Under the Bamboo Parasol

"Before Feng Yun left, she told me that you wanted to speak." The old man replied.

What? When did she want to speak to him? She never said she wished to speak with him, when did Feng Yun get that idea?

Then she thought of the suspicious actions that she had done in front of Feng Yun. Fine, perhaps she deserved it. Then she and Feng Yun would be considered even.

"Ah yes, next time when you make your liquors, could you make it with less alcohol content?" Madam Lin saved the conversation by thinking of what happened the previous night.

Never before had she gotten so intoxicated after a single drink. There was a time when she believed she had a good tolerance to alcohol, but after that night, that all went down the drain.

[Never again.]

"Sorry Madam, but you know that when I ever do make wines, I like to make it to the best quality it can be, but a lower alcohol content means a lower quality, I apologize, but that is something I would be willing to do." Mister Song replied with a frown. He could agree to anything, but when it came to his precious wines, he wouldn't hesitate to decline.

"Oh well, it was worth a shot. Sorry, you came here for no reason." Madam Lin gave a shrug and said to Mister Song as she got back to playing her one person game of Go.

"But I do have something I would like to talk about." His voice was said with the utmost seriousness.

"Oh? What do you wish to speak to me about?" Her voice was unenthusiastic as if she could not help but want this conversation to end quickly and for Mister Song to be out on his merry way.

"The emperor, you may have heard that he is unwell." Mister Song started.

"Yes, and?" Madam Lin interjected before Mister Song even had the chance to finish.

"His father too was in poor health and died an early death. I had to ask, did you have anything to do with the deaths of the previous two monarchs?"

"No." Madam Lin answered with a single word.

Hearing the response, Mister Song was relieved, as if a large weight placed upon his chest had been lifted, and he could take in a breath of fresh air. He was about to bid farewell to Madam Lin.

But she arose from her game of carefully placing her game pieces in strategic locations, leaving the entire board in a stalemate between both sides.

"Wait, Mister Song, don't you wish to know why the past generations of emperors have been ill so frequently, to the point of meeting their deaths before the age of thirty?" Madam Lin asked in an eerie voice that plunged the entire room endowed with light, straight into darkness.

It was the smile across her face that seemed like a smile, yet it was not quite there, that made her seem a little off.

Mister Song felt the urge to leave, yet it was a strange sense of curiosity building up within him that held him back. It was near impossible for him to resist this temptation of knowledge, so he patiently waited for Madam Lin to speak.

Madam Lin reverted back to her original expression and gave a gentle grin as she began.

"Ah, it is times of peace that give birth to the schemings of the inner palace." Madam Lin shook her head as she began, "You know very well that the emperor generations ago married with his cousin or the empress dowager's niece." She smiled and continued "This continued on over the past generations, the emperor would always give the Phoenix seal to his cousin, and the child born between them would undoubtedly become the crown prince. It would never matter how many consorts he had, as long as the empress gave birth to a son, the child would be destined to become the next ruler." Madam Lin's voice slowly trailed off.

"What of it?" Mister Song asked. He could not draw the conclusions between the story being told, and the early deaths of the monarch.

"At first, it was fine, but as time passed, you would notice the many monarchs dying an early age, while their brothers born of different consorts lived longer."

"You mean to say, what's killing them is the bloodline of the empress?" The question was proposed in a manner lacking all confidence.

"You could say that, but it's only the blood relationship between the empress and the emperor that causes them to give birth to children who are ill." Madam Lin replied with a careless tone.

"Thank you for your time madam." Mister Song cups his hand before seeing himself off.

"Hm." Madam Lin slightly hums as she places down a pitch black stone, slowly picking up the glistening white stones around it, collecting it up in a single hand.

In this battle that was the Go board, one side had won, while the other had lost all its troops and was doomed to lose this game.