Chapter Text
Some time ago, he had been told that silence was the highest virtue, the peak of power was in wielding it in silence, but he was silent, like a mouse in a templeand yet he was powerless, as it often happened, popular sayings meant nothing if you arenot human enough to be a man, and yet not wild enough to be a beast, it was his sorry destiny it seemed, to live in a limbo, never quite man nor woman, never human nor beast.
What a wretched thing was life when it was taken from one’s hands like that, before he could even get a taste of it.
Maybe he should start writing sad poetry, for some fellow that nonsense was worth millions, but then again, he was a eunuch, not a person.
Zhao Gao was not a sorry creature; he was outright miserable.
He sat in front of a scroll, staring at it as if it were the reason behind all his woes, what a fool! What a fool he was to believe that the King would believe him, but he knew what he saw, and yet he was so small, those people had power, real power, he only had a pair of eyes and his brain to aid him, he wondered if he should write it down, hidden in an official document he was supposed to copy, if he could sneak in that information so someone braver than him might do something about it in the future, because if the King decided that he liked his mother after all, he might decide to dispose of the lone witness of her affair.
Who would mourn him anyway? He had no family, no friends, nobody to light a measly stick of incense for him; he would just disappear in history, less than a footnote, just another of the thousands of names on the records of the palace.
His fingers curled tighter around the brush, no.
He wasn’t going to go down like that; he did not want to be forgotten; he didn’t want this to be the end; it could not be.
He had to be clever; if his brain was all he had, then he would use it to its full capacity.
The web of the palace was tight, so he had to break it and wave his own, and to do just that, the old order needed to go: Lu Buwei, Lao Ai, the Queen Dowager, they all had to go for him to have a chance at saving himself from irrelevancy.
He had bled, cried, and now it was his turn to get what he was owed, to reclaim at least his status as a real person.
The safest bet was around the King, so he did it; he added a small note, almost illegible, at the bottom of the document to deliver to the King, to remind him that he might be facing a war on multiple fronts, but that he could use that information to get all three of his enemies down.
When he bowed, he did so with even more deference than anyone in history; if he had learned something from the terrifyingly boring hours in the harem was that flattery did get people everywhere, and he had taken that lesson to heart, even more than those given by the senior eunuchs.
He counted to ten before slowly backing away, but then something stopped him. The King had spoken, not loudly, not with anger; it was barely above a whisper, but it made him raise his head ever so slightly to show he had heard.
“How?”
Now that was one hell of a question, how? It did not narrow it down in the slightest. It was typical of an important person, always making the others scratch their heads instead of being clear.
“Your Majesty?”
“How would you have me act?”
Trick question, and Zhao Gao knew it; if he answered badly, the King would definitely have him killed. It was a game, a test of sorts, to see if he could be both useful and quiet.
This was it; if he played it right, he would have a chance to be on the winning side, to be lifted from painful nothingness and get a taste of the sun that shone around the King.
“Your Majesty’s kindness knows no bounds, but this most humble one would never wish to impose its low thought on Your Majesty’s ears”
A laugh, he made the King laugh, like a court fool, but truly, it was better to be a living fool than a dead genius, was it not?
“Kind? Am I kind?”
“Most gracious indeed, Majesty”
The King was looking at him now; he could not be more than four years older than Zhao Gao, but his robes looked like they actually fit him, his profile was oh so noble, his hands were not stained with ink, and even the eyebags that both had almost looked beautiful on him, they just made the haughty gravity of his gaze look more unreal.
It was almost painful that he could only look at him with his head lowered; he would have liked to know what he looked like in full.
“See? Even now, you change your words, first I am kind, and then I am gracious?”
“With Your Majesty’s permission, do they not mean the same thing?”
The soft rustle of fabric moving interrupted the silence that had fallen between them, and for a moment, Zhao Gao believed he was done; he should have thought before saying something so stupid, of corse the King knew that they meant the same thing, what idiot did not know that?
But instead, nothing happened; the King was not even close to him, he was standing by the low desk, hands folded just below his ribcage as if deep in thought before he spoke again, and his voice was still tainted with his earlier laugh.
“That they do, however, you switch words to make things sound sweeter to me. I am neither kind nor gracious, least to you, but you sweeten your words not to anger me. Mind you, it’s hardly special; most people do so as well, and yet… You amuse me; others make it unbearable.”
“This lowly one is-”
“Honoured? Astonished? Bewildered? Madly in love?”
“Grateful, Majesty, just grateful”