Elio’s Notes: The chapter title comes from Li Yu’s Yu Meiren, whose famous closing image asks how much sorrow one can bear and compares it to a river of spring water flowing endlessly eastward.
At night, Ehuang woke once more.
Li Congjia was sitting at the table. When he saw her wake, he hesitated for a long while and ultimately did not approach, afraid of upsetting her again.
Although Ehuang still looked somewhat dazed, she had become remarkably calm. As always, she lifted the bed curtain with one hand and slowly sat up to look at him.
The blank whiteness in her vision gradually resolved into real shapes: the outlines of tables and chairs, the long carved patterns of the rattan stand, the candle whose wax had gathered like red tears, and him within the light and shadow, changed into a new robe of pale blue-green.
How wonderful.
There was concern for her in his eyes. If I could simply keep looking at him like this without moving, keep watching him from a distance, it would still be better than turning everything upside down.
She smiled at the man who remained slightly uneasy, as though she had merely awakened from a very long sleep. “Congjia?”
Li Congjia froze. Her expression looked perfectly normal, and she even called to him with a trace of playful reproach. Seeing that he did not move, she asked again, “What is it?” Ehuang looked herself over and found nothing unusual. “Did I sleep for a long time?”
“No… you… do you feel unwell anywhere?” At last he went over and took her hand. The woman in pink upon the bed had once again regained the brilliant beauty of a peony. Newly awakened from a spring sleep, her cheeks faintly flushed, she was such a beautiful wife.
Quietly, he felt relieved. Perhaps she truly could not remember clearly.
“Unwell? I only feel as though I had a very long dream.” She gathered her long hair with one hand, glanced sideways at him, and suddenly laughed. “What are you looking at? As though you were seeing me for the first time.”
Li Congjia rose to fetch a comb. He lowered the hand with which she had gathered her hair and slowly began combing it himself. “Did you sleep well?”
“I think I dreamed. I cannot remember what happened very clearly, only that it made me terribly sad.” She tilted her head as though trying to recall it. Li Congjia’s comb paused. “A nightmare?”
“I have forgotten. I slept too long. What hour is it?” Ehuang did not want to think about it anymore. She looked toward the darkness outside the window. “It is already dark.”
“The You hour has only just passed.”
Elio’s Notes: The You hour (酉时) is one of the traditional two-hour divisions of the day, corresponding roughly to 5–7 p.m.
Ehuang fell quiet and let him arrange her hair. “Hongxiu is still supposed to come tomorrow. How did I forget? What happened to me today?” Suddenly remembering the matter, she said, “No, I should still go and check on those girls in Pear Fragrance Courtyard.”
Li Congjia laughed. “Enough. They are hardly missing one instruction from you. Liuzhu went early to tell them what to pay attention to.”
The bronze mirror on the dressing table reflected the two of them. He sat behind her, gently combing her hair with a tender expression. “Congjia, open the window a little.”
He immediately rose and opened the wooden window. Moonlight poured across the floor. “The moon is beautiful tonight.” His fingers lightly tapped the carved wooden lattice. Turning back toward her, he saw Ehuang sitting beside the bed, one exquisite stretch of arm exposed by her gauze robe, looking toward him. Their eyes met, and at the sight of those clear eyes, guilt finally rose inside him.
“The fragrant mist dampens cloud-like hair; the clear moonlight chills jade-white arms,” Ehuang murmured, her voice cold and desolate. “What is it?” he asked with deliberately cheerful ease.
Elio’s Notes: Ehuang is quoting Du Fu’s Tang poem Moonlit Night. In the original poem, a husband separated from his wife imagines moonlight chilling her arms as she waits for him, which makes the quotation painfully apt here.
“I simply thought of it.”
Li Congjia returned and sat behind her again. Taking a golden hairpin, he placed it into her coiffure. As he raised his hand, his wrist still bore the marks of that absurd encounter. He himself did not notice them, but Ehuang alone saw them clearly. She drew a deep breath. “Are you cold?” He thought the night breeze had chilled her, but she only shook her head.
Everything should have been like this: cloud-coiled hair, a jade pin like a shuttle; a light blouse, thin gauze; twin dark brows faintly knit.
Elio’s Notes: This line echoes Li Yu’s own Chang Xiang Si, which describes a woman’s coiffure, jade ornament, light robes, and delicately furrowed brows.
A beauty like flowers, years flowing like water.
Elio’s Notes: “A beauty like flowers, years flowing like water” is a famous line from Tang Xianzu’s The Peony Pavilion, written centuries after the Five Dynasties period. The novel is using it as literary narration rather than period-authentic dialogue.
Yet why did the woman in the bronze mirror look so heartsick?
Her eyelashes trembled. Everything upon that wrist constantly reminded her of something, like needle after needle driven viciously into her heart. There was no blood, yet it wounded all the same.
Li Congjia only sensed that something was strange about her. “Ehuang? Are you still caught in a nightmare?” he asked tentatively. The woman before him instead turned with a smile and snatched the comb from his hand. “Are you laughing at me?” Her eyes were soft and alluring, touched with annoyance.
“I would not dare.” He smiled too, relieved.
“I did have a nightmare. I dreamed that you jumped into the water by yourself and disappeared.” After saying it, she suddenly seemed to notice something. Leaning closer, she examined him carefully. “What happened to your lips? Did our incomparably elegant Duke of Anding actually go quarrel with someone?”
Flustered, Li Congjia turned his face aside. He covered his mouth with his sleeve for a long moment before lowering it. “I do not remember. Perhaps I was careless.”
Ehuang laughed happily, as though she had caught him in some rare bit of amusement. “Did the Duke of Anding burn his mouth drinking tea? This concubine truly cannot bear the responsibility. It is all because I slept too long today.” With that, she even gave him a proper little bow.
When she lifted her head, her beautiful eyes shifted brightly. Unable to hold back any longer, she leaned against the couch and looked at him in amusement.
Li Congjia laughed too. He went outside to tell Liuzhu to have Madam’s meal served.
The instant that blue-green robe disappeared beyond the wooden door, a single tear fell onto the silk bedding.
She was laughing at herself, laughing until tears came. In order to cast off that nightmare, she willingly wove another beautiful illusion for herself.
The red-sandalwood fragrance remained.
How could she imagine someone like him humiliated? Ehuang could not destroy the elegance surrounding him merely because her own heart was filled with despair. So she could only destroy herself. She swallowed an entire bellyful of tears, forced herself to bloom into a breathtaking peony, and still had to flower upon the flames, dancing over a wounded heart, three-inch lotus feet moving beneath rainbow silks.
Elio’s Notes: The source uses “three-inch golden lotus” (三寸金莲), a conventional literary image for tiny, bound feet. Here it functions as heightened poetic imagery rather than a historical claim about Ehuang’s feet.
She rose and took up the pipa she had always cherished.
At the first note, all things fell still; the whole gathering sat wordless as the stars began to thin.
Elio’s Notes: This line comes from Tang poet Li Qi’s Song of the Qin. The original poem describes the spellbinding effect of qin music; the novel deliberately borrows it here while Ehuang is playing the pipa.
Back then, one song from her had intoxicated countless young heroes. Yet the only person capable of overwhelming her had been that figure beneath the corridor, clothed in the colors of mist and rain. The pipa accompanied seven strings, singing of the southern wind.
Outsiders always praised them, saying that although they were husband and wife, they were also true kindred spirits who understood one another through music. But if she could choose only one of those things, which would she choose? To understand him meant she could not possess him. If she possessed him, did that mean she would forever fail to see through those eyes, dark and deep as ink?
She cradled the pipa and played softly. Ten thousand sorrows followed the notes, yet in the end there was nowhere to place them. She could only lock them tightly inside her heart, using love as the final defense and feeding it with blood until the day it ate through her bones.
She simply loved him. That was enough.
Longing to see spring’s flowers and moon, smiling upon the road. Those who meet me often wish to pluck; pitifully, in holding on they only mislead themselves. Since parting from my beloved, my sighs have never ceased. The yellow cork tree grows toward spring; the bitterness in my heart lengthens day by day.
Elio’s Notes: These lines draw from the Southern Dynasties Songs of the Four Seasons at Midnight. The image of the yellow cork tree (黄檗) carries a wordplay: its bark and inner wood are famously bitter, allowing the poem’s “bitter heart” to be both emotional and literal.
It was originally a song of spring, yet she played until the entire room felt cold and empty.
Li Congjia happened to be standing outside the door. Hearing those strings stirred memories of Ehuang when they first met, her veil unable to conceal a beauty fit to overturn a kingdom. She had been neither affected nor shy. From far away, she had shown him a magnificent sight, like a phoenix among peonies.
And now? She sat alone in the room, playing something desolate. He could hear the disturbance within the music, yet he did not dare guess what she still remembered or what kind of dream she had seen.
He only hoped that the version of himself within her dream was still worthy of making her lower her veil and smile.
“Liuzhu had some lotus-leaf soup prepared. Shall I have it brought in?” He smiled and laid a hand over the strings, silencing them.
“All right.”
In the side courtyard, Zhao Kuangyin stood beneath the moonlit corridor with his eyes closed, gripping that wooden bracelet tightly in one hand.
The night was far too long. How many people’s glory would one city of Jinling eventually overturn? They all looked upon the same moon in the sky, yet each carried different thoughts.
Li Hongji watched with satisfaction as Hongxiu’s deft hands added qinan incense to a golden beast-shaped burner, filling the room with a slowly spreading fragrance. She had just begun to turn away, still holding several pieces of incense wrapped in brocade, when one of her jade-white hands was suddenly seized. Li Hongji lifted it, his gaze unusually deep. “How did you hurt your hand?”
A long, narrow scratch had broken the skin slightly.
“I… I was careless while dressing today…” She tried to evade the question, but he saw through her. “What scratched you?”
“A hairpin.” Thinking about it, that was indeed the truth, so there was nothing to conceal. Hongxiu reassured herself.
Li Hongji naturally understood how important those hands were to the woman before him. She must treasure them as her life. Although the wound truly did look like a hairpin scratch, if nothing had happened, how could she have been so careless?
“This hairpin does not look particularly fine.” His words carried another meaning. Li Hongji suddenly raised a hand and removed the hairpin from her temple. It was clearly not something she would have chosen for herself, and he had never seen her wear it before.
“It belonged to my family years ago. I found it again suddenly, so I put it on.”
“From years ago…” Halfway through the words, he slowly tested the age of the hairpin with his fingers. After a long silence, Li Hongji smiled very gently. “I will put it back on for you.”
Flattered by the attention, Hongxiu sat uneasily before the mirror and watched this man who could overturn clouds and rain with a turn of his hand show such rare good humor over nothing more than an inconspicuous, inexpensive hairpin.
“Why? Missing home?” he asked.
Hongxiu’s whole body stiffened. “No.” The answer came very quickly. Naturally, she had no wish to mention her origins again.
“I heard someone say there is no one left in your family?” Li Hongji’s fingers were very gentle as he slowly replaced the hairpin. “I was thinking that if you still had a father or brothers at home, I could grant them some official post. It would be no difficult matter.”
Hongxiu rose and bowed in thanks, not daring to look at him. “Hongxiu truly is alone. My parents are both dead, and I have no elder brother or younger siblings. I thank Your Highness for remembering me.”
Li Hongji waved all the maids away. Once the door had closed, he drew an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his embrace. “To have come from circumstances like yours and still grown into this kind of charm.” He leaned closer to her face. She was indeed a beauty. For someone of such low birth to have cultivated a pair of hands like these was rare. “Be more careful next time. Such beautiful hands. How could you let them be ruined?”
“Yes. Hongxiu will be careful next time.” Her phoenix eyes were seductive, their glances flowing with charm, making Li Hongji hold her more tightly. Even while their temples brushed together, Li Hongji’s eyes remained clear. He kept staring into hers as though trying to read something there. Unease filled Hongxiu, but she could not show it. She could only smile with flushed cheeks. “Your Highness…”
Li Hongji suddenly smiled again, giving nothing away. “You truly are a rare little thing…” He pulled her directly toward the couch beside them.
Red candles had been swaying, and a spring night should have been precious. Yet the man’s dark voice sounded beside her ear, half question and half command, instantly freezing every trace of desire. “Is tomorrow’s wine ready?”
Half of Hongxiu’s face was conveniently hidden behind her hair. Her heart, however, was in turmoil. “It is prepared according to Your Highness’s instructions.”
Li Hongji lightly bit her ear. It did not hurt, yet it prevented Hongxiu from drawing away, forcing her to remain there as he continued speaking beside her ear. “Remember. It was not my instruction.” He was plainly making her understand that if anything went wrong, she must never reveal who stood behind it all. “If something unexpected happens, then you…”
Hongxiu stiffened and waited, only to hear Li Hongji say, “Tell them Han Xizai ordered you to eliminate the Duke of Anding.” His voice was almost inaudible, yet every word entered Hongxiu’s ear with perfect precision, leaving her no way to escape the conspiracy already prepared for her.
She stared in shock. Lord Han was counted among the Crown Prince’s faction. Why would he now make her… “Lord Han…”
“You still came from the Grand Tutor’s residence. Would that not make the story perfectly reasonable?” The Crown Prince still called Han Xizai “Grand Tutor.” After all, Han had taught him for seven years, and habits were difficult to change. The attempt to frame another man was hardly brilliant, but on the surface Hongxiu truly was a singer personally selected and brought in by Han Xizai. Moreover, Hongxiu possessed no formal status, and Li Hongji would never publicly acknowledge any relationship with a mere singing girl.
If the matter succeeded, naturally the Crown Prince would benefit most. If it was exposed, they could say that Han Xizai, as one of the Crown Prince’s men, had been so eager to help Li Hongji ascend the throne that he resorted to any means necessary. Even if Father Emperor blamed him, old affection would surely still count for something. And Li Hongji himself would not technically be the mastermind. Grand Tutor, Grand Tutor, I will have to trouble you to shoulder this for me.
Li Hongji’s eyes were filled with ruthlessness. Hongxiu no longer dared speak. She only nodded in agreement.
Even amid their lovemaking, her heart never warmed. Coldly, she realized that the wound on her hand had begun to ache faintly. That insignificant scratch now seemed to have become the only opening in her entire body, a place through which all her despair and anxiety could escape, yet once again it made her think of that person.
Light and quiet, coming through parted flowers and brushed-aside willow branches, his profile clear and beautiful.
The faint fragrance of red sandalwood.
The man above her possessed handsome features somewhat similar to his, yet ultimately different. Li Hongji’s face was sharply defined; he was a harsh, unruly man. Li Congjia was pale and distant, so light that sometimes his very existence seemed unreal. Even so, Hongxiu could never associate Li Hongji with light. Perhaps in this life the Crown Prince was her only path to wealth and splendor, yet she still could not rid herself of fear.
She could never walk out of that night again.
She had lowered her head timidly while passing Li Congjia. That legendary wrist, beautiful enough to topple a city, had been so near. Untouchable. Forever untouchable.
But if that was so, why had it been arranged that she could see him at all? If Li Congjia had never entered her sight, Hongxiu would not be suffering this way, would not be hesitating this way.
Then everything today could have been done with a clear conscience.
But that man smiled like the spring wind, elegant as poetry and painting.
How could she bear to destroy such beautiful scenery in the human world? So forgive me. Hongxiu wrapped her arms tightly around the man above her and buried her face against his chest. She desperately wanted to cry, yet forced every tear back.
Forgive me.
She did not know whether she was saying it to herself, to Li Congjia, or perhaps to Li Hongji.
At the very end, the hairpin on her head dug painfully into her, yet she refused to remove it. It was the only surviving witness to her youth.
It was the last thread binding her to Green Willow Lane, to the bleakness of her childhood and the last of her innocence. Whatever happened, she had to remember it.
The next morning, shortly after she had finished washing and dressing, Li Hongji was nowhere to be seen. Hongxiu only heard the servants say he had gone to fetch something and would probably come back shortly to see Miss Hongxiu.
Hongxiu nodded and dismissed them, then quietly gathered herself alone.
Before long she would have to go to the Duke of Anding’s Residence. Everything, at last, needed an ending.
For the final time, Hongxiu gently took out a piece of incense wood, setting it upon fine brocade as she carried it over to add fragrance. It was deep, dark red sandalwood. When burned, it released pale smoke that slowly spread until it dispersed so faintly it seemed to leave no trace.
Ever since meeting Li Congjia, Hongxiu had believed red sandalwood possessed a soul. Between him and the sandalwood, she could no longer tell which one was the other’s spirit. They completed one another. A bearing like his should never have fallen into the very center of power, and yet that was precisely what made him even more moving.
The wooden door creaked. Someone entered.
She knew it was Li Hongji. No one else would dare enter this place without permission. She rose, turned, and bowed, then continued placing the incense wood into the golden burner.
Li Hongji breathed in carefully. “Red sandalwood?”
Hongxiu smiled. “It clears the mind and wakes the senses. The spring morning is beautiful. Red sandalwood suits it perfectly.”
“Change it.” His tone was icy. Li Hongji stood beside the window with his hands clasped behind his back, not looking at her, and left only those words.
Hongxiu still tried to insist. “Your Highness does not like it?”
Li Hongji let out a long breath. He had not wanted to say more, but after a long while he finally answered, “He likes it too much.”
Those words extinguished every flutter in Hongxiu’s heart like cold ash. Yes. He liked it too much, so no one could do anything about it. Red sandalwood had become a poisonous enchantment lodged in the heart.
Then forget it. Put it out and replace it with something else.
Li Hongji tried desperately to restrain his thoughts, yet his vision was filled with that pale blue-green figure. He could not hesitate any longer. “Hongxiu, come here,” he called.
Hongxiu walked toward him, not knowing what he intended to do. She only saw that he seemed to be holding something in his hand.
When Li Hongji saw her approach, still wearing that hairpin in her hair, the unease in his heart did not disappear. He suddenly seized her arm. Hongxiu gasped in surprise. “Your Highness…” Then she saw the golden needle in his hand.
“This is a specially prepared golden needle. Once inside, it will travel through the blood.” His voice was low and hoarse like a demon’s, his face resolute, madness in him like a man clutching at his final straw. He could not allow himself to soften. He could not let everything already within his grasp collapse at the last moment.
He lifted the red sleeve from Hongxiu’s arm, exposing a long stretch of jade-white skin, and slowly rubbed it. Shocked, Hongxiu forgot all propriety and tried to pull her hand away, only for Li Hongji to drag her back with one hand.
She watched helplessly as he laughed wildly and drove the golden needle, a cun in length, into her skin until it disappeared completely from sight. Cold sweat instantly covered her. “Your Highness! Your Highness…” Tears trembled in her eyes.
Elio’s Notes: A cun (寸) is a traditional Chinese unit of length. Its exact historical value varied, but it is better understood as roughly a few centimeters rather than as a modern English inch.
Li Hongji lowered her sleeve. Seeing her kneeling there and trembling all over, he reached out with apparent tenderness to stroke her hair. “It is all right. Do not worry. Your life will not be in danger immediately. You may only feel some stabbing pain as it moves through your body.” He spoke as lightly as though it were nothing, which only made Hongxiu’s tears fall harder.
“By this afternoon, at the latest. If you have not returned to the Crown Prince’s residence to report before the Wei hour, or rather, if Li Congjia is still alive by the Wei hour, then I cannot guarantee that your heart will withstand the golden needle piercing through it.”
Elio’s Notes: The Wei hour (未时) corresponds roughly to 1–3 p.m.
Hongxiu could not speak. Her eyes held nothing but despair.
“So long as you obey, I naturally have a way to draw the golden needle back out. But if something goes wrong, then there is nothing to be done. I had wanted to trust you…” Li Hongji toyed with the hairpin in her hair.
Naturally, he still suspected her.
The tiny needle mark upon her arm looked completely harmless. Only the two of them knew that if anything went wrong with the wine she delivered, if Li Congjia did not die, then she would.
All that talk of you and me, me and you, all their supposed tenderness, could be explained completely by a single golden needle. Was this truly what she had longed for day and night?