“Get out.” In stark contrast to the emotions surging violently within him, Nalan Xuan’s bloodless, thin lips parted. His voice was astonishingly calm, even cold, and so quiet that one would not have heard him clearly without listening closely.
“Young Master, please accept the decree.” Holding the imperial decree respectfully in both hands, Mo Yan did not dare raise his head to look at Nalan Xuan, who lay weakly upon the bed.
“I said get out. Don’t make me say it a third time.”
The entire roomful of palace attendants looked up in involuntary astonishment, their expressions as though they had seen a ghost. A windfall could hardly have fallen from the sky more generously or landed more squarely in someone’s lap, yet the person it had landed upon wanted none of it. Setting aside the immense honor and supreme authority that came with being made empress, the crime of defying an imperial decree alone was enough to make anyone pay dearly. As the saying went, when the sovereign commanded a subject to die, the subject had no choice but to die. It was not because everyone possessed some extraordinary sense of loyalty and righteousness, nor because they no longer wished to live. Rather, although a person might desperately want to live, he wanted his entire family to live even more.
“Fine. Since Steward Mo likes Moon-Embracing Palace so much, you can stay. I’ll leave.” With that, Nalan Xuan flung aside layer after layer of bedding and actually tried to get up.
“Master, you need to rest and recuperate properly. How can you move around like this?” Xiao Dezi was instantly scared half out of his wits and hurried over to stop him.
“Your Majesty, you absolutely must not do this—” Mo Yan also hurried forward to stop him, only for Nalan Xuan to cut him off before he could finish.
“‘Your Majesty’?” Nalan Xuan gave a cold snort. “Steward Mo, I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. I haven’t accepted that imperial decree. It’s still in your hands. If you’re looking for Her Majesty the Empress, please step outside, turn left, and head to Fengyi Palace.”
Ever since Feng Xuanyi had ascended the throne, Mo Yan had never been treated with such coldness. A servant might be a servant, but servants could hardly all be regarded as the same. At Feng Xuanyi’s side, Mo Yan had always been respectful and courteous toward the consorts of the imperial harem, yet everyone understood that with his years of seniority beside the emperor, a single word from him carried enough weight that he could practically be considered half a master himself. Now, abruptly subjected to such treatment, Mo Yan was left standing awkwardly to the side, completely at a loss.
Nalan Xuan promptly gave him a choice. “Either leave with your imperial decree, or hand it to Xiao Dezi and let him throw it away. I won’t make things difficult for you. Choose for yourself.”
If moments ago there had still been anger and resentment, now there was nothing but overwhelming bewilderment. Time and again, things that never should have appeared in his life, things that should never have had the slightest connection to him, had been forcibly shoved into his hands. His feelings had been disregarded as he was compelled to accept them, grow accustomed to them, and finally let them sink into his very flesh and blood until he treasured them more than his own life. Then, just when he had finally accepted them as his own, when they had become inseparable from him and he could no longer imagine living without them, they were cruelly torn away without leaving him even the slightest room to resist. In the end, he discovered that the very things he had once fought so desperately against had become his entire world. For that world, he had compromised again and again, yielded again and again, relinquishing the dignity, pride, and principles he had once believed he would never surrender. And then, lost and bereft, he suddenly realized that it had all been one enormous joke. Somewhere amid all those compromises and retreats, he had already been left with nothing.
Feng Xuanyi was the absolute victor of this game. The same methods had been used one after another, each link fastening seamlessly onto the next, advancing step by step. Nalan Xuan had seen the pattern clearly, yet he had been powerless to control his own heart. First came “love”—given to him, then shattered. That was when Nalan Xuan learned what it meant to be cold-blooded. Next came a promise. The lives of brothers were treated as no more than weeds, life and death decided at another’s whim, requiring nothing more than the movement of two lips. That was when Nalan Xuan understood what an emperor truly was. And finally came the child—a new life belonging to the two of them, the possibility of a new beginning, a turning point, a miracle. Yet that too had been destroyed without the slightest hesitation, without so much as a reason. An imperial decree was tossed before him afterward as though it were some gracious reward. And now, Nalan Xuan finally understood what cruelty meant…
Back then, for the sake of true love and with helplessness offered as the excuse, he had charged forward without looking back, even prepared to sacrifice himself, willingly allowing himself to be presented like an object to another man who was little more than a stranger he had met once. Later, using a promise as the reason, he had forced himself to surrender his freedom. He had thought it amounted to nothing more than being taken from the vast open sky and shut inside a gilded cage of restraints. Yet somewhere along the way, habit had made him begin to harbor extravagant hopes. Feng Xuanyi had understood all too clearly how lonely and adrift he was, so at just the right moment, he gave him the warmth of a family, a father’s affection, an irreverent elder brother who never behaved properly, and the new life in his belly that shared his blood. Give, then take away. Nalan Xuan had thought he had already seen this play performed often enough. So when an imperial decree ordered the execution of his parents and clan, there had been anger and there had been pain, yet he had accepted it surprisingly quickly. After weighing everything again and again, he kept telling himself, convincing himself, that he could lose anything—anything except the child. The child was his life. The child was the final line beneath every compromise he had made. For that child, he had been willing to swallow every humiliation. For that child, he had been willing to sink into the sea of status, ambition, and desire he had once despised above all else, demanding power again and again, even using his own body and putting on a hypocritical mask to please and flatter others.
And now, they would not even grant him that final, humble wish! Worse, they dressed it up prettily and called it the fulfillment of a promise. If status and glory were meant to compensate him for the only pure, untouched place left within his heart, Nalan Xuan would rather have none of it! He would rather never have been given such a choice in the first place!
He had loved, hated, resented, humbled himself, and even dared to hope for more than he should. Yet looking back now, it all seemed unbearably ridiculous. From beginning to end, everything he had sought had been nothing more than flowers in a mirror, the moon upon water. Only now, when it was all nearly over, did he belatedly awaken to the truth. Before he had known what had happened, he had still been capable of hatred—hatred for Imperial Physician Liu’s cruelty, a desire for revenge, even the desire to make the man suffer a thousand or ten thousand times more than he had. But now, aside from a profound sense of helplessness, he felt nothing at all. It was as though his entire heart had dried up, leaving no blow in the world capable of shaking it again.
Elio’s Notes: “Flowers in a mirror, the moon upon water” (鏡花水月) describes something beautiful and seemingly within reach, yet ultimately illusory and impossible to possess.
“Ha… hahaha…” At some point, the hall had fallen completely silent, leaving only Nalan Xuan’s hollow laughter echoing through the room. Crystal tears fell like jade beads from a snapped string. He suddenly sucked one into his airway, and a violent fit of coughing tore at his abdomen, which still throbbed with lingering pain. “Cough, cough, cough…”
As though he had been holding the words back for a long time, Xiao Dezi hesitated repeatedly before finally deciding to speak. “Master, although things have turned out somewhat differently from what you originally intended, you did accomplish your goal. Why must Master torment yourself like this?”
“My goal?” The word grated painfully against Nalan Xuan’s ears. For the sake of that so-called goal, what he had lost was his own flesh and blood! “I don’t recall when it became acceptable for a servant to point fingers at me and pass judgment on everything I do.”
Xiao Dezi froze. He stared at Nalan Xuan in astonishment for a long while, as though looking at someone he did not recognize, before speaking with visible uncertainty. “Could it be that Master really doesn’t remember? Hasn’t everything been proceeding according to Master’s plan? Could it be that everything Master did before was real—that none of it was an act?”
Nalan Xuan stared at him blankly, unable to understand what Xiao Dezi was talking about. At this moment, he had no desire to pursue what the other man meant, either. He did not want to think about anything at all. It was as though his life had suddenly lost the support beneath it, while the vault of heaven came crashing down from every direction, smothering everything in darkness. Even the final lamp had been mercilessly extinguished. Nothing seemed to hold the slightest meaning anymore, and he could no longer bring himself to care. As for the position of empress, coveted by so many people and now bestowed upon him, in Nalan Xuan’s eyes it was nothing more than a joke.
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