In his eyes was all the magnanimity and gentleness of an elder brother, as he promised: “Next time, given the chance, I shall certainly introduce you to one another.”
Lady Liu never awaited that “introduction,” yet she remembered well that little girl of whom Zhao Yan spoke, who would instinctively retort whenever she felt guilty.
That pitiful little princess, like herself, had been stripped of her true identity and name, sitting in another’s place upon the tottering, perilous seat of the Eastern Palace.
“Then what of you? Why do you care about the Crown Prince’s cause of death?”
Lady Liu unconsciously lowered her voice. “I heard Zhao Yan say, you seemed to dislike him very much.”
Those extremely soft words, “dislike him,” were like fine needles pricking the most fragile place in Zhao Yen’s heart.
She curled her fingers, the fine fabric crumpling between them.
“Yes, I disliked him.”
She said in a low voice, “I hated him for bearing the love and hopes of so many, while no matter how hard I strove, I was never acknowledged. I hated him for being so fragile that he could not even control his own life, yet still always thinking of caring for others…”
It was but an instant. Her lowered lashes lifted again, and in her gaze there was clarity and resolve.
“But so what? He is my blood-connected elder brother, the only person in this world who cares for me!”
The soft voice was like pearls and jade falling upon a tray, ringing with force.
Lady Liu’s lips parted slightly, but for a long time she did not speak.
Zhao Yen thought today would again end in vain. Unable to help herself, she let out a quiet sigh and rose to leave.
“Wang Yu has landed property in Cangzhou.”
From behind her suddenly came Lady Liu’s low voice.
Zhao Yen turned back in astonishment, seeing Lady Liu brushing crumbs from her fingertips as she stood.
“What I know is no more than what Your Highness knows. Since our goal is the same, cooperating with Your Highness is also acceptable.”
Lady Liu glanced around Cheng’en Hall and tossed out her own condition: “I want freedom of movement. Day after day of confinement in these chambers, I am already weary of it.”
Like clouds parting to reveal the sun, like the willows dark and flowers brightening again.
Zhao Yen gathered her sleeves with a smile, light yet solemn: “Of course.”
In the blink of an eye, the year’s end arrived. On New Year’s Eve, amidst a city brimming with fireworks, festivity came as scheduled.
The Governor of Liangzhou returned laden with hundreds of carts of treasures seized as spoils, sharpening troops and provisioning horses. Meanwhile, the court merely ladled water to stop the boiling, and less than half a month after the siege was lifted, within the palace already song and dance filled the air.
At the New Year’s Eve family banquet, the Emperor did not attend.
Zhao Yen, unfamiliar with those few consorts and the princesses yet unmarried, simply found an excuse to return early to the Eastern Palace.
After bathing away the fatigue of the day, Zhao Yen bound only a simple gentleman’s ribbon at the ends of her hair, draped herself in a heavy fox-fur cloak, and stepped out—just in time to see Lady Liu in crimson robes approaching with a small jar of Luofu Spring.
“Why has Your Highness returned at this hour?”
Since her release from confinement, she had resumed her former ease, coming and going freely. At this moment, without powder or rouge, her features were in fact sharper and more valiant than when painted.
At mention of what she had heard at the banquet, Zhao Yen felt only vexation.
“That State Preceptor of the Shen Guang Sect has once again, under the name of divining the Heavenly Mandate, urged Father Emperor to greatly expand the Spring Sacrifice to the Earth God, to seek Heaven’s protection for good harvests and peace in the year to come.”
She said listlessly, “Not to speak of exhausting the people and draining wealth, the Spring Sacrifice just happens to fall on the Lantern Festival. Now I shall not even get to see the lanterns.”
When she need not bear the disguise called “Crown Prince,” she always loved to call herself “Gu,” as if only in such moments of night and day could she return to being herself.
Lady Liu narrowed her phoenix eyes, hooked her index and middle finger around the wine jar and shook it lightly: “Come drink with me? Luofu Spring—it’s sweet.”
Zhao Yen sniffed the faint sweet fragrance in the air; her stomach, scarcely touched at the banquet, began to rumble. Her eyes flickered; she nodded with a smile: “Quietly—do not let Liuying know.”
Lady Liu, in intimacy, reached to hook her shoulder. As her arm rose, she realized the delicate youth before her was no longer Zhao Yan of before.
So, without a trace, she lowered her arm again, turned her head aside with a hum: “You are not afraid I might put poison in the wine?”
“This face of mine—you could bear to strike at it?”
Zhao Yen, expression unchanged, answered in jest, then asked, “In Cangzhou, has there been news of Wang Yu?”
“Not yet.”
The two spoke intermittently, and to the patrolling palace attendants, they looked just like a pair of affectionate lovers.
Snow slid down from the eaves, while in the distance beams of red, yellow, blue, and purple shot upward, bursting into blooms of brilliant chaos against the dark-blue night sky.
Only when the fireworks had fully blossomed did the thunderous booms follow one after another. Zhao Yen halted her steps, gazing toward the far end of the covered corridor.
Liuying sat alone in the shadow of the stone steps, head tilted back as she stared in rapture at the bright moon in the sky, her figure bathed in the mottled glow of the fireworks.
On New Year’s Eve, leniency was granted, and the other close-serving attendants had gone to the side rooms to eat the New Year’s dinner. With much effort, Zhao Yen had persuaded Liuying to rest for two hours, yet who would have thought she would be sitting here alone, her silhouette bleak and solitary.
Zhao Yen considered for a moment, then walked toward her.
“Elder Sister Liuying, what are you looking at?”
Hearing movement behind her, Liuying quickly pressed her eyes before turning back.
Another firework soared into the sky; beneath its brilliant glow, the corners of her eyes glistened faintly red.
In that instant, Zhao Yen suddenly understood something.
She padded the hem of her fox-fur cloak and sat down beside Liuying.
Startled, Liuying was about to rise, her voice hoarse: “The stone steps are cold, Your Highness must not sit here.”
Lady Liu frowned, pressed Liuying back down, and also sat beside her. The “Crown Prince” and the “favored consort” to her left and right, hemming in the steady, reserved palace attendant.
Now Liuying could not move, and could only sit stiffly.
“You miss him very much too, don’t you?”
Resting her chin upon her hand, Zhao Yen gazed at the moon, fragmented by snow and bare branches.
Liuying said nothing, but in her eyes—usually calm as still water—there now flickered a sorrowful light.
Lady Liu, having slipped away and returned, produced three wine cups from who-knows-where. She pulled the wooden stopper from the wine jar and poured each one a cup.
Zhao Yen first took a cup of wine; Liuying, after a moment’s hesitation, also accepted one, holding it carefully in her palms.
“To the departed,” Zhao Yen proposed, raising her cup.
“To the departed,” Lady Liu echoed.
The three wine cups clinked softly under the moonlight, then, in unison, were poured out upon the steps, to console the lonely soul beneath the springs.
Three streams of wine spilled from left to right; Zhao Yen’s eyes, too, turned red.
Under the moon and amidst the peak of fireworks, the three leaned together in this quiet, deserted corner—gazing at the same bright moon, drinking from the same jar of clear wine, and remembering the same youth who had once gentled their years.
The night wind stirred, and the lights of the entire city swayed with it, glittering like a river of stars.
The fireworks still continued.
The gates of the Prince Su’s residence were tightly shut, sealing away the bustle outside.
In the library, only a pair of crane-headed bronze lamps burned. Wenren Lin sat in the chair closest to the brazier, using a cinnabar-red brush to trace over the names in a register.
Deputy General Cai Tian had brought tidings from outside. Knowing his master had reached the days when the cold-bone poison attacked, and his mood was foul, he lowered his voice all the more respectfully: “His Majesty has set the suburban sacrifice for the Lantern Festival, and the Heir Apparent will also attend.”
Seeing that his master did not speak, Cai Tian continued his report: “The scouts say it seems someone is secretly investigating the affairs of those few scholars at Mingde Academy.”
The stroke of Wenren Lin’s vermilion brush slowed.
Cai Tian then continued: “Lately, quite a few wandering swordsmen have slipped into the city. In pursuing the matter, this subordinate discovered that this group has had much contact with the retainers of Prince Yong’s heir. With the suburban sacrifice approaching, they may well take action.”
The suburban sacrifice?
Attendant Zhang Cang, standing to the side, jolted upright at once. “Would that not mean they are aiming at the Heir Apparent’s position? Those curs, all they know is to snatch food from our Prince’s mouth!”
Cai Tian clasped his fists and lowered his head, his eyes rolling back in exasperation.
This colleague of his was fine in everything—except that his tongue was too loose and his brain not very keen.
Zhang the dull-witted did not in the least comprehend Cai Tian’s hint, but rubbed his fists eagerly. “Prince, shall we make a move this time?”
The brazier’s firelight reflected on Wenren Lin’s face, without the least trace of warmth.
He gazed at that touch of cinnabar-red staining his pale fingertips, lashes lowering into shadow, as though weighing whether or not to save a stray cat of unknown origin.
At length, the vermilion brush in his hand finally fell, mercilessly striking through the last name.
“This Prince has long said, the Eastern Palace blocks not only my path alone. To live a few more days, to live a few fewer days—what difference does it make?”
Amidst the bustle of New Year’s Eve, his voice, detached from all, seemed especially cold.
That sleeve-hidden calamus he had given her was already the greatest kindness he could offer.
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