Chapters 58-71Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes mentions of physical and sexual violence, physical torture, child abuse, graphic violence, and animal cruelty and death.
Chapter 58 Summary: “Chasing Away Monsters”
Wei finds Terren in the Palisade Garden curled up and crying beneath a dome of blades built by his magic. After prying some loose to enter, Wei sits beside him and tells him one of her favorite childhood stories. The story is only meant to be a distraction for Terren, and it works. When he claims she should be beheaded for seeing him in a vulnerable state, she tells him, “it is not a weakness to be seen” (321). Terren cries into her shoulder and tells her he is lost.
Chapter 59 Summary: “The Right Path”
In his moment of vulnerability, Terren tells Wei that he killed his own mother, Lady Autumn. The day Maro and his council tried to kill Terren, Terren had fled and hid in a bush near the gate of the peach garden. He was eventually found by his mother. She had discovered he was creating the Aricine Ward to cast on Maro to protect him and couldn’t allow that to happen, so she orchestrated the assassination attempt to show Terren that Maro could not be trusted. She reprimanded him for being unable to hurt Maro because of his love for the boy. She produced a live carp from a crate she brought and instructed Terren to either stab it or watch it suffocate to death. Terren took the knife and killed his mother instead.
After Terren’s story, Wei finally understands the spell was never made to protect him—Terren always meant to use it on Maro to protect his brother from harm. That night, she adds the final verse to her heart-poem.
Chapter 60 Summary: “Summer Cicadas”
Silian invites Wei to the summer solstice celebration at the West Palace a week later, using it as an excuse for them to meet. In the privacy of Maro’s study, Wei delivers part of the poem to Silian to prove it’s ready.
Maro, who has recently been told of the plan by Silian, soon joins them and approves of the spell. He instructs Wei to cast it during the coronation and promises to reward her well once he becomes emperor. When Maro excuses himself to attend to his filial duties, Wei stops him first to inform him that the Aricine Ward was created for him. She tells Maro that Terren was never against Maro and had never stopped trying to protect him, until the day Maro poisoned the fish. Maro simply replies, “Then he has learned nothing” (331).
Later that night, the sky rips open and the dragon of Azalea House roars. The emperor is dead.
Chapter 61 Summary: “White”
While the emperor’s death is ruled as an illness, Wei finds the timing convenient. She suspects Maro killed his father to rush the coronation. While she understands why he did it, she still judges him for it. The funeral is held two days later.
Chapter 62 Summary: “A Quiet Death”
After the funeral, Wei speaks with the empress. She tells Empress Sun that there was an investigation of where the accusations came from that led to her literacy exam. Terren and Wei both believed it came from the empress, but Wei convinced him not to kill her. The empress informs Wei that it was not her.
When Wei asks who else would have the motive and authority to threaten both Wei and Terren, the empress looks disappointed. Wei soon realizes it was Lady Silian who must have been worried Wei would change her mind about killing Terren, and so sought a more efficient route to put Maro on the throne. This new information leaves Wei conflicted. She had hoped Maro and Silian would be a better replacement for Terren, but after Maro has killed his father and Silian attempted to kill Wei, she has doubts.
Terren pulls Wei aside and asks her to ensure that his funeral is small and simple should he die while trying to tame the dragon at the coronation the next day. He also tells her the location of his hidden stash of Blessings—20,000 Dao spells for the House to use if he dies, so that the dynasty may survive.
Later, Wei goes to her servants’ graves and speaks to them. She tells them she’s uncertain whether to kill Terren or let him live after what Silian and Maro have done. She admits she wants to be empress so that she can enact the changes the nation needs. She asks what she must do and is overheard by the old maid Hu, who writes a reply in the soil with a stick: “Remember who you are doing this for, and you will not be lost” (343).
Chapter 63 Summary: “Taming of the Dragon”
The square in front of the Hall of Heavenly Supremacy is turned into an arena for the coronation. The dragon is summoned and the arena is sealed with literomancy. Terren begins to face off against the dragon and from under her shawl, Wei raises her pen.
Chapter 64 Summary: “The Prince and the Crown”
Wei feigns writing the poem to avoid Maro and Silian’s suspicion throughout the fight, for she’s already made the decision to let Terren live. She made the decision and was content with the risk because she would be empress at his side and “keep close to him, guide him onto a better path” (351).
Eventually, Silian approaches Wei to ask what is taking so long to cast the spell. Wei reveals she has been writing nonsense to avoid casting it. Silian is shocked at the betrayal. Terren takes down the dragon and channels his magic into the dragon, but before he can fully tame it, it strikes out with its tail, throwing him across the arena. Terren strikes back, once again subduing the dragon but exhausting his power nearly completely. Maro seizes the opportunity to enter the arena himself.
Chapter 65 Summary: “A Beating Heart”
Terren is too weak to defend himself as Maro begins to strangle him. In an effort to save Terren, Wei casts an altered version of her heart-spirit poem, turning it into a healing spell that gives life. She changes the poem from a tragic story of suffering to one of joy and love. She writes of Terren’s happy childhood filled with love for carp, mung bean cakes, dueling couplets, tree-climbing, sword-fighting, and his brother. She prays that the Ancestors understand the meaning behind the poem and consider it—and him—worthy.
In the arena, Terren falls limp and Maro walks to the dragon to begin taming it with his magic. However, the spell works and Terren rises.
Chapter 66 Summary: “Building Bridges”
The spell creates a fish of golden light that hovers over Terren as he confronts Maro. They battle using their magics until Maro nears the point of burnout. When the dragon rises, he is too exhausted to flee from it. It bites at Maro, ripping him apart in one last desperate attack.
Chapter 67 Summary: “Blood and Salt”
Terren subdues the weakened dragon easily. Wei walks toward the arena’s magical barrier and the golden fish hovering above Terren swims toward her. Terren allows her inside the barrier and the fish disappears into her heart and vanishes, proving to the entire audience and Terren that she was the one to cast the spell that saved his life.
Terren smiles and laughs. Rather than be angry with her for lying to him, he is thankful for her help. He asks her to tell him everything later because, “I am also happy, for once, and I wish to remember this moment untarnished” (369). Terren then cries from joy and when Wei approaches him and pries the blade from his hand, he doesn’t resist. With understanding, he surrenders to her. He kisses her and when he closes his eyes, she stabs him in the heart.
Chapter 68 Summary: “Nothing”
Wei holds Terren as he dies. She is sorry she killed him and sorry for herself, who would have been empress but with his death “had become nothing” (371).
Chapter 69 Summary: “The Greatest Nation”
Wei spends the night in a prison cell. The newly crowned Emperor Isan visits her the following day. He asks why she killed Terren after she healed him. She explains that “the moment Maro had died, Isan became the next in line to receive Heaven’s Mandate. And it had not even been a question then, to choose between knives and something so gentle, so necessary, as fruit” (372).
When Isan worries about how to save the dynasty from collapse, Wei tells him that Terren has left 20,000 Blessings to defend it with. She will release Terren’s Blessings to Isan over time as long as Isan meets four conditions: (1) He will use his amplified power for famine aid first before any other agendas; (2) Wei will be absolved of all crimes and walk free and her brother gets free admission to the imperial academy; (3) Terren gets a quiet, small burial and Hesin walks free; and (4) the remaining concubines should be given permission to stay at court and learn to read and practice literomancy if they so wish. All her requests are granted.
Chapter 70 Summary: “Home”
As Wei prepares to travel home to Lu’an, Hesin visits. He has become Emperor Isan’s new advisor and his first advice was to make Wei his empress. With the nation in turmoil, the Rice Wife is needed to bring everyone together. Wei accepts the offer.
A few days later, Wei invites the 17 concubines who decided to stay at the palace, along with the former empress and other servants, to come dine at her pavilion. The feast is followed by their first literacy lesson.
Chapter 71 Summary: “Air”
Prince Isan, Prince Kiran, Hesin, and Wei gather to bury Terren. Wei asks Isan why he went to Guishan to help Terren with his concubine selection. Isan claims it was partially a front to give famine aid and partly to make his own bid for the throne by earning the goodwill of the people. She then asks about the blessing that went to her brother, Bao’s, heart on New Year’s. Isan admits it was nothing. He had run out of spells, so he put in small pieces of magic to thrill its recipients. Though it wasn’t a real spell, Wei sees the value in the Blessing and the excitement it inspired in her brother and the villagers.
In the distance, Wei sees the child-ghost of Terren playing in the meadow. He bows to Wei in a “Tenshan gesture of respect, deference, and gratitude” which she returns (384). He is then joined by the child-ghost of Maro, who hugs him fiercely. A setting constructs around them, depicting a ghostly version of the peach garden, and the boys enter it without looking back.
Chapters 58-71 Analysis
After spending nearly the entire novel in pursuit of the tools to compose a heart-spirit poem capable of killing Terren to place someone better on the throne, Wei is confronted with difficult truths regarding The Use and Misuse of Power in this section. While Terren has his faults, she finally breaks through his walls and connects with him emotionally after learning all the details about his past. This isn’t enough to redeem or forgive him, but it shows Wei that he is someone capable of changing for the better.
Meanwhile, her previous faith in Prince Maro and Lady Silian’s ability to rule is tested when she learns that Maro killed his own father to speed up the coronation and Silian plotted to kill Wei back when she thought it would be the fastest and easiest way to the throne. Wei, who’d come to consider Silian as a true friend, is angered by this betrayal. Though Silian had helped her, “she had never stopped searching for other ways to win” (340). Wei begins to doubt if they’d actually be better rulers or if they’re just as corrupt, power-hungry, and selfishly motivated as everyone else.
Wei’s conflicted thoughts about the throne’s inheritors lead her to make a different decision—to spare Terren’s life, so that she can be the empress Tensha needs. Once Silian discovers Wei’s change of heart, she accuses Wei of being seduced by power, which Wei doesn’t necessarily believe is a bad thing if the intentions are pure. Wei drives home the complications of power with her reaction to Silian:
Power was not always evil, the pursuit of it not always selfish. Being able to help one’s family, one’s village—that was power. Having enough provisions to dole out to starving farmers in the north—that was power. Holding the authority to question the wicked owner of a pleasure house, to seek out the truth, to protect the innocent—that was power. Remember who you are doing this for, and you will not be lost. What Silian didn’t know was that my decision to spare Terren was not so that I could become empress. It was for me to become the Rice Wife (352).
Prior to this section, Prince Isan has been a minor character in the novel who has rarely appeared on page. His most significant contributions to the plot occurred at the beginning of the novel when he appeared in Guishan, grew fruit trees and bushes, and presented Terren’s search for concubines. His importance is understated and he is greatly undervalued in the court. Support is divided between Maro, whose power can strengthen trade, and Terren, whose power can conquer more land and fight their enemies. No one thinks much of the third-born prince whose power could end the famine that has plagued the nation for decades. No one thinks of this because the people making the decisions for the nation are the wealthy who have never had to go hungry like those from the villages.
In contrast, Isan’s power over fruit and harvest is seen by Wei and likely most other starving villagers as the power that could save the empire most. When Wei makes the decision to kill Terren for the sake of Isan’s rule, she thinks, “it had not even been a question […] to choose between knives and something so gentle, so necessary, as fruit […] even if I had to give up becoming empress […] I would choose it over and over again” (373). In deciding to give up her own chance at power, Wei ultimately chooses a selfless motive over a self-serving one, which in turn proves her to be a worthy empress—as Isan himself soon realizes.
Wei’s ability to negotiate with Isan for lifting the prohibition against literacy for women also speaks to Literacy as Liberation. Wei once again uses her chance at power to try to elevate others, in this case women. The scene towards the novel’s close, in which various concubines and the former empress join Wei for a literacy lesson, suggests that a degree of cooperation and solidarity has been achieved amongst women who were formerly rivals. Their literacy lessons also suggest hope for a more equal future between men and women, reinforcing the idea that being literate is an important form of power in its own right.
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