Futile Devices Scans

Nalan Xuan gave Feng Xuanyi an unceremonious glare. He was still “Nalan Xuan,” yet there was already something of “Ning Xuan” in the way he moved.

He brushed the snow from the ground and sat down on the stone steps, watching the world turn silver beneath the falling snow. There was a rustle beside him, then a weight settled over his shoulder as he was drawn into a warm embrace against a burning-hot chest. Nalan Xuan did not resist. For once, he was unusually compliant.

“Have you ever regretted anything in this life?” He unconsciously nuzzled against Feng Xuanyi’s chest.

“…Yes.” The muffled answer came from above his head.

“What do you regret most?” His eyelids were growing heavy, but the snow had not finished falling, and Nalan Xuan did not want to sleep yet.

“…That day, I should never have issued the decree that killed our child.” Feng Xuanyi had already thought it through. Even if that child had not been his, even if it had been Feng Xuanzhe’s, it would still have been the consequence of Feng Xuanyi’s own actions. He had been the one who personally sent Nalan Xuan to his elder brother. No matter who the child’s other father was, that child had still been Nalan Xuan’s. That single decree had almost severed every bond and every possibility between them.

Same here. Nalan Xuan gave a muffled laugh from within Feng Xuanyi’s arms. He had not been wrong at every step, but that did not mean he could bear every consequence of the choices he had made. If there was anything he still could not let go of, anyone toward whom he still felt guilt, it was the child who had died by his hand only days earlier, the child he had personally killed.

Yet although he felt guilty, he did not regret it. If he had not done that, he would not have been able to let go enough to make this decision now. Without bringing the past to a close, there could be no new beginning. Perhaps even he had never imagined he would reach this point. Or perhaps he had left himself an escape route from the beginning and simply refused to admit it or face it.

Another long silence followed. Neither of them wanted to be the first to break this rare peace and tenderness. The arm around Nalan Xuan’s shoulders tightened, and the internal energy Feng Xuanyi circulated filled the space between them with warmth. In the depths of winter, the two of them were warm as spring.

Nalan Xuan would not be able to watch this late snow fall to its end. His clear vision lasted for shorter and shorter intervals, and his mind grew steadily heavier. It did not hurt, nor was it unpleasant. He was simply sleepy. The sensation was not unfamiliar. He had experienced it once before, when he first decided to approach Feng Xuanyi. Now… perhaps he could finally put everything aside and indulge himself just once.

Everything should have remained in his own hands. Even when events escaped his control, he refused to be controlled by others. Even if the only answer was mutual destruction, that was Nalan Xuan.

“…I like winter. I hate autumn…” That winter, he and his father had been beyond the frontier. It was the last carefree winter of his childhood. He had been very young, but Nalan Xuan remembered it clearly. The following autumn, when he had been joyfully waiting for the first snow, what came instead was Nalan Jian, along with the sight of all the vitality draining from his father’s face until only ashen exhaustion remained. His father leaving him behind had also happened in autumn several years later. Autumn was the season he hated most, yet he had no choice but to endure it year after year. He hated its desolation, its loneliness, everything about it.

“Mm.” Feng Xuanyi rested his chin against the top of Nalan Xuan’s head and tightened his arms again as Nalan Xuan’s voice gradually faded.

“…I hate hibiscus flowers, especially blood-red hibiscus…” They had been his father’s favorite flowers. The one relative Nalan Xuan had believed he could depend on for the rest of his life had ultimately abandoned him, and so he hated everything connected to that man. So many times he had awakened in the middle of the night drenched in cold sweat after dreaming of vast fields of crimson. He had never told anyone. Now, for some reason, he wanted Feng Xuanyi to remember.

“…Mm.”

“…Did you lie to me about anything you just said? Even one sentence? Even the slightest hesitation?” Somehow finding the strength, Nalan Xuan abruptly tore himself from Feng Xuanyi’s embrace and glared at him with knitted brows and eyes sharp as lightning.

“No.” Faced once again with the suspicion of the person he loved, Feng Xuanyi’s usually icy expression softened into a gentle smile. He raised a hand and soothingly stroked the silver hair that fell to Nalan Xuan’s waist.

Exhausted, Nalan Xuan leaned back against him and finally abandoned the last of his resistance. A mixture of reluctance and embarrassment brought a faint flush to his face despite the freezing air. “…There are two envelopes beneath the pillow in Yuliu Palace. Burn the one written in cinnabar, letter and all. After I wake up, give me the envelope written in black ink…” He thought for a moment, then forced himself to sound fierce, though heaven knew what authority he imagined he possessed when a gust of wind could probably knock him over. “…Remember, you are not allowed to peek. I left that one for myself…”

“All right.” Feng Xuanyi agreed without hesitation.

Nalan Xuan shifted into a more comfortable position. At last, his heart could cast aside the turmoil of the mortal world. He closed his eyes in relief and let the darkness swallow his senses. “…From now on, every year… the first snow… together…”

He fell deeply asleep before he could finish the sentence, so he never heard Feng Xuanyi’s promise above him, nor did he see the crystal drop that fell with the quiet word, “All right.”

What difference was there, really, between Ning Xuan and Nalan Xuan? They had always been the same person. One had let himself go free, while the other had wrapped himself in layers of armor.

Feng Xuanyi and Nalan Xuan were simply too alike. Because they were alike, neither had ever been willing to yield first. Because they were alike, Nalan Xuan had once been certain he could make Feng Xuanyi fall in love with him. And because they were alike, Feng Xuanyi needed no endless explanations to understand the helplessness behind Nalan Xuan’s decision.

Being able to let go was one thing. Being able to face what had happened was another. They were both too proud and too confident. Even when covered in wounds, they instinctively wanted to lead, to control. The cracks had already formed, and trust had already collapsed. Time might dull everything, but if they carried resentment and resistance with them, they would only continue tormenting each other.

Feng Xuanyi had been willing to disregard status and lay down his pride, accommodating Nalan Xuan again and again simply to make him understand his feelings and win him back. Then, after Nalan Xuan had fulfilled the vow he once made to himself, he too could exile the self he had become and give them both a chance, a pause, a chance to let time reshuffle everything.

They were too proud, too reckless, too certain of themselves, even willing to hurt others and themselves alike. Yet they were also equally ruthless and decisive, equally swift in action, equally willing to own the consequences of what they had done. Toward others, and toward themselves. For this dream, Nalan Xuan wanted only two words: worth it.

In the twelfth lunar month of the second year of Emperor Huawu’s reign, the late emperor’s eldest son, the former Prince Yi, raised troops in rebellion. Though his forces fought all the way to the imperial palace, Emperor Huawu’s planning and Prince Yu’s valor ultimately brought the uprising to defeat. Every treasonous official who had attached himself to Feng Xuanzhe was dismissed and exiled one by one, but there was no massacre. The reason was a single remark from Her Majesty the Empress: “What a bother.”

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month in the third year of Emperor Huawu’s reign, during the Lantern Festival celebrations, Emperor Huawu issued an imperial decree dissolving the harem and retaining only the empress of the Central Palace. The entire realm erupted in uproar.

A male empress had already been controversial enough, especially because of doubts over whether he could provide heirs for the imperial family. Court and country argued bitterly until someone finally brought up an old imperial decree declaring that the empress was a descendant of the ancient Changyu Clan. Only then did the succession controversy caused by the dissolution of the harem temporarily subside.

That night, on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month in the third year of Emperor Huawu’s reign, the two figures in imperial yellow abandoned the court full of civil and military officials inside the hall and sat together on the long stone steps outside, leaning against each other as they watched snow fill the sky, even though it was not the first snow of the year.