collaborated to the point where the Criminal Judge reported that within the year only fifty-eight executions had taken place and the Head Executioner was growing fat. However, three times fifty-eight had died, but the report was issued in compliance with Imperial wishes. No one disputed the figures because when a man's head has rolled freely in the dust, he is in no condition to argue.
4.
To Ming Huang came gifts in an endless surging sea of willing tribute—a fragile glass cup that tinkled like fêng-ling bells; lacquer that gleamed like the night's black splendor when the moon rests and star mice leap across the sky; silken rugs of a color resembling old coral, soft and smooth as moss creeping along moist rocks.
Ming Huang beheld the gifts and smiled. What advantages were expected in return? Rich indeed must be the man who can afford to accept gifts. But an Emperor must accept the things he does not need from those who cannot afford to give, lest he disturb the strange harmony of nations which so easily is worn threadbare. Like Mencius, the sage, all that Ming Huang desired was to live in harmony with the age in which he had been born. Musingly, he took a rose, caressing the soft petals as though they were the warm cheeks of Mei-fei, his favorite concubine. Soon she would bear him a child.
Perhaps it would be male—his nineteenth son. With-
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