The last day of the first month. Night.
The lights in the imperial traveling palace in Jiaosong County were sparse and dim.
This traveling palace had been built upon the foundation of an ancient temple. Because the time had been short, much of the original temple’s appearance had been retained; only interior furnishings and decorations had been added, and the garden rocks and forest greenery rearranged. It resembled more a secluded retreat set aside for the nobility than anything else.
In the principal position at the northwest of the traveling palace stood a towering, imposing main hall, inside which was enshrined the divine deity Daizhu of legend — the guardian of the five souls and five ghosts.
In the darkness, the enormous deity’s eyes radiated a soft and gentle glow; the stone from which they had been carved was shot through with night-luminescent jade.
At the foot of the deity’s dais, the young Emperor came walking slowly in, still carrying the outdoor chill that had not yet dissipated from his robes.
He looked at the deity’s face — placid to the point of no expression — and lifted the brocade cover that had been spread across the offering table.
Beneath the brocade was a filigree openwork golden sphere resting in a nanmu tray. Peering into it, one could see layer upon layer of interior structure, through which filtered a hint of translucent green.
Beside the tray, a hand warmer that had gone cold gave off a faintly bitter citron fragrance — not unlike the scent that clung to the man himself.
He was just reaching out to take the hand warmer when footsteps sounded behind him.
Su Wei drew his sleeve back and turned to look at his chamberlain.
Dan Jiangfei offered a brief bow, then dismissed the palace attendant keeping watch at the hall’s entrance and stepped forward to carefully remove the heavy ceremonial crown from the Emperor’s head.
“Your Majesty, Lieutenant Ding just reported that the person has returned to her quarters — Your Majesty may set your mind at ease.”
Dan Jiangfei kept his voice low, clearly intending it for the man before him alone.
Su Wei reclined lightly against the cushioned couch and, upon hearing this, gave a soft sound of acknowledgment to indicate he had understood.
Dan Jiangfei was about to place the ceremonial crown back into the lacquered box the Ministry of Rites had prepared, when from the corner of his eye he caught sight of the hand warmer on the offering table — its flame long since extinguished. His expression shifted.
“Your Majesty did not bring the hand warmer just now?”
The Emperor glanced at the hand warmer, his expression unchanged. “It was probably left behind after the change of clothes.”
Dan Jiangfei stepped forward to put the hand warmer away, his tone self-reproachful. “After all, this is not the palace — one ends up doing things improperly. The oversight was mine in the arrangements. I ask Your Majesty to punish me.”
“It’s only a hand warmer. What is there to punish you for?”
Dan Jiangfei did not speak for a moment.
The man before him, now that the ceremonial crown had been removed, revealed his hair gathered high in a dark knot. His slender neck emerged from the collar, and every vertebra of his spine was clearly visible. On the fair skin of his neck was a ring of red marks pressed into it by the weight of the heavy headgear.
With a sigh, the chamberlain drew a small vial of medicine from his sleeve and applied it to those red marks.
“Why does Your Majesty always pay so little attention to your own health? The weather is still cold, the ceremony has so many steps — Your Majesty could have let me fill in on your behalf.”
The translucent cream was spread across the skin by a fingertip, and gradually a penetrating warmth began to emerge. Su Wei half-closed his eyes, and for the first time his expression took on a trace of softness.
“Ah Fei’s resemblance to me is now something like seven or eight parts. Anyone who did not look closely would be fooled — even Royal Uncle. Only this ceremony, after all, is conducted in full view of the public, and the swords must be bestowed by hand. If those old officials on the platform today were to find out, I do not know what they would make of it in their imaginations afterward.”
Dan Jiangfei felt a flicker of amusement. “Wasn’t it the same in previous years? I never saw Your Majesty worry about these things before—”
The words had barely left his mouth before he realized they were ill-advised. He hastened to apologize: “This servant spoke out of turn — please do not hold it against me, Your Majesty.”
The Emperor clearly had no intention of punishing him, and said only mildly: “If it were previous years, it would not matter. This year is different.”
His slender fingers passed slowly over the prayer beads one by one, as if his thoughts were elsewhere.
The chamberlain’s smooth and unassuming eyes did not lift, but he could tell that the man before him did not seem to have his mind here.
“Does Your Majesty have something on your mind?”
Su Wei pointed toward the exquisitely carved lacquered box on the small table nearby, which held an assortment of dried fruits and candied snacks in various colors.
“Why is there no almond in here?”
Dan Jiangfei startled slightly, somewhat caught off guard by this answer. He immediately replied: “This servant will have some prepared right away.”
The Emperor’s palm turned over, and a shriveled, dried-out thing appeared in it.
“This kind.”
Dan Jiangfei leaned closer before he could make out what it was — a completely desiccated, wrinkled apricot pit.
“This is a wild apricot seed. It would be difficult to find in the palace. This servant could have people go look at the east market in the city—”
The man paused, then tucked the dried apricot pit back into his sleeve.
“Never mind. Such a small thing is not worth the trouble.”
After this exchange, Dan Jiangfei felt all the more certain in his assessment.
He moved to one side, poked out the burned-through ash from the hand warmer, added some calming incense, and carefully lit it.
“The hour is not early. Your Majesty has been exhausted all day — you ought to rest.”
The Emperor gazed at the quietly burning incense burner, then suddenly rose from the cushioned couch.
“I do not yet want to sleep, but I find myself somewhat at loose ends.”
Dan Jiangfei startled again.
He had been serving the man before him since the age of nine, and as long as they were within the palace walls, he was the Emperor’s shadow.
Inseparable as he was, he had never heard this composed person complain of being at loose ends.
In the midst of his momentary daze, Su Wei had already made up his mind on what had been circling in his thoughts.
“How far is the Qinghuai Marquis’s guest lodge from the traveling palace?”
Dan Jiangfei suppressed that strange feeling pressing at his heart. “By carriage, approximately the time it takes to burn one incense stick.”
Su Wei nodded, then said languidly: “Send someone to the Qinghuai Marquis’s lodge. Have the Right General come personally to offer an apology.”
Dan Jiangfei responded with his usual composure, but could not help asking carefully: “In the middle of the night like this, if the Qinghuai Marquis asks, the charge would be—?”
“Did she not lose the honorary sword I bestowed on her during the ceremony? By rights she should be executed. As for the manner of execution—” the man paused with theatrical deliberation, “—I need to think about it carefully.”
Dan Jiangfei let out a quiet breath of relief, now finally certain this errand was not going to cost him his life.
Yet turning to see the expression on the man’s face, his heart became somewhat unsettled once again.
Half an hour later, in the passageway outside the side gate of the traveling palace, Xiao Nanhui climbed down from Jixiang’s back with a yawn, and immediately spotted the young chamberlain standing in the night, holding a lantern.
She recognized him as the Supervisor Dan she had seen before when entering the palace. She felt a moment of warmth, but for some reason he seemed unusually stern and aloof today; after he bowed in greeting, she could only stand in awkward silence.
Although she had only played a supporting role in the day’s ceremony, she had worn herself out all the same. Following the earlier ordeal, she had wanted to drag Ding Weixiang along to look further into the whereabouts of that “Zou Sifang,” but given that before and after the incident there had been upward of ten thousand people gathered within a radius of a hundred miles around the platform and the city, even if the garrison was mobilized to investigate them one by one, there was no way to have a definitive answer in a short time. Weighing it all, she had no choice but to let the matter rest for now, hand the tedious work back to Ding Weixiang, and only remind him to be sure to inform her if anything new came to light.
When she returned to the guest lodge, she had been very careful about everything, afraid that Xiao Zhun would take her to task for having waded into this murky business. But in the end she found that he had not returned to his quarters.
Just as she was lying on the bed tossing and turning, a messenger arrived from the traveling palace, summoning her to come and “offer an apology.”
This was the first time Xiao Nanhui had been summoned in the middle of the night to offer an apology; she suspected that among all the court officials of Tiancheng, it was perhaps even a first for anyone. What made matters worse was that Xiao Zhun was nowhere at hand, so she could not even stall for time. She had no choice but to comply obediently.
Dan Jiangfei walked briskly ahead, and beyond a few brief words of greeting when they met, he truly did not say another word. This made Xiao Nanhui feel all the more ill at ease.
She could not help but wonder: she had, after all, saved the Emperor’s life during the ceremony today. Could it be that this dark-minded ruler was still nursing a grudge over the Ling’xi affair and was now looking for an excuse to silence her?
The more she thought, the more her feet stumbled.
Inside the traveling palace on the night of the Day of Obscurity, no candles or flames were permitted. The occasional palace attendant and chamberlain who moved about all cupped a lantern of fireflies in their sleeves — cold lights, like ghost-fire — only making the surrounding atmosphere seem all the more gloomy and ominous.
They turned several more corners, and the surroundings grew increasingly quiet. The chamberlain’s footsteps became even lighter.
Xiao Nanhui raised her head slightly and found she was already standing before a vast and imposing shrine hall.
Though she had been to many a deep mountain and ancient forest, she had not entered many temples. The one she most frequented was just that small shrine at Yongye Temple. The style and form of this deity hall before her was unlike anything she had ever seen, clearly not a style that had been fashionable in the past hundred years. Whatever was enshrined within was likely not a Buddha or a heavenly king and earthly mother, but some older, more ancient deity.
The chamberlain stood at the entrance, announced their arrival within, then gestured for her to follow quickly.
The moment she stepped into the hall, a warm, dry wave of air met her face.
In the center of the great hall stood an enormous carved bronze brazier, its jeweled cover inlaid with warming jade emitting faint wisps of smoke, its capacious belly full of glowing red charcoal. The heat the entire brazier gave off drove the cold to the outer edges of the hall, carving out a patch of warmth like springtime within the vast interior.
Apart from the bronze brazier, the most striking feature of the hall was the great deity statue at the far end. Around the statue stood perhaps a dozen black lacquered pillars, each requiring two or three people to encircle, soaring straight upward and disappearing into the darkness of the ceiling — giving one the peculiar feeling of an upward extension without end.
The hall had still no lit lamps. Apart from the glow of the brazier’s charcoal, the only light came from the glazed palace lanterns along either side of the entrance corridor. Inside those lanterns were still the cold light of fireflies — yet their form was not that of ordinary lantern casings, but the shape of enormous blossoms.
These flowers layered petal upon petal, their lower leaves curling gracefully, resembling some kind of orchid. But their hearts twisted and spiraled, like so many whirlpools blooming in the darkness.
Such flowers did not seem as though they could exist in the real world. Yet why did she feel she had seen them somewhere before?
Xiao Nanhui walked forward while gazing at those palace lanterns, completely failing to notice that the chamberlain had already stopped ten paces behind her.
“Does the Right General find these palace lanterns pleasing?”
The Emperor’s voice rang out without warning from the darkness. Xiao Nanhui startled and glanced about, and only then spotted the man beneath the deity’s dais.
He was still wearing the black ceremonial robe from the day’s ritual — nearly fused with the darkness around him.
Rumors had it that the Emperor disliked bright light. She had never believed it before. Now she was seeing it with her own eyes.
The suspicions from earlier resurfaced, and Xiao Nanhui was uneasy. She groped her way across the floor, knelt, and bowed in greeting.
“Your subject—” the words had just begun when she suddenly remembered she had come to offer an apology. She hastily corrected herself: “This guilty subject, Xiao Nanhui, comes specially to beg forgiveness. I implore Your Majesty to be magnanimous and grant me mercy.”
A long silence, and then that voice sounded again.
“Oh? And of what crime are you guilty?”
Xiao Nanhui felt a sudden stutter in her mind.
That was not right — was it not you who summoned me here? Have you not even decided what the charge is?!
But pitifully, she had not thought to ask the chamberlain while she still could, and now she could only rack her brains and search desperately through her thoughts, terrified of accidentally treading on the tiger’s tail. “I—I behaved improperly during the ceremony and broke the rules. I also failed to pursue the assassin. I have truly let down Your Majesty’s trust.”
Several sharp clanging sounds rang out.
Xiao Nanhui gave a start as well.
Several fragments of jade were thrown down before her — the remnants of the honorary sword she had hurled to strike the Libo Bell.
“You dared smash to pieces the gift I bestowed upon you. What crime does that merit?”
Xiao Nanhui stumbled again internally.
It was all this darkness — groping about and about, she had ended up grabbing the tiger’s tail after all.
“Your subject deserves ten thousand deaths — I beg Your Majesty to show forgiveness.”
Hmph — what crime had she committed?
If not for her hurling that honorary sword to sound the alarm, the top of your head might be currently enjoying the open-air breeze atop Changmi Platform right now.
“No matter how I punish you, the fact remains that this object is broken. How do you intend to make amends?”
Xiao Nanhui shifted on the ground, staring at those jade fragments ground to rubble, and drifted away for a moment.
This Emperor was truly insufferably idle — breaking it into pieces and then picking up every last shard, just to present her with evidence of her wrongdoing?!
No, no — a wise person does not suffer unnecessary loss. She absolutely could not meet her end here tonight.
She screwed her eyes shut, gritted her teeth, and in desperation forced out an improvisation:
“This guilty subject— this guilty subject will find a master craftsman, melt down the gold Your Majesty has bestowed, have the sword remounted in gold, and hang it in the place of the most auspicious feng shui in her home. She will kneel before it morning and night, and never dare forget it — to her dying breath—”
“Excellent. Rise.” A rarely-heard note of pleasure entered the Emperor’s voice, even his tone rising slightly. “I ask that the Right General keep well in mind the promise she has just made — otherwise it shall be treated as deceiving the sovereign, and dealt with accordingly.”
Xiao Nanhui rose to her feet in a daze, and suddenly felt as though something about the errand she had just made was not quite right.
The next moment, she raised her eyes and saw the filigree openwork golden sphere resting on the offering table — and that feeling grew considerably stronger.
She did not recognize the intricate and elaborate object itself, but she recognized the sliver of clear, translucent jade-green visible within it.
It was a green that had no second like it anywhere in the world. She had seen it once and could not forget it.
“This— is this not the one that was— at the ceremony—”
Was what was inside that golden sphere not the very imperial seal — the one she had climbed and scrambled like a monkey for, then soaked in mud for an entire night to obtain?
The shock lasted only an instant before the realization followed: since the imperial seal was here and intact, the one seized during the ceremony could only have been a fake.
She had been wondering earlier why, given that such a momentous thing as the theft of the imperial seal had occurred, Ding Weixiang seemed to have had not the slightest trace of panic or urgency about him. She had found that most peculiar. Now it was plain: a trap of “invite the enemy into a prepared snare” had been laid from the very start, and she had simply been an uninformed outsider to the whole scheme.
Ever since the events in Huozhou, this imperial seal had been passed back and forth between true and false so many times. Now that old business was playing out again — and she felt more and more like a fool.
“Your Majesty’s stratagem is impressive. Since the imperial seal is unharmed, I shall take my leave — the sooner to find that craftsman and carry out Your Majesty’s edict—”
“What is your hurry?”
She was in a hurry to escape this strange atmosphere; in a hurry to understand what she had overlooked; in a hurry to quiet the increasingly obvious unease that was mounting within her heart—
Stealing a glance behind her, Xiao Nanhui suddenly noticed: at some point, the chamberlain with the surname Dan who had led her here had disappeared entirely. Outside the hall entrance there was nothing — not a single figure to be seen.
Tonight’s thin moonlight spilled through the hall entrance into the corridor, drawing her own shadow out very long.
Then she saw another shadow pull free from the surrounding darkness ahead and come walking slowly toward her.
“Do you know what this vessel holding the imperial seal is?”
The golden flower-sphere rotated in the man’s hand, like someone idly turning a trinket of no particular importance.
“Your subject— does not know.”
“This is a玲珑龛 — a Linglong shrine box. Once sealed, it requires nine layers of mechanisms to be turned in sequence before it can be opened. I once made an agreement with the Qinghuai Marquis: if he could solve the Linglong shrine box, I would grant him one request. Can you guess what he asked of me?”
Xiao Nanhui’s heart began to pound hard.
“Your subject does not know.”
“Escorting one’s subject by one’s side — every inch closer is one inch more dangerous. I had expected the Qinghuai Marquis to request that you be reassigned from your position as Right General. But instead he requested that I permit him to lead the campaign to Bijiang.”
“If he had you reassigned, then I would not, in this lifetime, greatly employ you — nor would I have much further contact with you. But if he let you go, then I would not release my hold on you. Your future would be removed from the Qinghuai Marquis’s keeping and placed entirely under my authority.”
Xiao Nanhui listened in silence, and only when she spoke did she find her voice had grown slightly hoarse.
“My foster father never abandoned me. He only—”
He only had things he had to do.
To recover Bijiang, to wipe out the Bai Family, to take revenge for his father and brothers — this was the lifelong aspiration of Xiao Zhun.
This thought had circled in her heart through so many days and nights. Yet for some reason, she could not bring herself to say these words aloud right now.
At the same time, the unease of this night suddenly eased somewhat, and another emotion came to occupy her heart.
Xiao Nanhui finally raised her head and looked directly at the Emperor, who had spoken such presumptuous words.
“Your subject’s future is naturally in her own hands. How could I dare trouble Your Majesty to concern yourself with it?”
She did not know if it was an illusion, but his eyes seemed to grow brighter against the surrounding dimness.
“Xiao Qing seems displeased. With what, precisely?”
She stared at that golden flower-sphere and asked steadily: “When my foster father solved it — was the imperial seal inside the shrine box?”
“There was no imperial seal.”
“Was there a treasure?”
“Nor any treasure.”
The breath she had been holding in her chest finally escaped: “Since it was empty, why have someone put in the effort of solving it?”
What she had said was already somewhat presumptuous — implying, between the lines, that the Emperor enjoyed using clever contrivances to make things difficult for people. Xiao Zhun was a general; he had gone to war with his life on the line. For the Emperor, as the ruler of the nation, to still set traps around him — was it not deliberate obstruction?
But placed in the context of the present moment, these words also carried another layer of implicit meaning.
As though she were asking the Emperor: why, time and again, do you play games with her through words and leave her unable to discern your true purpose?
Xiao Nanhui’s responses always came a beat too late. By the time she realized her words had been ill-advised, it was already too late to take them back.
“To see through the Linglong’s ingenious design and perceive its winding inner structure — that itself is a pleasure. What need is there for treasure?”
The shadow on the ground drew closer still — nearly entangled with hers.
“Your Majesty is wise beyond compare and naturally finds it pleasurable. But your subject has always been slow-witted and dim, and I fear I cannot appreciate the delight within.”
Xiao Nanhui wanted to step back; her legs would not move.
“Do you know — however intricate and difficult the Linglong shrine box may be, in the end it follows a pattern that can be traced. It cannot be said to be the most complex thing in the world.”
She could feel her heart beating very fast, yet the blood in her limbs moved very slowly — slowly enough that her every movement had become sluggish.
“Your subject is dull—”
Su Wei’s presence was already very close. Close enough that her downcast gaze could now make out the fine dense stitching of the axe-and-grain pattern embroidered at the hem of his garment.
It was the ceremonial robe worn only for imperial sacrifice — elaborate and solemn, carrying a quality of restrained, austere gravity.
At her nose came that barely perceptible scent she associated with him.
For reasons she could not explain, the fragrance now seemed to have shed some of its bitter chill and gained a certain warmth, and the air around her had grown warmer along with it.
Xiao Nanhui did not dare breathe, and was just beginning to think that no matter what, she had to find a way to withdraw—
The next moment, a finger, smooth as jade, lightly pressed against the center of her chest.
“Here — this is the most complex thing in the world.”
Xiao Nanhui felt her wildly racing heart suddenly miss a beat.
She looked downward along that hand. The string of prayer beads still rested precisely where it belonged.
He was wearing those Buddhist beads, was he not?
But why did she feel the person before her had gone mad?
“Many things in this world appear mysterious and unfathomable — ever-shifting and unpredictable. Yet once the pattern of how they work is seen through, they become no more intriguing than the rising of the moon or the setting of the sun — dull and without meaning. But this place within Xiao Qing — I have never been able to see through it.”
Her breathing had grown rapid. She was nearly faltering over her own words: “Your subject’s wholehearted devotion to Tiancheng — how could Your Majesty fail to see through that—”
“Xiao Nanhui — are you truly unaware, or are you teasing me?”
His form swayed in the faint glow of the surrounding palace lanterns, casting a long, narrow shadow across her face, and then that shadow spread and diffused, wrapping itself around her.
She felt a pair of lean and strong hands close around her waist. Before she could respond, something thin and faintly cool settled against her lips — like a petal of winter plum fallen from a midwinter branch.
Blood rushed to the crown of Xiao Nanhui’s head. She felt her own rising heat warm that petal, drawing it closer and closer, and deeper — carrying with it surging breath, enfolding her within it.
She finally registered what was happening, and her instinct was to break free.
But the moment she exerted force, the man seemed to have known her next move in advance. With a borrowed motion he pivoted aside, and her entire body was sent toppling toward the side table. His slender form used the momentum to press down upon her, and a gaze as tangible as a physical thing slid from her face slowly downward.
The scene from the training ground that day played out again — only this time, who was on top and who was beneath seemed to have been reversed.
“Every move and form Xiao Qing has taught me — I have not dared forget, day or night.”
She lay there like a plucked goose flat on a chopping block, thrashing and struggling with as much energy as she could muster — yet not daring to use her full force. It looked, to all appearances, like the coy resistance-and-yielding of lovers at play.
He looked at her quietly, yet his gaze had grown scorching hot. Within those dark pupils it seemed as though two whirlpools had formed, threatening to draw her down into them.
She panicked. She felt everything around her spinning.
Those eyes, together with the enormous carved palace lanterns surrounding them, became points of shimmering light — cold moonlight intermingled — and crashed directly into a hazy, fragmented place deep in her memory.
She finally remembered the scene of that night in the Xueming Hall, and that embrace.
But why? How could it—
Xiao Nanhui’s thoughts came to a standstill.
She felt something that had long been lurking at the bottom of her heart was now on the verge of surging up beyond all control.
The sensation left her more panicked than her body being out of control. To break free from this suffocating situation, in a flare of mortified anger she blurted out:
“Your Majesty — because you are the Emperor and know I would not dare injure you — do you think you can bully me as you please?”
In nearly an instant, the flame within those eyes went out. The gaze returned to its old state of still, unruffled water — and then, it seemed, even more lifeless than before.
He released her, retreated slowly several steps, then turned and walked without looking back toward the darkness at the far end of the hall.
“Supervisor Dan — see her out.”