Chapter 167: Awakening.

Chapter 167: Realization.

The night was long, yet Ding Jinghuan felt no drowsiness. He spent most of it in his study, finally drafting the subsequent plan.

The first step of his plan involved submitting a memorial alongside Minister of Rites Li Hansong, proposing to bestow upon the Empress Dowager Regent the honorific title "Heaven-Bearing" and formally address her as "Sage."

Once the first step was completed, Qiu Hongzhen would initiate the second: instructing court officials to refer to both the Emperor and the Empress Dowager Regent as "Sage."

If the second step proceeded smoothly, the third and final phase would commence: allowing the Empress Dowager Regent to refer to herself as "Zhen" when issuing edicts during court sessions, while using "Guaren" in daily life.

Of course, plans were merely plans. Before implementation, Ding Jinghuan needed to seek the Sage's approval in the palace.

Outside, dawn had broken. After a brief nap, Ding Jinghuan washed up, changed into fresh robes, and hurried to the palace to meet Huo Ling.

Huo Ling had just finished her morning meal and was taking a morning stroll in the courtyard when she noticed Ding Jinghuan’s weary yet bright-eyed expression. She smiled and asked, "What brings you here at this hour? Good news, I hope?"

Ding Jinghuan replied, "I worked through the night drafting a plan and wished to present it to Your Majesty as soon as possible."

Huo Ling nodded and instructed an attendant, "Prepare a pot of strong tea for Lord Ding."

She then turned toward the study, with Ding Jinghuan following respectfully behind.

Huo Ling inquired warmly, "Have you grown accustomed to the Wu Ming wine?"

Ding Jinghuan answered, "Indeed. After drinking it often, other wines taste bland in comparison."

Huo Ling smiled and clapped. "Then the Office of Fine Brews has truly excelled. They deserve a generous reward."

Over the years, Huo Ling had steadily amassed control over finances, the military, and governance, placing her trusted allies in key positions.

Her influence extended like tendrils across the court, yet she had never revealed her ambitions to anyone—not even to her most trusted confidante, Wu Mo, or her most capable subordinate, Ding Jinghuan.

Revealing her ambitions too soon would only invite unnecessary risks. But now, as she reviewed Ding Jinghuan’s freshly drafted plan, she knew he had discerned her intentions.

Huo Ling remarked, "This plan is meticulous. Yet, executing it fully will not be easy."

Ding Jinghuan drained a cup of strong tea, his mind sharper than ever. "Your Majesty can rest assured. I have everything in hand."

"I have every confidence in your abilities."

Instead of returning the secret memorial, Huo Ling cast it into a brazier, watching as the flames consumed the document.

A gust of wind swept through the hall, carrying the ashes past her fingers.

"Jinghuan, you are far bolder than I imagined."

She believed that during their last conversation, Ding Jinghuan had not yet guessed her ambitions. Yet, in just a few days, he had not only deduced her intentions but also drawn up a thorough, workable plan.

Ding Jinghuan shook his head. "I should be the one saying that to Your Majesty."

Why should he hesitate?

The exquisite wines bestowed by Your Majesty have long been enough to buy his loyalty. He is merely following Your Majesty, paving Your Majesty's path to greater heights.

The one who is truly free-thinking and decisive, bound by no convention, is Your Majesty.

Huo Ling said, "Buying your loyalty with exquisite wine is one of my shrewdest investments."

Ding Jinghuan could tell that Huo Ling was in a good mood: "Your Majesty, I have a question, though I hesitate to ask."

Huo Ling teased, "Since you're unsure whether to ask, then it's probably best you don't."

Ding Jinghuan brazenly countered, "Since Your Majesty says I shouldn't, then I won't. But I have another question, and I beg Your Majesty to enlighten me."

Huo Ling amended with deliberate calm, "Fine, ask if you must. The sooner you ask, the sooner you can return and rest."

Ding Jinghuan cleared his throat, straightened his posture, and said solemnly, "Your Majesty, aren't you afraid?"

Huo Ling: "Afraid of what?"

Ding Jinghuan: "Your Majesty already holds absolute power. As long as you do not wish to relinquish it, no courtier would dare defy you, and even the Emperor could not contend with you. You have no need to go further—from your current position, you can already pursue whatever you wish.

"With the support of the officials and the hearts of the people, a reputation for virtue, and an immortal legacy, you would become one of the most revered regents in history.

"Yet if you take that step, the courtiers may not submit, and the royal family will never stand idly by as you usurp the Ji family's throne. And as for the Emperor—in this world, a son may be filial to his mother, but an emperor will never tolerate anyone coveting his throne. No bond, not even that between mother and son, outweighs the security of the throne."

Hearing Ding Jinghuan's words, Huo Ling was not angered: "It seems you wish to confirm my resolve."

A long breeze stirred a loose strand of hair at Huo Ling's temple. She held a warming pot, her expression gentle and serene, as if engaging in casual conversation with Ding Jinghuan.

But only Ding Jinghuan knew just how astonishing the words that followed would be.

"Before me, the highest position a woman could attain was that of Empress Dowager Regent. Because everyone assumed as natural law that the throne belonged to men—it was not a place women could covet.

"How could a woman become emperor, they ask?

"How could a mother seize her son's throne, they ask?

"Yet no one would ever question whether a man could be emperor; nor would anyone consider it wrong for a father to take what belongs to his son.

"The emperor is the emperor—it is a position, the symbol of supreme power in this world. It has no inherent gender restrictions; it is people who have forcibly imposed them."

For more than ten years, she had sat just one step away from the throne—close enough to reach out and touch, to lift her gaze and see. Yet it seemed everyone assumed that position did not belong to her, only to her son.

Her power was granted by her husband, by her son.

No matter how well she ruled, it was always 'merely exercising imperial power by proxy.'

If she had already wielded imperial authority for so many years, why could she not become that authority herself?

"You are not wrong. If I stop here, even if I cling to power until my dying breath before returning governance to the court, I would still leave behind a place of honor in the histories.

"If, during my reign, I could accomplish the extraordinary achievement of annexing the Qiang Rong and reclaiming the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan and Yun, my wisdom and virtue would be celebrated for ages.

"Yet if I resolve to take that step, no matter how well I rule, no matter how glorious my achievements, whether in life or death, there will always be those who point fingers, denouncing me for being a heartless and wicked mother.

"But that is merely the machinations of scholars. They seek to shackle me with notions of reputation and righteousness, to manipulate me with the court of public judgment, forcing me onto the path they desire. Why should I? To bear infamy does not always mean I am wrong—only that I have failed to conform to their wishes.

"The women of this world have borne enough restrictions.

"Reputation, too, is a form of constraint."

"You wish to leave a name in the annals of history, to be remembered for eternity—then you must act according to their expectations. You must be an exemplary empress, a loving mother, and then, in their writings, you will have a perfect, brief, and featureless life."

Huo Ling looked at Ding Jinghuan, the corners of her lips curling slightly. "The standard, model scholar-official worthy of historical acclaim should be like Song Xu. You and Song Xu have known each other for so many years—why not emulate him, instead of choosing to walk this scandalous and unorthodox path with me?"

Ding Jinghuan straightened his sleeves and bowed with elegant bearing, yet the words that left his mouth were far from the so-called integrity of a civil official: "A standard, perfect life is too exhausting. Since the Sage Emperor praised me for being unbound by convention, I must naturally make some shocking and extraordinary choices to live up to the Sage Emperor’s praise."

What a perfect life in the conventional sense should look like—how could Huo Ling not know?

But if she had wanted a perfect life, she would never have set foot on this thorny, tear-stained path from the very beginning.

A perfect life could accommodate the roles of wife, daughter, and mother—but never an unbridled ambition.

"Praise and blame, glory and disgrace, right and wrong—my life will inevitably be filled with controversy and the incomprehension of others."

She was destined never to be the conventional ideal of a wife, daughter, or mother. But this imperfect life, one that did not betray herself, was already an extraordinary feat.

Truthfully, she had never insisted on becoming empress, empress dowager, or emperor. She simply wanted power—to keep moving forward, striding unwaveringly down the most arduous path, to the very limits of her reach, to the end of her life.

Long before she entered the palace, she had already begun preparing for the subjugation of the Qiang Rong tribes and the recovery of the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun.

Back then, she hadn’t understood why such grand ambitions had taken root in her.

But now, she finally understood.

Expanding territory and reclaiming lost lands—these were the resolve and duty befitting an emperor. Many years ago, she had already possessed the mind of a sovereign.

The imperial throne belongs to the capable.

So-called Mandate of Heaven is merely the world’s post hoc justification for the strongest.

"A mother’s love, no matter how deep, cannot outweigh the fate of the realm." That was what she believed—but what of the child she had raised with her own hands?

***

It began to snow.

The first snowfall of the sixteenth year of the Celestial Reign had barely touched the ground when many already sensed the coming of a bitter winter.

If the disputes and debates over the fratricide case had only faintly revealed a corner of the debate over returning imperial authority, then Ding Jinghuan’s memorial and the proposal by Minister of Rites Li Hansong had fully sounded the horn of the storm.

Faced with Ding Jinghuan’s first round of probing, the overwhelming majority of court officials chose tacit consent.

From then on, in formal settings such as sacrifices, celebrations, and ancestral temple prayers, Empress Dowager Huo could be honored as "Cheng Tian Empress Dowager," while in daily affairs, she could be respectfully addressed as "Her Sacred Majesty."

Had matters stopped there, it might have been tolerable. But immediately after, Qiu Hongzhen stepped forward, proposing that the emperor’s honorific also be changed to "His Sacred Majesty."

"Having two Sacred Majesties presiding over the court is a boon to the court and the realm alike."

Qiu Hongzhen parroted Ding Jinghuan’s argument word for word.

Yet while Qiu Hongzhen only dared to grumble inwardly when facing Ding Jinghuan, the court officials had far less patience with him.

Prince Cheng of the Second Rank, as the head of the Imperial Clan Office, could no longer remain silent. He was the first to speak up: "The Classic of Rites states: 'There are not two suns in the sky, nor two kings in the land.' How can the imperial court have two Sacred Majesties?"

Prince Cheng’s question played right into Qiu Hongzhen’s hands. Saluting with clasped hands toward the throne dais, he replied, "Might I ask Prince Cheng—do you believe the empress dowager is unworthy of the title 'Sacred Majesty,' or that His Majesty is unworthy of it?"

"You—" Prince Cheng was left speechless.

Ding Jinghuan suppressed an eye-roll inwardly: Qiu Hongzhen really had no creativity—couldn’t he at least alter the wording a little?

Still, it was clear that Qiu Hongzhen had done his homework after returning. Though he still lifted wholesale from Ding Jinghuan’s arguments, he managed to stand his ground in debates with the officials who opposed him.

"There cannot be two suns in the sky, nor two rulers in a nation"—this principle is fundamentally correct, but the objective reality now is that there are two "Sacred Rulers" in the court.

Chen Haoyan took half a step forward but then closed his eyes again: this was clearly a layered scheme.

Once they agreed to honor the Empress Dowager as "Sage," they could no longer prevent the Emperor from also being honored as "Sage."

Without giving anyone time to catch their breath or react, Ding Jinghuan immediately executed the final step of his plan after the second phase was settled.

—If titles were added and forms of address changed, shouldn’t how the sovereign refers to themselves also be adjusted according to imperial protocol?

The opposition, who had been playing dumb out of fear of being exiled from the capital by the Empress Dowager, now exploded in fury.

This crossed the line! Ding Jinghuan’s relentless pressure was truly intolerable!

No one was in the mood to celebrate the New Year that year.

The debate over whether the Empress Dowager should refer to herself as "Zhen" (imperial 'We') or "Guaren" (solitary 'I') lasted from the twelfth month of the sixteenth year of the Celestial Reign to the second month of the seventeenth year of the Celestial Reign. It finally ended with thirteen opposition members being exiled from the capital and over twenty officials being transferred or stripped of rank.

Ji Xianshan sat on the throne, quietly watching the farce below through the dangling beads of his imperial crown.

Yes, in his eyes, this was a charade—no matter how they thrashed against it, it could not alter the inevitable outcome.

Perhaps all his resistance was nothing but a pantomime in his mother’s eyes.

Or perhaps just a child’s petulant outbursts?

In truth, he had held this seat for over a decade.

When he obediently followed his mother’s will and fell in line with her decrees, he felt little oppression and did not find the throne particularly uncomfortable.

But when he began to form his own ideas, when he started wanting to act on his own, he truly realized what the presence of the Empress Dowager Regent meant.

It was the Empress Dowager’s rein on the Emperor, hidden beneath the warmth of their mother-son bond.

Court officials could toil for the populace, for the realm, but as the Emperor, any attempt to act on his own seemed out of turn.

The authority was rightfully his, yet the power itself was not in his hands.

His relationship with his mother was like that of a young tree and an ancient oak.

In his youth, the great tree shielded the young tree from wind and rain, allowing it to grow strong. But as the young tree slowly matured and needed more sunlight, rain, and fertile soil, it realized that the very tree that once protected it had now become the tempest stunting its growth.

For the young tree to grow into a great tree, the only way seemed to be wresting resources from the tree.

He knew his mother would not easily cede control, yet now, the courtiers who supported him were being exiled one by one...

What, in the end, did his mother seek?