The Ant Woman Ch. 05

Thankfully, she was a fairly quick writer.

By the time she'd had all the pages collected and hand-bound in leather, the snow was thick outside, and Wen's hands ...

She grinned as she gazed down at them, rotating them this way and that.

Trembling, frigid, cracked, and the fingertips were a little blue.

Wen said to one of her maids, "Send word to His Majesty. I've finished writing my book."

It didn't take long for that maid to return with Min Ji and the Emperor ahead of her.

Wen was waiting for them in the palace's reception room, where Pollen Lady Kumi and many other women huddled together at braziers that just weren't as hot as they should've been. What little fuel in the palace there was being cautiously rationed.

All these women knelt down to greet His Majesty. Wen was so gleeful. She couldn't help it. She looked right at the Emperor's face and saw it. The horrified realization. His brow tangled. His lips curled in a feral snarl. His gloved fingers tightened into fists.

"Get up!" he barked out as he looked at Kumi, who was too cold to put on a smile. "Everyone get up! Why is it so cold here?! What's happened?!"

Her strawberry blonde hair folded over her ears in a desperate attempt to keep them warm, a fur-lined cloak over her body with a hood over her head, Kumi rose with all the other women, and she said to the Emperor, "I'm afraid to say that this palace isn't suitable for Your Majesty's presence. There's a shortage of fuel, and we don't have enough to accommodate you."

His chest heaving with newly found rage, the Emperor asked, "Who's the corpse that told you there's a shortage?! We have enough fuel to last everyone five years!!"

Kumi looked away as if she truly didn't want to get anyone in any trouble and was afraid to tell the truth. "There must be a misunderstanding, Your Majesty. My eunuchs were told by the manager of the Fuel Department that there's a shortage and so he's given us less fuel." She gestured towards Wen, who was cradling her book against her bosom, and said, "Seafoam Wen suffered the most. Her bare hands toiled for the book you requested, and the air wasn't kind to her skin."

Stiffly, the Emperor turned back to Wen.

Wen was actually amused to note that his face was slowly turning purple.

For once, she wasn't intimidated by his presence. She merely half-knelt and held out the book as the Emperor walked to her.

He took the book ...

And he just tossed it to the floor, where it fell open and the paged were bent. Min Ji was startled enough to say, "Your Majesty!" Then he bent down to pick up the book, and he tried to smooth out the pages."

The Emperor yanked off his gloves and put them in a pocket. Then he took both of Wen's hands in his. Wordlessly, he personally removed the gloves she'd put on since she wasn't writing anymore. Those gloves were carelessly left to fall to the floor, like the book.

When the Emperor saw the pathetic flesh, so close to suffering from frost-bite, his own hands folded around them as if he wanted to hide them from the world. Wen didn't feel a pampered softness in his hands. As gracefully shaped as the Emperor's hands were, there was still a roughness there. Even with all the rings on his fingers, digging in her skin, Wen was glad to have those hands hold hers.

Although his face was still an odd color, the Emperor used a much calmer tone. "Someone, give Seafoam Attendant Wen warm tea and call a doctor."

While some servants left to perform those tasks, Wen said to the Emperor, still looking down at his hands, "To keep my insides warm, my maids have brewed all my tea. I have none left." She'd made so many visits to a chamberpot that it was almost embarrassing.

"Then I'll have more sent to you, enough to last a year," he rapidly countered. He released her hands and stepped back. Wen knelt down to get her gloves. As she rose again, the Emperor turned around, started to leave, and said, "I'll have firewood and charcoal sent here, and I'll see to it that the person responsible for this is penalized." Min Ji followed him out of the palace with the book in his hands.

When the Emperor was gone, Wen was still standing in place, holding her gloves, her thoughts disarranging.

She'd known the Emperor would be upset. Not only were a group of his women mistreated, but his decree concerning Wen's eyes and hands had been disobeyed again. She hadn't thought he'd literally change colors. She hadn't thought he'd hold her hands in his as if she was something precious to him.

Wen knew she wasn't precious to the Emperor. She wasn't. He'd never laid down with her. She was a virgin concubine. At the most, she was someone he thought was interesting, and so he'd collected her.

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