The long night had still not ended. A few pale streaks of daylight showed at the horizon, but within the imperial palace the walls and lofty towers remained dim, and one still needed a lantern to see.
“When did the Empress die of illness?” Beneath the paulownia tree outside Zichen Palace, he was nearly roaring.
Wang Ji’en, however, seemed to have something more in mind. He glanced around. This part of the palace had long since been sealed. Only Huanfang Palace in the distance showed a few lights, its usual extravagance muted out of caution. The eunuch leaned closer and respectfully murmured into the Prince of Jin’s ear, “Does Your Highness not find this matter suspicious? His Majesty has countless affairs to attend to, and now that he has returned victorious he has had no time to investigate carefully. But Your Highness is a perceptive man.”
The Prince of Jin immediately struck the tree with his palm. “If you have something to say, say it!”
“The claim that she died of illness comes only from the Chancellor. When His Majesty left, the Empress truly was ill. But that illness… should not have been fatal. The Empress did not die of sickness.”
Zhao Guangyi nearly seized Wang Ji’en by the collar. The man’s furtive, hushed manner was more than Zhao Guangyi could bear. “What do you know? How did the Empress die?”
“Your Highness, please calm yourself. This matter…”
“Speak!”
“The Empress was murdered in Zichen Palace in the middle of the night. Chancellor Zhao feared that with His Majesty absent, turmoil might erupt in the palace, so he had no choice but to suppress the matter.”
Zhao Guangyi’s eyes darkened. Under the moonlight they were impossible to read, black with shock. “She… was murdered? Wang Ji’en! If you dare speak recklessly about this matter and spread lies to deceive people, I will see the Wang clan exterminated!” His voice shook the bare branches overhead. Violence flared through the cold, deserted palace courtyard. Wang Ji’en watched his grief and fury with secret satisfaction, though his face showed only terror. “Your Highness, this must never be spoken of before outsiders. This servant risks a capital offense by reporting the truth to you…”
“Who was it? Who was it?” He looked ready to tear the entire palace apart. The servant still hesitated and fidgeted, and if Zhao Guangyi had not needed what he knew, he might already have had him ground to dust.
“Does Your Highness know the new resident of that palace over there?” Wang Ji’en raised his head toward Huanfang Palace. Zhao Guangyi found it strange too. Since when had there been a new mistress in the rear palace? Zhao Kuangyin had always proclaimed that he governed diligently for the people and would never fill his rear palace with three thousand beauties, lest women bring disorder to the inner court. One Empress was enough. How noble those words had sounded, praised again and again. Zhao Guangyi had once secretly scoffed. Others might not know whom those words were truly meant for, but he did.
And yet in recent days a newcomer had indeed entered the palace. “Who lives there now?”
“Lady Huarui.”
Zhao Guangyi immediately laughed. “Lady Huarui, famed for skin like ice and bones like jade… Perhaps the conquest of Shu truly brought more than one reward. He took the territory and the beauty with it. Now I almost wonder whether Big Brother truly has a fixation on people of great renown, refusing to let a single one escape…” His voice suddenly turned cold, sharp as an icicle. “You mean she did it?”
“If Your Highness does not believe me, summon the servants who were in Zichen Palace that day and question them. Before the Empress died, Lady Huarui was the only person from the palace who came to visit her. Is that not too much of a coincidence?”
Zhao Guangyi ignored the coming dawn and insisted that Wang Ji’en open the seals on Zichen Palace. As chief palace eunuch, Wang Ji’en knew the rear palace better than anyone. He protested repeatedly but finally gave in. “Your Highness, please be quick. Ask what you need and come out at once. Once daylight comes, someone may see you here.”
Zhao Guangyi paid him no attention. The moment the lock was opened, he went inside. Only a handful of palace servants remained, guarding the Empress’s coffin and forbidden to leave day after day; Wang Ji’en sent them food at set times, and in truth their confinement was no different from imprisonment. When someone suddenly entered, everyone started. Wang Ji’en hurried in behind him. “The Prince of Jin is here. Why have you not saluted?”
Zhao Guangyi raised a hand to stop them. “This Prince has come today to ask only one thing. On the night the Empress died, what exactly did you see?”
The few servants kneeling on the ground immediately panicked. “Your Highness… this servant… this servant saw nothing…”
Wang Ji’en straightened and snapped in his shrill voice, “His Highness has come to seek justice for the mistress of the central palace. Speak without fear! That day…”
“This Prince did not permit you to speak.” Zhao Guangyi gave him a cold glance. Wang Ji’en immediately fell silent, seething inwardly. I am planning for your future, and you still act so imperiously. A man never truly accomplishes anything until he has been driven to the limit.
“Yes… Trouble in the rear palace is the most terrifying thing. Chancellor Zhao ordered us not to speak recklessly… but… that day the mistress of Huanfang Palace came to visit, saying she wished to inquire after the Empress’s health. She did not stay long, but not long after she left, the Empress… took a turn for the worse…” The servants spoke haltingly, stealing glances toward Wang Ji’en.
Wang Ji’en turned his gaze aside and sighed softly.
Zhao Guangyi swept his sleeve and turned away. “Zhao Pu! If it were not for him…” Yet the Chancellor had indeed had his concerns. Seeing Zhao Guangyi’s fury aiming at the wrong target, Wang Ji’en immediately stepped forward with a worried expression. “This cannot truly be blamed on the Chancellor. The Chancellor was protecting His Majesty and did not act against the Empress personally… Your Highness, think about it. Why would Lady Huarui dare be so bold?”
The Prince’s face lacked Zhao Kuangyin’s sharp, openly commanding angles, yet the ruthlessness now seeping through him was less overt and therefore more chilling. Zhao Kuangyin had always believed in absolute strength. Zhao Guangyi did not. Wang Ji’en had long known that the Prince of Jin differed from his elder brother. Methods Zhao Kuangyin disdained might be precisely the ones Zhao Guangyi was willing to use.
It was not a question of which brother was more upright. Zhao Kuangyin’s realm had also been seized. Wang Ji’en simply schemed by nature, and so he naturally chose a master whose disposition resembled his own.
Only this master still hesitated. Wang Ji’en could not be bothered to understand the tangled affairs between the brothers. He knew only that Zhao Kuangyin despised men like him.
A servant was still a servant. For someone like Wang Ji’en, who had carried servitude to its extreme, the obvious path was to cater to the right preferences and find a master who considered him more useful.
“Lady Huarui was showered with favor the moment she entered the palace…” Wang Ji’en had not even finished when the kneeling servants suddenly remembered something and answered together, “Your Highness sees clearly… The Empress lived alone in Zichen Palace and His Majesty scarcely visited. That day we finally heard he had entered the rear palace, but he went first to Huanfang Palace… and afterward he never came here at all.”
For a moment Zhao Guangyi could not speak. He raised his head toward the bedchamber. He had never known she had lived like this. What difference was there between this and locking Yunjie away here?
Yunjie… Yunjie… Even her name carried a lonely chill. Ignoring Wang Ji’en’s attempts to stop him, Zhao Guangyi insisted on entering the bedchamber to see her. It was only a coffin now. Once a person was gone, no twists of fate remained that could still be untangled.
What past debts of affection, what exchanges of kindness that could not be repaid? She was gone. Anything said now was useless.
When he had first come to Bianjing and seen her again, Zhao Guangyi too had carried countless stories in his heart. Neither had spoken. In the empty Buddhist hall, there had been only the two of them, each offering the other some small comfort.
Long ago, outside Bianjing under the previous dynasty, she had stubbornly taken a carriage out to search for Zhao Kuangyin. Back then she had been the gentle, kindhearted daughter of a great household, with manners and upbringing beyond anything he dared look upon for long. Today, the man she had waited for with all her heart could overturn Heaven with a turn of his hand, yet she had died alone in this cold central palace.
And they called her the Empress. Even her coffin was cold enough to make the heart shudder.
Zhao Guangyi slowly closed the door. Afraid that any further delay would bring full daylight and discovery, Wang Ji’en urged, “Your Highness, let us go.” Zhao Guangyi, however, had already calmed. Not a trace of anger remained. “Wang Ji’en, wait outside. Only a little while. This Prince will leave soon.”
The servants dared not say more. “Yes.”
Autumn fills the sky; the moon is full again. Night lies a thousand layers deep over the city towers.
Elio’s Notes: “Autumn fills the sky; the moon is full again…” comes from Tang poet Dai Shulun’s A Night Gathering with an Old Friend. The original poem centers on an autumn-night reunion shadowed by homesickness and the fear of parting at dawn.
Zhao Guangyi removed the splendid ornaments of rank from his person and sat solemnly before her coffin. “For this moment, Yunjie… perhaps this is the only peace I will have from now on.”
For this moment he decided to be himself. He was Jiang Zheng, the boy trapped in a Buddhist temple for more than ten years. He knew little else, only how to chant sutras and speak of the Buddha. Even though Jiang Zheng had been unruly by nature, his master had always refused to tonsure him formally or accept him as a true disciple. “Yunjie… when I was young, I was angry too. I did far better at many lessons than those disciples who merely put on pious airs. I truly tried to devote myself to the Buddha, but Master still refused… That was when I understood that Jiang Zheng was destined to be abandoned in this life. No matter what it was… nothing would ever truly be mine by right. So I had to… seize something for myself. Do not blame me…”
“I did not deceive Zhao Kuangyin… By now I often cannot tell who deceived whom. Yunjie, if I strip away all these plots in the darkness, there is nothing else left in my life. So now I can only chant sutras in offering to you. Perhaps this is the one thing I truly know how to do…” Zhao Guangyi removed his crown and belt, pressed his palms together, and quietly began to chant. He had loosened the ornaments too hastily, and a gold-and-jade bead rolled away alone. He ignored it. “Do you remember what I always used to recite back then…? Today will be the last time.”
The sound of chanting rose. Once he had been the one who consoled her; she had been the thought that kept returning to him.
He opened his hand. There lay the wooden hairpin she would never use again.
Long ago, the wind had risen. Yunjie’s hair stirred lightly, and she reached up to smooth it and tuck it behind her. Her profile held the gentle beauty of a woman, touched with longing. Zhao Guangyi had stared at her and sighed inwardly. “If I ever have the good fortune to travel through Jiangnan again, would Yunjie be willing to come with me?” He had asked casually at first, one friend speaking to another, but halfway through the words he had become serious.
Now the old friend was gone and Jiangnan had fallen. In the end, nothing had remained.
It was all Zhao Kuangyin’s fault.
After performing the Buddhist rites, Zhao Guangyi lit three sticks of incense. “Yunjie, you said it yourself. If I fought him, I would win. If I lose, I will go keep you company. If he loses…”
Zhao Guangyi straightened his official robes. Once everything was in order, he finally walked out.
The door slowly closed behind him. In the empty mourning chamber, white silk hung on all sides. Her long hair had been confined within this deep palace until the end.
Rotting, collapsing, all of it had become equally hideous.
The Prince of Jin made his way out of the rear palace, studying Wang Ji’en from head to toe. “You seem to know this matter remarkably well.”
Wang Ji’en knew the Prince of Jin was suspicious by nature and did not trust people easily. “Your Highness, there is one more thing… Ling’er is not dead.”
“What!”
“Even if Your Highness does not trust this servant or the palace attendants, surely Ling’er can tell you the truth. She followed the Empress all this way. She would never simply accept someone else’s instructions and repeat them.”
“Where is she now?”
“Your Highness, do not be anxious. Ling’er is no longer in the palace. Chancellor Zhao had no choice but to order her killed that day to eliminate future trouble, but this servant knew the matter of the Empress was important. I secretly spared her life and sent her out of the palace.”
Zhao Guangyi knew Ling’er would never lie. She above all would know whether Zhao Kuangyin had truly allowed monsters in his rear palace to act unchecked. He immediately wanted to leave the palace, but then remembered that daylight had already come and that before long an important ceremony would begin outside Xuande Gate. He could only force everything down. “Wang Ji’en.”
“This servant is here.”
“What happened today…”
“Your Highness, rest assured. If this servant ever harbors a second heart, may the five thunderbolts strike me dead before Your Highness needs to lift a hand.”
“Good. After today’s surrender ceremony, this Prince will find you. Ling’er is the only surviving witness. Protect her well.”
“Yes.”
Silver waves without end, jade mountains for ten thousand li,
Cold veiling the trees of Jiangnan.
The winter sun was never strong. Even after it rose, heavy clouds rolled overhead. It was poor weather, but the army returning from the southern campaign had brought victory after victory.
Dragon banners spread across the fields in every direction. Having conquered Jiangnan, the Song army’s morale soared.
Outside Xuande Gate, the main gate of Bianjing’s imperial city, the customary ceremony was held for a surrendered ruler to submit, and for the commanding general to present captives to his sovereign. Xuande Gate had five gateways and stood vast and imposing. Troops and horses were already arrayed along the imperial avenue. Li Yu slowly emerged from Banjing Guesthouse. By custom he should have surrendered wearing the dress of his former state, yet today he wore only plain white.
It was deep winter. Even Jiangnan could hardly endure such cold, much less Bianjing.
Liuzhu tried again and again to persuade him. His body could not withstand this dry, freezing weather. Li Yu only smiled faintly. “I am going there as a prisoner beneath the steps. Do you expect me to go out wrapped in fox fur and embroidered finery for everyone to admire? A surrendered ruler should at least look like one.” He would not even fasten a cloak.
Nüying stared at his calm acceptance until grief left her speechless. “Ruler…”
For whom did it bloom so early, unwilling even to wait for the year to ripen?
Li Yu had already started away, but hearing her call behind him, he stopped quietly. “Nüying, I told you long ago… if you married a man who had nothing, you would regret it. Has that not come true now?” He even laughed softly. “You should have left this place of trouble long ago. Returning only means suffering for nothing.”
Nüying shook her head. “That is not what I meant, Ruler… I only…” She bit her lip, unsure what else she could say, and slowly followed him out. “It is only very cold today.”
His clothing was thin, yet his complexion remained composed. Once one grew used to the pale color of his eyes, it only made the fine bones of his figure seem even more translucent. The deep strangeness of his double pupils had once been the one thing tethering him to this world; now even that was gone. Li Yu looked ready to dissolve into the dust of Bianjing at dawn.
The clatter of hooves from every direction shattered the quiet. Amid the chaos, countless people beat earthen jars and shouted together, “Long live the Emperor!”
In the distance, the procession moved toward Xuande Gate. Above it, imperial yellow blazed from the gateway, but Li Yu could not see it.
Everyone beneath Heaven was watching. He alone could not.
Li Yu suddenly remembered Phoenix Terrace. Back then he had been able to see Zhao Kuangyin, while Zhao Kuangyin had been unable to see him. Now everything had been completely reversed. He could only hear palace heralds high above proclaiming the great victory and the names of those who had earned distinguished merit. The immense, indistinct shadow before him must be Xuande Gate in all its majesty.
Without speaking, he merely rubbed the scar on his hand out of habit and walked slowly forward. Behind him, the people of Jiangnan all kept their heads lowered.
Why are you and I always like this…? We can never obtain what we want, while everything we do not want still advances step by step until we have no choice but to face it.
A hidden dragon rises from the abyss, its scales and claws flashing as it flies.
Elio’s Notes: “A hidden dragon rises from the abyss, its scales and claws flashing as it flies” is from Liang Qichao’s Young China, written in 1900. Its appearance here is deliberately anachronistic to the tenth-century setting.
The realm had now been unified. Standing atop Xuande Gate, Zhao Kuangyin stood at the summit of the world. He looked across the three armies, their morale soaring, their shouts shaking Heaven and earth without cease. He had waited far too long for everything before him today. At last he had created the very thing he had once sworn on the battlefield to obtain even at the price of death.
At last he stood at the highest point of these mountains and rivers and looked down.
Ten thousand people had come out to witness the song of a flourishing age. A thousand li of streets and lanes stretched beneath the winds and clouds in his palm. Zhao Kuangyin raised his sword-like brows and stood in austere splendor, looking out over the vast horizon.
And at the very end, one primal streak of white appeared between Heaven and earth.
A faint streak, so pale it frightened the heart. Armor stood in perfect ranks on every side; only that one patch of white moved very slowly, quiet as ever.
From far away, Zhao Kuangyin watched Li Yu.
It was as though he had swallowed lead and stone.
That figure outshone the lamps of a thousand gates and the fragrant winds of the capital’s nine avenues. Once, he too had believed with all his heart that nothing beneath Heaven could compare with Li Yu. How could he bear to see him suffer?
And now this glorious age… had been built upon Li Yu’s bones.
Now I remember the joys of Jiangnan. Back then I was young, my spring robes light. On horseback I leaned beside the slanting bridge, while red sleeves beckoned from every tower.
Zhao Kuangyin watched Li Yu approach Xuande Gate step by step. The northern wind howled through the bitter cold. Without warning, the sky darkened until the pressure of it nearly stole one’s breath. The weather changed in an instant, yet the surrounding cheers did not lessen.
“Jiangnan has fallen. Your Majesty may finally rest easy beside your own bed!”
Behind him, several senior ministers spoke joyfully as well. Every congratulatory word entered Zhao Kuangyin’s ears more painfully than a sword piercing flesh. Suddenly he could bear no more. He turned in fury. “Silence!”
At the head of the Song army, Cao Bin stepped forward and solemnly presented the victory report. Silk was stretched upon a lacquered pole, proclaimed throughout the realm and displayed before all eyes. The merits of the campaign were then read aloud to reward the three armies.
The soldiers’ spirits immediately surged again, their cries shaking the sky. Amid the noise at its fiercest, the figure in imperial yellow stared only at the silent man in white beneath the gate.
Li Yu’s expression was calm, his elegance unchanged.
It seemed that with the faintest curve of his lips, he was still Li Chongguang, famed throughout Jinling and surrounded all his life by splendor.
He was a legend. Legends were not necessarily happy.
In weather this cold… he wore nothing but a light white robe. The court dress of Jiangnan was broad and elaborately layered, but did little to keep out the cold. How could Li Yu have understood how the northern winter seeped into the bones? Back then, even a small vial of Qingu had been more than he could bear.
Phoenix halls and dragon towers reached the Milky Way; jade trees and jeweled blossoms formed a veil of mist. When had I ever known war…? The man who held the realm clenched his hand hard. When had he ever… known war…
He should forever have been that figure smiling beneath drifting blossoms, rain from the night upon him, a single smile enough to overturn the world. He should forever have been the peerless man in blue-green robes, wrapped in red sandalwood fragrance, beautiful as jade.
The grace of Jiangnan, Tianshui Blue.
He should always have been that person. Why, today, was he no longer?
It was me… Zhao Kuangyin’s despair could no longer be contained. Was I… wrong?
I never meant… for you to become like this.
Do not lean alone against the railing. The boundless rivers and mountains… parting comes easily, meeting again is hard. The flowing water and fallen flowers carry spring away… The sorrow drifted outward, apparently soft and boneless, yet only because true heartbreak had not yet arrived. Only someone who had suffered it could understand the difficulty hidden inside those gentle lines.
How much of the heart had to be scorched dry before words like these could be written?
Cao Bin finished reading the victory proclamation. Now Li Yu was supposed to kneel and formally submit. Zhao Kuangyin had ultimately given the order that his bonds be removed. Li Yu showed no particular expression.
Elio’s Notes: The raw prints 赵匡义 in this paragraph, but the acting sovereign is unambiguously Zhao Kuangyin. FD follows the established contextual correction rather than treating this as a change of character.
His elegance was innate. It needed no one’s charity to become graceful. He appeared neither joyful nor sorrowful, only quiet and cool as ever.
This was Li Yu of Jiangnan… Among the Six Armies, some men actually stared until they lost themselves. Everyone says Jiangnan is fair, and a traveler should grow old there. Spring waters are greener than the sky; in painted boats one sleeps to the sound of rain. By the wine stove, a face shines like the moon; pale wrists seem formed of frost and snow. Do not return home before age comes, for returning home will break the heart.
Elio’s Notes: The chapter quotes two lyrics from Wei Zhuang’s Pusa Man sequence about remembered Jiangnan. The later stanza beginning “Everyone says Jiangnan is fair” turns the beauty of Jiangnan into an image of exile and the pain of returning home, sharpening the contrast with Li Yu’s surrender.
With clear, unhurried grace, he raised his hand. That single movement silenced the Nine Heavens.
Li Yu remained elegant as before. With the same posture he had carried all his life, he lifted his hands and prepared to kneel in formal obeisance.
In that instant, snow suddenly began to fall.
It came thick and unrestrained. The heavy sky swallowed nearly all daylight and stripped the man at the summit of his commanding majesty. In the end, he too was only a grieving man upon a golden terrace.
Drop by drop, flake by flake, something shattered inside the realm he had won.
Li Yu slowly knelt before him. His bearing needed no gesture to become a vision of devastating beauty. He performed the full rite of three kneelings and nine kowtows; behind him, the others followed, bowing one after another.
“This guilty subject, Li Yu…”
Whatever he said after that, Zhao Kuangyin could no longer hear.
By the wine stove, a face shines like the moon; pale wrists seem formed of frost and snow.
That day, while the three armies were rewarded, sun and moon seemed to hide together and the myriad streets fell silent.
Snow came flying down. Heaven wept.