Wow, we've gotten pretty far in this fic! Warning this chappie made me cry T.T Enjoy

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Chapter 21

Goddess of the River Luo

Morning, the next day…

'Entry forty-six, Winter-Start 196'

'They've taken her away; the doctors. They told me that my mother could no longer live at home anymore. She's been coughing more blood lately and her fevers have gotten more serious so the doctor suggested that she simply stay in hospice. I reluctantly agreed, but what of me? I can only live in my dwelling for a short while and I have no other family here and father is

And there the entry ended with an incomplete statement. Lu Xun hadn't spoken of his father much during her time in Wu. He only told her that his father was no longer with him either, like her father; but what did that mean? Was Lu Jun simply missing or really gone?

Baffled, Xuan turned the page.

'Entry forty-seven, Winter-Start 196'

'A woman visited the village today. She was in an elaborate carriage surrounded by soldiers in red. I think one of the villagers mentioned the capital. She was rather young and dressed in an expensive dress and she wasn't even worried about the dirt! She visited my home that evening and told me she was from the palace and she had come to talk of my mother. Her name was Lady Wu. She was very kind and told me that she and my mother were dear friends and she was sad when she heard of the illness. But when I woke this morning she was gone.'

Unbelievable! Lady Wu, her grand mother had met Xun as I child. Xuan had wished Wu had told her about him, she imagined he was as cunning and clever as a child as he was now. She laughed quietly to herself, until she heard a commotion outside her door. She leaped to her feet and was quick to hide the journal in her cache behind the portrait.

"Her Majesty, the Empress arrives!" A servant said, just before the Wei Empress burst through the door.

Zhen Ji, in a frenzy of anger and grief, slammed the door shut behind her yelling "Go Away!" to the servants that followed in a high pitched shrill. There was an obedient clatter of feet outside the door as the servants scurried off. When she finally turned to Xuan, her face was red and her eyes drooped from lack of sleep.

"Lady Ji!" Xuan exclaimed, approaching Ji cautiously. "What has happened?"

Ji didn't reply at first. Instead she stomped past Xuan and towards the portrait that housed Xun's journal, Xuan's heart froze. But Ji didn't make a motion towards the cache, she simply glared at the portrait right next to it.

It was a painting of the Emperor, Cao Pi. He appeared surprisingly pleasant, no sign of deception or malice in his features. But to Ji, it must have been an act, because she reached for the burning candle on Xuan's desk. She abruptly held the blazing flame to the portrait, letting in burn the delicate painting.

And Zhen Ji began to laugh.

"Ji!" Xuan cried, dashing for the empress and pulling her away. Ji screeched when Xuan confiscated the candle and blew out the flame. Xuan grasped her blanket off the bed and threw it against the burning portrait until there was nothing but smoke emitting from the destroyed remains. Examining the remains, Xuan sighed to find it unfixable; the parchment was burnt and ruined and the melted paints drooled down the framing.

Sun Xuan shook her head. This was beginning to get old as Jin had tried the same scheme of burning the painting a week ago, but Xuan thwarted him as well.

Breathing heavily, Xuan turned to Ji finally. The woman was collapsed on the floor, her face in her hands. Kneeling by the empress, Xuan noticed that the woman wasn't wearing her Phoenix crown which marked her as the royal empress. Her hair was loose and flowing down in a rather tangled muddle. Her blue satin dress was wrinkled and in disarray. Her makeup was terribly smudged from her tears. It appeared that she had been crying even while she was applying the makeup.

"Why do you cry, mother?" Xuan asked formally, inclining her head forward at her mother-in-law. Ji wouldn't reply, but her insatiable cries diminished. Her hands covered her austere face from the world.

"Please, tell me" Xuan pleaded, placing her hand on Ji's shoulder.

"Damn him" Ji muttered through her hands. After a moment, she removed her hands "Damn this place!" She cried out loud enough for the spirits of those long since passed to hear.

Sun Xuan drew her hand back, frightened. She was stunned as Ji went on.

"This bastion of hell itself, why didn't I see the mistake I had made?!" Ji exclaimed, her eyes were bloody red and her tears stained her entire face. "Why was I so naïve too not perceive the blunder I made by coming here? My last husband, Yuan Xi, wouldn't have done this, but even he was stolen away from me and like a fool seeking fame and fortune I came here to live with that snake Cao Pi!"

She turned to Xuan. "And here" She said softly placing a damp hand under Xuan's chin. "It is about to happen again"

"Forgive me, but I don't understand" Xuan said, her body convulsing from fright and concern.

"But you are not like me at all" Ji continued, glaring away now. "You are not a fool. Don't become one, don't become me!"

"Lady Ji, perhaps I should call your servants" Xuan pointed out, standing. "You seem ill, perhaps medicine will—"

"I already have my medicine" Ji seethed, a wide grin of malice spread on her miserable face. "The medicine that was assigned to me"

Sun Xuan was struck by an eerie feeling, when she wasn't relieved that Ji had taken 'medicine'. She furrowed a brow "What medicine is this you speak of? Perhaps it isn't working"

"Oh, it's working" Ji replied quickly, she slowly returned her gaze to Xuan. "The botanical toxin, as we call it the 'flower of death'; Anemone"

Xuan felt her breath shorten; she had heard of this hazardous plant in her studies. Anemone, although beautiful, a deadly botanical flower that attacks the heart and causes paralysis of muscular tissue. It also affects one's sanity.

"Such a pretty flower, Anemone is" the empress chided, laughing with crude humor. "So beautiful and yet so deadly, reminds me of myself" She laughed at her unfunny joke.

"Ji!" Xuan knelt again, taking Ji's hands in her own. She felt tears trickling down her face, although the woman had been distant, she was one of very few friends Xuan had. "I must do something! What do I do?! Why did you do this?!"

Ji's voice was but a whisper now. "Pi told me to" she said watching Xuan's face change to one of disbelief. "But it was not he who made me comply with this. Fate told me that this was my chance. My chance to escape this wretched place we all call Wei. Have you not noticed? How every shadow holds an eerie feeling of insecurity? That at every turn beholds a sickening sensation of wickedness?"

Xuan had never felt such a feeling of loss and disbelief since her father died. The woman's words made little since to her. Indeed, she had felt the strange feeling of insecurity before; that this palace held morbid secrets that people kept bottled up in their hearts.

"For so long, I have felt like I was chained up in this place" Ji said quietly. "And Pi's orders to kill myself have made it clear; that it was true, I am a prisoner here, being used only for his entertainment. And now that I am no use…" Ji trailed off, her breathing was deep and forced now. She began to sweat. "Heed my words Xuan, this palace holds no happiness and no peace and it never will. But I know my son, Jin, is trying with all his power to change that. He doesn't want to be the prisoner that Wei has made him to be"

Sun Xuan felt the empress become limp in her hands as she tried to keep her fading consciousness. "I…know you hate him, Xuan. Jin's own hatred for Cao Pi has poisoned his heart, but please don't scorn him"

Xuan nodded feebly. She felt so unbearably helpless. "Ji…"

"But, Xuan, don't let the sorrow that has built up in this palace to turn you into what I am now; another dying spirit that was unable to escape"

Xuan felt her head spinning.

"but…" Ji murmured, staring into Xuan's eyes as if she were staring straight into the girl's heart. "He…truly loves you…"

Ji's forced breathing became silent and her eyes glazed over. Her hands that had clutched Xuan's shoulder for balance fell limply to her sides. Her body fell out of the grasp of Xuans hands and back onto the floor, with a lifeless 'thud'.

The former empress of Wei was dead; killed by her own hands to escape all her pain and sorrow.

Xuan was too shocked to cry, she stared at the unmoving body before her. She wished to believe that it wasn't happening, that she would wake up screaming in her had. But it was real.

Something rolled from Ji's gown pocket, a glass tube. It rolled all the way across the floor, which was strange since the floor was evenly balanced. It appeared that a strange essence propelled the vile. Like a ghost.

Xuan watched the vile roll and clanked against the wall where a portrait of Zhen Ji hung. She stood and walked towards the portrait and gazed at the face that was once Ji. She knelt and picked up the vile; inside was a rolled up piece of parchment and a single petal of Anemone.

She gently pulled out the parchment and unraveled it. In neatly written character it read:

'I am certain that when these words are read, my freed spirit will have already abandoned my grieving body. But know that I am now happy; a feeling that I have not felt in so very long. I was once known as a woman of exquisite loveliness, with a complexion as clear as jade touched with a tender bloom of a flower petal, a woman indeed beautiful enough to ruin a kingdom'

Xuan let the parchment flutter from her hands and onto the floor next to the anemone petal. She placed her head in her hands and finally cried so badly that she felt she couldn't breathe.

There was a commotion at the door as someone forced their way inside. It was Cao Jin "The servants told me there was screaming and—"

There was a long sickening pause for Xuan.

"Mother!" she heard Jin murmured as his quick footsteps could be heard crossing the room. Xuan turned finally, her entire being shaking as she watched Jin kneel by the body that had once been Ji. His hands were shaking as well and his expression was a cross of confusion and disbelief. He shook her a few times and screamed her name over and over in a way that made Xuan want to vomit.

He held her close in defeat as he closed his eyes, suppressing the tears.

He opened them finally to gaze at Xuan. She feared for a moment that he was blaming her for the death of Ji, but he didn't. Guards and hand maids charged in and surrounded the body.

"The empress of Wei is dead" Jin announced, despite how much it hurt. Some of the hand maids placed their hands over their mouths. "Take her body away and prepare for a proper burial"

In seconds, the guards gently lifted the body over their heads as if raising her body to heaven and left the room. The maids followed closely behind, bowing their heads as they left.

Cao Jin stood and stared at burnt portrait of Pi on the wall with an absentminded expression on his face. He finally glanced at Xuan, who was clutching the vile that held the wilting Anemone petal. He approached and kneeled before her, taking the vile from her grasp.

"Anemone" He said simply. "So this is the culprit, eh?"

He eyed Xuan, who cringed at his stare. "I-it was in Ji's pocket. S-she told me…" her voice trailed off as she glanced at the parchment lying on the ground.

"She told be that…the emperor…"

Jin's expression went from passive to raging as he stood and turned away to smash the glass tube against the wall across the room. It shattered and glass shards spewed her and there. He needed no further explanation to know that Pi had made Jin's life more of a living hell.

"That bastard!" Jin exclaimed, clenching his fists.

Xuan placed her head in her hands and felt the harsh tears drip from her fingers.

The raged prince glanced at her over his shoulder and his anger faded almost instantaneously. She was crying for him; for him. He turned to her knelt again, placing a hand on her cheeks and pulling her close in a tight embrace.

Xuan let her hands fall to her sides as she began to contemplate Ji's words again. 'I know you hate him, his own hatred for Cao Pi has poisoned his heart' she had said before her death. 'But he truly loves you'

Xuan returned the prince's embrace. 'Perhaps he truly does…' she thought.

She could have sworn she had felt a tear on her neck. The portrait Ji above her, she could have sworn the woman in the painting was crying.

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I swear that was crying when I wrote this. Y.Y Despite that Ji seemed like a snob, this made me picture her a human being. This chappie title 'The Goddess of the River Luo' was from the name Cao Zhi, Ji's secret lover, had given her after she died. He had a dream that he had seen Ji at the River Luo and dubbed her this title.