Ye Tingyan was too far away and could only make out the words “a quick end” and “said you were clever.” Both faces were calm; they might as well have been close friends whispering private matters. He was curious and had been about to draw closer — when he caught Luowei’s warning glance.

He did not take that step.

Luowei pulled her gaze back, leaned forward, and brushed the hair from beside Song Zhiyu’s ear, dropping her voice to almost nothing: “I did not come to ask because I could guess without asking — when I went to the Censorate to confront Yu Qiushi in those years, others may not have known, but how could you not? When Yu Qiushi or Song Lan came to find you, what were you thinking? Were you thinking — what a rare, once-in-ten-thousand-years opportunity: one, the chance to make your name across the realm with a single poem; two, a chance to watch me fall. How could you have hesitated?”

She gripped Song Zhiyu’s shoulders hard, recalling the helplessness of those years, hating so deeply she gritted her teeth, yet still had to speak in a tone of perfect composure: “One thousand two hundred and forty-one lives! And you used them to quarrel with me! In the dead of night when you woke — did you feel guilt? Did you feel remorse?”

Song Zhiyu clutched at her hand and laughed a dazed, distant laugh: “Do you think without me those thousand-odd people would have been spared? Don’t be naive, Su Luowei — your beloved husband wanted to kill people, he had a thousand and ten thousand ways to do it. I was only being pragmatic, handing myself over to become a blade… “

Luowei felt her own lips trembling: “You are a princess of the realm — his younger sister. Those people — were they not the people under your care? I know you resented me; you may even have resented him. You hated those born with gifts; you hated genius — none of that is wrong. But how could you… Had I known it would come to this, I would have knelt before you then and kowtowed until my head rang, admitting I was not your equal — anything would have been better than the official historians writing you and your poem into the depths of hell for all eternity!”

Only at these words did Song Zhiyu truly freeze. She lurched to her feet, saw Ye Tingyan looking over, and seized the qin in her arms, pretending she was about to smash it, deliberately raising her voice: “I hate most that righteous face of yours! I hate most those speeches about the great cause of the people! When Counselor Gan refused to take me as his disciple, he said my intention was sincere but my heart was not upright — so what of you? You enjoy your splendor and glory now — how upright are you?”

Ye Tingyan assumed the two were still quarreling over the matter of accepting a disciple and let out a helpless sigh. Seizing this chance, Song Zhiyu used the qin to cover her mouth and rapidly mouthed the words: “What do you mean ‘the official historians writing it for eternity’? Are you going to overturn the Thorn of the Tang Case?”

Luowei mouthed back coldly: “If he knew someone had died following him in death, his spirit would be uneasy. You are wrong — I will not only overturn the Thorn of the Tang Case. I will also drag out the true culprits, lay the truth plainly before the world. I had not planned to let you die this soon. To let you live and see yourself reviled — would that not have been more cruel?”

Her spoken words were hard and cold, yet she had been so agitated just now that her eyes had already gone faintly red. Song Zhiyu was no fool; she could hear the meaning — despite the grievances between them, Luowei truly did not want her to have written that poem.

She set down the qin in a daze, and as though in a moment of emotional collapse, suddenly threw her arms around Luowei. Ye Tingyan was startled, thinking she meant to harm Luowei, and instinctively reached for his sword. But Luowei held out a hand toward him in a gesture that said: be calm, wait.

He watched Song Zhiyu say something in Luowei’s ear. Then Luowei’s color suddenly changed, and she cried out involuntarily: “What did you say?”

Song Zhiyu clapped a hand over her mouth and said another sentence. Luowei was still agitated and asked: “Where?”

After hearing the answer, she no longer wished to say another word to Song Zhiyu. She did not spare a glance for him or the Zhuque guards either, and swept her sleeve to leave. After a few steps she stopped, said first “I will not thank you,” and then: “In your next life, if you still have this temperament, I fear you and I will still be unable to be friends.”

Song Zhiyu gave a cold laugh, yet a single tear fell: “Who would want to be your friend?”

Ye Tingyan had intended to leave with Luowei, but Song Lan’s instructions were not yet complete; he had no choice but to dispatch several Zhuque guards to escort Luowei back to the palace and remain behind himself.

Someone brought the imperially granted poisoned wine and set it beside the broken-stringed qin.

The golden wine vessel was set with many gems; one would never have guessed it was a deadly poison, only found it extraordinarily beautiful — like a fine wine. Song Zhiyu’s gaze passed over it and she asked with a faint smile: “It is said that in the beginning, poisoned wine was made from the feathers of the poisonous jing bird — virulently toxic, causing the organs to rupture and death to be agonizing. I wonder whether the wine His Majesty bestows today still carries such a potency?”

Knowing he still had questions to ask, the others still did not step forward but withdrew even from the princess’s small courtyard. Ye Tingyan lifted the wine vessel, poured a cup, and said mildly: “The jing bird is hard to come by these days — the name is merely borrowed now.”

Song Zhiyu raised an eyebrow; the corner of her lips gave an involuntary twitch: “Is that so? Yet I do not believe it.”

Ye Tingyan finished pouring and held the cup in his hand without handing it to her. After hesitating for a long while, he finally opened his mouth and said slowly: “Ningle — let me ask you one question. If Song Lan had not held your mother over you as a threat, would you still have written that poem, the ‘Lament for the Jintian Guard’?”

He addressed her as “Ningle” and openly called him “Song Lan” by name — this gave Song Zhiyu a start: “What did you say?”

Ye Tingyan turned the gilded cup in his fingers without raising his eyes: “Sensible, sensible — when your mother was elevated to the title of Dowager Consort, was not her honorific ‘Zhi’an’ — ‘knowing one’s place and finding peace’? Though you were competitive and proud, you never cared to involve yourself in idle affairs. I will ask you once more: if he had not used your mother as a threat, would you still have written that poem?”

“These past years, you have kept your gates shut. Even the Empress’s personal invitation to the lotus flower banquet was declined — in truth it was not that you were unwilling, but that he had you under a form of house arrest, was it not? I truly want to know: if they were not so worried about you, why would they have let you know in the first place? And since you came to feel regret, why did you refuse to admit it to the last?”

He finished this all in one breath, but after a long while received no answer. He looked up in surprise — and was horrified to find Song Zhiyu’s mouth already full of blood, staining the blotched qin before her in dark patches.

He looked down at the gilded cup in his own hand that he had never passed over, and then finally understood the purpose of the attendant who had refused to leave earlier.

The attendant had come to bring her poison!

Song Zhiyu had feared the imperial “poisoned wine,” so she had sent her own inner attendant with a poison that would not be so agonizing. When she had said “I do not believe it,” she had bitten down and broken it open; the poison had already taken hold.

He changed color at last and hurried forward, supporting her shoulders and calling urgently: “Ningle!”

Song Zhiyu gripped his hand with all her remaining strength and managed to catch a breath, looking at him with disbelief: “You are… who are you? Im — imperial brother?”

Ye Tingyan pressed his fingers against her throat and struck a point at the back of her heart in rapid succession, trying to force out the poison she had swallowed — but it was useless. He held her in some bewilderment and said in a low voice: “Why did you take poison? I had already swapped out Song Lan’s poison today. Having you take the blame for this was only to get you out of the princess’s residence — when I gave you the ‘Burning Paulownia’ all those years ago, you said you truly wished you could go to Xuzhou yourself and learn the qin from Master Zhengshuo, that you would not mind giving up the title of princess. And your mother…”

“Ha ha ha ha ha,” hearing his words, Song Zhiyu finally understood. She was stunned for a moment, then laughed with great difficulty, the blood in her mouth accumulating as she spoke and staining his sleeve red. “Even Su Xu knows — carrying those one thousand two hundred and forty-one lives on my back, I am not able to go on living. Second brother… second brother! You came back to exact vengeance, did you not — how are you still this soft-hearted!”

Her breath was growing weaker and weaker; even her gaze was beginning to scatter. Ye Tingyan finally could not hold the gilded cup steady; his hand trembled and he let it fall, sending it splashing into the pool beside them: “You are still my blood —”

“Don’t be foolish — it was we who never understood back then. Born into the imperial house, this bond of siblings… only you took it as real,” Song Zhiyu shook her head again and again, then seemed to recall something; her eyes went wide and she said in disjointed fragments: “Second brother… I gave it to Su Xu — do you know, Su Xu already knew, she has not, has not…”

From a distant mountain came a solitary, resonant note from a qin. Whether because this place was less warm than the palace, or for some other reason, the lotus flowers in the pond had still not opened; the wind blew across the heavy buds, causing them to sway in every direction.

Her breath was already gone. She lowered her hand in regret, and in the end still did not say what she had meant to say.

What was it you wanted to tell me?

Ye Tingyan walked out of the princess’s garden, his spirit hollowed out. The Zhuque guards who had waited so long did not ask anything further; they went inside to attend to the princess’s body. Only Yuanming saw that his expression was wrong and climbed into the carriage with him.

“My lord — is there anything amiss in the plan?”

No answer came. Yuanming raised his head and saw Ye Tingyan staring blankly at his own hands.

Song Zhiyu’s blood had only splattered onto his sleeve; these two hands were unstained by a single drop.

Yet Ye Tingyan looked down at them, and the longer he looked, the more they struck him with horror — pale hands, the color in them faint; long and elegant, they had held weapons of state, had held the hands of the one he loved, had felt the cold sweat of a blood relative’s palm — and still they appeared clean.

Only he could trace the hidden, malevolent color lurking beneath the crisscross lines of his palms and the blue-green veins running with blood.

A voice came back from the Eastern Mountain, saying “how can this still be called a way,” saying “I would not do it because I scorn to.”

The voices tangled and overlapped. He closed his eyes in an effort to still his mind, but in the darkness he saw Song Lan gripping a short blade and plunging it into his chest — the scene flickered and the blade became a vermilion brush; he held that brush and slowly wrote a line in an official document: “The palace attendant’s testimony names Princess Imperial Ningle Song Zhiyu as the instigator behind the attack on the Empress — this servant has presented all evidence in full.”

Yuanming saw that he gave no answer after a long while, and was inwardly unsettled. He was about to ask again when he heard Ye Tingyan murmur to himself: “Yes — and I, and he, are not so different from each other…”

He leaned against the inner wall of the carriage and thought of Lu Heng, thought of Lin Zhao. Even though he had submitted a memorial to preserve the three clans of the Lin family, how many had been lost in the reckoning of it all — and that was not even something that could be counted to the end.

Then he thought of that lightless month in prison, of the half-life that had been destroyed. Hatred and bewilderment intertwined; at this moment he could find no place to set them down.

At last all sound suddenly vanished. In a daze, he seemed to return to the night long ago when Ye San had led the elite soldiers who risked their lives to rescue him from the inner palace. He had been leaning against the wall of a carriage just like this — his whole body wounded, both eyes sightless, the carriage passing through a place loud with crowds, and he had heard people outside reciting a poem in chorus, every word falling into his ears, yet unable to understand what any of them meant.

Lament the Golden Sky — from the deep dark of the underworld emerges the green ox spirit, calling back the soul straight up to the blue vault of Heaven.

Whose soul were you calling back? Sending whom up to those turquoise clouds?

In the fourth year of Jinghe, the day before the Dragon Boat Festival, Princess Imperial Ningle Song Zhiyu died of illness at her residence. The news of her death was kept secret and only released in the autumn.

The princess had loved literature from a young age and her personality had been brilliant and flamboyant. Afterward, for reasons no one knew, she shut her doors and declined all company, never marrying throughout her life. People speculated that perhaps because the most famous poem of her life had given rise to a bloody catastrophe, the princess had been overwhelmed with guilt and ultimately died of melancholy.

But all such speculation eventually drifted away like clouds, sinking into the single brief character of “died” in the official histories.

*

The third year of the Tianshou reign. The New Year had just passed; the first month was still bitter cold, with sparse stars and a faint moon.

The Emperor’s illness had lingered for more than a month. Even the director of the Imperial Medical Academy’s senior master had been summoned back, yet showed little sign of improvement.

The day before the Lantern Festival, Song Ling, leading all the imperial sons and daughters in tending the sickbed, submitted a request to cancel the grand riverbank ceremony for this year and replace it with a prayer-and-blessing rite.

The chief minister spoke against it, saying rites could not be abandoned.

The Emperor deliberated for some time and still insisted that the Crown Prince perform the ceremony in his stead. His meaning was clear to all — the Emperor had accepted his own decline and approaching death, and had begun preparing the ground for the new Emperor’s ascension.

Song Ling returned in ceremonial dress to bid a formal farewell; the imperial procession wound out from Qianfang Hall. Song Zhiyu knelt with the rest and cried out “Long live Your Majesty!”

She felt little surprise at any of it. Song Ling had been invested as Crown Prince at twelve and was by every right heaven’s favored son — not only did he have fine renown and the hearts of the people, he also looked after his brothers and sisters with great care. In the inner court, not one person had ever harbored a thought of contesting him for the succession.

It was only the Crown Princess Consort who was somewhat disagreeable — Su Luowei had known her since childhood and was one of the few aristocratic young women at court who refused to yield to her; later, when Counselor Gan entered the palace, the two of them had competed in writing and calligraphy, and she had ended up losing, and thus had a grudge with her.

But speaking of it now, these grudges had all been the competitive spirit of young girls. Song Zhiyu, writing at home, had even thought with a trace of resentment that Luowei would probably make a fine enough empress, while she herself would certainly never have the splendid chance of being an empress — she could only accept Counselor Gan’s choice in resignation.

How galling that was.

After Song Ling left the palace, the chief minister and several senior officials of the Council of State came to pay their New Year respects, then left the palace one by one. The Emperor was ill and the family New Year’s Eve banquet could not be held; the imperial sons and daughters were all sent away as well.

Before leaving, the Emperor’s spirits had somehow rallied a little; he leaned against the bedside and spoke kindly to all, saying it was the best of festivals, why confine themselves to the palace?

In the end only the sixth prince and the seventh prince, who had not yet established their own residences, insisted on staying.

Song Zhiyu had also wanted to stay; but the Emperor smiled and said to her: “We recall that Ningle loves guessing lantern riddles at the Lantern Festival — last year she solved every riddle on Walan Street. This year she must not disappoint.”

Before she boarded her sedan to leave the palace, she went up to Yanzhu Tower to burn an incense stick.

Her intention was only to burn a single stick of incense; yet kneeling before the hall full of spirit tablets, grief suddenly welled up from within — Father had been so loving; how could Heaven have been so unkind? If the gods and buddhas could let her take his place, she would do so willingly.

She wept until at last she drifted into exhausted sleep.

After that, her memories grew very blurry. Half-asleep and half-awake, she seemed to hear a rustling sound in her ear — a strange sound, like many people, yet also like just one. In the empty hall there was the echo of winter snow, and a faint trace of the smell of blood.

The smell of blood?

She woke from the confusion and looked around blearily to see an inner attendant rushing toward her in a panic, crying: “The Crown Prince has been attacked!”

Only then did Song Zhiyu realize she had fallen asleep on the open floor of Yanzhu Tower, all propriety gone, sprawled on the ice-cold ground, her hair in disarray.

For a full month after the Thorn of the Tang Case, she had lived in that bewilderment and daze — Biandu had nearly erupted into rebellion; Song Lan had ascended the throne; Luowei had been established as Empress; the culprits behind the Thorn of the Tang Case had been identified — the fifth prince had conspired with the killers to take the succession and murdered her second brother. How could anything so absurd exist in the world? She could not bring herself to believe it, refused to believe it, and played the piece “The Glory of the棠棣Blossoms” in her rooms over and over.

And at the same time, that strange sound appeared again and again in her nightmares. Later she could close her eyes and summon up Yanzhu Tower on the night of the Lantern Festival — she had sat on the floor, heard the rustling sound, and after a long while finally understood — she had been sprawled on the ground that night, and the sound she heard had come from beneath the floor!

But why would there be sound from beneath the floor of Yanzhu Tower?

Song Zhiyu sensed something not quite right, and so on a night when she was staying in the palace, she used the pretext of praying for blessings, dismissed her attendants, and felt her way around Yanzhu Tower for a long while on her own.

Yet she had never in her wildest dreams imagined that she would find no entrance to whatever lay beneath — only to come upon Song Lan, his single hand stained with blood.

At that moment she had just found the area at the rear of Yanzhu Tower that was screened off for repairs when Song Lan appeared before her like a ghost. Since his enthronement, Song Zhiyu had paid her respects to him many times, but never in her life had she seen this expression on her sixth younger brother — who had always kept his head low in her presence — this cold, contemplative, amused look.

The wind shifted; she was certain she had caught that familiar smell of blood, and also heard the faint sounds of moaning.

Attendants stepped forward and seized her arms. In the grip of tremendous fear, Song Zhiyu heard Song Lan sigh quietly: “Imperial sister — however shall we deal with this?”

Song Zhiyu bit through her tongue; her mouth flooded with the taste of blood: “What place is this — you… you…”

Song Lan acted as though he had not heard her, frowned and thought for a long while, then spoke with great cheer: “Oh right, imperial sister — you still have a mother living in the palace, do you not? When We ascended the throne, We even granted her an honorific title — Dowager Consort Zhi’an — ‘knowing one’s place and finding peace.’ Imperial sister should be like mother — knowing what is sensible.”

Song Zhiyu only then slowly grasped his meaning. For a moment she could not say a word and only managed: “I — I have seen nothing!”

Song Lan still paid no mind to what she said, only murmuring to himself: “Killing you right now seems a bit difficult to manage… hmm, oh right, imperial sister, you are rather good at writing poetry, are you not? We have suddenly thought of an amusing idea.”

He lifted his head with a smile: “Imperial sister seems to also be at odds with elder sister — even better. You say you have seen nothing — then write a poem for Us to prove it.”

Song Zhiyu was not unaware of Song Lan’s intentions — once that poem appeared, blood would flow, and he meant to put her and himself on the same boat.

Yet she had no other choice. After the poem was done, Song Lan sent her back to the princess’s residence, which amounted to being kept under confinement. She knew that sooner or later, Song Lan would find a pretext to take her life.

At least by then, meeting her end willingly, she would probably not drag down her mother’s consort title.

After the princess’s residence was locked up, Song Zhiyu kept many inner attendants; fortunately Song Lan had a thousand things to attend to and could not spare time for her.

Shu Kang had come; she refused to see her. Luowei’s visiting card had been tossed into the small pool at her side.

When Song Lan finally thought to have her killed, perhaps she could secure the chance to see an old acquaintance.

She only hoped that what she knew might be of some use to that old acquaintance.

Though Song Zhiyu was proud and unyielding, what people did not know was that she was in truth even more afraid of pain than Shu Kang. After holding her breath with dread through all this time, when she bit down on the poison tablet between her teeth, she had actually managed to say to herself with calm composure — it was all right; compared to the poisoned wine Song Lan would have bestowed, this would not be so agonizing.

She had not imagined then that her second brother could come back from the dead, and had even seen through her predicament with such ease — here she thought of Su Luowei again. This person, though she had grown eight hundred new turns of thought that she had not possessed before, was still that same single-minded creature — stubbornly believing that wrong actions must carry a price, that even when driven to one’s utmost extremity, malice born in the heart is still no excuse, no matter how it is rationalized.

Thinking of this now, she found it almost laughable: her innermost heart, after all, held the same conviction. Half a lifetime facing each other — and here at the threshold of death, she had turned her enemy into a kindred spirit.

And second brother — how are you still this soft-hearted? Have you forgotten that poem?

— On the road of Xianyang we saw you off on your way — one departure, vanishing into the boundless distance, a thousand years.

After ten thousand years and the turning of the stars — if Heaven and humankind still have feeling, can we still meet?

May the orchid-grass then not wither; may the water hold no white silk left in offering.

*

Zhang Suwu pushed open the heavy paulownia-wood doors of Qionghua Hall and delivered to the Empress the news of the princess’s death.

The Empress sat at her table, wiping a blunted arrow in her hand.

He saw the Empress murmur to herself in the half-light, a smile on her lips, and yet tears suddenly slid past — shattering her pretense: “In my dream I was a bird soaring through the heavens; in my dream I was a fish sinking to the depths [1] — whether I am good or bad, who I truly am — even I cannot say.”

Zhang Suwu did not understand these words, but he heard the Empress snap the arrow in her hand and give a bitter laugh: “This debt of vengeance — the more it is repaid, the more it grows…”