Elio’s Notes: The title, 半拖金缕衣, comes from Sun Guangxian’s Pusaman (《菩萨蛮》). Its closing scene depicts a woman holding hands with someone as she sees him off, her gold-threaded robe trailing behind her. The image of reluctant parting is echoed later in this chapter by Li Congjia’s own gold-threaded dragon robe.
A red-sandalwood box that had passed through many hands yet remained unchanged, long and narrow, still bearing the deep color of age.
Li Congjia had never paid much attention to the patterns carved upon it. They were probably nothing more than dragons, phoenixes, and clouds, or perhaps the ordinary Three Friends of Winter meant to suggest refinement. By temperament, he would never have examined such things particularly closely. After retrieving the box and sighing over it, there had still been nothing he could do, so he had put it aside. Later, as events grew increasingly chaotic, he had actually forgotten about it altogether.
Now someone had unexpectedly uncovered it again. Standing beneath the sunlight, he happened to open it once more and suddenly discovered that the bottom of the box had also been carved through with openwork patterns.
Fine plum-blossom designs ran around the edges, though they were not enough to let the light pass completely through. But the center had been painstakingly pierced and carved all the way through.
When sunlight shone down through it, the shadow cast onto the ground was not some random assortment of auspicious designs, but a sentence.
Li Congjia’s gaze darkened. He stared fixedly at that patch of earth. Hidden among the fine shadows of plum branches were the words: “I know Sixth Brother’s heart. Fragments of the Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Robe score. Andong Temple.”
Elio’s Notes: Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Robe (《霓裳羽衣》) is a celebrated Tang court music-and-dance composition. The story treats surviving fragments of its score as something Li Congjia would deeply value.
That year, Li Hongji had not merely wanted to give him a qin string. Anything Sixth Brother noticed, anything he liked, anything worthy of accompanying him, Li Hongji had once wanted to give him.
And Li Hongji had actually known that he did not want to compete. He had sincerely carried this gift to his residence. It was one thing if he could not give it to him, but Li Congjia had actually retreated again and again, terrified of being tainted by some reputation for coveting power. Leaving was one thing, yet he had retreated all the way into the mountains and forests, treating Li Hongji as though he were some monstrous flood while imagining himself an immortal who wanted nothing from the mortal world. If you fear me, then I will simply yield.
How could Li Congjia’s behavior not have humiliated the Crown Prince?
Li Hongji had always been such a severe and arrogant man. The dignified Crown Prince of the realm had gone to see his own younger brother, only to find the building empty. In the end, it was Li Hongji himself who had been made to look ridiculous.
Flowing Wind Pavilion. Resounding Spring. He had understood him after all. Everything except the realm beneath heaven, I could have given you. Yet you happened to threaten the one thing I would never release.
Today, Li Congjia stared at those words and drew a deep breath. Slowly, a suffocating heaviness clogged his chest. He hated this feeling of helplessness. He disliked speaking of regret, but with some things, saying he did not regret them only meant that he still refused to recover an ordinary heart.
Everyone said the Sixth Prince possessed peerless grace, that a single turn of his wrist could topple a city, that he was a legendary vision of night rain among embroidered chambers and singing towers. His very name had come to signify someone removed from dust and mortality, as though he had been born unlike ordinary men.
When praise like that was repeated often enough, even he had begun to believe it. Li Congjia, Li Congjia, he sighed inwardly, you thought you should not behave like an ordinary person, speaking of regret whenever something went wrong, worrying endlessly over gains and losses. From the moment he was born, everyone had lifted him onto the clouds. Every movement became scenery, and from then on he was never permitted to return to the mundane world.
Whatever their circumstances, people instinctively wanted to climb toward a higher place. Li Congjia was no different. It was merely that upon the long staircase of life, his starting point might already have been where an ordinary person spent an entire lifetime trying to arrive.
Some people were simply like that. It was not that they refused to involve themselves in worldly affairs. Their starting point had merely been displaced from the beginning, and the farther they walked, the more distant they became.
Li Congjia stood there for a long time, holding the wooden box suspended in his hand until both arms began to ache. Piaopeng stood frozen beside him as well, unable to think of anything to say.
Li Congjia wondered whether, if he had seen these words earlier, some things might not have ended this way. If he had not decided on his own to retreat into the mountains that year, if he had been willing to face everything properly and discovered this hidden intention sooner, could everything that followed between Li Hongji and himself, all their avoidance and suspicion, have been prevented?
Unfortunately, there were no ifs.
The man was gone and the tower stood empty. The Crown Prince was dead, Flowing Wind Pavilion destroyed, Resounding Spring shattered.
It was a clear and moon-bright day in late spring, a day that should have been filled with celebration over the coming investiture. Yet Li Congjia stood holding an old box and was suddenly overcome by a bitterness he could not describe.
Childishly, he thought only, Why, in the end, is this dark shadow of a sentence all that remains?
The human world was like this. A person’s existence across many years could be erased completely in a single night, while the one who happened to replace him was oneself.
Piaopeng watched him on his final day as the Duke of Anding. Beneath the flowered corridor, Li Congjia smiled and shook his head, then finally released his hand.
The box struck the ground mournfully, landing directly where the shadow of the words I know your heart had been cast.
Ancient wood that had survived a thousand years, been worked and polished, even sunk beneath water without showing the slightest damage, fell from Li Congjia’s hand today and actually made the sound of something cracking when it hit the earth.
The sound was not loud, but Piaopeng jumped in fright. He went over almost disbelievingly to look. “Duke… Duke of Anding, it… it cracked.”
The man in blue-green merely smiled without speaking, once again recovering his usual serenity. “Cracked…” He murmured the word as though speaking only to himself. Watching Piaopeng pick it up in confusion to inspect it, Li Congjia flicked his sleeve, turned away, and left the servants with one final instruction.
“Burn it.”
He returned to Zhaohua Pavilion, where he would spend his final day.
Liuzhu was waiting outside. Seeing him return, she bowed slightly. He casually asked, “Where is Madam?”
Liuzhu looked worried. “Madam is still inside, but she seems to be in poor spirits.” For several days she had been persistently melancholy. After the Duke of Anding recovered from his injuries, he had been summoned to the palace for several days in succession. There was still much to handle outside, and for a time he could not constantly remain with her.
The Duke of Anding’s injuries were no longer serious, so Madam ought to have been happy. In front of him, she had returned to normal. Yet whenever he turned and left, leaving Ehe alone inside the room, only Liuzhu saw her sorrow.
Li Congjia had been about to continue inside without stopping, but Liuzhu’s words made him pause. “She… didn’t even go for a walk in the garden today?”
“No. She has stayed shut inside the entire time.”
He slowly pushed open the door. Ehe’s pale-pink skirt trailed along the floor as she leaned beside a wooden window, seemingly looking at the flowering trees outside. The weather was fine, yet she had not opened the window fully. Only a narrow strip of daylight fell onto the floor. The room remained filled with the scent of burning red sandalwood, and he could not clearly see her expression.
Li Congjia slowly walked over. “What is it, Ehe?” There was a faint smile in his voice, yet the woman who heard him suddenly turned as though frightened. Her startled hand struck the wooden window, and she did not even notice.
Seeing Li Congjia, she released a long breath. Then, realizing how badly she had lost composure, she forced herself back to normal and raised her head with a smile. “Why did you come in without making a sound?”
Her obvious distraction was reflected clearly in his dark, deep eyes. In private, she had never liked wearing brilliant, luxurious clothing. She retained the habits of a young lady from the inner chambers and preferred pale colors, which only made the richness of her beauty more striking. But ever since he had been seriously wounded, Ehe’s emotions had clearly become unstable.
She was like a hibiscus burdened beneath mud yet still forcing itself to bloom.
Li Congjia reached out and took her hand. “What were you secretly looking at that I interrupted? You’re frightened half to death.” He knew perfectly well that beyond the window there were only several flowering trees and nothing particularly unusual. She normally opened it for air anyway. Naturally, he was not truly accusing her of having seen some secret.
He was merely teasing her as usual. He knew his injury had terrified everyone in the residence, and that she in particular had been badly frightened. He wanted to talk about something else so she would stop tormenting herself with her thoughts while alone.
But Ehe reacted as though she had heard something horrifying. Her eyes instantly shifted past him toward the rear of the room, and she shook her head frantically. “Nothing.”
Li Congjia had not yet thought much of it. He followed her gaze and turned, only to see her staring at the rattan book rack. His heart jolted. That rack… he had once hidden Qingu there. “I didn’t…” He began to explain that he had not meant anything else.
But Ehe hurriedly looked back at him. “I didn’t mean to… I…” Her brows knitted in deep distress. Li Congjia drew her into his arms to comfort her. Perhaps the exhaustion of the past several days had genuinely unsettled her mind.
Ehe leaned against his shoulder and tried to calm herself. It had been days. Ever since she saw him brought back covered in blood, she had suffered one chaotic nightmare after another. Sometimes she would wake in the middle of the night and see Li Congjia sleeping peacefully beside her, only to experience a strange illusion. She was beginning to lose the ability to distinguish which things were dreams.
Everything had originally been calm and uneventful, the two of them an immortal couple envied by everyone.
But then one day, something different had appeared out of nowhere. Ehe had always felt that the absurd scene she witnessed with her own eyes could only belong inside some senseless nightmare. Yet she exhausted herself trying to accept it and bury it away, only for one unusual event after another to follow.
Even when her own younger sister came to visit, he had insisted on going out.
He left, only to be brought back covered in blood.
What would happen the next time?
For several days, all kinds of chaotic thoughts had continuously tangled around Ehe. The Crown Prince was dead, the Eastern Palace stood vacant, and the Emperor’s intentions could hardly have been more obvious. He summoned Li Congjia into the palace again and again.
The enormous residence of the Duke of Anding had become even emptier and quieter after music and dancing were forbidden during the mourning period.
So she could only hide alone inside Zhaohua Pavilion. She did not dare let the red-sandalwood incense go out. She had begun to fear that one day she would no longer be able to smell that fragrance. The more she thought about it, the more ridiculous she found herself, but when she was alone, she could no longer pretend nothing had happened.
Ehe, a woman as radiant as a peony, dignified and poised. Only she was worthy of Li Chongguang.
Yet even she sometimes forgot that, in the end, she was only a woman, only someone’s wife.
Forcing herself to contain so many hidden secrets was becoming unbearable even in her dreams at night.
Ehe sighed against his chest and was just about to close her eyes when she suddenly remembered that day. It had been this side of his shoulder as well… Ehe screamed and shoved him away.
She remembered that day, when he had lost so much blood and lay unconscious on the couch. She had gently pulled aside part of his collar and discovered faint dark-red marks hidden beneath his thin, bony neck, extending toward his shoulder. There, amid torn flesh, was an unmistakably irregular circular wound, clearly left by biting.
Ehe stared in terror at his shoulder as though she could see through his clothing and into the bone. She hated this scene that refused to stop haunting her. She hated everything she had seen, tormenting her night after night and preventing her from sleeping.
She had begun to lose the ability to tell whether Li Congjia’s embrace itself was simply another nightmare.
Li Congjia was also startled by her sudden panic. He pulled her back and held her tightly, recognizing that her emotions were unstable. Whatever had triggered her, the most important thing now was to calm her.
“It’s all right, Ehe.” His hand stroked slowly down her long hair as he held her quietly and comforted her. “I’m fine. My wounds have healed. I’m still here. Everything is still here. You. Me.”
His voice was not loud, but it was certain.
Ehe closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. The air was filled with his red-sandalwood fragrance. Thank goodness.
Li Congjia leaned beside her ear. “I learned something. Fragments of the score for the Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Robe Dance may still survive at Andong Temple. Shall I send someone to look for them?”
She nodded silently.
He knew he had wronged her.
It had nothing to do with who was right or wrong. Whatever one had done, one eventually had to face it.
Li Congjia held her. “Ehe, I know you understand the greater picture. If you understand me, then trust me. Since I am your husband, no matter what happens, I will never abandon you.”
Her tears dampened his clothing.
For the first time, the two of them were willing to face together the matter they had deliberately avoided.
Li Congjia sighed.
To live entirely as one pleased was truly difficult.
That was why he actually envied Zhao Kuangyin. Zhao Kuangyin said he wanted the realm beneath heaven, so he went to seize the realm beneath heaven. If he said there was something he wanted to do, he truly could cast everything aside and do it.
And what about himself?
Li Congjia was invested as Prince of Wu, appointed Shangshu Ling, and placed in charge of state affairs. That very day, he moved into the Eastern Palace.
His steps stopped one final time outside the moon gate of the side courtyard. In the end, he did not enter again.
The peach tree was probably already fallen into mud.
The court hall was utterly silent.
It was not that his father felt no pain. The one who had died was Li Hongji, the son upon whom he had once placed such high hopes. Since childhood, his father had always said that Elder Brother Hongji’s temperament found it difficult to tolerate others, and that trouble would probably arise from him one day. Yet a father’s feelings were always the same. He hated that iron would not become steel, hated Hongji for coveting imperial power too greatly, hated him for displaying his edge too openly. But in the end, he was still his child. With Li Hongji’s sudden death, Father had aged even more.
The Prince of Qi. The Crown Prince. One after another.
Father was tired too. After receiving his investiture, Li Congjia straightened and looked toward the father seated high upon the dragon throne. His hair had already begun turning white. The majesty at the corners of his eyes was something he now had to force. That seat stood high above all others, yet by now he had surrendered half the realm and was not even permitted to call himself Emperor before outsiders.
When Li Congjia was little, Father had once held him while reciting poetry.
When he was too young to understand anything, Li Congjia disliked looking into bronze mirrors. He did not yet know what those eyes meant. He merely knew that he looked different from other people, and he disliked it.
Father would place him upon his knees and hold him. “Li Congjia, you are destined to be different. This is an opportunity bestowed by Heaven.”
Unfortunately, whether it was good or bad, who could know?
Li Congjia understood that he had simply replaced Li Hongji. Perhaps Father still grieved within his heart, or perhaps it was to stabilize the people, but he had not explicitly announced what everyone already understood. In substance, was there really any difference?
For a moment, above and below the hall, father and son sighed at the same time.
Who told you to be born into an imperial house?
In truth, no one had chosen it.
Han Xizai understood Li Congjia’s nature better than anyone. Now that Li Hongji was dead, Li Congjia was inevitably going to be thrust into the center of the storm. Han Xizai had watched the two boys grow up from childhood only for matters between them to reach such a state. Naturally, his heart ached. Moreover, Li Congjia’s disposition truly did not suit someone who had to shoulder the state.
So the old minister quietly had Zhong Mo persuade the Emperor: “Congjia is slight in virtue and weak in resolve, and deeply devoted to the teachings of the Buddha. He does not possess the talent of a sovereign. Congshan is decisive and steady. He should be made heir.”
But perhaps the Emperor was simply too tired, or perhaps he had become afraid. Heaven had given this child the physiognomy of an emperor, then through one coincidence after another pushed him to this point. Perhaps following Heaven’s will was now the safest path for the future. In the end, the Emperor still hoped that Li Congjia’s detached temperament might quiet the succession of disasters.
Moreover, that blue-green figure could wear the Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade, could contain the sun and moon, and surely could also contain the unfathomable human heart.
Everyone had their own position, everyone had their own thoughts. Since the Emperor refused to accept his advice, Han Xizai thereafter indulged himself in music and dancing. Let all the affairs of the realm and all the hearts of men be left to those who could never see through them anyway.
Li Congjia heard the words of various petty men who came flattering him, telling him that Lord Han had secretly tried to obstruct his investiture. He laughed with genuine delight. Across the vastness beneath heaven, how many true confidants could a person have? It felt good to have someone understand him.
Rather than becoming angry, he smiled and ordered fine wine sent to Han Xizai’s residence.
Lower officials who knew nothing of the circumstances naturally formed their own conclusions. The new master of the Eastern Palace truly possessed extraordinary breadth of spirit. After several rounds of ingratiating praise, all they saw was that even dressed in magnificent robes, the man still could not conceal his pure, remote elegance. He opened his fan, and the scent of red sandalwood drifted toward them.
He waved them away, pressed a hand to his forehead, and left. His steps were slow, yet exceptionally steady.
A dragon-patterned robe embroidered with golden thread.
From now on, he could no longer casually wear the Tianshui Blue he loved. Li Congjia was no longer merely a prince.
His shadow fell beneath the gilded vaults of the imperial palace.
The dismissed officials gathered in groups of three and five upon the white-jade bridge and watched from afar. Even on ordinary days, seeing Li Congjia had been a rare occurrence. Such a detached figure, barring some accident, would one day sit high within the halls of government.
Most voices followed the current and offered admiration, though someone still released a long sigh.
Perhaps Han Xizai had been right.
Unfortunately, not everyone possessed the freedom to disdain the clamor around them. We all had roads we were required to walk.
His new residence meant little more to him than changing one place for another. At night, Jinling once again filled with the heavy, muffled tolling of bells coming from Andong Temple far to the north of the city.
Tree shadows swayed. Summer had arrived.
Moonlight lent color even to that supreme imperial yellow. The golden silhouette looked strangely like a glittering wound left upon years long past. The wooden bracelet on Li Congjia’s wrist swayed as his thin hand rested upon the jade railing.
He had yielded again and again. Yet what could not be escaped could not be avoided. In the end, he was still trapped inside this magnificent, jeweled cage.
Liuzhu and Piaopeng had changed their forms of address. Now they called him Prince and addressed Ehe as Princess Consort. In another few days, would they be calling him Crown Prince?
He suddenly remembered the poem he had given Hongxiu. Words used to mourn another could perhaps also be used to wound oneself.
The pearl before my eyes lies shattered,
the flower beyond this world has fallen.
The grief within my heart has not yet faded,
and again I lose the one held in my palm.
The jade case still contains leftover medicine,
the fragrant dressing box is already veiled in dust.
Earlier sorrow joins the grief that follows,
and no tears remain to wet my kerchief.
Radiant beauty was like a flowering tree,
their fragile fates were much the same.
I had just begun grieving spring’s fallen bloom,
only for bitter rain to wound the cluster again.
Where is that luxuriant beauty now?
All that scattered and fell has come to nothing.
Deep, deep, there is nowhere left to ask,
for a thousand years, farewell to the east wind.
Elio’s Notes: These lines are Li Yu’s historical Elegies (《挽辞》), traditionally associated with mourning his young son and his wife. The novel deliberately recontextualizes them here as verses Li Congjia had previously given to Hongxiu, then turns them back upon himself.
A palace wall only a few steps away could divide two people as completely as the ends of the earth.
North of the Yangtze.
As soon as Zhao Kuangyin and his party entered Kaifeng, they encountered the carriages and horses sent by Lord Wang, Military Governor of Zhangde, to receive them.