan Lian grew into a second Lord Tan.

Charming and likable, yet false to the core.

Thanks to his exceptional beauty, Tan Lian was far better at putting on an act than Lord Tan had ever been.

So good, in fact, that he eventually grew tired of it.

Tired of all those covetous gazes.

Tired of those fools who cared for nothing but his looks.

Tired of how easily everything fell into his hands.

As he grew older, the affairs of the world began to seem more and more like a game of chess to Tan Lian.

He was the one moving the pieces, while the opponent sitting across from him might as well have been a three-year-old child.

Life offered no challenge. Fate itself was laughably easy.

Fortunately, among the madmen who coveted him, a few were at least competent.

They planned to join forces, corner him, clip his wings, and imprison him in the inner residence.

Tan Lian tapped a chess piece against the board as he considered countless ways to counter them.

Then one day, a chance glance over his shoulder drew his attention to a perfumed balm shop he happened to be passing.

On a whim, he bought a jar and took it home.

Its fragrance was light and delicate. He liked it.

That tiny spark of interest was enough for him to engineer an encounter with a Xie Family caravan. Then, leveraging a so-called debt of gratitude for saving their lives, he married the Xie Family’s young lady who loved researching perfumed balms.

But once he had married her, his interest went no further.

Tan Lian was fastidious about cleanliness, to the point that he disliked being touched by outsiders.

On their wedding night, he made an excuse and did not visit the bridal chamber to see his new wife.

He never expected that decision to end in disaster.

Of all the people who pestered him, the only one he never guarded against was that fool Shen Huaihuan. Yet it was precisely that fool who presented him with such a generous wedding gift.

Manipulated by Gu Nanzhou, Shen Huaihuan drugged Tan Lian’s new wife with an aphrodisiac.

With Tan Lian absent, Shen Huaihuan did not even have the sense to flee. Through a series of blunders, the two of them ended up entangled together.

Tan Lian had no interest in learning exactly how far things had gone. But judging by his wife’s bloodless face and devastated expression, he doubted the answer would please him.

Not that it truly mattered.

Whether it was his mother or Xie Baoping, he could not understand why they cared so much about something like chastity.

Chastity was nothing more than a moral shackle imposed by the strong upon the weak.

If they were powerful enough, a woman’s chastity would be nothing but a joke.

As he watched Xie Baoping grow more haggard by the day, Tan Lian finally went to her room in irritation and offered her a few words of comfort.

Xie Baoping was still useful to him, after all. He did not want her dying over something so ridiculous.

Fortunately, Xie Baoping was far more optimistic than his mother had been. A few halfhearted words of reassurance from him were somehow enough to pull her back from the brink.

Tan Lian found himself somewhat relieved that Xie Baoping was not some fragile, pampered young lady.

For no apparent reason, he thought of that jar of perfumed balm.

Its fragrance was not strong. Like the light in Xie Baoping’s eyes, it was faint and fragile, yet neither wind nor rain could extinguish it.

As a tool that would need to remain at his side for many years, Xie Baoping passed muster.

And since she did, Tan Lian did not mind showing her all the consideration and tenderness expected of a husband.

He treated Xie Baoping very well. He gave her gifts tailored to her preferences and adjusted his behavior toward her according to her expressions.

Sometimes, when one became too immersed in playing a role, it became impossible to step out of it.

Little by little, he forgot his aversion to touch and began pinching Xie Baoping’s cheeks whenever the mood struck him.

He also liked feeding her because the way Xie Baoping ate reminded him of a puppy he had once seen.

Just as adorable. Just as pitiable.

He decided he might as well think of it as keeping a pleasing little pet.

He did not mind pretending to be a good husband for the rest of his life. If it was Xie Baoping, keeping her for a lifetime did not seem entirely unbearable.

But then came the day he smiled and claimed to be busy, refusing to accompany Xie Baoping to pray for blessings during the Shangsi Festival.

Xie Baoping cried.

She was beautiful, and even in tears she was not unpleasant to look at. But her words made Tan Lian frown.

She said, “Since you love pretending so much, why can’t you make it a little more convincing? Why can’t you at least let me believe you truly don’t despise me?”

So Xie Baoping still cared about what had happened on their wedding night.

So Xie Baoping had seen through his hollow pretense long ago.

He should not have cared, yet for once, humiliation flared into anger within him.

To conceal his discomfort, he let out a scornful laugh.

He said, “My lady and I each get what we need from this arrangement. Why must you demand something beyond my ability to give? Now that you have spoken the truth aloud, you have only made things unpleasant for us both.”

Tears streamed down Xie Baoping’s face, but she no longer sobbed.

She gave him one last look. Tan Lian could not describe the emotion in her eyes. He did not understand Xie Baoping well enough, nor could he guess what she had been thinking at that moment.

For many years afterward, whenever Tan Lian woke with a start in the middle of the night, the first thing he saw was the look Xie Baoping had given him then.

He kept wondering what Xie Baoping had been feeling at the time.

Wronged? Resentful? Did she hate him?

He didn’t know, and now he would never have an answer.

Not long after the Shangsi Festival, the Xie Family’s ancestral home in Xiangyang burned down.

Xie Baoping needed to return to Xiangyang, but it happened to be the most critical stage of his plans.

He had no attention to spare for her. All he said was, “Stay home. I’ll send someone to oversee the repairs.”

But he had forgotten that Xie Baoping had never been one to obediently do as she was told.

Besides, they were still giving each other the cold shoulder.

Xie Baoping bottled up her anger and secretly left for Xiangyang without saying a word. It was only then that he finally surfaced from his mountain of official business.

By the time he realized something was wrong and went to bring her home, all he received was Xie Baoping’s body.

Xie Baoping was dead.

Many people had played a part in what happened: Gu Nanzhou, who dispatched the suicide assassins; the Second Prince, who kept Tan Lian tied up; General Song, who deliberately delayed the news; and the Princess Royal’s Manor, whose people helped stir up trouble within the Xie Family…

Oh, and Shen Huaihuan, who had upset Xie Baoping and caused their cold war.

He spared none of them.

Tan Lian remained the same beloved philanthropist, the same Number One Beauty Under Heaven, unsullied despite emerging from the mud.

All he had to do was stand there and crook a finger, and countless people would rush forward, willing to be his dogs.

There had been easier ways for him to ascend the throne and take revenge on the emperor.

But now, his list of enemies had grown.

And merely sending them to their deaths was no longer enough.

He wanted them to live in a hell of his own making, where every moment would be worse than death.

He treated everyone as a pawn, discarding them like worn-out shoes once they had served their purpose. He still despised those greedy gazes, but he began to savor the pleasure of using that greed to destroy people.

In the end, Tan Lian thought, he had become the same kind of madman as Lord Tan.

He didn’t care.

Three years later, Tan Lian ascended the throne.

He drove the Old Emperor, who had caused his mother’s death, into such a fury that the man died in the Buddhist hall.

As for Gu Nanzhou, Han Ming, and the others, he strung them up in his private dungeon and sliced a piece of flesh from each of them every day.

Whenever he was in a bad mood, he poured the scented balm Xie Baoping had left behind into their wounds, then lured bees and butterflies over to feed.

That fool Shen Huaihuan was the only one who escaped the dungeon. His mother knew which way the wind was blowing and traded all her power and influence for his life.

So Tan Lian did not kill him. He merely stripped him of his status and reduced him to a commoner, forcing the once-pampered little prince to live as a beggar fighting stray dogs for scraps.

He had avenged his mother.

He had avenged Xie Baoping too.

And then Tan Lian found himself wondering again: What had that look in Xie Baoping’s eyes meant?

He thought and thought.

Then, one day, the answer suddenly came to him.

“Xie Baoping hated me,” he said.

If Xie Baoping hated him, then he was guilty too.

First, he destroyed the face that had brought about Xie Baoping’s death.

Remembering how Xie Baoping had disliked his obsession with cleanliness, he branded his own body, leaving scars that would never fade.

But he was the emperor. He could not die.

The finest physicians under heaven stood watch in the Imperial Academy of Physicians. They would not let him die so easily.

In that case, everyone could die with him.

In the third year of his reign, the New Emperor went mad.

The man once hailed by all as a wise and virtuous ruler became a tyrant.

Corrupt officials ran rampant, eunuchs seized power, and the common people were plunged into misery.

As Tan Lian read the urgent reports pouring in from across the realm, his twisted, hideous face brimmed with a smile of pure delight.

Soon, he thought.

Soon he would finish avenging Baoping.

He went to Fengguo Temple and had a votive lamp lit for his mother and another for Xie Baoping.

On his way out, however, he encountered the abbot of Fengguo Temple, who rarely appeared before others.

Liao Zhao bowed to him.

But the first words out of the monk’s mouth were, “By acting as Your Majesty has, the karmic burden you create must be borne by both you and your wife.”

Displeased, Tan Lian demanded to know why.

The monk did not answer. He merely said, “Your Majesty stands at the highest point under heaven. If you perform good deeds, the merit you accumulate will likewise be hundreds, even thousands of times greater than that of an ordinary person.

“If Your Majesty is willing, this humble monk will offer his own life to help you make a bargain-

“Trade that immense store of merit for another turn of the wheel of reincarnation, and for one more reunion.”

Tan Lian had never believed in gods or ghosts.

But he accepted the monk’s offer.

For the next ten years, he still woke with a start every night, unable to utter a single word in his own defense beneath Xie Baoping’s gaze.

Wearing that hideous, ghostlike face, he set the imperial court back in order. He had governed well once before. Now, so long as he willed it, even a tyrant like him possessed the ability to steady the realm.

Ten years later, Dayan was prosperous and at peace, its rivers clear and its seas calm after years of stability.

Tan Lian sent someone to ask Liao Zhao whether it was enough.

The eunuch he had sent returned trembling. He dropped to his knees and reported in a shrill voice, “Your Majesty, the abbot… has passed into final meditation.”

Tan Lian felt something stir within him.

That night, he dreamed of Xie Baoping again.

This time, she was no longer looking at him with that incomprehensible gaze.

He saw Xie Baoping pouting as she muttered and applied medicine to his shoulder, voicing a complaint he could not understand.

“If you dare secretly tear your wound open again, I’ll really get angry!”

He saw himself with his face whole and unscarred, holding Xie Baoping in his arms. There was no affection visible in his expression, yet he was shamelessly nibbling all over her neck.

He saw a golden age.

A golden age with Xie Baoping in it.

If this was the reincarnation Liao Zhao had spoken of, the one in which Xie Baoping would be there…

Then truly.

It wasn’t bad at all.

The End