The Tyrant's Sickly Consort Refuses to Die novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Cup of Welcome
On his first night in the Emperor's bed, Su Ming is handed a welcome cup that killed three consorts before him; he drinks it, names the poison and plays the dying weakling, and the tyrant sees his steady hands and tells him to stay.
The cup they handed Su Ming at the Emperor's door was poisoned, and he knew it from six steps away.
It smelled of rice wine, and under the wine it smelled of crane-crest.
Crane-crest has no taste, but it leaves a thin metal smell in the back of the nose.
Su Ming had been smelling it since he was five years old.
He took the cup in both hands and bowed to the man who held it out, a gaunt chief eunuch with grey in his eyebrows.
"The cup of welcome," said the eunuch, Gao Shun. "His Majesty is waiting."
Behind Su Ming, the door of Yongxi Hall closed.
His maid had been stopped at the outer gate, and he was alone in the Emperor's bedchamber with a single lamp.
The Emperor sat on the edge of the bed in a black robe, with his elbows on his knees.
Xiao Jue was twenty-eight and had been on the throne for nine years.
The whole capital said he did not sleep, and the whole capital said he had killed eleven men in his rages.
He was tall and hard in the face, and the skin under his eyes was dark and red-rimmed.
He did not get up.
"Su Ming," he said. "Junior consort of the fifth rank. Twenty-five. From Qingyang County."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Your father sold you to the Prime Minister for three thousand taels and a clerk's post."
"My father says I was given in service," said Su Ming. "He says it often."
The Emperor did not smile.
"I will tell you something the Prime Minister's people did not," he said. "Three consorts have stood where you stand."
"This one has heard."
"Each of them drank that cup, and each of them was dead by the second watch."
Su Ming looked down at the cup in his hands.
The wine was clear and a little yellow.
"The kitchen that fills it is the Prime Minister's," said the Emperor.
"The hands that carry it change. I have never found the one that matters."
"And Your Majesty wants me to drink it," said Su Ming.
"I want you to do what you were sent to do. Drink."
Su Ming felt something go cold and small in his chest, and he stayed very still until it passed.
The Emperor had known what was in the cup, and he was going to watch.
He could refuse, and be dragged out for disobeying the throne.
Or he could pour it on the floor and say what he knew, and be a man who knew too much about poison.
Su Ming had lived twenty years by knowing exactly how much to show.
He lifted the cup, and he drank it to the bottom.
It ran down warm, with the metal in it.
He set the cup on the table and folded his hands in front of him.
"Crane-crest," he said. "Less than a grain, in the wine."
The Emperor's head came up.
"Whoever measured it wanted me slow," Su Ming went on.
"A bigger dose would have shown on my lips in an hour."
"This one is meant to make me sick at the second watch and dead by morning, with no mark."
He let his voice shake a little on the last word.
Then he coughed, a thin, wet cough into his sleeve, and put one hand on the bedpost.
He bit the inside of his cheek, hard, until he tasted blood.
He let a thread of it show at the corner of his mouth.
It was a very good performance.
It had worked on his father, his stepmother, and three county doctors.
"Your Majesty," he whispered. "This one is not well."
The Emperor stood.
He crossed the room and took Su Ming's wrist in a grip that closed all the way around it.
He held it a long moment.
Then he turned the wrist over and looked at Su Ming's hand, the long fingers, flat and steady, with no tremor in any of them.
"A man who has swallowed crane-crest does not have hands like this," said Xiao Jue.
Su Ming said nothing.
"Your face is lying to me. Your hands have not lied once since you came in."
The lamp hissed.
Su Ming raised his eyes. They were a dark, calm brown, and he let the weakness drop out of them.
"I have been eating poison since I was five, Your Majesty," he said, in his own voice, low and dry.
"A little more every month, for twenty years. The palace does not know. I would like it not to."
"Why tell me?"
"Because you're the only one in this room who is not trying to kill me." Su Ming paused. "I think."
"You think."
"You did make me drink it."
Something moved in the Emperor's face, too quick to name.
He let go of Su Ming's wrist, and the red marks of his fingers stayed.
Then he went back to the bed and sat, and for a long time he only looked.
"Eleven men have died in this palace because I could not tell who was lying to me," said Xiao Jue at last.
"You have done it twice in a minute and told me both times."
"Is that good, Your Majesty?" asked Su Ming.
"I don't know yet."
He lay back against the pillows, and he did not close his eyes.
"Stay," he said. "I want to watch what kills you."
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend