After Prince Shou returned home, Li Weifeng spent a day working up his nerve, and the following day gathered his courage and went to Xie Family Village once more.
That day he was dressed in splendid robes, and did not squat down as he usually did. He stood on the ridge of the field and said, “I simply wanted to come and ask you — what is it that you want? Whatever it is, I will do everything in my power to give it to you.”
Xie Baozhu was taken aback. “There isn’t anything in particular I want,” she said.
Li Weifeng didn’t believe her. “Every living person wants something. It’s impossible for you to want nothing.”
“I truly want for nothing,” Xie Baozhu said, and went on hoeing her field.
Li Weifeng asked three times. Each time, Xie Baozhu shook her head.
Li Weifeng’s spirit flagged, and he finally sank back down into a squat. “If you don’t tell me, how am I to know what you want?”
Xie Baozhu said slowly, “Because I genuinely have nothing I want. Given my constitution, I must be careful with what I eat. Good clothes can’t be worn out in the fields. When I feel restless, I can play the qin myself, or play a game of chess with one hand against the other. Those entertainers are too loud and noisy for me — I find them tiresome. You see, my days are already very good. I have nothing more to wish for.”
Li Weifeng’s spirits sank. “But I truly want you to be my wife. I want to take you to see Hexi. You’ve never seen the Gobi or the grasslands while living in Yunjing, have you? I want to show you all of it.”
Xie Baozhu’s hoe suddenly paused.
Li Weifeng had been speaking with a downcast heart, but the corner of his eye caught that pause in an instant.
His own voice paused along with it.
“The clouds in Hexi hang so low,” Li Weifeng said, his gaze fixed on the hoe that had visibly slowed, pushing onward on pure sharp animal instinct. “Vast, flat plains — if you stand on high ground and look out, the river looks like a silver sash tossed on the ground, glinting in the light, incredibly beautiful.”
“Travel further west, and you reach the Gobi. You can’t imagine it — so much sand piled together, one dune after another as far as the eye can see, without end.”
“When the wind blows, the dunes shift and change shape; there’s simply no way to tell direction. Without knowing how to navigate by the stars, you’ll get lost the moment you enter. Without water, you won’t last three or four days before dying of thirst.”
“But I’m not afraid — I know how to read the stars to find my way. I can also locate water sources. When we pass through the Gobi, we often put a pot lid under our backsides and slide down the face of a dune — fast as flying, incredibly thrilling and fun,” he said.
His eyes never left that hoe.
The hoe grew slower and slower, and finally stopped altogether.
Xie Baozhu’s constitution was frail. Back when Li Weifeng had brought her into the palace, walking even a few extra steps would make her stop and catch her breath. Over these years her health had visibly improved compared to before, but in Li Weifeng’s mind she remained someone who could be toppled by a breath of wind. Exceptionally delicate. Exceptionally fragile.
Even her daily range of movement spanned no more than the distance from her front door to the edge of the field.
Li Weifeng would never have imagined it, not even in a dream — that this Xie Baozhu of all people desired nothing less than a vast sky and boundless earth.
“And then there’s the grasslands — also endless. Looking out into the distance, it feels as if you could reach out and touch the clouds. How does that poem go? ‘The sky is vast, the wilderness boundless’ — that’s exactly how it is.”
“The sky is incomparably wide, the earth incomparably broad. Just standing there looking at it, you feel the breath in your chest expand and scatter — an extraordinary sense of release.”
“I so dearly want to take you there. I want to teach you to ride. Even if you can’t, it doesn’t matter — I’ll hold you while we ride. Galloping at full speed, in summer when the grass grows past your legs, everything you breathe in is the scent of flowers.”
“Tiger.” Li Weifeng stood up. “I want to take you to Hexi. I want you to live that kind of life.”
Xie Baozhu stood leaning on her hoe, her beautiful eyes fixed on Li Weifeng.
Li Weifeng’s heart was hammering. His mouth was dry. His body was rigid as iron. He could feel that an important moment in his life had arrived, and his palms broke out in sweat from the tension.
After a long silence, Xie Baozhu said, “I cannot bear children.”
It was like fireworks exploding inside his skull. Li Weifeng could barely believe what he was hearing.
Seized by an immense joy, his face flushed with elation, and he spoke in a rush of incoherent words: “No children! No children!”
Xie Baozhu continued, “The one who bears your children — I will choose.”
Li Weifeng said, “As you say!”
Xie Baozhu added, “You are not allowed to confine me to the inner quarters.”
Li Weifeng said, “My word, once given, cannot be taken back — even four horses cannot chase it down!”
“Very well,” Xie Baozhu said. “Go and find a matchmaker to come with a proposal.”
Li Weifeng gave an eager “yes!” and turned to go running off, when Xie Baozhu called out again, “Li Ziyi.”
Li Weifeng immediately turned back around, his heart full of dread, terribly afraid that Xie Baozhu was going back on her word.
Xie Baozhu looked at him, then said, “Baozhu.”
Li Weifeng didn’t follow. “Pardon?”
“My name,” Xie Baozhu said. “My name is Xie Baozhu.”
It was Li Gu who told Xie Yuzhang the news that Xie Baozhu and Li Weifeng were to be married. He practically flew into Danyang Palace on wings.
“You have no idea how happy Seventh Brother is!” In truth, his own happiness was no less than Li Weifeng’s — second only to the joy of his own wedding to Xie Yuzhang.
Xie Yuzhang felt a surge of emotion she could not put into words. “I truly never imagined this day would come,” she said.
Xie Baozhu had spent her life recuperating from illness; from childhood she had been kept inside by the consort of Prince Shou, raised until a kind of profound coolness had settled into her very bones — in this regard she bore a faint resemblance to Lin Fei. Xie Yuzhang had not expected that Li Weifeng would ever truly find a way to move her heart.
“How could you not have imagined it?” Li Gu said happily. “Seventh Brother is such a fine man!”
Xie Yuzhang laughed despite herself. “Whatever the case, as long as Elder Sister is happy.”
Li Gu called for a palace attendant to warm some wine and pulled Xie Yuzhang to sit in his lap. “Come drink a cup with me!”
After several rounds of wine, Li Gu said, “Yuzhang, I am so happy!”
Xie Yuzhang said, “I know — you and Seventh Brother have always been the closest.”
Li Gu buried his face in her chest. “If Seventh Brother had just left like this, it would have grieved me for the rest of my life. Thank goodness your elder sister agreed to marry him. You don’t know — today Seventh Brother ran into the Purple Morning Hall, and when the attending official of communication saw him, he tried to write him up for it. Seventh Brother grabbed the official and kissed him on the cheek, which so startled the man that he fled. Just look at how happy he was.”
Xie Yuzhang laughed again, and lightly pinched his earlobe. Speaking softly, she said, “Being known and cherished by someone you love — of course that is the greatest happiness.”
Li Gu’s arms tightened around her. “And what about you?”
Xie Yuzhang said, “What do you think?”
Li Gu lifted his head and studied Xie Yuzhang’s face. Her brows were soft and at ease, her gaze luminous, the corners of her red lips holding a smile.
She was happy.
Xie Yuzhang reached out and pinched both of his cheeks. “You!”
Li Gu took hold of her hands and drew them to his lips.
Xie Yuzhang recalled that night at the princess’s residence — Li Gu coming to the side of her bed in the middle of the night, kissing the back of her hand over and over with careful tenderness…
Xie Yuzhang gave her hand a small wave, and the handmaids withdrew knowingly.
Li Gu gazed at her. Xie Yuzhang climbed over to straddle him and leaned down to kiss him slowly and intently.
The handmaids waited outside the partition screen for a long while, hearing from within the sounds of a couch being pushed aside and cups and dishes tumbling and shattering. Interspersed throughout were the Emperor’s low laughter and the Empress’s playful complaints.
There would be quite a cleanup to attend to afterward — the handmaids could only smile and sigh.
Li Weifeng had originally planned to leave for Hexi after the New Year, but on account of the wedding, he pushed it back to the second month.
It was customary to invite an elder of esteemed reputation or a superior to serve as matchmaker. Li Weifeng invited Yang Changyuan, the Empress’s maternal uncle and Attendant to the Palace Secretariat, and the father of Yang Huaishen.
The six rites of marriage were completed one by one in proper order. On the day of the wedding procession, Li Weifeng went to Xie Family Village and brought Xie Baozhu home to the Marquis of Beirong’s residence.
In other households, the bride was first welcomed through the doors, and only then was a memorial submitted requesting a formal title for her. At the Marquis of Beirong’s residence, the phoenix coronet and ceremonial robes, along with the patent of nobility, were already waiting for her before she had even stepped inside.
That the former dynasty’s princess had become Empress made it seem hardly surprising that the former dynasty’s commandery princess would become a Marquis’s wife. Everyone simply envied Xie Baozhu her good fortune.
Of course there were those who were envious in a more bitter sense — people who said she had married a heartless man who had driven his first wife to her death, and wondered what kind of fate awaited her. Such envious words mostly came from families who had put forward proposals to Li Weifeng after Zhang Fen’s death and been turned down. No need to take it to heart; it deserved nothing more than a smile.
Even so, this highly favored man at the Emperor’s side held a remarkably simple wedding — there was not even a great banquet to receive guests.
Simple, however, did not mean shabby. Every guest who came to witness the ceremony was a person of distinguished standing. Of the Five Marquises of Hexi, only four remained now. All three of the other Marquises came for Li Weifeng’s wedding; even Jiang Jingye delayed his own departure to attend. The Minister of Finance Chen Liangzhi, the Grand Commander of the Imperial Guard Hu Jin, and others were present as well.
Naturally, the most distinguished of those witnessing the ceremony were the Emperor and Empress, dressed in everyday court clothes.
Attendant Yang also came to observe. He was a man of great discernment — he drank a modest two cups and then took his leave, yielding the floor to these men of Hexi; he left Yang Huaishen behind, for Yang Huaishen could at least be counted as half a man of Hexi.
In the inner quarters, Xie Yuzhang had already had people prepare a sobering soup kept warm and waiting, and she said to Xie Baozhu, “Make sure he drinks it. Let him sober up fully before he comes in. Don’t let him be rash.”
Xie Baozhu, composed as ever, said, “He knows his limits.”
Xie Baozhu had never experienced such things, and Xie Yuzhang could not quite find the words — once a man got started in such matters, where was there any sense of limits left to speak of?
Li Weifeng looked to be about the same build as Li Gu, but Xie Baozhu did not have Xie Yuzhang’s healthy constitution, which truly worried Xie Yuzhang.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, a handmaid came in to relay a message: “The Marquis says please let Madam rest first. He intends to drink tonight and fears that if he has too much, he will disturb Madam’s sleep, so he will not be coming in.”
“He has some consideration after all,” Xie Yuzhang said, exhaling in great relief.
She then called for a handmaid to help Xie Baozhu remove her hairpins and ornaments.
Xie Baozhu changed her clothes, and the two sisters sat together chatting at leisure. Since Xie Yuzhang had entered the palace as Empress, there had been little opportunity for them to meet. After Xie Baozhu followed Li Weifeng north, they would likely never see each other again for the rest of their lives.
She took Xie Yuzhang’s hand and asked, “Zhuzhu, are there any signs that you might be with child?”
Xie Yuzhang said, “None.”
Xie Baozhu did her best not to let her brow furrow, not wanting to add to Xie Yuzhang’s distress. But how could Xie Yuzhang not understand what she was thinking? She smiled and took hold of Xie Baozhu’s hand. “Elder Sister, please don’t worry.”
Xie Baozhu asked, “Have you had the imperial physicians examine you?”
Xie Yuzhang said, “Every month when the imperial physicians come to take my pulse, they all say my health is perfectly sound.”
Then it was a matter of fate. Some couples were perfectly healthy and yet might go ten years without conceiving. Xie Baozhu inwardly sighed.
She said, “Have you considered introducing some new beauties to His Majesty, to continue the imperial line?”
Xie Yuzhang said, “That depends on him. If he wishes to hold a selection of consorts, can I truly stop him? There has never been a case of an Empress blocking an Emperor from making his selection.”
Xie Baozhu was taken aback, for what Xie Yuzhang’s words implied was that she had no desire for Li Gu to hold such a selection.
Steadying herself, she said, “Zhuzhu, I have not seen you in so long, and I feel as though you have returned to the way you were in your younger years.”
Xie Yuzhang smiled. “Elder Sister wants me to admit I’m being willful, doesn’t she?”
Xie Baozhu said, “You see it clearly yourself. If you bear no son, the maternal families of the imperial princes will grow too powerful, and in time they will all become threats to you. You know perfectly well what you ought to do.”
Xie Yuzhang said, “The ‘in time’ that Elder Sister speaks of first assumes that His Majesty will depart before me, and is planning ahead for my future years as Empress Dowager. But how can Elder Sister be certain that I will be the one to leave last? Perhaps all my careful scheming and planning will turn out to be entirely unnecessary in the end?”
Xie Baozhu was lost for words.
“Elder Sister,” Xie Yuzhang said, holding her hand, “you, I, and A’Fei — we have all grown far too accustomed to anticipating trouble before it arrives, to thinking three steps ahead with every move. Your circumstances are somewhat better than mine or A’Fei’s; unlike us, you were never forced to advance one careful step at a time, never truly able to live for ‘right now.'”
“Elder Sister, I have found him in this life, and you have no idea how full of joy my heart is.”
“Even if the future holds hardship, in this moment, I want to be his wife — not the Empress.”