Married to the Emperor's Fiercest General, Who Is Terrified of Me novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: The Cedar Box

The general came to bed at midnight carrying a long wooden box in both arms.

Wenxuan was sitting up against the pillows with a book he had not read a line of.

He knew the box at once.

It had a cracked lid and a smell of old cedar, and his heart gave a hard slow knock.

The general set it on the quilt between them.

He did not sit.

He stood at the foot of the bed with his arms at his sides.

"I have to show you something," he said. "And then you can tell me to go to the stable, and I will go."

"All right."

"It is the only thing in the world that proves I did not write that letter. It has seven years of my handwriting."

He swallowed.

"I would have burned it before I showed it to you."

"But I will not let you be dragged to the Ministry because I was ashamed."

Wenxuan lifted the lid.

The top sheet was the closing poem of the grain-tax essay, soft as cloth.

He turned it over and read the dates down the corner.

The general stood there waiting for him to be disgusted.

"I know what's in it," said Wenxuan.

The general did not move.

"I looked. The first night, when you went to the horses."

The silence went on so long that Wenxuan began to be afraid.

Then the general sat down very suddenly on the edge of the bed and put his face in both hands.

"Nine days," he said, into his palms. "You have known for nine days."

"I was going to say something."

"You sat across from me at breakfast."

"You were mouthing the next line of my poem, and I found it..." Wenxuan's voice wobbled. "I found it very hard to be cruel."

"I am a fool."

"You're a general."

"I am worse than a fool." The general raised his head. His eyes were red and dark.

"I could not write to you. I am not a man who writes."

"You were a student in a province," he said, "and I was a soldier in a snow trench. So I copied."

"It was the only way I could say anything. And then it became..."

"Zhenyuan," said Wenxuan.

"...the only thing I had."

Wenxuan took the top bundle out of the box.

The margins were crowded with notes in the huge crooked hand.

Hanlu, winter. Read this to the cook.

Third winter. Cold. Learned the poem by heart.

Fourth year, his salt-tax essay. Better than anything the generals write.

The sixth: His river-dike memorial. Read it to the whole camp. Told the horses.

Wenxuan's eyes burned.

He laid the papers across his knees and spread them.

"Look," he said, and his voice was not steady. "Here. 'North.'"

"You wrote it with the extra stroke every time, all seven years. Your forger got it right in two minutes."

"That is your proof. The Ministry cannot argue with seven years."

The general's breath went out of him, all the way from his heels.

"That is all you see?"

"No," said Wenxuan.

"What else do you see?"

Wenxuan put the papers down and moved the box off the quilt onto the floor.

Then he knelt up on the bed in front of the general, so that for once their eyes were level.

He took the big scarred hands in both of his.

"I see a man who loved a bad essay for seven years," he said.

"And he is about to hear that I wrote it in a dreadful hurry the night before the exam."

"It is not bad," said the general.

"The second half is padding."

"The second half," said the general with great dignity, "is beautiful."

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