The courtiers all looked flabbergasted, their faces paling simultaneously. This mad emperor! Preposterous! The courtiers cried out for mercy, the court's floor gave a resounding thud as they all went down on their knees, their heads hitting the floor like hammers on nails.
"Your Majesty, please reconsider!"
Sounds of armoury and heavy boots resounded in the court. There were screams of palace servants who had not managed to flee as well as the sound of flesh being cut open. The courtiers saw red.
Under this hectic scene, some courtiers looked towards the direction of their emperor only to see a relaxed smile grace her plump face which still had remnants of baby fat. A smile so innocent that it sends shivers through their bones.
Around a dozen courtiers fled the scene when they saw that smile. Others who saw their colleagues tumbling out the door like weeds chose to do the same, few tripping to get out before standing back on their feet. Soon, they all crowded around the exit, some managing to squeeze through the cracks of human barrier faster than others.
A beautiful woman in her 30's entered the court from the side room.
Ru Yi had never seen her mother quite so dishevelled, her head ornaments crooked in some places and few black strands of hairs fell out of their places. "Ru Yi!" the woman shouted.
"You have come Empress Mother?" she still sounded so willful.
The woman moved to grab the lapels of her robe. "What have you done?"
Ru Yi offered a gentle smile as she put the empress dowager's hair back in place behind her ears. "Are you scared Empress Mother? Don't be scared mother. Ru Yi is here."
The empress dowager's pupil widened and she chocked up a sob. Her hands slid down as her body fell to grasp the hem of Ru Yi's clothes. Her strained sobs turned into cries that fill the halls with an eerie sound. There was pity in Ru Yi's eyes as she looked at the woman who gave birth to her, but even a blind man could tell there was no sincerity in them.
"Bao Bao." Ru Yi called out.
A small attendant who did not look much older than her emerged from the same room the empress dowager came out from. "Empress Mother is crying so much. We think that all her body fluids will soon be cried out dry so she must be thirsty. Serve tea."
Bao Bao glanced lightly upwards from his hunching position but found himself unable to gauge the emperor's mood. He contemplated stiffly for a while before bending in compliance, "This servant understands."
The sound of boots grew nearer. The empress dowager picked herself up from the floor with reddened eyes, "Ru Yi ah, Ru Yi, you've gone mad!" she spat.
"I thought to accompany Empress Mother today, but it seems Empress Mother does not want my company." There was not a trace of emotional fluctuation from her daughter's eyes, only that same smile that chilled her core.
"Ru Yi! You will rot in hell." Ru Yi can see the veins bulging from the empress dowager's fair neck from her anger. The enemies' general broke into the hall first, sword in hand; carrying the scent of iron followed by his troops who were drenched in blood.
Ru Yi, seemingly not caring for the incoming disaster extended her slender fingers and played with the jade pendant on her mother's waist nonchalantly as she met her mother eye to eye. "Then I guess I'll see you in hell mother," she spoke her farewell sweetly before she descended the incline to meet with the other country's general in steady steps.
"Ru Yi emperor of Fu An, today I General Wei San have come to take your life." The general had declared staunchly as he stood at the centre of the court.
"Who cares if you're Wei One, Wei Two, or Wei Three? If you've come then you've come." Ru Yi thought his entrance and speech superfluous. One should not waste so many words when trying to kill lest the enemy be guarded and attempts to escape. She had waited so long, even courteously opening both the country's and palace's gates, and only now did he arrive. How marvellous, the Nian nation sent an idiot to invade her Great Fu An. The prospect of dying under such a callous leader left a sour taste in her mouth.
"Hmph. A dying child is still able to make jokes."
Ru Yi remembered the glinting of the general's blade as it struck down her throat, hot blood gushing out like streams of waterfall from her neck. It hurts like hell.
To be honest, she had not thought it would hurt this much. Maybe because the general had not taken her head off in one clean swipe that most of her neck still remains intact after the first swing thereby her brain is able to register the pain.
Her hearing was the first to go followed by her sight, but in Ru Yi's dying abstruseness she thought she had been hallucinating. Right before she blacked out, a blurred figure in white was seen descending gracefully from the tiles of her roof.