The Nun Who Would Become China's Only Empress - Wu Zetian Sleep History Story to Fall Asleep To

Let me tell you about a woman. The whole world was certain her life was over. The old emperor had died. And by the cold, ancient rules of the palace, they shaved off her long black hair. They sent her far from the capital, to a lonely temple. A nun now. Cold lamp, old Buddha, morning bells, evening drums. The best years of a woman's life, about to rot away, one day at a time, in the endless knocking of a wooden fish. Everyone had already accepted her fate for her. But you see, there was one person who would not. And that person was herself. So tonight, close your eyes. Let your breathing slow. Slow as a raindrop on the eaves, hanging, about to fall. Let me take you back, a long time ago, to that temple. To a single lamp that burned all night. And the woman beside it, who could not sleep. Let's find out what she was waiting for. The temple was a lonely place. It was called Ganya. At night, it was silent, not a single voice. Only the wind, passing again and again through the empty corridors. In the courtyard stood an old tree. Most of its leaves had fallen. Its bare branches reached up in the moonlight, like hands stretching toward the sky. Room after room, the doors were shut. The women inside had long since fallen asleep. Most of them were like her, concubines the old emperor had left behind, women with no children. Overnight, they had fallen from the clouds, into this pit of cold lamps and prayer. They had wept. They had raged, and now, they too had given up. The night rain fell, soft and steady, tapping on the tiles, and on the heart. But in one room, the lamp never went out. And the woman sitting beneath it, that was her. The other nuns slept. The other nuns had surrendered. Only she sat there, eyes open, perfectly still. A scroll of scripture lay open on the table. She hadn't read a word of it. The wooden fish sat by her hand. She hadn't struck it once. So here's the truth. She wasn't praying at all. She was thinking about something else. Something enormous. Something almost impossible. She was thinking about how to climb back out. Out of this coffin built for the living. That single thought was like a needle. Night after night, it pricked her, and would not let her rest. The dim yellow lamplight fell on her cleanly shaven head. That head had once worn hair the old emperor himself had praised. She lifted a hand and touched her cold scalp. She touched it, and touched it again. There were no tears in her eyes. Only a calm so cold it was frightening. She was barely into her twenties. For an ordinary woman, this was the end of everything. But she, somehow, felt it was a beginning. And here, beneath this lamp, she did not yet know. Or perhaps, deep down, she did. That one day, many years from now, she would sit on that throne. The throne countless men had died for, and never held. The throne no woman had ever dared even to dream of. But all of it would begin tonight, with one thought, beneath this lamp. So let's turn the clock back. Let's see how she came to be here, under this cold light. The truth is, this woman under the lamp did not come from greatness. Her father was a merchant. Early on, he backed a right man, and built a decent fortune, and even won a minor post. But her father died young. And when he died, everything changed. The relatives, the cousins, they bullied the widow and her daughters. Cold words. Small cruelties. Every advantage they could take, they took. Mother and daughters lived on other people's charity, and swallowed every kind of contempt. Now remember this one thing. That hard edge inside a person, that refusal to ever bow the head, it is often forged, slowly, in exactly these days. In the days of being looked down upon. But she was beautiful. And she was clever, quick, well-read, good at everything she touched. Slowly, her name reached the years behind those high palace walls. That year, she was only fourteen. An imperial decree came. And she had to leave her mother, and walk into a palace she had never even dared to dream of. On the day she left, her mother wept until she could barely stand, clinging to her daughter's hand, unable to let go. Who could say? Beyond that red palace gate, was it fortune, or ruin? So many girls walked in, and never came out again. But she, she did not cry, instead, she reached out and steadied her weeping mother. And she said something that stunned everyone there. She said, Mother, I am going to meet the How do you know this is not my great fortune? Why weep, like some ordinary family marrying off a daughter? Now listen to that. These are the words of a fourteen-year-old girl. And in that moment, you already understand. This one, she was not like the others. Other girls entered the palace dreaming of favor, of a quiet, safe life. But her, from the very start, she was thinking of that one word. Fortune. How great a fortune, she didn't say. But the light that flashed in her eyes, it had already said it for her. In the courtyard, the carriage waited. A morning wind lifted a single leaf, spun it around, and dropped it at her feet. She entered the palace, and the old emperor, seeing her for the first time, was pleased. There was something in her eyes, a charm he couldn't quite name. So he gave her a name. He called her Manyang. The Charming One. A soft name, a delicate name. But the people of the palace soon learned something. This girl called Manyang was not soft at all. Not underneath. The knights in the deep palace were always long. Wall after wall carved the moonlight into small, cold squares. So many lovely women grew old inside those walls, and never once earned a second glance from the emperor. This palace looked like glory. But it was a place that ate people alive, and spat out the bones. Now you might ask, In all those long years, ignored by everyone, what did she do with her days? She did not waste them weeping, like the others. She did not curse her luck. She could read. She had learning. So the palace often gave her work with documents, with letters, and records. And because of that, she read what others never saw. She read the histories, how kings and ministers rose, and how they fell. She read the reports, how this vast empire was run, one matter at a time. What others found dry and dull, she saw as windows. Window after window, opening onto a far larger world. And so, alone, in a forgotten corner of the palace, she quietly fed herself. She grew into a woman who understood power, and understood people. Outside her window, the sun rose and set. And no one knew. A seed of ambition was quietly taking root, in all that silence. Once, a wild horse was brought into the palace. They called it the It was strong, and its temper was savage. No one could tame it. It had already injured several powerful brooms. In front of the whole court, the old emperor sighed. Such a fine horse, he said, and not one man can master it. The whole hall lowered their heads. No one made a sound. No one wanted to touch that trouble. But then, that soft, delicate girl, standing in the corner, that main young, she stepped forward. Out of the crowd. And she said, Your Majesty. I can. I only ask you for three things. An iron whip. An iron rod. And a dagger. Everyone froze. What, they asked, would she do with those three things? Calmly, word by word, she answered. First, I whip it, hard, with the iron whip. If it still won't submit, I strike its head with the iron rod. And if it still won't submit, then I take the dagger, and I cut its throat. A horse that even men cannot tame, what use is it alive? The hall went silent as death. The old emperor stared at this girl, her eyes so full of charm, her words so full of blood. He stared, for a long, long time. And he said nothing. In his heart, was it admiration? Or was it fear? No one knew that eye in the corner of the hall, a candle flame jumped without a sound, its flickering light on her young, calm face. But here is the strange thing. After that day, this dazzling, sharp-edged main young, she stayed exactly where she was. A low-ranked concubine, unnoticed. Maybe it was that sharpness, that edge she couldn't hide, that made the old emperor, a man who had seen everything, wary of her. A dozen years passed, one slow day at a time. Other women bore sons, and rose in rank. Only she stayed in place. Not up. Not down. She was like a thing set down in a corner and forgotten. And as the days passed, the dust settled over her, layer by layer. The palace moon waxed and waned, year after year, and never paused, not once, for her. And there is one more thing you probably don't know. In those years, a whisper spread among the common people. A prophecy. A deadly one. It said, one day, a woman surnamed Wu would rise, and take the empire from the house of Li. That whisper climbed, layer by layer, until it reached the old emperor's ears. Now imagine it. A ruler, hearing that someone will steal his family's throne. Think how it chilled him. He chose to believe it. In secret, he killed more than a few people surnamed Wu. He even nearly killed one of his own great generals over it. But fate, you see, loves this kind of joke. He guarded, and he killed. And yet he overlooked the one right under his nose. The one woman truly surnamed Wu. He treated her as a trinket, worth nothing. And he never dreamed, not once, that the woman the prophecy spoke of slept, night after night, inside his own palace. The night grew deep. The palace lamps went out, one by one. And no one heard fate, in the dark, laughing quietly to itself. But don't think those dozen years were wasted, her youth just burned away for nothing. No. It was exactly those years, ignored by all, that made her. Since no one looked at her, she had all the time in the world to watch. She watched who rose, and who fell. She watched the struggles, step by step, life and death. She watched how the emperor, high above, reigned in his whole court. And all of it, quietly, she stored away. She took her bitterness, her hard edge, and folded it inward, deep behind her eyes. She learned to wait. She learned to endure. She was like a snake, coiled through the winter, perfectly still. But she knew. One day, spring would come. Her best years drained away, slowly, in that endless waiting. She had waited so long, she had almost given up. And just when she was ready to surrender, something enormous happened in the palace. The old emperor, who had ruled a whole age, fell ill. And this time, he did not get up. With the son of heaven gravely sick, the palace women took turns, day and night, tending his sickbed, bringing medicine, feeding him, wiping his sweat, keeping the night watch. It was hard, thankless work. Others avoided it however they could. But she saw it clearly. This, perhaps, was the one chance in all her dozen years. A chance to do what, she couldn't yet say. She only sensed this. To stand at the center of power, even just carrying tea and water, was better than rotting in that cold corner. And it was there, by that sickbed, that she met someone else. He was the old emperor's son. The crown prince. The one who would soon be the new ruler. This prince was gentle. Soft, even. Nothing like his father, that decisive, iron-willed man. As a son, he too came often, to tend his ailing father. And so, in that room heavy with the smell of medicine, in the dim candlelight, a woman who had been overlooked for years, and a young man about to inherit an empire, his heart full of dread, met. Again and again. Fate, sometimes, hides in a room as small as this. At first, it was only glances. A fingertip, brushing another, by chance, passing the medicine. Neither said a word. But something had already begun, quietly, to take root. She was a few years older than him. She had seen more, and understood far more. That maturity of hers, forged through years of neglect but never put out, that stubborn, unquenchable fire behind her eyes, it was something this gentle young man had never seen in his life. He was drawn to her, almost helplessly. Outside that room, wall upon endless wall. Inside it, a father slowly dying. And the two who were still alive, in that narrow gap between life and death, quietly, lost their hearts to each other. There was one time, in that room, when only the two of them remained. The old emperor had fallen asleep. The candle burned on, quietly. And the young prince looked at her. Several times he almost spoke, then stopped. At last, he said only half a sentence, low and soft. When all of this is over. And he didn't finish it. But she understood. She didn't press him. She only nodded, gently, once. You see, some promises don't need to be finished. And that half a sentence, unfinished, one she hardly dared believe herself, would become, in the years to come, the one small light she held in her hand, in all that endless dark. She buried those words in the deepest part of her heart. And she kept them there, for years. Outside, the night was thick as spilled ink. And a single lamp pressed their two young shadows, close together. Into one. But you have to understand. This feeling of theirs was a terrible taboo. A crime that could take their heads. She was, by name, his father's woman. His stepmother. If half a word of this ever got out, forget the future, they could not even keep their two lives. She knew the danger better than anyone. And yet, she gambled anyway. Maybe, after so long in that lightless palace, this small, dangerous warmth was the only thing she had left to hold. The candles swayed, throwing their shadows on the wall. Now apart, now leaning gently together again. As if trying to hide each other, inside that trembling dark. Day by day, the old emperor's body failed. That man who had once conquered ten thousand miles from horseback, now, he was wasted thin, barely able to speak. She stayed by his side, bringing medicine, feeding him, more devoted than anyone. But beneath those lowered eyes, her heart was crystal clear. This lamp was going out. And when it went out, the whole sky above her would fall. She had to find herself a way to live, while there was still time. And in all that vast palace, the one straw she could grasp was that young prince. The one who came so often, who was gentle with her. She buried that hope so deep, she hardly dared look at it herself. The fire under the medicine pot flickered, bright, then dim. Boiling the medicine. And boiling, too, the words neither of them could say. But that stolen little warmth could not last. That night, the hour grew late. The old emperor's breathing grew weaker, and lighter, light as a thread that might snap at any moment. Kneeling by the bed, her heart climbed into her throat. She knew, better than anyone, what waited for her the moment this old man stopped breathing. At last, near dawn, that breath broke off. An emperor who had once bowed the whole world, gone, gone without a sound. The palace erupted, all at once, into weeping. And she knelt on the cold stone floor, her head bowed low. And no one could see what was on her face. Who was she weeping for, really? For the old emperor, just gone? Or for her own tomorrow, which she could neither see nor hold? By the cold old rule of the palace, when the emperor died, every concubine who had borne no child was sent to a temple. Shaved bald, made a nun, to keep watch for the dead emperor, cold lamp and old Buddha, for the rest of her life. And she, she was one of the childless ones. No one came to save her. That young man from the sickbed, the one whose eyes had met hers, who had lost his heart, he had now taken the throne. The new emperor, surrounded by his consorts, buried under matters of state, he seemed to have forgotten her completely. And so, a plain blue cloth carriage carried her out. Out of the palace she had endured for over a dozen years. The wheels ground over the long palace road, one dull beat after another. Through the gap in the curtain, she looked back, one last time, at those walls too high to see the top of. She said nothing. She did not weep, or beg. She only took that bit of defiance, that fire that would not accept its fate, and pressed it down, hard, into her heart. In the morning mist, those two heavy red gates swung shut behind her. They closed with a deep, dull boom. As if to seal away the whole first half of her life, and every hope she had, inside. And so, at last, we come back to where we started. That lonely temple, Danya. That lamp burning all night. That woman who could not sleep. History would come to know her name. Wuzetian. On the day they shaved her head, the cold razor scraped across her scalp, stroke by stroke. Lock after lock of black hair fell to the floor, gathering in a small pile, then scattered by the wind. Beside her, an old nun chanted, and said, Child, this severs your ties to the world. From now on, you belong outside it. Go, and pray. She kept her eyes closed. She said nothing. But in her heart, she was thinking something else. Severs my ties. My story is only just beginning. Who are you, to make me cut it off, here? Life in the temple was the same, day after identical day. Up before dawn. Strike the bell. Chant. Sweep. Eat the plain meal. Thin gruel, coarse cloth. Outside her window, spring came and went, came and went, and she was like someone left behind, outside of time itself. And the nights were the hardest. The other nuns, perhaps, could truly grind their hearts smooth in the sound of the wooden fish. Grind them down, until nothing stirred. But she could not. Every single night, she lay with her eyes open, listening to the endless wind and rain outside. And again and again, she asked herself. Is this it? Is this really where my whole life ends? As the days wore on, she grew thin. That face, which had once made even the old emperor pause, now wore the marks of hardship and grief. The bland food wore down her body. The endless waiting wore down her heart. And yet, every morning, she still sat before that clouded bronze mirror, and looked herself over, carefully, top to bottom. In her heart, she told herself, again and again. Don't break. You must not break. It sounds pitiful, I know. But here is what she was thinking. What if the chance comes? What if that man really does turn back for me? On that day, she would still need this face, this body, to seize the one thread of hope. So she wouldn't even let herself look too worn. Outside, a plum tree bloomed in the cold spring wind, and faded, and dropped its petals to the ground, with no one there to ask after them. Anyone else, by this point, would have given up. Cold lamp, old Buddha, live out what's left. That's how it ends for almost everyone. And there's no shame in it. But she, she would not accept it. You see, it's when the road runs out that you truly see a person's bones. Whether they are soft, or hard. And her bones were hard. Frighteningly hard. She staked her last thread of hope, everything, on one man. The one who had lost his heart to her by that sickbed. The new emperor, now high above her. She bet that he hadn't forgotten her completely. She bet on one small, uncertain scrap of old feeling in a man's heart. Win, and the sky opened wide. Lose, and it was cold lamp and old Buddha, until the day she died. It was the biggest bet of her life. But she did not just sit and wait. Because a chance, you see, never comes to you on its own. You have to reach for it. She found a way. Through someone, she sent a thing into the palace. The histories say it was a poem. A few short lines. Not one word about power. Not one word about glory. She only poured in the longing of a woman, cut off behind wall after wall. That torment, day and night. That days where you see red as green, and green as red. Line by line, she wrote it all in. She wanted that man behind the high walls to know. There is still someone in this world, waiting for you. Wearing herself down to nothing. It was a foolish move, and a dangerous one. But she had bet right on the human heart. And don't underestimate that thin scrap of paper. It too was a terrible gamble. It had to be smuggled out of the temple, and passed, hand to hand, layer by layer, deep into the palace. Along that whole path, if a single link broke, if it fell into the wrong hands, it became a deadly weapon against her. A nun, keeping watch for the dead emperor, daring to reach for the living one on the throne. That charge alone could kill her ten times over. And still, she sent it. You see, someone truly set on changing her fate will stake even her own life. After the poem went out came the hardest part. She didn't know if he would even see it. And if he saw it, whether he'd still remember that half-spoken promise. She could only wait. At night, again and again, she stared out at that unseen road, the one that led to the palace. And her heart hung there, in midair, unable to rise, unable to fall. And then the chance really came. The next year brought the anniversary of the old emperor's death. By custom, on that day, the new emperor would come to the temple himself, to burn incense for his father. The moment that news reached the temple, her dead still heart suddenly began to pound. She had waited for this day so long. So long she had almost stopped daring to hope. That day, she rose earlier than anyone. Before that clouded bronze mirror, she made herself clean, careful, ready. She knew this, perhaps, was the one, and the last, chance of her whole life. If only, if only he would still turn his head and look at her. Even once, the new emperor came. And through the curling incense smoke, he lifted his eyes. And at once, among all those lowered, lookalike faces of the nuns, he knew her. They say, in that moment, their eyes met, and both of them, their eyes went red. The histories say that day, they stood facing each other, unable to speak a word, weeping until they could not stop. Just imagine that scene. One, the son of heaven, the highest man alive. The other, a nun beneath a cold lamp, all life drained out of her. Across life, across death, across more than a year of utter silence, they met again. In the hall, the incense burned quietly. A single thread of smoke rose straight to the beam, then, high in the air, gently, came apart. That one look was enough. The stone that had hung in her heart for over a year finally dropped. She knew. This life, this enormous bet, she had won it. What came after followed on its own. That emperor, holding to his old feeling, found every means he could, worked around all the whispers and the walls, and at last, he brought her back into the palace. But don't you believe this is just some story of a poor woman, saved by a man's pity, luck turning her way. Coming back was never the end for her. It was only another beginning. Cold lamp and old Buddha could not hold her. And those high walls, from now on, could not hold her either. Outside, the rain that had fallen all night, at some point, quietly stopped. And along the edge of the sky, there rose a faint, faint line of blue-white. Now, there is one more layer here, the most telling of all. That the new emperor could bring her back from the temple, well, someone else gave him a push. And who was that? It was the empress herself. You see, the empress had no son, and little of the emperor's favor. She watched, helpless, as another concubine seized his whole heart, and jealousy ate at her. She heard the emperor still thought of that old flame at Ganya temple. So she had an idea, one she thought was clever. Why not bring this woman back? Use her, to split off some of that concubine's favor. She thought she had found herself a helper. A weapon to hand. She never once imagined. The thing she brought back into the palace, with her own two hands, was a tiger. A tiger that would one day devour her, and everyone else in that palace, bite by bite. This, is what it means to invite the wolf inside, and that poor empress. Only at the very end did she finally understand what it means, to lift a stone, and drop it on your own foot. The rest, you may have heard. This woman, who walked back out from under that cold lamp, went on, step by step, steadier than anyone, and harder than anyone. First she won back the emperor's favor. Then, step by step, she climbed to the seat of empress. Later, she stood behind the sickly emperor, ruling from behind the screen, and the highest power on earth slid, slowly, into her own hand. And in the end, she did a thing no woman in thousands of years had ever done. She herself sat down on that dragon throne, the one meant for men alone, she became, on this ancient land, the first, and the last, the only woman ever to rule as emperor in her own name. Look back on her whole life, and it hardly seems real. A girl from a fallen family, drowning in contempt. A low-ranked concubine, ignored a dozen years, unable to rise even one rank. A nun, sent to a temple, her hair shaved to nothing. A woman fate pressed to the bottom, again, and again, and again. And that woman, in the end, truly did it. She changed the name of the dynasty. She sat on the throne. She made a whole court of men bow their heads to her. She used people without asking where they came from. The able, she dared to use. Those in her way, she showed no mercy. This vast empire turned steadily in her hand, for decades. No one had done it before her. And no one has done it since. For that one thing alone, she has given people a thousand years to talk. What people remember is the empress who ruled the world, who made a whole court tremble. But few of them, few ever stop to think, that the start of all of it was a night like that one. A cold land, an old Buddha, and no sleep. Few remember the young nun everyone had sentenced to death, who simply refused to accept it. In the end, what truly breaks a person is never the hopeless place itself. It's letting go, in that hopeless place. Giving up. Accepting the fate. And she, from beginning to end, never once, let go of that hand. That, perhaps, is what was truly remarkable about her. Her whole life, no one who came after could ever fully tell, or fully judge. Some say she was ruthless, that she would do anything to climb, that she harmed many. Others say the years under her rule were peaceful enough, that ordinary people got by well enough. Right and wrong, credit and blame, they have argued it for over a thousand years, and no one has ever settled it. And she, it seems, foresaw this day long ago. On the great stone tablet she left standing behind her, she carved not a single word. Merit, or fault, she seemed to say, here is my life, laid out. Let those who come after judge it for themselves. Let our lens turn back, one last time, to that temple. To Ganya, and the lamp that went out a thousand years ago. So many years have passed. The temple, perhaps, is long gone. And that woman's love and hate, her ambition and her loneliness, all of it long turned to dust. Only that night beneath the lamp remains. That thin, unbowed figure sitting before it, still here in the story, told softly, on quiet night after quiet night, just like this one. The moonlight spills down, quietly, over the empty prayer hall, over the empty cushion where no one kneels, and in the censer, a thread of long cold smoke drifts up through that clear, cold light, slowly, and comes apart, all right. The story is over now. All that patience, all that ambition, all the defiance and the desperate gambles beneath that lamp, they have drifted away with this long, long night. And you, right now, you are safe. You are warm. You don't have to gamble on anything. There is no hopeless place for you to endure alone. You don't have to be anyone at all. You are only yourself, lying in bed, ready to sleep. Tonight, there are no cold palace walls. No lonely lamp. And no heavy gate, swinging shut behind you. Only the gentle night outside your window, and this room, this quiet, that belongs to you alone. So let that thousand-year moonlight come into your room too. Let it rest beside your pillow. Slowly. Close your eyes. And like that raindrop on the eaves, fall, quietly, into your dreams. May you sleep well. Good night.