Lanterns break easily; favor, once lost, is hard to regain.
When they were young, he too had never spoken of love. Their closeness, intimate enough to make others envious, had simply seemed natural, right, ordained. Whatever people whispered in streets and lanes, one tiny glance exchanged between them was enough to know that walking hand in hand through this life meant neither of them would ever again bear the burden alone.
Ehuang sat upright on the couch and looked at him. Li Congjia stood at the doorway, exactly blocking the clear patch of morning sky behind him. Ehuang turned her face aside and asked in a very gentle voice, “Is it a fine day today?” She naturally had no idea what had happened outside. Then she added, “You are blocking the light.” Li Congjia paused, turned to look at the sky, and answered, “Yes.”
Ehuang looked at the wooden table standing between them. The fragmentary score of the Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Robe Dance, which she had folded and left there yesterday, still lay upon it. The more she thought, the more grief rose in her, until she blurted, “I know where you went at night. What exactly has been wrong with you these past few days?”
Between family affairs and affairs of state, Li Congjia knew perfectly well which was more urgent. He sighed, but still turned back to her. “You are not yet well. Something serious happened today. Can we talk when I return?” His tone was almost coaxing. “Do not think wildly, Ehuang. Sleep properly. When you wake, I will be back. Nothing is wrong.”
Ehuang’s anger surged at once. More and more, she found herself unable to control it. This life felt like an endless cycle, endlessly repeating, walking farther and farther only to return to the same place. The question had never gone away: what did Li Congjia truly want? She sprang to her feet and shouted, “If you have something to say, say it now! Do you know I sit here every day until dawn? I watch through the screen as you change your clothes in the outer room and leave! Li Congjia, do you even have a heart?”
Li Congjia had no choice but to turn back again. “Ehuang, what is wrong with you?” He reached out to pull her close, wanting to make sure her mind was clear, but Ehuang shoved him away. “You think I am mad, do you not? Li Congjia, you are the mad one!” She stumbled backward and crashed hard into the clothes rack behind her. Li Congjia hurried to catch her, but she dodged him again. “Say it yourself. What have you done? You have been hiding and evading me for so long!”
Li Congjia knew she had been ill these past few days and did not argue. He reached out and held her firmly, trying first to calm her, but she seemed finally to have found an opening through which everything could pour. She knew nothing of the world beyond the palace, and so she spilled out everything at once without stopping. “Only when Nüying came to keep me company a few days ago did I learn anything about what is happening outside. You went to the relay station to receive an envoy. The person who came was none other than the one you think about day and night, was it not?” Li Congjia’s hand trembled at the words. Ehuang collapsed to the floor.
Outside the bedchamber, Piaopeng urged anxiously, “Your Highness, please depart quickly. We cannot afford a delay.”
Li Congjia’s heart was in turmoil. He had no idea what was happening with his father, yet at this very moment Ehuang had torn open the old wound completely and refused to let it close. Curled upon the cold floor, she murmured, “Go.”
He crouched and gathered her into his arms. “Ehuang. Do not do this.” All at once she seemed exhausted, strength draining from her until she no longer had the energy even to struggle. Looking up, she happened to see a brocade handkerchief lying on the table, its angle catching the light so that the gold thread flashed painfully bright. “What else are you hiding from me? After Nüying told me some of what was happening outside, you ordered that she was not allowed into the Eastern Palace anymore. What are you so afraid of?”
Li Congjia remained silent and let her speak. After a long while, he suddenly released her, rose, and left.
＊
He closed the bedchamber door. With his back to the dozen or so people waiting beneath the covered walk, he hesitated for one brief instant. Between one breath and the next, he did not dare turn around and face the expectation in their eyes.
If something had happened to his father, then it was not merely the people standing behind him who would be looking to him. Countless subjects would raise their eyes with that same expectation. The feeling was terrible.
Especially because Li Congjia had never believed himself worthy of anyone’s dependence.
But there was no choice. Just as he had no way to untie the dead knot in Ehuang’s heart, in the end he still turned around. As he walked away step by step, the dragon-and-pearl carving on the bedchamber doors drew out a long, narrow shadow behind him. Inch by inch, the shadow drifted free. Leaving the last small sanctuary behind, Li Congjia led the others away with his usual composure.
＊
With my hand I roll the pearl blind up to its jade hook; as before, spring sorrow locks the storied tower. Who is master of the falling flowers in the wind? Thoughts stretch on. The bluebird brings no letter from beyond the clouds; lilacs knot empty sorrow in the rain. I turn to the green waves as spring fades, flowing to the edge of heaven.
The ruler had long harbored thoughts of moving the capital. After submitting to Later Zhou, he had already begun building Changchun Hall in Nanchang Prefecture and constructing the Mingluan Road.
The Southern Capital could never compare with Jinling’s splendor. Its markets were sparse, nowhere near the jeweled abundance and gilded feasts of the old capital. Many senior ministers grumbled bitterly, some unable even to find suitable ground for their residences.
A long, narrow screen stood across the northern windows. The eunuch outside the hall remained silent. Summer air lay hot and close, white gnats drifting through it. Because of the ruler’s illness, no wind had been allowed into Changchun Hall in the Southern Capital for a long time.
The ruler could no longer speak. Day after day his eyes remained fixed northward and he refused to rest. With no other choice, the palace attendants placed a brocade screen before him in the hope that blocking his view might make him sleep. They did not know that even then he kept staring toward the northern sky he could no longer see, sleepless through the entire night.
Perhaps regret had come at last. Song and music had receded far away. In the cold stillness of Changchun Hall, none of his old pride remained. With breath thin as thread, he found himself thinking more and more of people and things from the past.
He thought of his Hongji, a child fated to be too sharp and brilliant for his own good. As events had proved, a father might protect him for a time, but he could never protect Li Hongji for an entire lifetime. Who had never been young and reckless? Once the heart grew tired, only a few strains of strings and song remained to soothe the loneliness. And giving away the lands north of the Yangtze had always been the knot he could never untie. Beyond the hazy pearl-colored screen he no longer had strength even to order the maids to remove, he lay on the couch and stared toward Jinling. Several days earlier, when he first realized his body was failing, he had written an edict forbidding Li Congjia from coming again to the Southern Capital and ordered that after death he be buried on Western Mountain beneath only a few feet of earth. When a palace maid entered to change the sweat-soaked cloth on his brow, his dry lips moved as though he wanted to say something, but no words came. Yet his heart remained full of old memories. The image that comforted him most was of that child in Weiyang Hall, dressed in Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade, opening his fan with a smile. That year, when the Sixth Prince had thrown everything aside and hidden in the mountains, ignoring all the arguments of court and countryside, it had been he who insisted on summoning him back. Looking back now, perhaps that had been a mistake.
A robe of Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade. Across three thousand li of rivers and mountains, no second person could be found who could truly carry it as Li Congjia did. Perhaps that too was Heaven’s decree. Congjia had always slept cold from childhood, aloof by nature. Everyone said he did not understand worldly feeling, but in truth Li Congjia merely chose not to speak. Many things could not be changed by saying them aloud, so why waste words? His heart was clear. What he understood, what he despised, all his joy and sorrow never appeared on his face. He buried everything at the bottom of his heart.
To leave everything after his death to such a child… perhaps expecting goodness from him would only be another way of harming him.
But there was no choice. Such a splendid child, warm and polished as jade, had been born with one eye bearing double pupils, the physiognomy of an emperor. Your father has his fate, and so do you. There is no choice.
The ruler suddenly found it difficult to breathe. Even the gilded beams above seemed to spin. Then, without warning, his mind became clear and for one instant strength returned. Several palace maids cried out and called for help. Within moments a number of veteran ministers had gathered outside, waiting for orders. He was still in the prime of life, yet years of drinking and pleasure had ruined his health. Bracing himself against the soft couch, he forced his upper body upright. Still staring toward the north, he waved urgently. The others understood and removed the screen.
Beyond it lay a veil of cloud and mist: willows in smoke, painted bridges, wind-blown curtains and emerald screens, Jinling.
He drew one long breath. Slowly he spoke two syllables and then choked, all strength leaving his body. The maid attending beside him hurried forward and heard the ruler say, “Mountains and rivers…” The others immediately tried to comfort him, assuming he had remembered the Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade he once bestowed on the Crown Prince. “The brocade is with the Crown Prince. Has Your Majesty forgotten? Are you thinking of the Crown Prince?”
But the ruler, breath no more than a thread, spoke two final syllables.
No one understood what they meant.
＊
Jade steps, blossoms bright, brocade in shining splendor.
Across the distant sky, an edict seemed to echo: “Heaven gives birth to the multitude and establishes shepherds over them. The Two Emperors yielded the throne to the worthy; the Three Kings rose with the times and changed the Mandate. At root, the principle is one. I, an insignificant descendant, have met calamity within my house. The people’s hearts have departed, and the Mandate of the state has found its return. To you, Zhao Kuangyin, Military Commissioner of Guide Circuit and Inspector-General of the Palace Guards: you are endowed with the bearing of the highest sage and possess divine martial strategy. You assisted Our Gaozu and accorded with august Heaven; in serving Shizong, your merit was proven when great affairs were entrusted to you. When you campaigned east, the west longed for you; your achievements are abundant. Heaven, Earth, ghosts, and spirits receive the virtuous; songs and lawsuits turn toward perfect benevolence. Respond to Heaven and follow the people. Follow the example of Yao yielding to Shun. Relieved of this heavy burden, We shall become your guest. Alas, be reverent! Stand in awe of Heaven’s Mandate.”
Li Congjia’s party had not yet made it out of Jinling when an urgent military dispatch suddenly arrived from across the river. The Inspector-General of the Northern Court had raised troops and established himself independently. That very day he seized the palace and forced Chai Zongxun to abdicate. The transfer edict had already been issued. Following the ancient example of Yao and Shun, the young emperor yielded the throne to Zhao Kuangyin, who established the state of “Song” and changed the era name to Jianlong. Zhao Guangyi was created Prince of Jin; Zhao Pu, Xue Juzheng, and Fan Zhi became chief ministers, while civil and military officials received appointments and rewards of their own. The Later Zhou emperor Chai Zongxun was demoted to Prince of Zheng and moved to Fangzhou.
Heaven brings forth water as One; his bearing was endowed with sagely martial power. Before the imperial avenue, ten thousand people bowed their heads. The Mandate of Heaven had found its home, and all phenomena turned toward it. From this day onward, Heaven was obeyed and the people answered, without precedent past or present.
Not a blade had drawn blood; not a stall in the markets had been moved. From this moment on, the sun and moon north of the Yangtze lay within the measure of his palm.
＊
Li Congjia did not even have time to feel much of anything. The crisis in the Southern Capital was more urgent.
He set out upriver toward the Southern Capital. Before the boat had even left the bank, the death notice arrived.
Everyone else dropped to their knees facing south and wept. Li Congjia alone remained standing. After a long silence, something suddenly occurred to him. He asked the messenger, “Father… did he say anything?”
“His final edict commands Crown Prince Li Congjia to ascend the throne at once. The late emperor is to be buried on Western Mountain.”
His grief did not show on his face, but the color of his double pupils deepened until they looked almost uncanny. The messenger trembled and did not dare raise his head. Li Congjia continued to ask, “Nothing else?”
The riverbank wind was fierce beneath the high sky. After thinking again and again, the man suddenly remembered words passed on by the palace maids. “Before His Majesty died, he looked toward Jinling several times. Her Ladyship said… said… His Majesty spoke four final characters. This subject only heard of it afterward.”
Li Congjia slowly motioned for him to rise. “What did Father say?”
“Mountains and rivers…”
“And then?”
The messenger trembled. “Her Ladyship remembers only that it was four characters, but the last two were truly difficult to understand. Everything was in chaos at the time, and she simply cannot remember them now.”
Li Congjia actually smiled when he heard. Heaven and earth opened vast before him as he looked again toward the lonely sails on the river. So many times in dreams he had crossed those waters. After all these twenty years, Li Congjia, what is it you have truly been seeking?
Mountains and rivers… Father, what were you trying to tell me? In truth, when the end comes, we all understand.
Whatever becomes of mountains and rivers, sun and moon, the human heart remains. A heart can feel, and that matters far more than cold river water. You did it, Zhao Kuangyin. From now on I must bow before you and call myself your subject. Is this the price I pay for breaking our promise? The thought became more and more absurd until he laughed aloud. Then the grief flooding his chest finally broke beyond control. He covered his mouth with his sleeve and, facing the riverbank where one arrow had once severed all his warmth, collapsed into helpless sobbing.
In the space of one night, his wife had lost her mind and his father was dead. Life held eight sufferings: birth, aging, illness, death, separation from those one loves, resentment that endures, what cannot be obtained, and what cannot be let go.
And Zhao Kuangyin had pressed him forward step by step. Zhao Kuangyin, how bitterly you labored. You killed Brother Hongji, forced yourself to accept the trade agreement, and deliberately pushed me with your own hand into this position. Through all eternity only the Yangtze flowed on to the edge of Heaven, indifferent to mortal grief and all the squandered years of the world. When we met beneath the tree, why did I save you? On the high tower, why did you leap after me? Why did you insist on going back on the Qingu scheme? When we parted beside the river, why did you stop me from throwing myself into the water?
You said I wore the skin of a flourishing age and imagined all under Heaven was filled with song. In truth, I was only afraid the warmth beneath hibiscus curtains could never warm the heart. Once the only warmth a person possesses is gone, everything is beaten back into its original shape: demons and monsters, none of us able to turn around and reach the shore. Flowing Wind and Resounding Spring, Qinghuan and Qingu, Flower Row and Shengding, Phoenix and Rainbow Skirt. All it took was one fire, one river flowing east. You became sovereign, and I became subject. It was not that Li Congjia had never imagined this day. Yet when it truly arrived, everything proved unbearably difficult. From the moment he rescued Zhao Kuangyin and brought him back to the secluded courtyard, the course of the story had been completely rewritten.
In red dust or blue beyond, for whom does this heart lose itself? I look coldly upon the mortal world; let not even a few zhang of its dust enter my eyes.
＊
He insisted on going upriver to the Southern Capital himself and escorting his father’s coffin back to Jinling for burial. Three days later, Crown Prince Li Congjia ascended the throne in Jinling. Crown Princess Zhou Ehuang was elevated to Empress, and the Jianlong era name continued in use.
On the day of his enthronement, pearls and jade paved the imperial city of Jinling and gold silk hung from the trees. Though the Li realm held only one corner south of the Yangtze, the dynasty had treated its people with enough care to win their hearts. Citizens crowded the streets facing the palace. Li Congjia removed every robe in Tianshui Blue and ordered them destroyed, leaving not a single one. While Liuzhu was sorting them, she suddenly found something and came over carrying it on a golden tray. Li Congjia did not even want to look up. He waved a hand and said he wanted none of it, but Liuzhu hesitated. “Your Majesty… this is…”
He turned and saw that pale, clear color still brilliant enough to dazzle the eyes: Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade. Even he paused. “This is the Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade… I had nearly forgotten it.” Liuzhu found it far too precious to destroy and hurriedly pleaded, “Your Majesty, keep this one. The late emperor bestowed it upon you.”
Li Congjia reached out, took it, and gently shook it open. It was indeed weaving and dyeing of a quality almost impossible to find beneath Heaven. So many years had passed, and after so many turns of fortune it remained peerless, a translucent pale blue-green capable of eclipsing a city.
His fingers rubbed the soft cloth. The feeling defied words. After all the violent currents beneath the surface had finally gone still, his heart was dead ash. What use had he for Mountains-and-Rivers Brocade now?
He struggled with himself several times, yet in the end could not bear to discard it. He still remembered the shock in that sword-browed man’s eyes when he had worn it. “Liuzhu.” He called her over, then changed what he meant to say at the last moment. “Forget it. Keep this one. Seal it away. Do not let Us see it again.”
Liuzhu could only obey. Then Li Congjia suddenly remembered something. “Liuzhu, do not touch the one the Empress dyed with her own hands.”
“Yes.”
He hid himself behind the bright-yellow dragon robe and slowly walked out. Beyond the imperial city, ten thousand subjects looked up. From this day onward, all the splendor and decline beneath apricot blossoms, spring rain, and murmuring swallows would rest upon his shoulders alone.
Under a clear Heaven and earth, splendor had already receded far away. Looking back without warning, one solitary figure with double pupils stood within mist and rain. Amid the thunder of bells and the clamor of the enthronement, he heard a faint sound behind him. Turning, he saw Ehuang emerge in full ceremonial dress. A gold-lacquer peony crowned her hair, tassels and jeweled strands falling from it, her beauty so brilliant the world itself seemed dim. She smiled faintly to show him she was all right. Her face remained pale, but for the moment her spirits were good.
The ruler of Jiangnan reached out and took her arm. Facing his countless subjects, the first thing he said was, “From this day onward, there is no longer any Li Congjia in this world.”
＊
“The sun shines to brighten the dawn; the moon shines to brighten the night.”
＊
Elio’s Notes: This is the novel’s explicit transition from Li Congjia to Li Yu. The new personal name 煜 is introduced here through the image of the sun and moon shining; from this point forward, FD follows the source and uses Li Yu when the narrative does.
In Bianjing of the Eastern Capital, Zhao Kuangyin received a letter from the Tang envoy and smashed the writing desk before him with one palm. “Li Yu?”
A bitterly mocking smile crossed his sword-browed face. So this was Li Congjia’s way of drawing the line cleanly. Change the name, and he was telling Zhao Kuangyin outright that from now on he was no longer the man he had once been. The secluded courtyard, Phoenix Terrace, all of it belonged only to the old name “Li Congjia.” The one who bowed as subject was Li Yu, not Li Congjia.
Prince of Jin Zhao Guangyi watched the splinters scatter. “Why trouble yourself with such anger, Your Majesty?” As he spoke, pain suddenly pulled at his wound and his brow tightened. Zhao Kuangyin, still unable to suppress his fury, tore the memorial to pieces and threw them aside. Then he turned and saw that Guangyi, though injured, had been unable to rest properly amid the flood of affairs these past few days. His anger subsided somewhat as he went over. “How is the wound?”
Zhao Guangyi shook his head. “Nothing serious.” He was about to say more when he saw Chancellor Zhao Pu asking for an audience outside the hall. He rose slightly to take his leave. Zhao Kuangyin called for attendants to support him, but Zhao Guangyi waved them off and left on his own, one hand pressed to his abdomen.
As he left the hall, Zhao Guangyi passed Zhao Pu. Zhao Pu bowed according to protocol, but his eyes did not lower. Instead, they traveled openly over him. Zhao Guangyi laughed softly. “Does the Chancellor have important business with His Majesty?”
Zhao Pu lowered his gaze. “I do.”
“His Majesty is in a poor mood. Do not recklessly provoke imperial thunder. If you do…” Zhao Guangyi spoke quietly, the final words drawn out with peculiar meaning. Zhao Pu hurriedly answered, “The Prince of Jin is wounded. This subject would not dare detain Your Highness any longer.”
Zhao Guangyi smiled and left.
＊
The hall was a wreck. For reasons Zhao Pu could not guess, the imperial desk had been smashed and fragments of the letter lay scattered across the floor. He froze. “Your Majesty?” Zhao Kuangyin drew a deep breath, knowing his loss of composure had gone too far. He looked up. “What is it, Chancellor?”
Seeing his foul mood, Zhao Pu began with formal business. “The ruler of Tang ascended the throne in Jinling the day before yesterday. He continues to use our Jianlong era name and has announced a change of personal name…”
“We know.” Zhao Kuangyin cut him off and pointed toward the fragments scattered over the floor.
Zhao Pu wondered whether the emperor still harbored doubts about Jiangnan. Then it suddenly came to him why the Prince of Jin had warned him that His Majesty was displeased today. Guangyi was wary that Zhao Pu might bring up what had happened that night at Chenqiao Post. After a moment’s hesitation, Zhao Pu still felt he had no choice but to speak. “Your Majesty, forgive this subject’s boldness. You have only just ascended the great throne. You must still guard carefully against the Prince of Jin.”
Zhao Kuangyin had watched him deliberate for so long and wondered what could make him so cautious. Hearing those words, he frowned. “What do you mean?” The moment he asked, he remembered the rebel in the army who had been cut down before everyone’s eyes that day. A thought shifted in his heart, but he refused to follow it farther.
＊
As the palace lanterns first kindled, a sword’s whistle split the midnight wind. Deep within the palace of Jiangnan, the music of the Rainbow Skirt still sounded. The Empress cherished the score. Even if each day brought only two or three brief moments in which her mind could settle, she still insisted on continuing its unfinished music.