Outside the window, the water clock dripped steadily. The long night seemed endless.
Gongsun E’s palm rested against Wei Xiao’s thin, bony shoulder. His fingertips stroked it slowly, their warmth seeping through the layers of cloth. The intimate touch was so tender that Wei Xiao could find no way to evade it.
Wei Xiao’s throat tightened. Hatred and the obsession he had buried for so many years tore at each other in his heart. For a moment, he could not decide whether to break free or simply let Gongsun E do as he pleased.
Join his side?
In the dead of night, when he dreamed of things he could never have, he too had sometimes indulged in that impossible wish: if only Gongsun E could walk the same road as him.
But although he was the dreamer, he was also the one who understood reality most clearly.
Wei Xiao knew better than anyone that he and Gongsun E could never walk the same road in this lifetime, any more than righteousness and wickedness could coexist, or black and white stand together…
He stared hard at the man reflected in the bronze mirror, his thoughts unreadable. After a long silence, he forced out a question in a voice that betrayed neither joy nor anger.
“Gongsun E, aren’t you afraid I’ll repeat every word you just said to the Crown Prince?”
Instead of retreating, Gongsun E leaned casually closer, his lips nearly brushing Wei Xiao’s earlobe. He answered in a low voice, “Then why hasn’t Your Excellency gone to tell him?”
Wei Xiao’s breathing stopped for a moment. A sudden, inexplicable anger surged up in him, and he whirled around. “You!”
But Gongsun E had already retreated half a step before Wei Xiao turned around, the movement of his robes stirring the faintest breeze. Standing where candlelight met shadow, he watched Wei Xiao with an enigmatic smile, as though he had anticipated precisely this reaction. Then he spoke unhurriedly.
“I do have some clues concerning the salt silver. I simply don’t know whether Your Excellency dares investigate them.”
Wei Xiao’s heart sank. Unable to discern what Gongsun E intended by this remark, he frowned involuntarily. “What do you mean?”
Gongsun E did not answer. Instead, he slipped a hand into his sleeve and slowly drew out a familiar object. He raised his eyes to Wei Xiao, a hint of meaning in his almost-smile.
“Does Your Excellency remember this?”
He held up a red-gold ring set with a gemstone. The band had been blackened by fire, but its former splendor was still unmistakable. The pigeon’s-blood-red ruby in its center was richly colored throughout, glowing with an uncanny beauty rather than fading in the dim candlelight.
Wei Xiao’s frown deepened. He recognized it immediately.
It was the ring that had been wrapped in the bundle alongside Shen Wanjin’s charred bones.
“Are you saying this ring belonged to Shen Wanjin?”
Gongsun E neither confirmed nor denied it. He turned the ring lightly between his fingertips, studying its patterns in the candlelight. “Like those two secret letters, I found this ring in a concealed box in Shen Wanjin’s bedchamber. The box was hidden very deep, behind a false wall, and escaped the fire.”
Wei Xiao arched a cold brow and took the ring from Gongsun E to inspect it. Its craftsmanship was exquisite, certainly no ordinary trinket made for common folk. But however closely he examined it, he could detect nothing strange. He raised his gaze and spoke with veiled sarcasm.
“It’s only a ring. Shen Wanjin was immensely rich. Forget a gold ring set with a jewel; even a South Sea pearl as large as a thumb might not have impressed him. And you dare call this a clue?”
Gongsun E smiled without rushing to argue. He went to the desk, lifted the teapot, and leisurely poured himself a cup of hot tea.
“Precisely because Shen Wanjin was so wealthy, he would never have hidden a few ordinary gold and silver valuables in the same box as such important secret letters.”
“Shen Wanjin was a merchant. What a merchant conceals must be the thing worth the most, or the thing most likely to cost him his life. If this ring merely had monetary value, he would not have gone to such lengths to hide it in his bedchamber. It must have been either something that could save his life or something that could doom him.”
The mockery gradually faded from Wei Xiao’s face. At last he looked serious. He lowered his gaze to inspect the ring again, then lifted his eyes after a moment. “For example?”
Gongsun E held his celadon teacup and gently skimmed away the floating froth with its lid. Then he strolled to Wei Xiao’s side.
“Has Your Excellency looked closely at the ruby? Its color is like pigeon’s blood, with a faint purplish hue and fine silk-like inclusions. It is a top-grade pigeon’s-blood ruby from the old mines of Mogok, a stone no ordinary merchant could obtain. Although the band of the ring was burned, a few gold lines of the engraved scrolling lotus design remain visible on its outer surface. That combination of filigree and engraving is beyond the skill of ordinary artisans. Only the imperial workshops could produce it.”
In other words, the ring had come from the palace.
The assassins who pursued Gongsun E outside the capital had not been trying to recover the charred bones from his bundle. They wanted to destroy the ring, which might expose the identity of the person behind them.
As he spoke, Gongsun E took back the ring and turned it so that its inner band faced upward. “Look here, Your Excellency.”
Wei Xiao instinctively glanced down. Several blurred characters remained on the inner surface, covered by a black layer of grime that could not be washed away. Their forms were nevertheless distinct.
Made by the Imperial Silverwork Office
Master Artisan Six Fingers
“I have heard that five years ago, the native chieftain of Luchuan presented a box containing three exceptionally rare rubies, all from the same Mogok mine. They were nearly identical in color and size. His Majesty then ordered the imperial workshops to make them into three rings, one for each of three ladies of the inner palace: the Empress, Noble Consort Yin, and Consort Lan.”
The candle flame gave a violent flicker. Wei Xiao heard Gongsun E’s voice drop ever so slightly, carrying a trace of amusement almost too faint to detect.
“The three rings were identical, so no one knows which lady originally owned this one. When an object belonging to someone of high rank passes into the hands of someone beneath them, it is usually a reward for services rendered. This ring must have belonged either to the Empress, Noble Consort Yin, or Consort Lan. The Empress is mother to the Crown Prince; Noble Consort Yin is mother to Prince Jin; and Consort Lan is mother to Prince Cheng…”
He paused, his voice becoming suggestive.
“Does Your Excellency still think it is merely a ring?”
The room became so quiet one could have heard a needle fall.
Wei Xiao gripped the fire-damaged gold ring. A storm rose in his heart. If they could discover who had given it to Shen Wanjin, they might uncover the trail of the missing salt silver. They might even find an opportunity to help the Crown Prince bring down one of his rivals.
He stayed silent for a long while. When he spoke again, his voice was low and dangerous.
“You want to use me to get someone at the Silverwork Office to search the palace archives and identify the ring’s original owner?”
Gongsun E’s mouth curved slightly. He spoke gently, as if discussing something perfectly ordinary. “Use you? Why call it that? Wouldn’t it be a good thing if Your Excellency could seize this chance to remove a formidable enemy for the Crown Prince?”
“You—”
Wei Xiao raised his eyes abruptly and found himself looking straight into Gongsun E’s smiling gaze.
For an instant their eyes met. The candle on the corner of the table fluttered, casting both their shadows onto the wall. From a distance, the two silhouettes seemed tangled together, impossible to distinguish.
Wei Xiao’s knuckles clenched around the ring, its edges biting painfully into his palm. He ground his teeth in silence and finally forced out a cold question.
“Gongsun E, what exactly are you scheming?”
Gongsun E’s smile did not waver. “I’ve told you already. I’m helping Your Excellency.”
Wei Xiao’s expression darkened instantly. “There has never been any friendship between us!”
Gongsun E looked at his angry face and sighed softly, as though disappointed. “That truly wounds me, Your Excellency. Only a few days ago you rescued me and let me recover here. How can you say there is no friendship between us?”
When Gongsun E still refused to tell the truth, Wei Xiao finally lost patience. He grabbed the front of the man’s robes and dragged him closer. A sinister darkness churned in his eyes, hiding anger that even he could neither understand nor put into words.
“Gongsun E, do you really think I dare not lay a hand on you?”
Gongsun E did not struggle. He merely glanced down at the hand gripping his clothes, his smile unchanged. “If Your Excellency wanted to hurt me, why didn’t you do it when I was outside the study?”
It was true. Wei Xiao had not done so. Not only that, he had admitted Gongsun E and let his beguiling words work upon his heart.
Wei Xiao’s hand went rigid.
Gongsun E saw it clearly. The faint smile on his face slowly faded into seriousness. He raised a hand, covered Wei Xiao’s with his own, and gently guided the cold hand toward his chest. Only when Wei Xiao’s palm was pressed firmly over his beating heart did he ask in a low voice:
“Would Your Excellency truly hurt me?”
Wei Xiao’s breathing turned completely ragged.
He snatched his hand back and turned away almost in panic, bracing one hand fiercely against the cold edge of the desk. His back was ramrod straight, but it could not conceal the faint trembling of his body or the panic of a man who felt thoroughly exposed.
Hurt Gongsun E?
Would he?
There was no need even to consider the question. The answer had long been clear.
Yet the more certain he was, the less he could bear to accept it; and the less he could bear it, the fiercer his resentment grew.
Wei Xiao was almost drowned by that hatred. Bracing himself on the desk, he slowly raised his head to look at Gongsun E. His eyes were terribly red, and his expression was sinister in the wavering candlelight.
“What right do you have?”
He stared at Gongsun E’s features, so like those he remembered from years ago. His voice was hoarse and trembling as he demanded, one word at a time:
“Gongsun E, what makes you so certain I wouldn’t hurt you?”
Wei Xiao would never harm Gongsun E because he remembered, and would always remember, the little eunuch who had been stripped of his trousers and beaten until he was covered in wounds in a corner by the palace wall ten years ago. And he remembered the man who had removed his own cloak to cover the child’s humiliation.
But Gongsun E?
He seemed to have forgotten everything.
Ever since they had met again, Gongsun E had remained calm and detached. His eyes had shown no flicker of recognition, no tenderness born of remembering the past.
He did not remember bending down to cover a lowly eunuch’s nakedness and tend his injuries. He did not know that the sachet he had taken away was the little eunuch’s only memento of his dead mother. Nor did he know that the name he had given so casually had been remembered for ten full years, softly repeated through countless sleepless nights.
From beginning to end, it seemed that only Wei Xiao remained trapped in that blazing summer a decade ago, scorched by the sun, driven mad by his obsession, living neither as a man nor a ghost.
Only now did Wei Xiao finally see the truth. He did not merely hate that he and Gongsun E stood on opposite sides of righteousness and wickedness, forever unable to walk the same road. What he hated even more was that he alone remembered—
while the other man stood untouched and unburdened, having forgotten the past entirely.
This was the longest night they had ever spent together. So long that even the red candle on the desk burned down to its end and quietly went out, leaving a slender wisp of pale smoke.
The light was so dim that no one saw a tear fall from Wei Xiao’s eye and strike the edge of the desk without a sound.
But Gongsun E saw.
He stood there for a long time, his expression complicated, allowing the silence to swallow all the struggle and resentment between them.
At last, after an immeasurable interval, his fingers moved. From inside his robes, close to his heart, he slowly drew out an object still warm from his body and placed it gently upon the desk.
Cold moonlight filtered through the window and spread faintly across the table, falling just upon that old possession.
It was an old moon-white sachet embroidered with a pattern of mother-and-child gourds. Years had faded the threads along its edges, but it was plain that someone had kept it with extraordinary care.
Wei Xiao’s gaze fixed upon it. He stood frozen in astonishment.
“…”