It was already late at night when Gongsun E left Wei Xiao’s cabin.
A man hung upside down from the mast on deck, his blue-green robes soaked with blood. Suspended in midair, his body swung back and forth like a withered leaf caught in the wind. It was the adviser who had attempted the assassination earlier.
Wei Xiao had not yet ordered how he was to be dealt with, so his subordinates dared not let him die. They had crudely cauterized the stump of his severed hand with a hot iron and stuffed a wad of rough cloth into his mouth. Knowing he could not escape death, the scholar spat the cloth out savagely. His voice was hoarse and broken, the hatred in it unmistakable as he spoke in fits and starts:
“Wei Xiao…you castrated villain corrupting the court…do you think you can cover the sky with one hand?!”
“You slaughter loyal men…everyone has the right to kill you… I’m not the only one who wants you dead. When I die, I’ll become a vengeful ghost and haunt you…I’ll see how you meet your wretched end!”
His ankles were bound by rope, his head hanging down from the mast. Each gust of cold wind across the wound of his severed hand brought uncontrollable spasms of pain. Blood dripped onto the deck, spreading into a dark stain.
Black Hawk approached, his face cold with fury, and jammed the hilt of his sword under the man’s chin. “Don’t think I won’t rip out your tongue!”
But the scholar laughed wildly through his bloody coughs, his whole body shaking as he forced the words through clenched teeth. “Come on…I’m not afraid to die…”
Enraged, Black Hawk drew his sword to strike, but a companion seized him just in time and warned in a low voice, “His Excellency hasn’t ordered this man executed. Don’t act recklessly!”
Black Hawk ground his teeth. “Are we supposed to let him insult His Excellency like this?”
“For now, just take him to the water prison and keep him under guard.”
Black Hawk suppressed his anger and at last sheathed his sword. He was about to order his men to lower the prisoner from the mast when a sharp whistling sound suddenly cut through the air behind them.
Black Hawk and the others instantly drew their blades and turned to defend themselves. But the arrow was not aimed at them. It hissed past their bodies and shot straight through the open mouth of the blue-robed scholar.
His curses stopped abruptly.
A spray of hot blood burst out. The scholar’s eyes widened, the long arrow piercing through his mouth, and his face froze in the twisted astonishment of death. He could not utter another word.
Dead silence fell. Only the cold wind whistled past the mast and snapped the flags overhead.
Black Hawk was shaken to his core. He turned sharply toward the source of the arrow.
A familiar figure stood quietly beside the railing on the upper deck. His white sleeves flew in the night wind. With the bright moon overhead, he looked like an immortal descended to earth, yet an invisible coldness seeped from his very bones, enough to chill anyone who saw him.
Under the startled, disbelieving gazes of those below, Gongsun E said nothing. He merely handed the bow and arrows back to a patrolling guard and turned away.
The night wind carried the heavy scent of blood across the deck, and in moments it faded without a trace.
But the chilling decisiveness of that arrow remained lodged in every witness’s heart.
Black Hawk stood rigidly, his fingers clenching around his sword hilt. He had always heard that Gongsun E was warm and modest, a gentleman of spotless character, praised as an upright scholar-official by everyone at court and beyond.
Yet that arrow had been swift and decisive, without a moment’s hesitation or pity.
For an instant, Black Hawk almost felt that the man before him was not a courteous, cultivated official at all, but a cold-blooded emperor who had long dwelt in the palace and held the power of life and death in his hands.
The lingering shock did not fade. The atmosphere remained oppressive. The guards dared not speak, merely lowered their heads and set about clearing away the aftermath. They took down and carried off the body, anxious not to invite misfortune. In less than half an incense stick’s time, the appalling bloodstains on the deck had been washed clean.
It was already too late at night for anyone to dare disturb Wei Xiao.
Only at daybreak did Black Hawk enter the main cabin to report what had happened.
Wei Xiao reclined on his couch, the wound on his shoulder not yet healed. A circle of white bandage could just be seen beneath his loose dark-red robe. With his head inclined and eyes closed, he listened in silence from beginning to end. Only when Black Hawk said that Gongsun E had personally shot the man dead did the fingers tapping lightly on his knee abruptly pause and his eyes slowly open.
His dark gaze settled on Black Hawk, and he asked in a low, inscrutable voice, “He did it himself?”
Black Hawk bowed his head. “Without a doubt. Everything happened so suddenly last night that this subordinate could not stop him in time. Please punish me, Your Excellency.”
Wei Xiao said nothing more.
Perhaps he felt that Gongsun E was becoming increasingly impossible to understand.
Or perhaps he was wondering whether the man had acted because of him.
But no matter how he turned it over in his mind, he could only think that such a contemptible clown was not worth Gongsun E staining his own hands with blood and incurring the karmic burden of a killing.
The incense burner smoldered quietly. The scent of Biji incense mingled with the damp air off the canal, steeping the enclosed cabin in an indescribable silence.
After a long while, Wei Xiao finally spoke, his voice indifferent.
“A useless pawn. If he’s dead, so be it. Next time you encounter such a trivial matter, deal with it yourselves. There’s no need to make a special report.”
“Yes.”
The furious outburst Black Hawk had expected never came. Relieved, he quietly withdrew.
The cabin door closed softly, shutting out the bright daylight. Inside, the stillness grew deeper. Wei Xiao sat alone on his couch, heavy thoughts concealed from everyone.
That evening Gongsun E arrived at Wei Xiao’s quarters carrying a medicine chest. He entered the main cabin without unnecessary pleasantries, set the box naturally on a low table, lifted the hem of his robe, and sat beside the couch. His reminder was gentle.
“Your Excellency, it’s time to change the dressing.”
Wei Xiao raised his eyes and studied him without revealing anything. Black Hawk’s report from earlier kept turning over in his mind, yet he never mentioned the arrow. He merely set aside the scroll he had been reading, loosened his collar, and bared the wound on his shoulder so Gongsun E could tend it.
His skin was pale, making the dark-red wound on his shoulder seem even more dreadful beneath the candlelight.
Gongsun E concentrated on cleaning the wound, his movements as gentle and careful as possible. Even so, the pain could not be entirely avoided. But Wei Xiao seemed not to feel it, his black eyes resting quietly on Gongsun E’s face. He wanted to say something, yet refused to speak.
He had wanted to ask whether Gongsun E had shed blood and killed that man last night for his sake.
But in this life, the more a person lacked something, the less willing they were to let others see how much it mattered.
The eunuchs of the imperial city were men whose knees and dignity had been cut away, forced to survive by bowing and kneeling day and night. Reduced to the lowest depths, they often treasured face above life itself once they gained power. If the answer to his question was not what he hoped, he would be left with nothing but humiliation.
So he would rather say nothing.
Gongsun E seemed to notice the heavy gaze on his face. His movements paused for an instant, but he did not look up. He went on treating Wei Xiao’s wound with care. His warm, low voice sounded in the cabin, effortlessly exposing the secret thought Wei Xiao refused to voice.
“Is Your Excellency wondering why I shot that man?”
The room fell quiet for a moment.
The flickering candlelight clearly revealed every uncertainty in Wei Xiao’s eyes. The doubts, frustration, and hesitation he had hidden all day seemed forever impossible to conceal from this man.
Unwilling to admit it, Wei Xiao gave a faint, derisive snort. “Why would I ask about the life of an ant?”
Gongsun E smiled, his tone gentle. “Even ants have the right to struggle for survival. I killed him because he did what he shouldn’t have done and said what he shouldn’t have said.”
Wei Xiao stared at him, an inexplicable feeling rising in his heart. His voice carried an ambiguous edge. “He insulted me, not you. He didn’t offend you in the slightest. Why should you act? Or are you afraid I really will die a miserable death?”
Before he could finish, a sudden dull pain shot through his shoulder.
He frowned without thinking and saw Gongsun E slowly withdraw the hand applying the medicine. The man looked directly at him. “Your Excellency must not speak so carelessly of life and death.”
Who had Wei Xiao ever feared?
Yet when faced with Gongsun E’s earnest gaze, his anger somehow vanished.
Seeing him rendered speechless, Gongsun E thought there were probably very few people left in the world capable of leaving Wei Xiao so thoroughly at a loss. He chuckled softly and raised a hand to brush a stray lock of hair away from the other man’s cheek.
“How could Your Excellency die a miserable death? Everyone calls you the Nine-Thousand-Year Lord. Naturally, you will live for a very, very long time.”
Wei Xiao was unmoved. He gave a cold laugh and murmured, “I don’t believe in that.”
Of course he did not believe it. Nor could he understand.
He did not know how he had died in his previous life.
Executed by the emperor, his bones ground to ash, cursed by thousands after his death. It was almost as though that fate had been determined from the moment Wei Xiao entered the palace and met Gongsun E all those years ago.
Only Gongsun E knew.
And fortunately, only he knew…
Outside, the canal flowed endlessly, and the vessel rose and fell upon the waves, as unpredictable as the turns of human affairs.
Gongsun E finished bandaging Wei Xiao’s wound but did not leave. Instead, he tipped Wei Xiao’s chin up lightly and bent to kiss him. At first it was a tender, lingering kiss. Then, as Gongsun E parted Wei Xiao’s teeth, the kiss became almost possessive, a kind of plunder.
Nor was Wei Xiao willing to let him go.
Kissing was an addictive thing, far more intoxicating to him than limitless power.
In the dim candlelight, Wei Xiao tugged Gongsun E’s collar and fell back upon the bed. The dark-red inner robe he wore was loosely tied and slipped from his shoulder, leaving him strikingly alluring. Gongsun E’s kisses were bolder than the day before, moving from brow to eyes, from the tip of his nose to his lips, then following the vulnerable line of his throat down to his collarbone, persistent enough to make his heart race.
Wei Xiao tightened all five fingers behind Gongsun E’s neck, holding him firmly as he let the other man’s burning kisses rain densely over his body.
He tipped his head back unconsciously, his unfocused gaze fixed on the canopy overhead. The emptiness and desolation inside him seemed to be filling, little by little, with something unseen. It left a sour, swelling ache he could not explain.
Was it desire?
Was it pleasure?
Years ago, during that brutal punishment, imperial power had forcibly castrated Wei Xiao, cutting away the bodily source of his desire. The ordinary passions and pleasures of worldly life were supposed to have nothing to do with him anymore. Yet now this damaged body felt an indescribable longing that twisted and grew wildly inside his heart.
And it all came from the man before him, Gongsun E.
They kissed for so long that the last candle on the table burned out before they stopped.
Their closeness steadily eroded Wei Xiao’s reason, leaving him weak-limbed and overwhelmed. Only when Gongsun E’s cool, long fingers slowly traced circles around his waist and then hooked lightly beneath the belt to undo it did Wei Xiao abruptly come to his senses, as though a basin of icy water had been thrown over him. His eyes flew open, and he seized the other man’s hand with a grip fierce with alarm.
Gongsun E stopped moving.
The light was faint; everything around them was a blur of shapes. Only in the cool moonlight from the window could he make out Wei Xiao’s expression. A trace of panic and unease had not yet faded from his eyes, along with another emotion impossible to name.
It was the sudden, unguarded embarrassment and humiliation of a eunuch.
“…”
For a moment, silence filled the air.
Gongsun E had never seen Wei Xiao like this.
In his memory, this man had possessed immense power, making ruthless decisions without the slightest weakness. Even when the late emperor ordered his death in the previous life, condemning his bones to be ground to ash, he had bowed calmly and gone to his execution without begging for mercy.
If he had not even feared death, what could he possibly fear?
But Wei Xiao did have something to fear.
He feared Gongsun E seeing his damaged, incomplete body, and even more the flicker of disgust he might see in that man’s eyes. No matter how high he climbed or how much power he held, he could not escape that fear.
He clutched Gongsun E’s wrist tightly, overwhelmed by crushing shame and a sense of abject inferiority he could no longer conceal. His lips moved several times, wanting to speak, but something seemed caught in his throat, impossible to spit out or swallow down.
At last Wei Xiao closed his eyes sharply. After a long time, he forced out a hoarse, difficult sentence.
“…It’s late. Go back to your room.”
Gongsun E gazed at him quietly, beginning to guess why he was behaving so strangely. His fingers stirred, wanting to do something, yet afraid it would only deepen Wei Xiao’s humiliation.
A thousand words rose, only to be swallowed again.
In the end, Gongsun E asked nothing. Silently, he raised a hand and drew Wei Xiao’s slipping robe back over his shoulder, placed a comforting kiss against his cheek, and spoke in a low, tender voice.
“All right.”
He gently stroked the other man’s cheek with a fingertip, almost reverently.
“Get some proper rest. I’ll come to see you again tomorrow.”
He made no mention of Wei Xiao’s moment of distress, preserving the last fragile scrap of his dignity.
When Gongsun E got up and left, Wei Xiao remained utterly still. Only when the cabin door closed did he finally raise his head. Moonlight illuminated his wretchedly pale face. Unfathomable emotions gathered in his black eyes, impossible to distinguish as obsession, resentment, or hatred.
Hatred of the imperial power that stood so far above everyone, and of a world that devoured people alive.
And even greater hatred of the loss that could never be made whole.
Crash!
Wei Xiao suddenly swept the teacups off the table with a violent movement of his hand.
Porcelain shattered in the silent cabin with a sharp, brief explosion, scattering fragments across the floor. Standing amid the shards, chest heaving, he felt a sudden stabbing pain in his bluish blind eye. It shot straight into his skull until his head felt as though it would split apart.
He stumbled uncontrollably, braced himself on the edge of the table, and clamped one hand tightly over the agonizing eye.
At the sound, Black Hawk immediately rushed in from outside. Seeing the wreckage, his pupils contracted and he dropped to one knee. “Your Excellency—”
Wei Xiao did not even raise his head. His face cold with fury, he barked, “Get out!”