Interlude: Imperial Cloud City

~~~

Shao Zhilan of the Divine Frozen Palace wakes up in the embrace of three men.

Gently, she extracts herself from the bed, carefully navigating through the tangle of silk sheets and limbs to avoid waking her husbands. Not that she thinks that is possible. Last night’s activities have taken a significant toll on them. Such is what happens when the disparity between partners is too great. Alas, her husbands had been eager to please, and she would never be so cruel as to deny them.

With graceful and silent steps, Shao Zhilan makes her way to the baths. As an Emperor Realm cultivator, a single burst of Qi would be enough to completely purify her body. Nevertheless, she spends over an hour relaxing in a marble pool large enough to fit several dozen people. No servants accompany her there. Bathing is a time for introspection. It requires solitude. 

Besides, the sight of her naked body is one reserved solely for her husbands.

Once she is done, Shao Zhilan puts on a sky-blue dress decorated with rubies and sapphires. The dress is made of very thin material, shows much, and promises more. She is not particularly enthused about having to wear blue so often, but she is in the capital as the representative of the Divine Frozen Palace. It is important to always look the part. Clothes, jewels, perfume. All have to be picked carefully. 

“How do I look?” she asks Tie Leji, her closest aide, friend, and husband.

“Marvelous as always,” her husband replies, the lines on his face creasing as he smiles.

“And the job I told you about last week?”

“The flowers have been replaced,” her husband replies. A beat passes. He raises an eyebrow. “Was it truly necessary? You cannot deny it seems…”

“Petty?” She finishes for him. “Dear, of course it was petty. In a perfect world, I would have already had Meng Yue strike down Xiao Yifan for daring to defy the Divine Frozen Palace. Unfortunately, the Endlessly Raging Valley is endlessly tedious. Thus, the silly, little woman must instead suffer no end of petty and insignificant troubles that deny her even the smallest satisfaction until the day she dies.”

She looks at herself in the mirror and smiles. 

“Wish me luck.”

“You never need it, but I always do.”

~~~

Imperial Cloud City is the capital of the Crimson Cloud Empire.

Its population is in the tens of millions, and its size is such that even if a person were to walk in a straight line without stopping for an entire day, they would be unable to make it from one end of the city to the other. There is not a single person who would deny it is the most important city in the entire Empire.

Every major Sect and several minor ones have a branch in the city, making Imperial Cloud City a true microcosm of the Empire. One can find people and traditions from every corner of the Empire spread over the city's one hundred and twenty-seven districts. Here, there are paupers and wealthy men. Here, there are heroes and villains. 

However, all of it is centered around a single structure.

The Imperial Palace.

It stands on an elevated platform, fenced off by walls made of stone. The main palace is only four stories high but has considerable breadth. Around it, there is plenty of open space and several smaller buildings, all of them predominantly white with red-tiled roofs. 

The Imperial Palace is located in the exact center of the city. In fact, it is not wrong to say the city grew around the Imperial Palace as influential people from all over the Empire sought to become closer to the Emperor. While the Four Great Sects all boast impressive estates in the districts closest to the palace and own several businesses in the city, the minor sects are lucky if they own a single shop in the smallest and poorest districts. Some have to wait several months for an audience with the Emperor.

Lady Shao Zhilan walks into the palace with all the majesty of a queen.

The guards open every gate for her. The servants bow as she passes by. The imperial pages fight to announce her as she enters the throne room. She saunters across the red carpet, her long brown hair swaying behind her, and kneels twenty paces before the throne.

“Lady Shao, you are here once more. Why?”

“Your Majesty, is it so wrong that your servant might wish to lay eyes upon your visage?”

It is such a lovely visage, after all. For all that his ceremonial crimson robes look far too bulky on him, hiding what she knows is a pleasingly lean body, the Emperor of the Crimson Cloud Empire is a handsome man. His dark hair is tied in a top knot, and his face is angular, with prominent cheekbones. Unfortunately, the look on his face is one of constant exasperation, and his eyes are always dull and lifeless. Those are the only things that stop him from being called classically handsome.

“Lady Shao,” His Majesty says, “How long have we known each other? Must you lie to my face? Is there an edict written down somewhere that compels all who enter this room to lie to the Emperor? There must be because everyone does it. The people lie to me. The clouds lie to me. Even the plants have taken to lying to me recently. I considered executing them, but why bother? The new ones will not be more honest.”

“Oh, Your Majesty! As always, your wit is far too complex for the likes of me,” Shao Zhilan replies with a flawless smile. Her green eyes glimmer like emeralds.

“Truly? I have always thought myself witless. It takes a witless man to be so close to a woman like you.”

She pouts.

“Your Majesty,” she tells him. “Even if it is you, I cannot forgive something that can be taken as an insult to my husbands.”

“I never said they were unhappy,” His Majesty points out. “There are probably no happier men in the Empire. I assure you I curse their names with envy every single day.”

“There is no reason for you to envy them, Your Majesty,” Shao Zhilan says. “The path is always open to you. Would it really be so bad to trust me?”

She bows deeply, and the motion, combined with a dress that already leaves little to the imagination, results in her showing far more cleavage than most women are capable of.

“Yes, it would be terrible,” Emperor replies, staring directly at her cleavage. “Why do you think a pathetic man such as myself has not yet succumbed after all these years? Lady Shao Zhilan,  I wish I could forget my troubles and embrace you. Unfortunately, the Emperor must be perfectly miserable at all times. Anything else is an affront to the natural laws.”

This time, her laugh is genuine. She has long since accepted that the man would never give in to her, but she wishes that wasn’t the case.The Emperor carries himself with all the air of a defeated man, is quick to insult himself, and nearly always believes it. However, there is a reason why Xiang Zuolin remains Emperor after so many years.

“Emperor,” she begins to say, but her smile fades away when the doors to the throne room open with tremendous noise.

What follows is the insistent tapping of a cane as a wrinkled old woman dressed in dark robes makes her way into the throne room. She is small, no more than four feet tall, and perhaps closer to three. Her body trembles with every step she takes. Even calling her old would be too kind. Shao Zhilan can certainly think of many other terms to use on her. 

However, when the old woman speaks, her voice is loud and clear.

“What is the meaning of this?!” She points at them with her wooden cane. “Debauchery! Debauchery! Oh, if only your father and mother could see you now, Little Zuolin! Where did I go wrong?!”

For anyone to enter the throne room and interrupt a meeting between the Emperor and the representative of the Divine Frozen Palace should be unthinkable. However, this is no ordinary old woman. 

She is Old Lady Zhao. She has been the Emperor’s nanny, and the nanny of his father before him and his father before him. No one knows exactly how old she is because no one can remember a time when she was young. All people know is that she has always been there, often going from one job to another. She has been Chief Architect, Minister, and Imperial Dance Instructor, to name a few of her titles.

“To think their son would be consorting a whore!”

“A whore?!” Lady Shao Zhilan stands up. Her qi spreads arctic cold through the throne room as she glares at the diminutive, old woman who has clearly lived far too long. “You dare call me a whore?!”

“What do you want me to call you if you dress like that?” the old woman says, waving her cane in her direction. “Just look at yourself! Those things are nearly falling out of your dress! Those are for babies to suck, woman! You’re supposed to cover them up! Granted, men are often babies. My second husband loved mine. Couldn’t get enough of them. Ah, he’d plead so cutely. Sometimes, I’d-”

“You old crone!” Shao Zhilan shouts. “No one wants to hear you talk about such subjects! No one wants to imagine it!” 

Indeed, the Emperor has already begun turning green.

“Obviously, I was young,” the crone says, rolling her eyes at her. “My bosoms were not saggy and wrinkly like they are now but large and perky. Much more than yours, by the way. I did not need to wear so little to get men to notice me.”

“Are you tired of living?!” Shao Zhilan asks, her face red with anger as she focuses her aura on the person she knows is only a Heaven Realm cultivator.

However, the old bat remains unmoved.

“What are you going to do? Kill me? You think you can do what seven husbands and forty-seven pregnancies couldn’t?” The old woman pats herself on the chest. “Go ahead, girlie! Try your best! This old lady will not move!”

Lady Shao Zhilan reminds herself that there is no reason to fear the old woman. No matter how many memories she has of learning dance and manners under the old crone’s instruction when she was but a young girl, that does not matter anymore. She has become an existence that far surpasses the tiny, shriveled old woman.

And yet, when the old woman effortlessly kicks her slipper to her free hand, brandishing it like a weapon alongside her cane, Shao Zhilan flinches.

“I thought so,” the old woman says. “You would have missed anyway. There is no reason to think your aim is better than any of your husbands. Could it be that they are impotent?”

“You miserable old crone!”

~~~

“How is she not dead yet? How?!” Shao Zhilan screams in frustration later that day while resting on her husband’s lap. She always needs care after encountering that old woman. “Did you know she was already old and wrinkled when I was a child?”

“You have told me many times before,” Tie Leji replies, brushing his fingers through her hair. From this angle, the wrinkles on his face are more noticeable. Age is slowly but surely asserting itself on him.

If only she had found him sooner or if his talent for cultivation was greater, she’d be able to keep him at her side for much longer. What a pity it is that death has to eventually take her loves away from her. 

“Hmph!” She nuzzles herself into his lap. “The only reason the Emperor keeps her around is because she works as a chastity belt for him.”

“I am torn between sympathy and admiration.”

“He is a frightening man… and a sad one.” 

Her husband looks like he is going to say something but stops himself when he feels a presence enter the estate. Shao Zhilan senses it as well and sighs.

“Master! This disciple greets you on this beautiful day!!” 

She enters the room like a ray of sunshine, skipping instead of walking and with a smile that is wide, earnest, and contagious. She is dressed in pink and white robes made of soft, flowy fabric. Her eyes are pink too, and even her long blond hair, which bounces with her every movement, looks pink in certain lights.

She is Shao Zhilan's direct disciple, Fu Lihua. 

“I heard about what happened in the palace. You and Granny Zhao are always so lively!”

“Don’t call her granny!” Shao Zhilan snaps at her disciple. “Do not ever be familiar with that woman!”

Her disciple laughs. “Oh master, you are so melodramatic. Granny Zhao is always so funny.”

“She is a bringer of pain and misery!”

“Master, you will break her heart if you say such things,” her disciple has the gall to admonish her. As if that woman had a heart! “She basically raised Xiang Rong. Anyone who has done that cannot be a bad person.”

“She raised him dull.”

“He’s not dull!” Her disciple protests, pouting. “He’s just a little dim, but that’s fine. Granny Zhao says men are better when they’re a little stupid.” 

“That’s not wrong, but you shouldn’t be learning anything from that woman!” She turns to her husband in search of support. “Tell me, where did I go wrong with this girl?”

Her husband smiles at her. “Dear, if you would allow me this opinion, nowhere at all.”

~~~

Mini-Character 

Shao Zhilan: One of the Five Fairies of the Divine Frozen Palace. Loves several people.

Tie Leji: Shao Zhilan’s husband and closest aide. Aware of his age.

Xiang Zuolin: Emperor of the Crimson Cloud Empire. Will hide behind an old woman if he has to. You can make fun of him, but only if you can get past the old woman.

Granny Zhao: Old and cranky. Dual wields.  

Fu Lihua: Shao Zhilan’s disciple. Sweet girl.

AN:

Since there were many comments about Xiao Yifan being in the Emperor Realm, I’m going to paraphrase what I said in the discord. I’m pretty sure I never mentioned Xiao Yifan’s cultivation level before. If I have, that’s probably my bad. It wasn’t in my notes, but I have been writing this story for many years now. I could have very easily made a mistake somewhere. It is even possible I changed my mind in between chapters. Again, it’s been years.

All that said, Xiao Yifan’s whole deal will be explained later. There is something going on there. Hopefully, it will satisfy everyone. Failing that, I hope it will satisfy most. 

Also, while we are on this topic, I am pretty sure I also haven’t named the Emperor and the Capital of the Crimson Cloud Empire before this chapter. If I’m wrong about that, please let me know. 

Next interlude will be up Wednesday.