Eighty-Fifth Section: Their Eyes Met

In the splendid Hall of Jade Radiance, Princess Thousand Gold led the way, and Feng Xiaobao, Cheng Boxi, and Yang Chengxian followed with her, the four of them together bowing in solemn obeisance before the Empress Dowager.

First came Princess Thousand Gold with her formal announcement, and then the other three.

"I, Feng Xiaobao, Cheng Boxi, and Yang Chengxian, pay my respects to Your Majesty the Empress Dowager!"

In the Tang dynasty, commoners without official rank could address the emperor and empress as subjects, rather than as humble folk; the Tang was an exceptionally open and civilized age.

"Rise, and be seated!" Empress Wu ordered chairs brought. She must have been very pleased to see them, or she would not have received them in her relaxed private hall.

Of course she was pleased. They had brought her a great fortune in gold; they were her lucky stars. How could she not treat them well?

Moreover, these youths were, to a certain extent, her own people, part of her power base. She had to win them over from childhood, so that in the future they would work for her.

Once everyone had taken their seats, Feng Xiaobao boldly looked toward Empress Wu.

At that very moment, Empress Wu's gaze also fell upon him.

Their eyes met, like a collision of fire and earth.

Empress Wu held the great power of the realm; her eyes were full of majesty. She stood above all, higher than any other, suppressing the people and ruling the world. Power was in her hand; with a single fury she could spill blood for a thousand miles and heap the dead in a million.

Before her, men all lowered their heads. They were deferential and obsequious, and neither the court's most brilliant scholar nor its most valiant general was any exception. There had never been an exception.

To her astonishment, what she saw was a gaze like fire, one that laid bare Feng Xiaobao's desire for her.

What frightened her even more was that her body had actually reacted to that look.

It was the chemistry between a strong man and a powerful woman, the fierce response of authority under challenge.

Empress Wu trembled. How could this be? A mere commoner had such an aggressive, possessive look, like Emperor Taizong himself.

Throughout her life, Empress Wu had been conquered by only one man: Emperor Taizong.

The founding emperor, decisive in slaughter and conquest, had subjugated a nation and subjugated Empress Wu as well.

Even her present husband, Emperor Gaozong, had been conquered by her, not she by him.

For a moment, Empress Wu tightened her grip on the armrest of the imperial seat.

Her mind stirred in disorder, and she felt an impulse to order him dragged out of the palace gate and beheaded.

...

At last Feng Xiaobao saw with his own eyes the strongest woman in Chinese history. She wore a vivid red gown embroidered with gold, a short jacket above and a long skirt below, with a draped silk sash and a half-sleeved outer layer, while atop her head gleamed a golden phoenix hairpin.

Empress Wu's face had large, lively eyes, a full neck, a broad forehead, a wide countenance, and brows that slanted gently downward. To judge fairly, her looks were acceptable; she could be called beautiful, though not an incomparable beauty. Otherwise Emperor Taizong would not have summoned her into the palace. More precisely, she matched the aesthetic tastes of Tang men. That was Xiaobao's honest verdict.

But her figure was plump and generous, her bosom magnificent, and Feng Xiaobao's sharp eyes could tell at a glance that it had to be a full C cup, perhaps even larger.

Later, after measuring her with his own hands, he found the empress stood five feet six, tall and straight, with a body of astonishing fire. No wonder she had been able to tame two emperors!

A fine figure was nothing in itself. What mattered was her status, her bearing, her heroic air, and the fact that she was a woman who carried within her the vigor of a man. If only one could...

Feng Xiaobao, who acknowledged no lord above and revered only Heaven and Earth, was an outsider by nature. He felt no reverence for the emperor and empress of the Great Tang, and his mind was full of indecent fantasies. Naturally, his gaze was hardly respectful.

Though he quickly restrained himself and lowered his head at once, he knew perfectly well that his desire for the Tang empress had not escaped her notice.

How would the empress deal with him?

...

When Empress Wu saw Feng Xiaobao's irreverent gaze, she was first enraged, then intrigued.

No one dared look at her like that now. No one had ever dared.

Yet this youth actually looked at her with such eyes. Was he foolish, or had he been bewitched by her?

Empress Wu felt an urge to issue an immediate decree to have him hacked down.

How dared he show disrespect to the empress?

But reason restrained her. She had summoned him here; she was rewarding him for reporting the gold deposit to the court and making a great contribution to the state.

To kill him merely because he had looked at her once would be absurd.

And if she ordered his head struck off, would that mean she herself was timid? Afraid?

Empress Wu gave a faint, amused smile. How could I possibly be afraid of a boy so low in station? Still, he really is handsome, and very strong.

...

Her calm returned, and the authority of a ruler filled the entire hall. She opened her jade lips and said, "These three young gentlemen discovered a gold deposit and turned it over to the court. Their loyalty is commendable."

Empress Wu deliberately used the word "young" in addressing the scholars, though in truth she was speaking to Feng Xiaobao: You little brat, still wet behind the ears and not even fully grown, and you dare set your sights on this aunt? Remember that you are young.

Young in years, low in status.

Feng Xiaobao caught the implication and curled his lip, thinking to himself: I'm young, but I've got plenty of nerve, and my capital is no small matter either. If you don't believe it, Auntie, come and try.

That defiant expression was seen plainly by Empress Wu, and once again she felt the impulse to have him chopped down.

Later, when she had leisure to think back on it, was she actually afraid?

Afraid of him? Afraid that he would truly conquer her?

That thought only amused her. Would she be afraid of him?

...

"Minister Xu of the Ministry of Works, you speak," Empress Wu ordered.

"Yes."

So Xu Shien, the Minister of Works, recounted the matter: the Ministry had sent men to Laizhou, where, after repeated surveys and searches, they had indeed discovered a vast gold deposit.

The vein was clearly marked, the reserves abundant, a rich and concentrated gold field.

Minister Xu displayed a large tray of gold ore and another tray of gold ingots, dazzling everyone's eyes. These were all Laizhou gold, recently discovered and refined.

"The court has already frozen all property transactions in Laizhou. The Ministry of Works is now conducting full-scale surveys on state land, beginning production as we search, and good news keeps arriving..." Minister Xu beamed broadly, his gestures exaggerated, as though piles upon piles of gold were about to flow straight into the imperial treasury.

"The young gentlemen think only of the court, not of private gain. They have presented gold to the state and rendered meritorious service. They deserve reward!" Minister Xu then proclaimed the empress's edict on her behalf.

From that day on, Feng Xiaobao, Yang Chengxian, and Cheng Boxi became assistant cadets of the Tang Dynasty. They were no longer commoners, but members of the imperial bureaucracy.

An assistant cadet was a civil honorary title, the twenty-ninth rank among Tang civil officials, the lowest grade, junior ninth rank.

This was their reward for turning over the gold to the state, and since it was a civil matter, they were granted a civil honorary office.

Yet in the official documents, no mention was made of gold at all. Instead, they were praised for reporting meritorious service after slaying bandits at New Capital Mountain. That was odd indeed: slaying bandits was a military deed, so should they not have been given a military honorary rank? Why, then, were they given a civil one?

The practical reward was ten gold ingots each, each ingot weighing five taels, imperial gold ingots that even money could not buy.

In other words, they could not be spent. Oh? Could they perhaps be exchanged for cash?

If others knew what Feng Xiaobao was thinking, they would hardly know whether to laugh or cry. To receive gold from the royal house was an immense honor; ordinarily it would be displayed in the home, where anyone who saw it could only feel envy.

After the formal business was finished, the conversation turned casual, and Empress Wu asked the three "young" gentlemen what they usually busied themselves with, as a sign of her concern.

Ah, so that was why that fellow was so strong: all day long he trained in fists, kicks, and weapons. A martial brute through and through.

When Empress Wu asked the others, they had roughly the same experience. All of them were martial men.

And yet, the world truly did need martial men.

Empress Wu thought of two recent military affairs of the Tang: first, General Xue Rengui leading more than a hundred thousand troops in an expedition against Tibet; second, General Gao Kan advancing against Goguryeo. The world was not yet pacified, and martial men had their use.

Tibet was powerful, and the Tang's campaign held little hope of victory. As for Goguryeo's rebellion, the local officials of the Tang had all been outmaneuvered; though a great army had been sent to suppress it, the battle reports still spoke unfavorably.

For a moment the empress was a little distracted, her speech somewhat absent-minded. Feng Xiaobao, unlike the others, was not so strict with himself. Though he no longer dared glance at the empress openly, he might as well look at the scenery.