Li Yu heard that there truly was no one else around. Zhao Kuangyin opened the door, and the breath of wind, frost, and flying snow rushed straight at them, icy against his face. He let Zhao Kuangyin take his hand and lead him out, unconsciously shrinking back a little.
The man beside him immediately clasped his hand more firmly. A trace of warmth at Zhao Kuangyin’s fingertips slowly spread upward. Li Yu lifted his face and drew a deep breath. The air was bitterly cold, yet fresh enough to clear the mind. Zhao Kuangyin moved slightly ahead. “Come with me. Slowly.”
He hesitated, but in the end let himself be led outside. “Where are you taking me…?”
“Just walk.”
The wind and snow had made everything strangely quiet. Somewhere far across the inner palace, attendants could be heard clearing snow, though the sound seemed separated from them by several courts and halls. From somewhere behind came Wang Ji’en’s shrill voice calling someone’s name from time to time. All at once it felt as though Heaven and Earth held only the two of them, walking quietly through the snow, with nothing else existing in that moment.
Family vengeance and national hatred, life and death, all of it seemed to fall away until there was only the hand held in his palm, and only Li Yu allowing himself to be led onward in peace.
Li Yu smiled faintly. Walking ahead, Zhao Kuangyin heard him finally speak. “If anyone sees us… Your Majesty may find this realm of yours rather difficult to sit securely upon…”
The hand around his tightened at once, gripping him hard in retaliation. Li Yu laughed aloud, unable to pull free, and beneath the wide sleeves of their robes another small struggle began.
There was nothing he could do about it, so Li Yu simply ignored him. “Let’s go.” At last his tone had softened enough to speak to him again. Zhao Kuangyin smiled too and slowly led him along the covered corridor toward the main gate. Li Yu could not see clearly, yet his brows drew together slightly. Zhao Kuangyin turned back. “What is it?”
“Nothing…”
Zhao Kuangyin suddenly felt like teasing him. Deliberately, he slid his fingers upward from Li Yu’s fingertips and rubbed lightly over the delicate line of his wrist. “That day… I was furious. Tomorrow I will have the imperial physician bring the tribute jade ointment from Dashi and apply it. It should help.” He expected Li Yu to immediately stop him with some cutting reply once he had said it, but instead Li Yu seemed finally to breathe out and merely gave a quiet “Mm.” To Zhao Kuangyin, that alone was already an enormous joy.
Elio’s Notes: Dashi (大食) was a Tang-Song Chinese name for the Arab Empire and, more broadly, Arab lands in medieval Chinese sources.
Zhao Kuangyin laughed and slowly led him onward.
Only after they began climbing the stone steps did Li Yu suddenly feel that this had gone too far. “Zhao Kuangyin… do not tell me you intend to climb the palace gate at a time like this?”
“This is Xuande Gate.”
“You… let go.” The helplessness in his tone reassured Zhao Kuangyin more than anything. Still refusing to release his hand, Zhao Kuangyin insisted on leading him upward. “Snow falls for a thousand li… One ought to climb high and look.”
There were naturally guards posted on both sides of the palace gate. Several men saw His Majesty approaching from afar with someone in tow and were all startled. Just as they were about to speak, one icy look from the sword-browed man frightened them into silence. Zhao Kuangyin merely shook his head slightly, signaling that none of them should move.
Everything fell silent once more. Li Yu could not see clearly and therefore did not know that they were passing directly beside so many guards. Their sharply defined shadows lay across the snow. None of the men dared raise their heads; they stared fixedly at the two shadows stretching long over the ground, where a pair of hands remained clasped together.
No one dared make a sound. It was simply the first time any of them had seen His Majesty look so completely at ease.
It had been here at Xuande Gate as well that the sovereign of all under Heaven had accepted a surrender and seen the realm unified, without showing even the slightest joy. Yet today, merely leading this man here in silence was enough to soften his whole expression. This one person moved him far more than all the realm beneath Heaven.
The silver fox fur rustled in the wind, and long hair streamed down behind him as he climbed the steps one by one. Someone finally raised his head for a glance, only to find that even the sight of that single back was breathtakingly elegant.
It was as though every grace Heaven and Earth could gather had been poured into one body. Those guards who had spent years stationed within the imperial palace had never seen such exquisite bearing. For a time they all stood frozen and dazed in the snow.
The figure in dazzling imperial yellow gently reached out a hand. Zhao Kuangyin still could not stop worrying. He slowed and lightly supported Li Yu by the arm. “The sky is still overcast today and the light is not strong. How are your eyes?”
Li Yu only nodded. It was always like this now, so he let Zhao Kuangyin support him as they continued upward.
Zhao Kuangyin assumed that because the daylight was weak there would be little danger. He did not see Li Yu lower his head, his brows tightening, or close his eyes briefly to ease the discomfort before continuing with him toward the top of the gate.
White snow crowns the Western Mountains, where three border towns stand guard; by the southern bank, the clear river flows beneath Wanli Bridge.
Elio’s Notes: This line is from Du Fu’s Wild Prospect (《野望》). Its snowy western mountains, frontier garrisons, and Wanli Bridge open a poem shaped by war, separation, and homesickness, which gives the quotation extra weight here.
From the top of the palace gate, the view opened tremendously wide. The streets and lanes of all Bianjing could be seen, and far in the distance the land lay wrapped entirely in silver. The storm had continued for two days without the slightest sign of stopping. For that moment, clouds, snow, and mountains stretched ten thousand li into an ancient silence.
The two stood shoulder to shoulder.
Li Yu lifted his face slightly toward the hazy expanse of white. The sudden wash of pure brightness burst into ten thousand shafts of reflected light. Zhao Kuangyin felt the man beside him shudder all over and saw him abruptly raise a hand to cover his eyes.
“What is it?”
Li Yu only shook his head. “The glare off the snow…”
The Son of Heaven suddenly understood. White snow reflected every trace of light back upon the eyes; perhaps this was exactly how snow blindness came about. He immediately pulled Li Yu close and covered his eyes, but his voice had already begun to tremble. “I forgot… You have never seen a sight like this. Looking straight at it so suddenly… of course the snow glare would hurt your eyes…”
Beneath Zhao Kuangyin’s hand, Li Yu’s brows drew tight with discomfort, though his complexion remained relatively calm. Zhao Kuangyin wrapped an arm around his waist and turned him around, shielding him from the vast brilliance of white behind them.
Wrapped in silver fox fur, Li Yu kept his eyes peacefully closed while Zhao Kuangyin’s voice sounded reassuringly beside his ear. “Why did you not say anything…? Were you already uncomfortable all the way here?” Zhao Kuangyin looked back over the long snow-covered paths of the palace. All that dazzling white must have been painful for him, yet Li Yu had said nothing.
The man, desolate as snow itself, unexpectedly curved his lips. He slowly leaned toward him. Zhao Kuangyin’s arm circled his waist, and Li Yu rested quietly against his shoulder, amber double pupils closed as his lips moved. “You once said… snow falling for a thousand li. I have always wanted to stand with you and watch snow fall for a thousand li. Only now…” His voice trembled. Suddenly he pressed his forehead hard against Zhao Kuangyin’s shoulder. “I remembered it all along! I kept thinking of it… but now, Zhao Kuangyin, tell me what can still be done now…? No matter what, you and I must stand opposed. I actually…” He drew a deep breath, yet his heart and lungs seemed filled only with frost cold enough to sink into blood and bone. “Zhao Kuangyin… Zhao Kuangyin!” He remained motionless, calling the name several times in anger, until weariness seemed to ache through his whole body. Gradually his strength left him, and he rested quietly in Zhao Kuangyin’s arms.
Then he felt something cold roll down against his neck.
Li Yu thought it was snow, yet doubt stirred in him. He had only just raised a hand to touch it when Zhao Kuangyin caught and pressed his hand down, holding him stubbornly without moving. His voice had gone hoarse. “I know… I know you wanted to watch the snow fall with me. Do not force yourself…” He stroked Li Yu’s back. “Your eyes cannot bear the glare right now…”
He suddenly reached behind Li Yu’s head and untied the pure white silk ribbon that bound his hair. His long hair spilled completely loose. Li Yu did not move, simply letting him do as he wished, until Zhao Kuangyin lifted his face and gently laid the ribbon over his eyes. “Is this any better…?”
Li Yu calmly let him protect his eyes. The white silk still carried a little warmth from the friction of Zhao Kuangyin’s hands. Once it shut out the dazzling brightness, he finally felt somewhat better.
Zhao Kuangyin tied the ribbon in place, then froze after a single glance and could say nothing. The exquisitely elegant man stood wrapped in silver fur, flying snow circling him and settling in flecks through his hair. Zhao Kuangyin gently gathered one strand between his fingers. Li Yu neither moved nor spoke, his pale face framed by his loosened hair.
Still… even if it happened several times over… Zhao Kuangyin thought. He sighed deeply, his hand brushing Li Yu’s neck. Li Yu shifted faintly in resistance, and that small movement drew an undisguised smile from the sword-browed man. “Congjia… You have always been Li Congjia…”
He said nothing more.
“Even if it happened several times over… I would still jump after you…” He was destined to lose. Zhao Kuangyin still felt as though he had fallen under a spell, bewitched by that quiet, unadorned sorrow that could steal the soul without ever seeming to try.
His fingers tightened as he bent down. The other man’s eyes were covered, the long ends of the hair ribbon streaming behind him. Li Yu only felt Zhao Kuangyin’s breath brush his face before his lips were sealed for a long moment.
Snow fell across a thousand li of the northern land.
I have always wanted to stand here beside you. The realm beneath Heaven and you, I want them both.
The strip of silk covering Li Yu’s eyes slowly grew damp.
Tears slid down Li Yu’s face. Embarrassed, he tried to turn his head away, but Zhao Kuangyin held him fast by the shoulders and refused to release him. They remained pressed together, lips brushing against lips, until one of them bled.
A kingdom overturned, mountains and rivers lost; even all that emptiness was not as heavy as this single strip of white silk.
He was as he had always been, refined and quiet, as though the years could pass without ever disturbing him.
The tears froze against that washed-pale face, leaving him shivering even harder from the cold. Zhao Kuangyin could only hold him tightly. “Congjia… I have waited for you three times. At Qixi… no matter what, this year at Qixi, will you be with me?”
The curve of his lips was exactly as ever. Though his eyes could not be seen, he was still enough to steal a person’s soul. “All right.” He could no longer accompany Zhao Kuangyin in watching snow fall for a thousand li. This time, when Qixi came again… Li Yu quietly returned the embrace around the man who was ordinarily so imposing and unwilling to yield. “This Qixi, I will not fail you. Li Congjia… I swear it in the name of Li Congjia.”
In the end, he was still Li Congjia.
Zhao Kuangyin gripped his wrist hard and turned his face away. He knew perfectly well that Li Yu could not see, that a strip of white silk had shut out every trace of light, yet Zhao Kuangyin still refused to let him see.
How long had he waited for one sentence, for one snowfall like this…? Only after Heaven and Earth had overturned and all their hopes had been ruined could there finally come a day when they stood here side by side watching snow fall across the northern land. Yet Li Yu… could no longer see it.
“I will cure your eyes.” The words came almost savagely, with a certainty that allowed no doubt.
Li Yu seemed suddenly to remember something. He fell silent, desolate, and raised one hand slightly, feeling snow land soundlessly in his palm.
So this… was snow.
Li Yu’s tone held a trace of hesitation. “If they truly cannot be cured… then let it be. I really do not…”
“No!”
The quiet figure could only look helpless. Zhao Kuangyin, however, spoke with a trace of melancholy. “I only fear… there may not be enough time…”
Li Yu’s five fingers slowly closed. The snow in his palm finally melted into scattered cold. “What exactly are you afraid of? You are afraid I will die, are you not? You think I will break my promise again this time?”
Zhao Kuangyin only shook his head. Li Yu could not see him, so he took the silence as agreement. “I will not.”
The other man covered his hand again.
“I said I will not. Did you hear me?” For the first time his voice was so firm. Even that faint, quiet figure had something he refused to yield.
“I heard you.”
Li Yu smiled faintly and reached out to push Zhao Kuangyin’s arm away. His eyes remained covered by the white silk as he extended one hand to the railing and began walking quietly along it. Snow filled Heaven and Earth in the depths of winter.
Standing where he was, Zhao Kuangyin watched Li Yu slowly slip free and found himself just as powerless.
Elio’s Notes: The JJWXC raw here reads 赵匡胤在原地见他慢慢地脱了自己, which is syntactically incomplete. The surrounding action clearly shows Li Yu easing out of Zhao Kuangyin’s hold, so FD renders only that recoverable action rather than inventing missing prose.
White snow danced around Li Yu’s hands until he seemed almost truly transformed into a demon. “Zhao Kuangyin… my elder brother, my wife, my ancestors, the altars of state… I cannot forget them. As a son of my house, I would not dare forget.”
Zhao Kuangyin stood coldly amid the flying snow, imperial yellow gradually sealed beneath frost and ice. He had never thought of it before. A soul like Li Congjia’s, steeped in soft rain and spring blossoms, when confronted by ice and snow… of course it would wound both heart and eyes.
He had never once imagined how deeply the falling snow of the north could hurt him.
A thousand li lay sealed in ice, one man standing alone atop Xuande Gate: three million jade dragons driven back in battle, their broken scales and shattered armor flying across the sky.
Elio’s Notes: The “three million jade dragons” snow image is traditionally attributed to Song writer Zhang Yuan’s Ode to Snow (《咏雪》). Received versions commonly read “broken scales and shattered armor filling the sky”; the novel uses its own 满天飞 wording, which FD follows here.
He could not forget.
And so… between you and me, only the false semblance of one snowfall remains.
The figure in fox fur could no longer contain his grief, yet he kept his back turned, letting the desolation run unchecked. “I will not die first and fail to keep our Qixi promise. But you will never see Tianshui Blue again, and you will never smell red sandalwood again… Zhao Kuangyin… there is a secret… that you will never know…”
This was his greatest revenge upon him.
After speaking the words softly, he slowly descended from the palace gate by himself.
Zhao Kuangyin could only watch the white silk ends behind his hair stream through the snow. His pace was slow, but every step was certain. In the end… he was leaving him.
Mountains and rivers stretched ten thousand li, and there was nothing in them.
Far away, in a poor alley of Jiangnan, the smoke and wreckage of war had faded away. Most of the common people had at least kept their lives. It was impossible for every place along the army’s route to escape unscathed; that Green Willow Lane, squeezed into this narrow street, had survived was already a stroke of luck.
Old and young throughout Jinling were dressed in plain white.
Cloth garments of every length moved through the dim alley. Life still had to continue. Auntie Fan lightly swept cobwebs from the corner of the eaves. No one had been mentioning anything, and things had seemed almost normal, but whenever there was suddenly nothing left to do and silence settled, the sorrow returned.
The household over there with the white funeral banner had lost its old patriarch. After several nights of weeping, he had not made it through. They had carried him out for burial the previous night.
Who was not grieving? People like them had spent their entire lives laboring without consequence. They had seen so much poverty and cold that hardship itself hardly mattered anymore. In truth, whether Jiangnan belonged to the Li family or the Zhao family would not bring any immediate change to people like them, and the Li house had not necessarily treated them especially well. Yet at a time like this, even they could not suppress their sighs.
The country had fallen.
This was what it meant for a country to fall.
The previous night, the old man from Uncle Dong’s household, already at the end of his years, had still been cursing the northerners with his dying breaths. No one knew who had brought the news back, but people said a Jiangnan traitor had revealed information, calculated the river’s changing depth and level, and presented it to the Song army. That had made it impossible to drag the battle out any longer. Even the natural barrier of the great river could no longer protect the Li line.
Perhaps it was only something heard in the streets.
But that man had now rendered great service to Song and was about to become an official.
The old man simply could not stomach it. A lifetime of poverty and suffering was one thing, but no matter how hard life became, a person could not sell his country for glory. His branch-like hand had slammed so hard against the table that even the lampwick snapped apart.
Auntie Fan had been there as well. Neighbors who had lived beside one another for so many years could hardly avoid disputes, yet in the days of a fallen kingdom they had suddenly become one another’s support. It was all right. Somehow, things would get better.
No one could soothe him. Still cursing that man, the old man closed his eyes.
Yes. Somehow, things would get better.
Auntie Fan finished some laundry as usual and swept the room. The little shabby dwelling was kept impeccably neat; if not for how little sunlight reached it, it could almost have been called a modest but orderly home.
What Green Willow Lane lacked most was not gold, silver, pearls, or jade. What the people here lacked most was light.
They had spent their whole lives having every edge worn smooth by this darkness, until they forgot how to hope. Yet now that the country had fallen and the realm changed hands, a sudden streak of backbone had risen in them.
Was that why Hong’er, once she had grown older and understood, began to fear this place after seeing so much light outside? Auntie Fan set down what she was holding and went to rest for a while beneath the plum tree.
It truly was strange. On the day Jinling fell, the plum tree that had been dead for so many years suddenly flowered again, crimson as blood, leaving everyone in the courtyard too stunned to speak.
On the day the country fell, her blood and bones bloomed into flowers.
No one would ever know that in the instant she had once brushed past him, she had given up everything she still possessed in this life. For that quiet figure she had yearned for so long, her blood still became blossoms and danced for him.
Auntie Fan quietly closed the gate to her own courtyard. As she glanced toward Hong’er’s home, something struck her as odd. It seemed someone had come. A crooked pile of discarded chairs from some household blocked half her view, so she walked closer in confusion. No one had been left in that home for a long time. Who could possibly have returned now…?
Someone was actually… digging into the yellow earth beneath the plum tree!
Auntie Fan was startled at once. Had the person gone mad? Disturbing the dead was bad enough, and who would come to Green Willow Lane to dig for treasure? She hurried forward and rounded the tree, ready to shout, only to freeze.
The man wore an official robe of crimson satin. Auntie Fan did not understand court dress, but even she could tell that such fine material did not belong on an ordinary person. Paying no attention at all to the filth and mud of the alley, he knelt on the ground and slowly dug into the earth beneath the plum tree.
Tears suddenly filled Auntie Fan’s eyes. “A-Shui…”
Her A-Shui was clutching an utterly unremarkable jade hairpin in his hand, slowly burying it in the soil.
“A-Shui…”
Fan Ruoshui jerked his head up. “Mother. I am back…” It was only a simple sentence, but when he raised his head, Auntie Fan finally saw the formal cut of the robe he wore. Those were unmistakably northern conventions…
“You…” The elderly woman’s temples were white. Tears still shone in her eyes, yet her next words came out so sharply that some boy dozing nearby woke and shut his window. “A-Shui, get up!” Her sudden anger did not seem to surprise him at all. He remained kneeling. “Mother, I brought Hong’er’s dowry… Mother, wait just a moment…” He stubbornly finished burying the hairpin. “Hong’er… Hong’er, I finally managed to come back and see you today… Look… look.” He rose and walked once around the plum tree. “I became an official… You will never have to freeze again. Let us leave this place now, all right? I earned my honors. I came to take you home. All right…?”
Auntie Fan grabbed his sleeve. “Fan Ruoshui!”
A-Shui, a little taller than she was, saw the anger on his mother’s face and gradually dimmed. “Mother, do not ask anything. Pack your things and come with me to Bianjing…”
Auntie Fan stared hard at the son she had raised through years of hardship. For the first time she felt such complete despair. “A-Shui… tell Mother. Were you… were you the one who presented the floating-bridge plan? These days you were gone… what did you do?”
Fan Ruoshui lowered his head. “Mother, A-Shui finally earned his honors and became an official. I came to take Mother away so you can live well…”
Auntie Fan asked him one word at a time. “Answer Mother! Were you the one who gave the floating-bridge plan to the Song army?”
Fan Ruoshui stared blankly at the plum tree for a long time. In the end, he nodded.
Slap!
Her raised hand struck his face, and A-Shui staggered backward. The elderly woman in the plainest coarse clothing suddenly erupted with a frightening force. After striking her own son hard enough to drive him back two steps, she stood ramrod straight, lips and teeth trembling so violently that for a long moment she could not speak.
A-Shui sagged back against a section of dead wood. He did not dare look at his mother, only at the three chi of yellow earth. “Mother… come with me. You will not have to endure the damp cold here anymore…”
Elio’s Notes: A chi (尺) is a traditional Chinese unit of length whose exact value varied by period. Here “three chi of yellow earth” functions as a grave-earth image, so FD keeps the source unit rather than forcing a modern conversion.
Auntie Fan stared at him without blinking. Only after a very, very long time did she finally speak.
“The Yin family still has two basins of clothes I have not finished washing for tomorrow. I’ll go get to work.”
Tears suddenly fell from A-Shui’s eyes.
When he was little and they had suffered through hunger and cold, these were the words he heard most often. There were always someone’s clothes left to wash, someone’s work left unfinished. Auntie Fan would always speak with the same weary helplessness, telling him to go out and play by himself, because once Mother came home, there would be food to eat.