Chapter 38 - The Vote That Should Not Exist

The Silk of Fate

Chapter 38 – The Vote That Should Not Exist

The Empress Dowager received her privately.

No attendants.

No guards.

Just a single candle lit between them, and a long stretch of silence before either spoke.

“You are here to ask,” the Dowager said, not unkindly.

“I am,” Lianhua replied.

“For a delay?”

“For a vote.”

That word hung in the air like smoke.

Not forbidden.

But not often spoken aloud.

Lianhua didn’t beg.
Didn’t plead.

She placed her case like a scholar building an argument:
Historical precedent. Political benefit. Diplomatic stability.

She reminded the Dowager of her Buddhist sympathies.
Of her own influence among younger scholars.
Of the unrest in certain provinces that might worsen if the court silenced a popular voice.

But more than that—she invoked something deeper.

“This is not only about whom I marry,” she said.
“It’s about whether a woman may choose her place in the shape of history.”

The Empress Dowager listened.

Then poured them both tea.

She said only:

“You will need five signatures. No fewer.”

“And not just philosophers. You’ll need generals. Merchants. Men who have never once considered saying ‘yes’ to a woman like you.”

“Can you do it?”

Lianhua bowed her head.

“I already have three.”

The next day, she met with Minister Wei, a former poet turned bureaucrat with a soft spot for Lianhua’s lectures and a widow for a daughter.

He signed after reading one page.

She met with General Pan, whose troops had once been healed in a hospital funded quietly by Lianhua’s intervention. He did not smile when he signed.

But he did nod.

The third was Lady Shen, a logistics administrator whose sister had married across religious lines—and nearly lost everything for it. Lianhua did not need to convince her.

She signed with a trembling but firm hand.

Two more remained.

And time was thin.

That evening, Lianhua sent a scroll with no name attached. No ink visible to the naked eye.

But soaked in plum blossom tea—when heated, a message would appear.

It read:

Five voices will let me breathe a little longer.
But if you wish for more than delay—prepare your people. The hour will come.