It was almost midnight.
Zhao Kuangyin gently patted his back and saw that he had put on Tianshui Blue again. “Congjia, I will give all of this to him… and then we will leave the palace.”
Li Congjia pressed a hand tightly over his own mouth, leaned against Zhao Kuangyin’s shoulder, and shook his head. His other hand held down the dragon-headed box, refusing to let Zhao Kuangyin hand it over. He understood the weight of those words. This realm had been Zhao Kuangyin’s lifelong pursuit. To say now that he no longer wanted it was no simple thing. How great a resolve had it taken?
“I told you… this Qixi, I would go back to Jiangnan with you and have a look. Now we can, can we not? I will take off the dragon robe. No one will ever make things difficult for you again. Let us return to your Jiangnan, all right?”
Li Congjia still held the box down and refused to let go.
“We will go back together. Your illness can recover, and you will not be this cold anymore…” With his back to Zhao Guangyi, Li Congjia leaned against Zhao Kuangyin’s chest. Tears fell one by one behind him. He had strength left only to shake his head. This dream was too disordered. He did not know what to do. He did not know whether Zhao Kuangyin’s decision was right.
Candle shadows trembled. Spilled wine ran across the table.
Then suddenly came the sound of an axe behind them. The walls of Shouyuan Hall were decorated with golden axes and imperial swords, symbols of Zhao Kuangyin’s conquest of the realm on horseback. Zhao Guangyi abruptly seized one of the axes with astonishing speed and screamed hysterically, “Now that you know this secret, you must die! Everyone who knows who I am must die today!” He was not of the Zhao clan. Even with the edict in hand, sitting securely upon the dragon throne would no longer be easy. A blast of cold wind struck him, chilling his whole body, and he suddenly understood this.
He had never expected Zhao Kuangyin to know.
Now Zhao Kuangyin could not be allowed to live!
Li Congjia had his back to him and could not see him. He only felt the murderous force roaring toward the back of his head. Before he could even react, Zhao Kuangyin swept an arm around him and spun away. Shielding Li Congjia with his own body, Zhao Kuangyin caught the force of the descending axe one-handed and flung it outward. The white paper of the window tore open in the wind, and the golden axe flew far through it before clattering to the ground.
The window gaped like a savage wound. Candle shadows scattered wildly. Human silhouettes moved in alarm.
The men atop the flying eaves all stirred. Behind the parasol trees, Wang Jien raised a hand to still them, staring fixedly at the movement inside the hall. It should be… almost time. Wait one moment longer…
The Luo tide murmurs; within the city walls, ten thousand wells flow toward the ninefold source.
Inside Shouyuan Hall, the little wine brazier bubbled and steamed. Zhao Kuangyin, his expression severe, had just thrown away the axe and was about to speak when something suddenly felt wrong. With one hand braced against Li Congjia’s shoulder, he felt his abdomen twist as though his five viscera were being torn apart. He immediately looked toward the wine table. “Zhao Guangyi!”
Li Congjia went rigid. He felt Zhao Kuangyin’s hand slowly slide down his arm. In that stunned instant, he seemed still able to hear what Zhao Kuangyin had just said about leaving the palace, about returning to Jiangnan together…
“You…” Instinctively he gripped Zhao Kuangyin tightly, suddenly not knowing what to do. Zhao Guangyi backed away step by step, staring in disbelief at the man who had always stood above everyone. Blood… blood was seeping from the corner of Zhao Kuangyin’s mouth.
The sword-browed man suddenly advanced on Zhao Guangyi, frightening him into retreat until there was nowhere left to go and he collapsed into a chair. Zhao Kuangyin’s gaze held regret and helplessness. “Guangyi, you still… cannot regard me as your elder brother… You poisoned me? Colluded with the palace attendants… Zhao Guangyi, well done!” Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed, then struck a palm toward Zhao Guangyi.
“It was not me! It was not…” Zhao Guangyi closed his eyes in resignation, waiting for his defeat to become complete. A tremendous crash sounded beside his ears. In the end, Zhao Kuangyin still could not bring himself to strike.
The supreme honor of the realm, the true Son of Heaven, toppled to the floor together with the broken little table. Wine spilled everywhere. The imperial-yellow Nine Dragons collapsed with a crash.
Zhao Guangyi suddenly understood that warning.
Wang Jien… It was him.
No wonder he had told Zhao Guangyi not to drink the wine. It had not been because Zhao Kuangyin had poisoned it. Wang Jien himself had put poison into the wine.
When had Zhao Kuangyin ever used such contemptible methods? Zhao Guangyi stared fixedly at the wine flooding the floor. He should have realized…
The stars were silent and dim; scattered lamps faded among ten thousand households.
The icy wind had never stopped. In the center of Shouyuan Hall stood the man with long hair trailing to the floor and silver fur covering his body. His dark double pupils stared fixedly at the once-unruly man who had finally fallen.
Their first meeting. Even coarse clothes could not conceal that flamboyant bearing, a spirit Li Congjia had never seen before, the ambition to gather heaven and earth into a single hand.
Willow catkins had filled his sight.
Pale hands plucked the qin strings.
Cloud and mist scattered.
Li Congjia felt as though Bianjing’s winter had frozen him from head to foot.
A faint smile, Jiangnan in the third month.
Cold and remote, his loose hair dragging behind him, he went to Zhao Kuangyin and bent down. With icy fingertips he wiped the blood from Zhao Kuangyin’s mouth. When he spoke, his voice was already hoarse. “Zhao Kuangyin… stand up…”
The man could barely speak, yet none of the sharpness had left his eyes. He raised an arm and clutched tightly at the man in silver fur. “Congjia…”
“Get up! Zhao Kuangyin! What did you say… You said you would leave the palace with me. You said that this Qixi you would definitely be with me… Get up!” Suddenly Li Congjia used all his strength to tug at his clothes, then, strength gone, collapsed beside his neck. “I forgot… I will forget all of it. From now on I will go wherever you go… Just get up. Qixi… you…”
Bloodstained lips parted. “Qixi… as long as you remember…” With a long sigh, Zhao Kuangyin turned his head slightly. “You… what is your name?”
The man in the chair trembled. “…Jiang Zheng.”
“Jiang Zheng… good… Jiang Zheng…”
Zhao Kuangyin suddenly spat a mouthful of dark blood onto him. His last embrace still held the posture of trying to warm Li Congjia. Li Congjia abruptly pushed himself upright and, almost madly, tore open the silver fur and flung it aside. Night rain stained Tianshui Blue. Unsteady candlelight fell across it, dim and obscure. “Zhao Kuangyin! Zhao Kuangyin… Tianshui Blue, red sandalwood. I am not angry anymore. I will not take revenge anymore… You must remember Qixi. You said it yourself…”
The warmth in Zhao Kuangyin’s hand slowly faded, yet his smile remained as unquestionable as ever. “I waited for you to wear these clothes… for far too long… My fault. I should not have insisted that you look upon this realm… You should not have become like this… Congjia…” He breathed deeply of the red-sandalwood fragrance on Li Congjia, mingled now with the blood of his heart. Beside the jade terrace in the deep hall, fragrance turned cold and drifted over gleaming jade.
Li Congjia could no longer speak either. His heart-blood was exhausted. Zhao Guangyi sat stunned in the chair beside them, watching… From beginning to end, he had believed tonight concerned the grudges among three people, only to discover how laughably wrong he had been. Spring wind lifts the curtains high; palace towers are beautiful in a thousand ways. Painting spring nights in freehand strokes, youth knows nothing of the world. Today becomes tomorrow, carefree days pass easily; an idle blade pushes the scroll as blossoms fall, when attachment is deepest.
From the day at Andong Temple, this had been a story belonging only to Zhao Kuangyin and Li Congjia. From beginning to end, Zhao Guangyi had imagined himself controlling life and death, directing the turns of fate. Only at this moment did he realize he did not even count as a chess piece.
An actor on the stage had taken his song too seriously and truly forgotten who he was.
In pain, Zhao Guangyi clutched his own arm. You two…
He had always been an outsider. Even with poison in Li Congjia’s body and no antidote, Li Congjia could see only Zhao Kuangyin. Even blinded, he could see only him.
Your schemes, your cruelty, everything about you had nothing to do with them.
Zhao Kuangyin suddenly drew a harsh breath and looked sharply at Zhao Guangyi. “Jiang Zheng… if you still remember the kindness I once… showed you… then promise me one thing…”
Zhao Guangyi continued staring blankly. Zhao Kuangyin lay there now, the man who had brought him out of the temple and personally placed everything into his hands. Zhao Guangyi did not even know what expression he should wear.
“Cure Congjia’s poison… Remember, heal his eyes. You must remember… heal his eyes and take him back to Jiangnan to have a look…”
Remember to heal his eyes and take him back to Jiangnan.
Li Congjia suddenly vomited blood to one side. He struggled to speak, but neither of them could say anything more. Blood spread across Tianshui Blue. He could only desperately try to prove Zhao Kuangyin was still warm. “You…”
It had never once occurred to him that Zhao Kuangyin could die too. From the beginning, it had always seemed that Li Congjia was the one destined to leave. He had never imagined that one day Zhao Kuangyin too would die, that he too could be defeated, could grieve, could leave.
Why? Just moments ago, Zhao Kuangyin had been warming his fingertips and saying, I do not want any of it anymore. We will go out together, return to Jiangnan, nurse you back to health, and afterward everything will be all right.
Everything would be all right.
Dark-brown blood filled his sight. Never had Li Congjia known such despair. He bent over Zhao Kuangyin and held him tightly without moving, coughing violently, his lips vivid red. Against Zhao Kuangyin’s neck he kept speaking. “Let us go… You said you would return to Jiangnan with me. You said you would bear a thousand autumns for me, bear the karmic burden of my deeds for me. I forgot. I forgot the hatred of a fallen kingdom. I forgot everything. From now on I will forget all of it, all right? Just get up first, Zhao Kuangyin…”
The last of his warmth remained. Zhao Kuangyin slowly smiled. “It is all right. Do you remember… you drank my peach soup. In the next life…”
“Zhao Kuangyin, I do not believe in a next life! The debts of this life, the promises of this life, you must repay them in this life!”
Outside the hall, Wang Jien saw the ruler of the realm collapse and smiled calmly, breathing a long sigh of relief. This poison truly had no antidote. Even he had no way to reverse it. With a trace of regret, he looked once more toward the candle shadows and waved for the men on the flying eaves to disperse.
For the sake of certainty, he had prepared everything. Now none of it was necessary.
He straightened his clothes, already calculating that he should first go arrange matters in the main hall.
A shadow moved. Behind the parasol trees, there was no one.
One cup of fatal wine. Once it entered the belly, there was no room left for reversal. A chamber filled with despair; the jade-like man forgets composure. Cranes cry high among the clouds, roaming free between heaven and earth. The mountains and rivers of the old kingdom lie shattered, broken tiles holding the last smoke. Blood stains the northern city wall; beauty withers, wind cries and horses neigh as one searches for you a thousand times.
Movement rose on every side. Thunder crashed. Red clouds at the horizon were like blood. Zhao Kuangyin had lost all warmth, yet still held the posture of warming him. “Congjia… all your life you have never spoken of love. Today… I will tell you…”
Blood filled Li Congjia’s sight. Beneath the moon in dreams, Jinling fell, surrender came, and the road north began.
Zhao Kuangyin slowly loosened his hand. His voice scattered more and more into the violent wind. Candle shadows flew wildly. His smile was arrogant and unrestrained. “I will tell you, Li Congjia… you love me.”
He had wanted to wait for you to look at him once more, but there truly was no time.
Snow-white against ink-black hair; beacon fires stain the clouds at sunset. Upon the palace walls, one looks back and already the horizon is far away. After drinking, who will share the splendor of smoke and flowers when the sleeve is swept aside?
He overturned the realm, yet in the end failed him.
A lifetime of obsession. He overturned the realm, yet failed him. He had wanted to watch the northern snow fall together with him. At last they had endured until this day, but Li Congjia could no longer see.
He had accomplished everything. Zhao Kuangyin had fulfilled every desire of his life, yet still could not wait for Li Congjia to look at him once more.
That day above the main gate of the imperial palace, Zhao Kuangyin had said with a trace of melancholy, “I only fear… there will not be enough time…”
Li Yu’s five fingers slowly closed, until the grasp dissolved into points of chill. “What exactly are you worried about? You are afraid I will die, are you not? Do you think I will break my promise again this time?”
Zhao Kuangyin merely shook his head. Li Congjia took it as assent. “I will not.”
The other man covered his hand again.
In truth, Zhao Kuangyin had been afraid for himself.
Across a thousand li of the northern lands, snow suddenly began to fall again. White swept over heaven and earth, swirling more heavily than the last snowfall.
At the extreme, decline begins.
He was gone.
War, bloodshed, beacon fires, life and death. That year Zhao Kuangyin left home with a sword, crossed north and south, and glimpsed the realm over cups of wine. The hidden pain of his entire life was losing his younger brother when he was young. He had never stopped thinking of him. He simply was not accustomed to speaking of his guilt. Zhao Kuangyin merely did not say it.
Night rain covered him. The character for heart had turned to ash. The sword marks on Phoenix Terrace remained.
“Heaven will not destroy you; you too belong to me.”
From far away came the call of the timekeeper. “Zi hour!”
The realm. You. I traded the realm for you. Yet in the end, I still could not keep this life.
Zhao Guangyi cried out, “Big Brother!”
But the man drenched in night rain merely curved his lips slightly, smiling with flawless elegance. Li Congjia quietly lifted Zhao Kuangyin’s upper body into his arms. Ink-black hair spilled over the silver fur beside him, pale Tianshui Blue spreading beneath the bloodstained scent of red sandalwood.
Zhao Guangyi watched blood flow from Li Congjia’s eyes.
A demon descended into the world, a demon descended into the world! With a cry of alarm, Zhao Guangyi saw Li Congjia’s pale face and blood-filled eyes turn toward him with a smile. “Zhao Guangyi, no, Jiang Zheng. It is midnight now, and I am still alive. In truth… you never actually poisoned my wine, did you?”
He retreated in panic to the doors. “I… I did not. I never thought he would do this. I really did not want…” He did not even know what he was trying to say before he stumbled out.
At last only the two of them remained. Beacon smoke, separation, hatred for a fallen kingdom, all of it receded into the distance.
He was still as proud and overbearing as ever, raising his brows. Li Congjia, you love me.
With bloody tears, Li Congjia slowly closed his eyes and kissed his lips, cold against cold. Nothing mattered anymore.
“Yes. You were right.”
Ehuang had taught him jealousy. This man, Li Congjia pressed himself tightly against Zhao Kuangyin’s neck, had taught him love and hate.
Now they were both gone.
Snow fell across a thousand li. Zhao Kuangyin had always worried that Li Congjia would never see again. He had never imagined that one day he himself would no longer be there to watch the snow with him.
Never again.
Covered in blood, Li Congjia slowly bent over Zhao Kuangyin on the floor of the desolate, freezing Shouyuan Hall, holding him as they watched snow fall across a thousand li.
Zhao Kuangyin, there is something I never told you… and now I can never say it. You destroyed my kingdom. You shattered the faith of tens of thousands and destroyed the Li clan’s inheritance. Do you know… how could I so easily let go of the hatred between kingdom and family? Do you know what it was to have everything suddenly buried in my hands in a single day? How could I simply forget…
Broken dreams and the last watch of night make the loneliness twice as deep.
It was my fault. I thought this was how I repaid the blood debt, how I gave an accounting to the people of Jiangnan. But I was wrong. All of it was wrong. He raised his head, blood streaming from his eyes, and a torn cry burst from him so violently that it seemed to split the gloom above the palace halls. Yet the snow only fell harder, swirling everywhere. Were those dead parasol trees still standing as before?
Zhao Guangyi had not poisoned Li Congjia. Midnight had passed. Yet the man in blue-green had bled dry the heart-blood of this life and lived on in a state worse than death.
You should have been crueler still.
A whole city flew white. Life’s long sorrow flows endlessly east. Li Congjia held Zhao Kuangyin and sat there for a very long time. Through the wide-open hall doors, savage wind drove snow inside. It settled in mottled patches upon his hair, washing it toward pure white, while horrifying trails of blood slowly descended from his eyes.
Once again, he had watched him die with his own eyes.
In the early spring of that year, Song Taizong Zhao Guangyi succeeded to the throne, changed his personal name to Jiong, and adopted the era name Taiping Xingguo.
He redesignated Li Yu, the Marquis of Disobedience, as Duke of Longxi Commandery.
The figure in imperial yellow stood atop layered peaks and looked up at everything now held within his grasp. Suddenly an immense grief came over him, soundless. Above, dark birds cried as they passed. Bells and chimes sounded in celebration to the nine heavens. Mountains and rivers lay dim.
Wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.
Now he had gained the realm, but from this day onward there was no longer any hope of finding himself again.
From today onward, he would forever be Zhao Guangyi. Never again could he live under the name Jiang Zheng.
Since ancient times, who leaves the battlefield whole? Schemes calculated in vain. Voices call for romance, lovely eyes beckon; the affairs of the world fall barren into endless solitude.
“Your Majesty. The Duke of Longxi Commandery has sent a congratulatory gift, a single scroll.”
“Present it.”
Alone in the ancestral temple, Zhao Guangyi suddenly unrolled the sheet of white paper Li Congjia had sent. The ink was startling. Four characters were written upon it, still elegant and transcendent, spare in form yet forceful enough to penetrate the paper.
Zhao Guangyi looked at it only once, then sighed for a long time.
Slowly he removed the wooden bracelet and offered it before Zhao Kuangyin’s portrait. “Big Brother.” It was the last time he spoke those words. Zhao Kuangyin had given him everything that came afterward, and had also ensured his heart would never know peace again.
One season passed through summer, autumn, and winter; ten thousand li of yellow sand were trodden beneath the feet. In Bianjing, spring warmth filled the city and flowers smiled from every branch.
At the Hall of Honoring the Worthy, Li Congjia had never again been able to leave his bed after being sent back. Nüying and Liuzhu attended him on either side, but neither spoke of the past anymore. Still in the flowerlike years of youth, Nüying quietly watched him sleep fitfully. “Brother-in-law… we waited until you came back. But perhaps… perhaps you never wanted to come back at all.” Nüying’s heart too had already turned to ash. Even on the morning he returned, the older imperial physician, still possessed of a healer’s compassion, had shaken his head regretfully and instructed her alone in a low voice, “It is not good… What must be prepared should be prepared within these next few days…” Hearing it, she had not even felt capable of great grief. At such a point, despair had gone so far she no longer knew for whom she ought to grieve. In the end he was still her brother-in-law. When disaster struck, all the thoughts that had filled the dark Prince of Jin’s Residence condensed into that single address: brother-in-law.
Everyone tried hard to forget. The man on the bed smiled faintly day after day just as before, spending an entire double-hour each day merely forcing down a little broth. Broken books, sitting alone through passing years; moonset, crows crying, frost filling the sky. Looking down from the nine heavens, one does not know how many times one has slept within drunkenness.
“As expected of spring. It is much warmer.” He spoke softly, almost sighing, and reached out to play with the hanging gauze. On one elegant wrist a faint mark could still be seen, already very pale.
“His Majesty has come to visit.” Liuzhu reported quietly from outside the door. Li Congjia smiled slightly and tried to push himself upright, but lacked the strength and gave up.
The door opened. Zhao Guangyi hesitated, but finally entered.
The gentle features of the man on the bed showed not the slightest grief. He coughed softly, though his complexion was poor.
Now clothed in the dragon robe, Zhao Guangyi had achievements of his own. He looked at Li Congjia for a long time before suddenly asking, “Why are you not dead?”
Li Congjia smiled. “Why should I die? Qixi… I promised him.”
Zhao Guangyi looked into his double pupils. “I will heal your eyes.”
Back then Zhao Kuangyin had led his armies south for the sake of this wisp of soul from mist and rain, yet Zhao Guangyi had caused Li Congjia to be unable ever to see him again. Now that the dead man was gone, Zhao Guangyi had developed another obsession: he had to restore Li Congjia’s sight.
He was gone. What use were eyes now?
“Li Congjia! I will heal your eyes.” Zhao Guangyi actually became angry. He did not know why. He simply could not bear to see this man still smiling silently and faintly, distant as a divine being beyond human approach. The sheet of white paper Li Congjia had sent had driven him utterly into despair. “You cannot see him anymore. I will cure you…” Restlessly he paced back and forth through the room, exhausting himself trying to reach into their story, trying to prove that he had once influenced something, controlled something.
But Li Congjia spoke with a trace of regret and once again made his defeat complete. “What a pity. I can already see.”
Zhao Guangyi was stunned speechless once more. He remembered the calligraphy Li Congjia had sent. It truly could not have been written by a blind man. He stared fixedly at Li Congjia. “You… since when?”
“After we came north… I gradually began to see clearly. Later I used medicine, and my sight recovered… You had merely added a foreign substance to what I drank. Once I stopped taking it, I gradually began to see light again during the journey after the city fell.”
“You!” Once again Zhao Guangyi felt how frightening he was, this figure so pale and faint he seemed about to dissolve, a blue-green so translucent it had reached its limit. “Li Congjia, I suspected it before, but you actually watched Nüying wear that jade and showed no reaction! How could you be so ruthless…”
Li Congjia lay on the bed, entirely unconcerned. “You feared I would reveal your secret. Naturally you would not truly hurt her. What did I have to fear?”
“Li Congjia…” Zhao Guangyi wanted to mention that night when he had sent Nüying away. He had clearly entertained the thought of forcing Li Congjia to play a song, then suddenly extinguished the candle to see whether he could actually see. An ordinary person abruptly plunged into darkness would inevitably be disrupted and unable to continue playing. Yet Li Congjia had not paused at all.
Li Congjia seemed to remember as well and understood what he wanted to ask. “You truly were careless… You thought only of human instinct and forgot that because I could already see, when I saw you holding the candle and refusing to put it down while threatening me into playing, I naturally guessed what you intended. When you extinguished the flame, I simply lowered my eyelids slightly…”
Indeed. In the imperial garden he could play perfectly even with his eyes covered. His attainment was far beyond that of ordinary people. Zhao Guangyi had arrogantly misjudged him.
Zhao Guangyi finally understood everything. He laughed loudly as he looked at him. “You are truly ruthless, Li Congjia… You watched him die before your own eyes? You could actually be this cruel! You demon! You…”
Those words immediately made the man on the bed gasp violently, unable to speak again. This was his fatal wound. For the rest of his life, he could never tell that man: I saw the snow, and I saw you too.
But I could not let go. So I refused to say it, punishing you, until in the end we exhausted everything between us.
Li Congjia’s eyes were filled with struggle. Looking at Zhao Guangyi, he was helpless. In this life he had watched Ehuang die with his own eyes, and then watched him…
Death had suddenly become very easy, and precisely because of that he absolutely refused to indulge it lightly.
He could not die. Not yet.
Zhao Guangyi suddenly understood how terrifying this man’s heart could be. No wonder he had forced himself to endure even now. For an instant Zhao Guangyi felt as though he had fallen into an ice cavern. He turned and went outside, ordering the imperial physician to enter.
“Your Majesty, the Duke’s heart-blood was exhausted long ago. He may not survive from one morning to the next. Now the blood within his body has stagnated… The fact that he has endured until today is sustained entirely by a single breath of will… There truly is nothing more that can be done…”
A long sigh.
To one side, Nüying listened but could no longer shed tears. In the beginning she had still refused to give up and tried countless medicines. He could not even swallow them.
It seemed that ever since he returned from that night, the scent of red sandalwood could no longer be detected. Liuzhu often grieved over it. Nüying would only take her hand and shake her head. “It must all have been exhausted…”
In unconscious dreams, Li Congjia repeatedly returned to the man beneath the tree that night long ago. Clearly wounded, he had still been flamboyant and impossibly proud. “Duke of Anding, what refined pleasures.”
At the time those words had made Li Congjia frown in displeasure, yet he had still removed his splendid outer robe and spread it over the two of them.
From that moment onward, Li Congjia had yearned for his warmth.
Afterward came a blur of desolate fields. Zhao Kuangyin personally led five hundred thousand troops to besiege Jinling. At Jade Heaven Pavilion, clear qin music rode the wind into the palace and spread unbroken for a hundred li.
“The turning candle, the drifting tumbleweed; a dream returns. Seeking old traces, I grieve that the people are no longer the same. Heaven makes the heart’s desire run contrary to the body. The moon-waiting terraces hold only passing water; flower-shadowed towers waste the slanting light. Climbing high, I do not begrudge wetting my robes again.”
In dreams beneath the moon, the apricot blossoms on Phoenix Terrace were red as blood.