Elio’s Notes: Chapters 53 and 54 divide the opening couplet of the Tang poet-monk Qiji’s Early Plum (《早梅》): “Ten thousand trees freeze, ready to break; one solitary root returns to warmth.” The paired titles set universal winter desolation against the first solitary return of life.
The shadows of the trees stirred faintly. Yunjie looked at the bracelet in puzzlement. “This pattern…”
Zhao Guangyi had been idly turning several strange stalks of grass between his fingers. At her mention of the bracelet, he glanced down but saw nothing unusual. “Something foolish from childhood. I have even forgotten what was carved on it. Perhaps…” He examined it more closely. “A simple bamboo pattern.” The words had barely left his mouth when he, too, froze. The bracelet had turned to the side Yunjie had just been looking at. In the once-complete carving, a tiny piece of the wood was missing, as though something had shaved away a sliver and left one small stroke absent from the middle of a bamboo stem.
He truly had never noticed. The two bracelets had originally borne the same design, and both were old things from more than ten years ago, darkened and dulled by time. With such dense, delicate carving covering them, the flaw would have been almost impossible to see from any angle but this one.
Something shifted in Zhao Guangyi’s eyes. He saw that Yunjie wanted to ask something but hesitated, and guessed that a flaw in the story had appeared. Deliberately casual, he lowered his sleeve. “It has been more than ten years. I have forgotten how my elder brother taught me back then. If I had to carve it again now, I doubt I would remember any of it.” He lowered his head with a smile, then looked at her again. “My elder brother used to use this to amuse me.”
Yunjie answered without thinking, never imagining anything improper. “Is this bracelet the one that belonged to him?”
Zhao Guangyi fell silent. After a long moment, he asked, “You can tell them apart?”
Yunjie looked apologetic. “I… I accidentally scraped away that bit of the bamboo pattern years ago. I was throwing a tantrum because I wanted him to teach me swordsmanship. Father would not allow it, and he did not want to teach me either. I was waving the sword around in anger and accidentally cut his bracelet. Your elder brother was furious.”
Zhao Guangyi felt a flicker of unease. On reflection, however, he decided there was no harm if she knew this much. His expression remained perfectly ordinary. “My elder brother and I exchanged bracelets. It was originally to help him.” His own bracelet had later been secretly altered. He had hollowed out its interior and hidden something extraordinarily precious inside. That Zhao Kuangyin would receive the treasure and casually give it away to someone else, however, belonged to a later story.
Yunjie nodded. “I do not understand the affairs between you brothers. I was only curious. Please do not take it to heart, my lord.”
The wind was rising around them and the sky had gone dark. Seeing that the gauze robe she wore was rather thin, Zhao Guangyi said with concern, “The Buddhist hall is secluded. Do not catch cold. Why not go back?”
Yunjie shook her head. “If I go back, Ling’er will only be indignant on my behalf, and Mother will keep pressing me to accept the marriage. I cannot find any peace there. I would rather sit here a while.”
“The northern wind is dry. At this season in the southern kingdom, even the breeze carries the fragrance of flowers and the dampness of water.” Without realizing it, Zhao Guangyi had thought again of summer in Jinling. In the end, it was still his homeland, even if he could never return.
Jiangnan would always remain a knot in the heart that could not be untied.
Yunjie’s interest was immediately caught. “I have wanted to cross the river several times, but Father never allowed it. I have heard about Jiangnan’s scenery for years and still have never seen it.” The wind strengthened and lifted strands of her hair. She smoothed them gently behind her ear. There was a womanly softness and beauty in the yearning line of her profile. Zhao Guangyi stared for a moment and sighed inwardly. “If I am ever fortunate enough to visit Jiangnan again, would you be willing to come with me?” He had asked it almost casually, out of the understanding that had grown between them, but halfway through the question he became serious.
Yunjie turned to look at him. The man before her had clear, sharply defined features, yet unlike Zhao Kuangyin, his force was never displayed openly. There was something deeply contradictory about him: quiet yet tenacious, restrained yet never without danger.
Zhao Guangyi did not possess his elder brother’s forceful spirit, the kind that could cut through water with one stroke of a blade. His danger lived instead in the corners of his eyes and the lines of his brows. He could recite Buddhist scripture aloud and still leave another person unable to see the far shore.
Yunjie could not name what she felt. For one instant she looked into his eyes with unusual care and found herself greatly comforted. She nodded, just as seriously as he had asked. They seemed like two travelers stubbornly lost on the same road, cherishing their only light all the more because neither knew the direction. “All right.”
They looked at one another and smiled. Zhao Guangyi suddenly remembered the grass stems in his hand and hurriedly tucked them inside his robe, afraid they would be touched by rain.
Elio’s Notes: The raw briefly writes “Zhao Kuangyin” here, but the scene, the grass stems in his hand, and every surrounding paragraph unmistakably identify Zhao Guangyi. FD treats this as an internal name slip and translates the intended character.
Thunder rolled along the horizon. Clouds and rain came roaring from far away with astonishing speed, leaving no room at all for delay. Zhao Guangyi had only just stretched out his hand when he felt the first drops. “Northern weather truly changes quickly. Even the rain gives no warning.”
Yunjie rose and brushed the fine dust from her skirt. She was still a woman who cared for herself. Noticing a slight knot at the hem, she bent to straighten it carefully. Zhao Guangyi did not move, only watched her. “Then I can be at ease. Do not do anything foolish again.” If she could still cherish a skirt like this, then for the moment at least she had not truly resolved to throw her life away.
Neither of them noticed that Zhao Guangyi had said I can be at ease, not my elder brother can be at ease. After all these years, he still remembered what it felt like to sincerely care for another person. He simply had not realized it himself.
＊
In the time it took to turn around, the rain began pouring down. It struck the stone steps with sharp cracks and darkened them at once. The hem of Yunjie’s plain white robe dragged across the ground and quickly stained. Zhao Guangyi could not bear it and reached to support her. “Come down quickly. The rain is heavy.” Yunjie looked toward the sky. A bolt of lightning split the air and lit the desolate courtyard ghost-white. Pressing her lips together, she descended slowly from the steps. Zhao Guangyi was about to say he would take her back to Autumn Pavilion first when Yunjie sighed before he could speak, sudden worry entering her voice and leaving him with nothing to say. “I wonder where he is now… He has never cared about the weather. Even in a downpour he simply ignores it…”
A tremendous crash of thunder followed. Yunjie was frightened despite herself and raised a trembling hand to cover her ear. The roar sounded as though it might split the roof above them at any moment. Seeing her fear, Zhao Guangyi’s voice softened. “It is all right. Let us go back quickly. Stay away from the trees.” She unconsciously moved closer to him. Zhao Guangyi raised a hand to shield her face from the rain. Yunjie was faintly moved. “If it were him, he would never think of these things.” Zhao Guangyi smiled ruefully. “And yet I would never be worth mentioning over and over in front of someone else.”
Only the sound of rain remained. Yunjie looked at him. “Let us go back.”
＊
Only longing is like the spring color, following you home through Jiangnan and Jiangbei alike.
Elio’s Notes: The line is from Wang Wei’s Seeing Shen Zifu Off to Jiangdong (《送沈子福之江东》): longing is imagined as spring color stretching across both banks of the Yangtze, following the departing traveler home.
By nightfall, Zhao Kuangyin finally set foot on the northern bank. It was not that he felt no regret. Regret simply changed nothing.
One fire. One arrow. Could memory really be wiped clean so easily? Instead Zhao Kuangyin felt that fire burn straight into his heart, and a mad thought rose within him.
No matter the price, I want to see you stripped of everything. When Li Congjia has nothing left at all, could such a man still be made to stay?
＊
Far along the bank stood a tiny thatched hut, dim light leaking from within. The Grand Tutor was still furious, and the whole party had traveled in bleak silence for a long while. Now, after leaving the boat, Zhao Kuangyin gave a long sigh and looked around. At night the ferry landing had grown quiet. Only one man stood far away on the shallows, carrying a lantern and examining something. A guard started over to drive him away, but Zhao Kuangyin stopped him with a wave. It was no serious matter and not worth disturbing a commoner. The man seemed unaware of Zhao Kuangyin’s identity and continued busily working nearby without the least restraint.
“We left in such haste that I never noticed. Since when has anyone built a hut and lived beside the river?” Even fishermen lived in the outskirts of Luzhou, not far away. No one would normally stay alone by the river at night, where it was cold, dark, and inconvenient for boats. As Zhao Kuangyin wondered, the man seemed to discover something important. He lifted his lantern and hurried toward the hut, only to be stopped by a guard before he had gone far and sharply rebuked.
The man in the gray cloth robe stopped abruptly and turned toward Zhao Kuangyin’s party. Seeing that every one of them looked distinguished, he made to salute. Even in such impoverished circumstances he still opened a fan and carried himself with the habitual manners of a southerner. Zhao Kuangyin could not help remembering someone else, and his heart darkened. After a moment he muttered, “Pedantic,” with unmistakable feeling behind the word. The men behind him burst into laughter. They had encountered a fool on the night road, someone working alone beside the river for who knew what purpose. One man went over to tease him. “Grand Tutor Zhao, the Inspector-General, is here! You are a commoner in plain cloth. Why are you not kneeling?”
A-Shui visibly froze. So this is Zhao Kuangyin, whose name has risen so quickly of late? When he chose to stay beside the river yesterday, he had heard daytime merchants talking about the man, saying his achievements were so great they overshadowed his sovereign. Then A-Shui suddenly remembered the figures he had just recorded from the boat and feared he would forget them. What did some grand official matter beside that? He gave a quick bow and immediately tried to return to his work.
Zhao Kuangyin found his behavior genuinely strange and became curious. “The night is deep and the wind strong. Why are you living here alone rather than sheltering in the city?” A-Shui waved repeatedly, still muttering the figures under his breath. All he wanted was to write them down before he forgot.
The men behind Zhao Kuangyin had suffered one frustration after another these past days. Now even a commoner in rough clothes dared wave them aside. Their tempers flared, and several started forward to seize A-Shui. “Perhaps he is some southern spy who slipped across, sneaking about in the dark…”
Zhao Kuangyin laughed. “That would be interesting indeed. What use would anyone have for a fool like this?” He strode toward the crude little hut A-Shui had piled together beside the river.
Several coils of rough hemp rope lay by the doorway, still carrying the briny smell of river water. Zhao Kuangyin pulled at them and saw that they were wound around wooden reels with nothing else unusual about them. More puzzled than before, he ducked toward the low doorway. At that moment A-Shui came running out with a writing brush in his hand and collided squarely with him. Startled, A-Shui stumbled backward. “You…”
Zhao Kuangyin raised a finger for silence. “Why are you hiding out here alone so late instead of going into the city?”
A-Shui glanced back at the rough table hacked from dead wood. “I still have to cross the river to Caishi Rock at dawn. How could I manage that if I stayed in the city?” Zhao Kuangyin suddenly drew his sword. “You travel back and forth between north and south?” A-Shui showed no fear. “If I do not measure it myself, how am I supposed to know how wide the river is?” That answer made Zhao Kuangyin stop. He looked A-Shui up and down. “You…”
A-Shui shook his head with a sigh and looked past Zhao Kuangyin toward the great river surging in darkness. “The Yangtze cuts the land in two. That is why Jiangnan and Jiangbei possess a natural boundary. When I came here the day before yesterday, a thought suddenly occurred to me…” He looked directly at Zhao Kuangyin again, without the slightest humility in his bearing. “If one day an army of a million men could cross this river as easily as walking on level ground, would the map beneath Heaven not be rewritten?”
Zhao Kuangyin started. Abruptly he sheathed his sword. He had just opened his mouth when confused hoofbeats sounded outside, drawing rapidly nearer from the distance, followed by an explosion of commotion.
Several men hurried toward the hut, shouting in panic.
＊
What had happened?
Zhao Kuangyin rushed outside and found an urgent secret dispatch from Bianjing. The Emperor had been badly injured and bedridden for several days. A covert summons ordered Zhao Kuangyin to return at once.
“How grave are His Majesty’s injuries?” Zhao Kuangyin stood frowning in the wind. The messenger knelt on one knee and glanced around for a long while without answering. Zhao Kuangyin understood. He swung onto his horse and immediately ordered the entire party to ride through the night for Bianjing.
Hooves thundered away. Then Zhao Kuangyin happened to glance at the thatched hut, where a solitary lamp swayed before the door. He had nearly ridden past when he suddenly reined in and turned back. Raising his voice toward the wooden door shaking in the wind, he called, “Whatever happens, do not give up. One day, I, Zhao, will do everything in my power to help you.”
＊
Wind leaked through every side of the broken hut, and the river wind was so fierce that several thin roof beams trembled as though ready to fall. A-Shui did not so much as look up. Sitting contentedly on the only stone in the hut large enough to serve as a seat, he studied a roll of sheepskin covered densely in writing and diagrams. Again and again he weighed every detail, sketching with charcoal, until he heard the noise outside and the sword-browed man declare his promise. A-Shui gave no answer. He continued turning over the stubborn figures in his mind, gathered the scattered papers and brushes, smiled faintly, then leaned forward and blew out the candle.
The wild thunder of hooves immediately receded toward Luzhou city.
After all the hidden currents had passed, heaven and earth fell silent.
＊
Li Congjia had forced himself through the entire day until his strength was exhausted. Once again he slumped over the desk and sank drowsily into dreams. The fever was gone, yet his heart seemed to open onto a ten-thousand-zhang abyss. He leaned over the brink to look into the water and could not see his own reflection.
Should he grieve that the abyss was false, or lament that the self was no longer true?
Right and wrong alike could be sung to their end in one song by absurd actors on a stage. Even laughing until tears came, a person still had to hold the pose and endure. The human world was not difficult to understand. The human heart was what could never be measured.
With such a finite body, at such a young age, why had Li Congjia already begun searching through memory? Why were the people he truly wished to keep beside him always people who could live only in dreams?
Flowing Wind, Resounding Spring. Qinghuan, Qingu. Flower Row, Shengding. Phoenix Terrace, Rainbow Skirts.
So everything could be said after all. Sixteen characters were enough.
＊
Li Congjia had believed he would no longer be able to remain in the Eastern Palace, and that would have suited him perfectly. Zhao Kuangyin had returned north in fury and surely would no longer concern himself with anything else.
His father would not have the heart to punish him too severely, but neither could the Emperor openly indulge him beneath the eyes of the entire court. Li Congjia possessed neither virtue nor ability, and he had no desire for a cage made of gold.
He entered the palace to ask forgiveness, outwardly silent while inwardly feeling as though he might finally breathe freely. Yet outside Weiyang Hall, the eunuch smiled with extraordinary obsequiousness, his eyes full of things he wanted to say. At last he only called it tremendous good news and urged the Prince to enter quickly.
His father was still sitting before the couch in a long robe, drinking from a cup. When he saw Li Congjia, relief showed on his face. His first words were praise: Li Congjia truly had not disappointed expectations and had successfully secured the northern court’s assent to the matter.
Li Congjia was immediately taken aback. Given Zhao Kuangyin’s nature, he should never have agreed so readily.
He could no longer remember what else his father said. Standing there, Li Congjia thought only of Zhao Kuangyin. He thought of Shengding House burning beneath his hand. Zhao Kuangyin truly had been furious. Yet he had still insisted on agreeing to this matter, pushing Li Congjia even farther onto a road from which there could be no return. That was cruelty of another kind.
Zhao Kuangyin knew perfectly well that Li Congjia did not want it, yet again and again he insisted on using all these splendid mountains and rivers to bind him in place. Was that the only punishment Zhao Kuangyin could think of?
＊
The Prince of Wu, Congjia, has rendered service to the state. His conduct is loyal and filial, closely resembling Our own, and he is fit to inherit the ancestral temples. The next day an edict was issued formally appointing him Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace. None of it was unexpected. In the center of the great hall, Li Congjia knelt to receive the decree without the slightest stirring of emotion. What was he supposed to say? Countless blurred faces around him showed joy or sorrow, yet not one expression could touch him at all.
The long apricot-yellow robe hung emptily from his shoulders. When he stepped out of the main hall, the rivers and mountains before him were as beautiful as ever. Once, someone had obsessed over this pair of strange eyes he had been born with and destroyed the bond of Flowing Wind and Resounding Spring for their sake. Li Congjia suddenly felt that everything was hollow.
Three feet above your head, can you see? If you had let go earlier, I would not have come to this. Perhaps you, too, might have obtained what you wanted. If only it had been a little earlier, or a little later, you, I, and he might all have been happier than we are today.
＊
The Crown Prince’s imperial carriage returned in splendor. The affair on Flower Row Street had been completely suppressed. No one investigated too deeply, and no one dared object. Crowds flowed past while workers cleared the ruins at the old site.
He did not want to look again. There was no meaning in it.
The wound on his wrist had been carefully bandaged and hidden beneath his long sleeve. It had been only a wooden splinter, yet it seemed to have driven deep into bone and blood. Li Congjia covered it with his other hand. It still hurt fiercely.
＊
That morning he had quietly placed the score of the Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Robe Dance beside the pillow. Ehuang must have seen it by now. Li Congjia returned after receiving the investiture, yet there was not the slightest trace of celebration or laughter anywhere in the Eastern Palace.
He pushed open the door and found her waiting alone in the bedchamber just as she always had. A faint tenderness rose in Li Congjia’s heart. From now on, we will have to face one another directly.
In an instant, a peony in the richest national color entered his sight: a slender figure appearing slowly before him. However far he wandered in circles, so long as he still remembered to push open this door, Ehuang always seemed able to remain here, safe and unchanged.
She neither asked nor spoke. Properly dressed and composed, she had simply waited for him to come home.
Red-sandalwood fragrance rose softly around them. She stood with quiet dignity, reached out to take his official robe, and smiled. “You are back?”
＊
For the first time in his life, Li Congjia burst into tears before her.