Elio’s Notes: The chapter title comes from Li Yu’s Langtaosha: “In dreams, unaware that I am a guest, I indulge in a fleeting moment of pleasure.” The phrase carries the sense of knowingly surrendering to a brief happiness that cannot last.
“This realm is about to die.”
Li Congjia could clearly feel Zhao Kuangyin’s scorching breath against his forehead, yet he showed not the slightest fear. “What use would you have for a dead man?”
Zhao Kuangyin suddenly took the wine flask and continued rubbing it slowly between his palms. Li Congjia saw this and reached out to take it, but just as his fingers brushed the wall of the flask, Zhao Kuangyin jerked it away.
“What? You won’t even let me die knowing the truth?” Li Congjia laughed brightly, studying the poison with genuine curiosity.
“Didn’t you investigate it clearly enough? This is Qingu, a poison of extreme cold.” Zhao Kuangyin lightly uncorked the flask and held it beneath his nose, breathing in with a meaningful expression. “And then? What else do you know?”
“How much more could the physicians of Southern Tang possibly know? Only that much.” Li Congjia shook his head. His gaze remained fixed upon Zhao Kuangyin. “Do you mean there is something else to it?”
Zhao Kuangyin said nothing. He only looked back at him.
Li Congjia’s face was perfectly calm. There was not the slightest joy or sorrow upon it, as though the wine had nothing whatsoever to do with him, as though going to his death were merely another ordinary matter. It was only a question of winning or losing, drinking or refusing to drink.
Seeing Li Congjia like this suddenly made Zhao Kuangyin’s heart ache unbearably.
He would rather have seen a disappointed, bewildered Li Congjia than one so lucid and so coldly composed. Looking at him now made Zhao Kuangyin feel that this was a kind of sin, yet there was nothing he could do.
And so he could only shock him, force him to reveal some different expression, something that would prove he was still real.
That was why Zhao Kuangyin kissed him madly, unwilling to leave even the smallest part of Li Congjia untouched.
Every time, this man drove Zhao Kuangyin to madness. Only this way could Zhao Kuangyin convince himself that he was still capable of acting without reservation. He had to remain the Zhao Kuangyin who did whatever he wished. He had to keep that grand and respectable mask firmly in place so he would not become one of those so-called good men who pitied the world and wallowed in self-reproach.
Li Congjia felt his head beginning to hurt again, as though something had seized him and was tearing viciously at him. He knitted his brows, yet the pain did not ease. Too many things were entangled together, with no conclusion to any of them, and that feeling of being pulled in every direction awakened in him an inexplicable urge to simply let himself go.
It doesn’t matter. Didn’t I say I would indulge myself? Let my thoughts wander. At the very end, let it simply be a dream… In that dream, you and I will still be our true selves. We will not need to pretend to be enemies or friends. We will simply, in the simplest way possible… cherish it. Cherish this moment.
Zhao Kuangyin had never cared for incense, yet because of Li Congjia, he had somehow come to love the fragrance of red sandalwood without even realizing it.
Greedily, he breathed in the refined fragrance lingering at the corners of Li Congjia’s eyes and between his brows, unwilling to let go. He wanted so badly to see weakness appear upon the face of someone like this, wanted to know just how beautiful he could become.
The warmth of the body never knew how to conceal what the heart tried to hide.
Their lips and teeth entwined. Both of them were visibly losing themselves. The clarity vanished from Li Congjia’s double-pupiled eye. Zhao Kuangyin could see that he was losing control, yet what was he supposed to do with him now? Things had already come this far.
The play between their fingers could not be concealed even beneath the embroidered splendor of the Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade. Tianshui-blue robes fell into disarray around them. Zhao Kuangyin suddenly rose, pulling Li Congjia up with him.
Li Congjia clenched his teeth. He had not wanted to follow Zhao Kuangyin’s taking so humiliatingly, yet once a spark had become a wildfire, neither of them could stop. Dizzy and disoriented, he was forced down upon the soft couch until he could no longer move.
Within that confined space, an indescribable desolation suddenly swelled.
Li Congjia abruptly felt sorrow.
Everything happening now proved that he had been deceiving himself from beginning to end. Whatever existed between the two of them had long since ceased to be simple, yet he had stubbornly clung to the last scraps of his own composure and elegance. What use was there in that?
If even the final wager of his life had become meaningless, then he might as well hand everything over.
Li Congjia had never cared about the eyes of the world, yet he still could not escape the demons within his own heart. Now Zhao Kuangyin’s roaming hands, firm and allowing no refusal, stirred a thread of lingering attachment deep inside him.
Li Congjia raised both arms and, for the first time, touched Zhao Kuangyin’s face. His smile was terribly sad.
“Congjia.” Zhao Kuangyin was left at a loss by this sudden change. He could only watch the light within those double pupils gradually dim, powerless to do anything about it. He called his name gently, desperately wanting to comfort this lost soul, though he himself was equally heartbroken.
I want him, yet I cannot keep him.
“Why suffer like this?” Zhao Kuangyin pressed him down, allowing him nowhere to hide. “Why waste this whole body of mist and rain?”
“My feelings left me no choice. What can helplessness change?” Li Congjia could scarcely breathe, yet he quietly allowed Zhao Kuangyin’s touch. “All my life, I have been burdened by wealth and glory. I was born into it and could not escape. But I always believed there was still affection in this world. I believed the Crown Prince… Brother Hongji would never go this far. But…”
But in the end, the wine still came. He sent it himself because he wanted me dead.
“Do you know what it feels like when the belief you have held your entire life suddenly collapses? That kind of loss… So don’t disappoint Zhao Guangyi.”
Had they not been born into the nobility of an imperial clan, could the feelings between people have returned to their original purity? Even with everything ending like this, Li Congjia still found himself thinking of that question.
It was nearing noon. The weather was beautiful. The long stretch of gloomy rain had finally cleared, leaving the skies bright for ten thousand li. Yet this little side courtyard was sparsely inhabited, and Zhao Kuangyin always avoided the eyes of others, so the windows had never been opened.
Inside the room, despair and struggle seemed to rise in an instant, steaming into the air.
Across a table and chair, the Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade lay scattered like common cloth discarded in a marketplace, half of it trailing unnoticed upon the floor. The black gauze curtain beside the soft couch had been torn loose and hung in disorder. Through that hazy confusion, Li Congjia could see nothing else. That double-pupiled eye could see only one person.
Zhao Kuangyin.
Lips and teeth lingered over those breathtakingly beautiful wrists, making the man beneath him tremble uneasily. Zhao Kuangyin forced down Li Congjia’s attempts to pull away and pinned both wrists.
“Listen…”
“You…” Li Congjia turned his face aside and refused to look at him. Whatever he wanted to say never left his lips.
“Shh…” Zhao Kuangyin gave him one final warning, bent down, and kissed his eyelids.
Li Congjia could only close his eyes. The tingling sensation was strange and unfamiliar. Zhao Kuangyin’s slightly hoarse voice washed fully across his face.
“Today… no one is coming to save you…”
That only left Li Congjia even more at a loss. Seeing his reaction, Zhao Kuangyin gave a low, teasing laugh.
“Let me try to remember you… Li Congjia.”
“What good will remembering me do?” Li Congjia replied quietly.
The long blue sash at his waist slipped free of the jade clasp that held it. In the next instant, cool fingertips slipped deftly beneath the loosened layers, the unmistakable stimulation finally drawing a suppressed gasp from the man in pale jade.
“You lunatic.”
Zhao Kuangyin suddenly lifted him. His already loosened hair fell in a dark cascade, blurring both their vision.
“I am a lunatic. So are you.”
He bit lightly at the ear of the man in his arms and murmured, hearing Li Congjia’s faint sound and losing still more of his restraint.
“If we’re going mad… then it concerns only the two of us.”
Like a clean wind scattering blossoms, Li Congjia’s plain white inner robe was tugged downward by the man behind him. Their repeated pulling and struggling against one another seemed to exhaust the last of their stubbornness. It was nothing more than the final flowering of the tumi, a late-spring affair already nearing its end. Precisely because the beautiful scene was vanishing, it increasingly resembled an act of revenge.
Elio’s Notes: The tumi flower (荼蘼) blooms toward the end of spring and often symbolizes the last brilliant flowering before a season, romance, or beautiful period comes to an end.
Between repeated biting, struggling, and resistance, the dark gauze fluttered wildly. Far away, the songs and music of the banquet hall could still be heard. Li Congjia’s mind filled with clouds of the past: himself smiling in brocade robes when he was young, Flowing Wind and Resounding Spring, the Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade…
What else was there?
Suddenly he remembered the woman who had smiled beneath the falling gauze, her beauty startling as a swan in flight. At the time, he had believed he had encountered the magnificent chapter of his life.
But what could ever truly be decided beforehand?
Graceful as a startled swan, supple as a roaming dragon; veiled like the moon beneath light clouds, drifting like snow returning upon the wind…
Elio’s Notes: The imagery beginning “graceful as a startled swan, supple as a roaming dragon” comes from Cao Zhi’s Rhapsody on the Goddess of the Luo River, one of classical Chinese literature’s most celebrated descriptions of transcendent beauty.
At this moment, all of it lost its brilliance.
What use was any of it?
None of it could compare to that one inch of transcendence between another man’s fingers.
Li Congjia suddenly began to weep.
Why?
At this moment, with soul and bone seemingly dissolving together, whether he had lost control or had never possessed it to begin with, all he could see reflected in that madman’s eyes was an inverted image of himself.
It made him feel powerless.
Everything was only flowers in water, a moon reflected upon the surface.
Visible.
Untouchable.
Suddenly, tears welled from the depths of those dark eyes.
How had it become so humiliating?
Unable to stop crying, Li Congjia turned away, refusing to let Zhao Kuangyin see him clearly. Zhao Kuangyin tightened both arms around his waist and locked him in his embrace so he could not move.
“Would you like me to let you go? Don’t cry…”
Zhao Kuangyin’s throat moved visibly. He could not bear Li Congjia’s tears. They hurt him even more than being killed himself.
“Get up. No more crying.”
He reached for Li Congjia’s robe and covered him. Zhao Kuangyin, who had always acted however he pleased, abruptly forced down every remaining desire. His voice was still stiff as he wrapped Li Congjia in the clothing and tried to pull him upright.
“You…” Li Congjia remained facedown upon the couch. Unable to see Zhao Kuangyin, he could only ask quietly, irritation gathering in his eyes.
At a time like this, he actually… actually…
The words reached his lips, yet he could not bring himself to say them. He merely bit down hard. In Zhao Kuangyin’s pulling, his white robe slipped aside, suddenly exposing half of his jade-pale body to the air, where a faint chill crept across his skin.
“Zhao Kuangyin! Why do you think I was crying? If you truly take me for one of those weak, fragile people, then I was wrong about you.”
Disregarding everything else, Li Congjia challenged him directly. He bit his lip and reached for his clothes.
He had not been so deeply hurt because he was powerless to resist. Yet this fool had chosen precisely this moment to behave like a gentleman.
They were both men. Who could endure the scene before them? Besides, long ago they had already…
lost their hearts.
Those words ignited flames reaching the Nine Heavens. Desire flashed through Zhao Kuangyin’s eyes before he himself even realized it. If he could still stop now, then everything that had passed between them would truly have been wasted.
Zhao Kuangyin shoved him hard onto the couch. Li Congjia’s thin back struck it painfully, drawing an unconscious soft cry from him. That sound shattered what remained of Zhao Kuangyin’s restraint, and every trace of gentleness transformed into the most urgent hunger.
They were both mad.
The realm had fallen far away.
Desire swept over them like wildfire driven through scattered clouds by a violent wind, feverish and urgent. Zhao Kuangyin wanted only to remember him. At any cost, he wanted to remember Li Congjia.
He bit him hard, leaving a vivid red wound upon his shoulder. Blood welled freely. Li Congjia could not suppress the pain, yet refused to shrink away, allowing Zhao Kuangyin to do as he wished.
Entwined and grinding against one another, relaxing only to twist together once more, Zhao Kuangyin seemed intent on tearing him apart and devouring him. Cruel yet domineering, he lingered over every inch of Li Congjia’s body. The red-sandalwood fragrance surrounding them became mingled with the sweetness of blood, producing an indescribably bewitching scent. The wound upon his shoulder resembled a dead-leaf butterfly whose broken wings would never find a path home.
Both of Li Congjia’s wrists were rubbed raw beneath Zhao Kuangyin’s palms, as though Zhao meant to grind them into the long lines of his own hands. If he could not keep Li Congjia in this life, then nothing else would remain. Everything would become flying ash.
Seeing Li Congjia suffer because of him only brought Zhao Kuangyin a fiercer satisfaction. The strength in his hands increased, allowing Li Congjia not the slightest room to evade him, forcing him to face him completely. Against the hanging curtains, intricate embroidery cast ambiguous patterns across the room.
“Congjia… Congjia… shall I give you… an entire realm beneath Heaven?”
The man beneath him was already dizzy, unable to make out his words. He could only see Zhao Kuangyin’s lips opening and closing. He desperately wanted to say something, but when he opened his mouth, all that escaped was a low sound.
“You…”
Pain and an unfamiliar desire beyond comparison left him incapable of considering what deeper meaning those words might contain.
In the next instant, Zhao Kuangyin thrust into him.
The enormous pain was more than Li Congjia could bear. He bit through his lip at once, tears gathering in his eyes. Zhao Kuangyin lowered his entire body over him and lightly kissed his neck.
“Even if you die, remember who gave you this pain. Remember that you must never forgive me. Who made you suffer like this? You have to remember, Li Congjia.”
His presence turned dark and commanding as he demanded in a deep voice:
“Who did this to you? Say it.”
“Zhao Kuangyin… Zhao Kuangyin…”
The pain left Li Congjia helpless. He could only become a wisp of mist and rain in Zhao Kuangyin’s palm, carried wherever the storm took him, unable to command himself.
The wound upon his lips deepened. Seeing that Li Congjia would injure himself if this continued, Zhao Kuangyin kissed him there instead, wanting only for him to lower his defenses and relax completely. The cold gleam of the sword upon the wall seemed to dim. Even a hero would bend at the waist. Who could escape the poison of the heart?
Gradually, Zhao Kuangyin heard the thin man’s breathing grow heavier. Gradually, Li Congjia loosened his clenched teeth and finally abandoned every remaining restraint. Zhao Kuangyin took his hand, pulled him upright, and gathered him into his arms.
After countless shifts and turns, Zhao Kuangyin saw fine beads of sweat covering the exquisitely slender ridge of Li Congjia’s spine. Powerless fingertips traced his cheek, wanting and yet not daring to ask. Even if beacon fires burned for a thousand li, they could wait for this moment when spring wind washed over them, when peach blossoms scattered and fell at the border between heaven, earth, and the Yellow Springs.
A flush of crimson spread across him. Whether it was rosy cloud or flame kindled by Zhao Kuangyin, his disordered hair only deepened the allure, and those double pupils were filled with drunkenness.
Drunk without wine.
Suddenly, Li Congjia raised his head. The gleam of the sword hanging upon the wall stabbed painfully into his eyes.
He could clearly see its murderous coldness.
Having already sunk this far, with nothing left to restrain him, Li Congjia reached out and seized the sword.
Lost in the confusion of passion, Zhao Kuangyin had no time to wonder what he intended to do. Startled, he saw only that Li Congjia’s bruised wrist made even the sword seem elegant.
Before Zhao could dodge, Li Congjia drove the sword into his arm.
Fresh blood spilled instantly.
Zhao Kuangyin seized his hair and twisted his wrist, knocking the sword from his hand.
“You… didn’t you want to remember me…?” Li Congjia tipped his face upward, laughing through tears. Zhao Kuangyin’s grip on his hair forced him to stare directly into his anger.
“You have to remember… So long as the red sandalwood still burns, I have not gone.”
The sword wound was nowhere near enough to damage tendon or bone, but Zhao Kuangyin had already said that he wanted to remember him. So long as that wound remained:
So long as the red sandalwood still burns, I have not gone.
Even Zhao Kuangyin, who had crossed north and south through life and death, felt his eyes sting at that moment.
The wound had not touched tendon or bone, yet that single sword thrust had pierced directly into his heart. Its point had cut through flesh and forcibly engraved those few short words there, overflowing with grief.
He knew the many sorrows hidden beneath Li Congjia’s sword. He knew that single heart of his, true and startlingly clear.
Zhao Kuangyin covered him once more. His fingers moved over every inch of him, unwilling to let go. The dense emotion within that double-pupiled eye could not be dissolved.
How could anyone bear to relinquish him?
Too sorrowful to drink themselves into joy, facing a bitter parting…
Elio’s Notes: “Too sorrowful to drink themselves into joy, facing a bitter parting” echoes Bai Juyi’s Song of the Pipa, invoking a farewell so painful that even wine cannot bring pleasure.
Neither cared anymore about the fresh blood staining the couch, nor could they tell whose body it had fallen from. They could only continue seeking one another through mutual torment. It was not violation, nor was it helpless resignation.
It was simply something neither of them could restrain.
The feeling in the air lingered without dispersing, surging and rolling, while somewhere unseen a lotus seemed to bloom in darkness.
“Congjia…”
Again and again, Zhao Kuangyin traced the contours of the man beneath his hands, almost obsessively, lingering at his waist and refusing to leave.
After countless turns, pearl and jade were tossed upon the tide. A low table painted with gold overturned beside them. The disordered clothes that had been laid upon it scattered to the floor.
From among them, a small wooden object rolled out alone and slid a long way across the green stone floor.
Out of the corner of his eye, Zhao Kuangyin saw the wooden bracelet he and his younger brother had made in childhood fall to the ground with a hollow sound.
Something suddenly returned to him.
But before he could react, the red-sandalwood fragrance of the person beneath him swallowed his senses once more.
By the time everything had finally fallen silent, Li Congjia’s body was covered in dark, bewitching butterfly wings.