Mo Yan had entered the palace when he was very young. At the time, he had been frail and frequently ill, so the empress had sent him to serve the Fifth Prince whom she did not favor—the man who was now the emperor. He had grown up beside his master, watching him rise step by step from an inconspicuous prince to the supreme sovereign he was today. He had watched that once innocent, childlike boy suffer disappointment after disappointment, watched him emerge bloodied from battlefields filled with blades and spears until he became ruthless and decisive, an emperor who could discuss the life and death of even his own kin and brothers with a smile. Mo Yan had witnessed every hardship and turn, every scheme and conspiracy, and remembered them all.
And precisely because he had witnessed everything, he felt helpless. He had seen Feng Xuanyi bide his time until the moment came to reveal his strength, seen him swallow humiliation for the sake of the greater goal, seen his restraint and suppression, and seen the methods that had become almost cruelly absolute after everything within him had twisted under the pressure. The entire world might revere and fear him, but while Mo Yan certainly revered him, he had never feared him, because he knew what Feng Xuanyi had originally been: nothing more than a child forced into a struggle for power. No one could deny him merely because he had succeeded, for Feng Xuanyi alone was perhaps the person in this world best suited to rule, best suited to be emperor. Yet precisely because of that, Feng Xuanyi misunderstood Nalan Xuan—or perhaps simply could not understand or feel what Nalan Xuan felt. The two of them had been destined to arrive at this point, yet no one had dared tell Feng Xuanyi. Perhaps neither of them understood what the other truly meant to him. As the saying went, those caught in the situation could not see clearly, while an observer could. Mo Yan saw it all with perfect clarity, and precisely because he saw it so clearly, he was powerless to do anything.
Because neither of them had ever been wrong in any decision he made at any point along the way!
Unfortunately, a lowly man’s words carried little weight. Mo Yan was nothing more than a servant, merely a servant fortunate enough to have followed a good master. A master was a master, in life and in death, and a servant was a servant. He could only hope that perhaps in the next life he might have the chance to turn his fortunes around. In this life, Mo Yan was merely a servant. Even though he knew everything, even though every last detail had been branded into his heart, he could only remain silent. Just like his name—Mo Yan, “speak not”—there was no need to say too much. He needed only to mind his words and actions, fulfill his duty, and survive. As for everything else, fate made fools of men and wealth and rank were decided by Heaven. Some words and some truths, if they had to be learned from the wrong person’s mouth, were better never known at all.
And so he could only watch, pray, and wish them well. Whether joy or sorrow, he was destined to remain an observer…
At that moment, Nalan Xuan’s rare moment of peace was disturbed by the increasingly chaotic footsteps approaching behind him. His brows briefly knit, as though he had already guessed who was coming, and a faint, composed smile suddenly appeared on his face. It was elegant and regal, yet carried the faintest edge of mockery and provocation. Against his moon-white robes, he appeared tragically beautiful and utterly resolute, proud as though he were the favored son of Heaven standing in the highest reaches of the skies, while the true sovereign before him was merely a passing traveler among the myriad worlds. His refined features were silhouetted against the moonlight, coated in a faint layer of silver that blurred their edges and lent him an additional air of fragile, almost shattered vulnerability.
Opposite him, Feng Xuanyi seemed to have reached the very limit of his endurance. The rigid mask of expressionlessness could no longer hold. It cracked apart, shattering completely as fury he could barely suppress surged forth. A vein jumped violently at his temple, looking as though it might burst at any moment.
Feng Xuanyi had only just taken a step forward when Nalan Xuan read his intention and stepped backward first. With one advancing and the other retreating, Nalan Xuan, who had already been standing at the edge of the wall, now had half a foot hanging beyond it. One more step meant a five-zhang fall and the gulf separating life from death.
Feng Xuanyi’s expression changed. He wanted to reach out and pull him back, yet feared that any rash movement would provoke Nalan Xuan into doing something more extreme. His hand froze in midair before tightening into a fist. His face had turned livid with anger, his thin lips pressed into a hard line.
Feng Xuanyi’s reaction clearly amused Nalan Xuan. He had not originally been determined to take his own life. He was simply exhausted, wanted release, wanted to abandon everything and be left with nothing tying him down. Death was not the only solution, so he did not long for it, but neither did he reject it. Or rather, to Nalan Xuan, life and death had already become indistinguishable. There was simply nothing left in life that he wished to hold on to. Yet the series of movements Feng Xuanyi had just made struck him as extraordinarily amusing. To someone who no longer cared whether he lived or died, what was there to fear about death? If even he himself no longer feared it, why was Feng Xuanyi playing the dog catching mice—meddling where he had no business—and putting on this ridiculous show of false compassion? Was this another round of some new game? Had he still not grown tired of playing the same old drama?
Nalan Xuan found it laughable. Beneath the moonlight, his expression shifted unpredictably while a cold gleam flickered in his eyes. If this is a game, then perhaps I’ve finally found a piece I can use to take the initiative. If you insist on playing, then for the rest of my life, I’ll play with you to the bitter end!
“Come back here!” The approaching footsteps arrived one after another. Seeing that Nalan Xuan still showed no intention of yielding and remained locked in this standoff, Feng Xuanyi forced himself to hold back. Nothing in his voice betrayed either joy or anger, only the unquestionable authority and majesty of an emperor.
Nalan Xuan knew that Feng Xuanyi’s anxiety was not genuine. He was only setting the atmosphere for the game, unwilling to lose the dignity of an emperor before his servants.
Nalan Xuan remained completely unmoved. He did nothing further to provoke Feng Xuanyi, yet showed no intention of coming back either. He simply stood there, swaying precariously, confronting him with a faint smile. With complete unconcern, he tipped his head back toward the heavens as though admiring the grandeur and magnificence of nature, gazing upon the cold moon suspended eternally above the celestial palace. His phoenix eyes narrowed in apparent enjoyment, yet the dark pupils were nowhere near as calm as he imagined his heart to be. Deep within them lay resentment and unwillingness, mixed with the self-mockery of someone whose heart had already turned to ash. He had meant only to cast Feng Xuanyi a deliberately gentle glance, yet he did not realize how much sharpness and killing intent it contained, as though he wished he could cut the man into a thousand pieces.
Nalan Xuan’s complete disregard was an enormous challenge to Feng Xuanyi’s dignity as emperor and to the limits of his patience. Every word and every action scraped against his final boundary. When Feng Xuanyi spoke again, his fury was unmistakable. “I order you to come back here! This is an imperial decree!”
Nalan Xuan, who had remained silent all this time as though he were mute, suddenly laughed. “An imperial decree?”
His body trembled with laughter like a leaf swaying in the wind, like the tender branch of a newly grown willow that might snap at any moment. He was weak, yet his presence remained overpowering. His gaze traveled over Feng Xuanyi from head to toe, inside and out, studying him for a long time as though he were seeing the man clearly for the first time, as though this were their first meeting. His face was filled with mocking disbelief.
Arrogant and overbearing though he was, haughty and disdainful though he appeared, when he turned and the hazy veil of moonlight slipped away, that wild yet cold face seemed ethereal and impossible to grasp, beautiful enough to make all creation lose its color.
He was Nalan Xuan, once an unknown nobody who had somehow won imperial favor, first earning brilliant military achievements on the frontier and then entering the imperial harem to receive the emperor’s undivided favor. From obscurity he had risen into dazzling prominence. He had created countless miracles and stirred up countless storms within the inner palace. At one point everyone had believed he had fallen from favor, that the emperor had suppressed and discarded him, yet in the end he had miraculously displaced the former empress who had been Feng Xuanyi’s principal wife for years, climbing step by step to the highest position beneath the gaze of the entire realm. He was the unparalleled man who alone could make that emperor break precedent again and again—the present Empress Yu.
With that single smile, heaven and earth lost their color.
With that single smile, the boundary between them was drawn.
With that single smile, all hesitation vanished, leaving only ruthless resolve.
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