Bo Ying Side Story: Nothing Left But Regret
[01. The Terrace of Gold]
When Bo Ying returned to the small courtyard, the first thing he saw was a flash of goose-yellow skirt hem.
He smiled faintly and called out, “Yuanjun.”
Li Yuanjun turned to look at him, answering brightly, “Cousin!”
In one hand she carried a package of pastries — the famous cherry crisps from the Yuanliang shop on the back street by the Bian River, so popular that people had to be sent before dawn to queue for two hours just to get a single package.
Bo Ying finished off the entire package with her in the garden.
Crumbs of pastry lingered at the corner of the girl’s lips, but she made no move to wipe them away. Bo Ying glanced at her but said nothing, and it was Li Yuanjun who laughed first. “Cousin, I’m about to be married.”
She sat on the stone table in the small courtyard, swinging her legs playfully, her gaze following the slowly setting sun. “You must have heard already — at the banquet the other day, I staged my own fall into the water and won the bet.”
Bo Ying slowly tightened his grip on the oil paper wrapping the cherry crisp beside him, unable to say quite what he was feeling. “…A woman’s marriage is a matter for her whole life. Even if Uncle agreed to help me, he shouldn’t have dragged you into it.”
Hearing this, Li Yuanjun only grew more cheerful. “The way you say that tells me I made the right choice — you know, Father had no idea about my plan beforehand. When he learned the crown prince wanted to marry me, he barely had time to ask whether I was hurt from falling in the water before his face lit up with joy. Once we got home he fussed over me endlessly, but never once asked whether it had been my own doing, or whether I was even willing.”
“They’ve never cared about my ‘life’s affairs,’ Cousin,” Li Yuanjun said, sighing, though the smile never left her face. “It’s you, of all people, who minds the most…”
“And do you mind, yourself?” Bo Ying cut in.
Li Yuanjun paused, then answered firmly, “No.”
“I hate owing debts to other people,” Bo Ying said slowly. “Because I have too much to do, and no spare energy left — I won’t be able to repay it. I only hope you won’t regret this yourself.”
Li Yuanjun stood up, her snow-white shawl sweeping lightly past him. She wore narrow sleeves and no jewelry, so that as she moved, only the faint rustle of fabric could be heard.
In his courtyard stood a weapons rack — he had come to feel keenly that not knowing any martial arts was a real handicap, and wanting to learn a little, but unsure which weapon would suit him best, had gathered a good many to try.
Li Yuanjun casually picked up an iron spear, and it was a mystery how her delicate frame could lift a weapon that even soldiers sometimes struggled with.
A young lady in deep, layered skirts, wielding a long iron spear.
Absurd, and utterly incongruous.
Bo Ying watched her without blinking, remembering the past — not long after they’d first met, the first time he’d taken her pulse.
She had looked at him with bright, hopeful eyes and said, “Cousin must cure me of this weakness of mine.”
He’d found it curious and asked offhandedly, “Yuanjun, this illness of yours won’t act up unless something gives you a great fright. As long as you’re carefully looked after, you’ll live your whole life without incident.”
But Li Yuanjun had fallen silent. She’d lifted her face and looked out through the flower-lattice window, where her two elder brothers were sparring outside, swords ringing sharply in the wind.
“I’m no worse than them,” she’d said.
“Mother died young, my brothers never cared for poetry and literature, and Father never sent me to study when I was small, so I read every book in the library myself — there weren’t many books in a family of military men, but I devoured the histories of past dynasties and the treatises on strategy and warfare until I knew them by heart. I used to dream, even in my sleep, of the female emperors of past dynasties. Even if I could never become someone like that, I ought at least to leave my name in the annals of history.”
Bo Ying had been astonished at the young girl’s ambition. “So you began studying martial arts from childhood because of this?”
Li Yuanjun had laughed. “Yes. Back then I always thought, the world is vast and wide — if only I could convince Father to let me train alongside my brothers, I could someday build my own achievements and glory, just as a man would, and my name would shine through the ages.”
For a young lady in her position, the illness she’d developed wasn’t even particularly serious — in fact, many women had this same condition and never even noticed it their whole lives.
But measured against her ambitions, this small illness was cruel beyond measure.
Bo Ying suddenly understood how she must have discovered her condition — the young girl had practiced martial arts at home day after day, finally begging her father to let her go to the training grounds, only for her weak-heart condition to flare up after just a few days of sudden fright.
The words rose to his throat, then stuck there, unable to come out.
He hadn’t the heart, truthfully, to tell her this illness could not be cured.
But Bo Ying didn’t know whether she already understood this deep down herself, because after his long silence, Li Yuanjun secretly took hold of his hand beneath the brocade quilt and said, quite earnestly, “So you must succeed, Cousin.”
Bo Ying raised an eyebrow slightly.
“I only came down with a minor weakness of the heart, and already I feel heaven has treated me unfairly — my brothers suffer far worse… Heaven has been unfair to you too, yet you’ve never once wallowed in self-pity. You’ve used every means available to plot your revenge, and no matter how hard the road ahead, you’ve never lost your resolve to press forward.”
“Cousin, you must succeed. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to help you — and one day… you’ll be a wise ruler for ten thousand generations, and I’ll be your loyal minister at your side. All our wishes will come true.”
He thought perhaps he understood, at last, why Li Yuanjun was different toward him from everyone else.
Since childhood, the young girl had carried within her an ambition and a fire that the world was fated never to understand. She was full of life and vigor, spear in hand, striding toward her future — but illness refused to allow it, dragging her back time and again into the still, unremarkable confines of the inner quarters.
She felt wronged, unwilling to accept her lot, yearning for some stroke of fortune that might bring lightning into her life.
And then he had appeared, like a miracle.
At first Li Wei hadn’t believed his outlandish claims — it was only through Li Yuanjun’s earnest persuasion that he’d agreed to the test confirming their kinship.
Once confirmed, Li Wei had wanted to bring Bo Ying immediately to the palace to see the emperor — such a naive, childish impulse, Bo Ying had thought to himself with quiet mockery at the time. Given his standing at that point, he might well have been eliminated by the crown prince before he even made it out of the palace gates.
They had nothing at all to their name; they would have to lie low and bide their time for years, seeking the one decisive opportunity, before they dared reveal the cards in their hand.
Li Wei and his two sons were all men of quite ordinary talent — who would have guessed their family could produce a woman like this?
The young girl had performed a full sequence of spear forms before him, fluid and powerful as flowing water, her flowing skirt-ribbons dancing in the wind, her elaborate skirts swirling gracefully — beautiful in a fierce, unyielding way.
She’d wiped away the glistening sweat on her brow and tossed the spear to him. Bo Ying caught it and heard her say, “Cousin, one day, if there’s no one else fit for the task, I’ll lead your troops for you.”
She had meant every word.
She endured ten years in the crown prince’s household, playing the meek and humble part, appearing frail and sickly even at banquets and gatherings, no matter how many people were watching. Occasionally, when he caught sight of her passing by from above, they would exchange a cold, indifferent glance, then quickly look away.
After the crown prince seized power and stopped returning home for long stretches at a time, Li Yuanjun finally found her chance. Learning that the crown prince intended to borrow troops from Xishao, she secretly conspired with Xishao as well, borrowing fire-oil to arrange her own scheme. Disguising herself as a man, she quietly persuaded her father’s subordinates — those already discontented with him — and when Song Shixuan and Zhou Yan led their troops into the city, she pushed her own father and brothers forward to be sacrificed, thereby preserving the Li family’s army and gathering it entirely into her own hands.
In peaceful times, a woman couldn’t leave the confines of her household, but in an age of chaos, perhaps she truly could have become the figure she’d always dreamed of being.
Unfortunately, in the end, Li Yuanjun still acted too hastily — brilliant as she was, capable of seeing through every strategy of warfare and military formation, she ultimately didn’t understand enough of the treacherous scheming that ruled the imperial court. No library held books more ruthless than the calculations written in blood.
When Zhou Tan handed over the greatest secret of all, both Bo Ying and Li Yuanjun had believed that even if his bond with Song Shiyan was as unbreakable as gold and stone, it could never survive a feud of life and death between them.
It was only before the burial chamber at Changling that Bo Ying finally understood — this wasn’t Li Yuanjun’s fault, nor his own. A saint like Zhou Tan was scarcely to be found anywhere in the history books.
A cold blade pressed against her throat, and Li Yuanjun felt blood trickling down her forehead, her heart beginning to race violently — the warning sign that her weak-heart condition was about to seize.
She showed nothing on her face, only glanced once at Bo Ying.
Bo Ying’s hand, gripping the blade, trembled uncontrollably.
In that hazy moment, he thought he saw once more the young girl in the goose-yellow dress from years ago.
The girl carrying an iron spear, her gentle skirts fluttering wildly in the wind, weaving the beautiful dream of conquering distant lands and carving her name into history.
“Cousin, now that you hold the advantage, there’s no need to hold back on my account. Why bother releasing me…”
“You must live! Only by living is there any hope.”
He understood the feeling she held for him — not only the love between man and woman, but the respect between kindred spirits, the shared devotion to an ideal.
She had wanted his success even more than he himself did, wanted him to prove to heaven itself that even born into an unfavorable era, even with a fate full of flaws, they could still climb to seize the moon from the heavens, could still hold the power to drain the four seas and overturn heaven and earth.
But she hadn’t managed it, and neither had he.
Looking down at her body, Bo Ying suddenly regretted, more than anything, never having spoken a single word of praise to her.
You had already surpassed the noble men of ancient times.
I repay your kindness, expressed atop the Terrace of Gold.
I would carry the jade dragon sword and die for you.
[02. Song of Eternal Peace]
Song Shiyan reached out to tease the parrot perched by the corridor, sunlight setting his pale gold and purple robe and the parrot’s brilliant plumage alight with shimmering color.
Bo Ying knelt before him expressionlessly, performing a deep bow. “Ten thousand blessings to Your Highness.”
Song Shiyan turned his head to look at him and smiled. “Jing’an, I’ve told you before, you needn’t kneel to me.”
He had no shortage of advisors in his household, but few he trusted with his whole heart. The man before him had followed him since his wedding day, handling countless private matters on his behalf.
When Su Huaixu had brought a foreign woman to a secret meeting with him, this was the only man who had accompanied him.
He had also investigated the man’s background privately.
Bai Sanjing, the eleventh young master of the Bai family of Jinling.
He was different from Bai Shating, who had been doted upon since childhood.
Bai Shating’s father was the next head of the Bai family, while Bai Sanjing’s father was merely an unremarkable, ordinary man of his generation. His mother had not been the principal wife, but a merchant’s daughter kept outside the household, only exceptionally admitted as a concubine after giving birth to him.
From childhood, Bai Sanjing and his mother had never been valued much within the Bai family, and had endured no small amount of scorn. By the time the boy turned ten, his mother, who had spent her days cowering in the shadows like a ghost, passed away, her funeral pitifully modest.
He packed his belongings and left Jinling, determined to make something of himself on his own, to leave behind a family that had never cared about him at all.
So when he first came to offer his services, and Song Shiyan asked his name, he said his surname was Jing, given name Jing’an.
Later, Song Shiyan grew curious about his relationship with Bai Shating, and also asked him vaguely, once, about his opinion of his distant relative Zhou Tan.
Bo Ying had merely scoffed and answered calmly, “If no one cared for me as a child, what bond could there possibly be once I grew up? Your Highness knows better than anyone the heart of a lowborn man like myself.”
Song Shiyan certainly did know — he had lost his mother at birth, and though he bore the title of legitimate heir, he had grown up alone and isolated within the palace. Emperor De had been careless with him, and he too had suffered bullying before he came of age. He understood the feeling well.
So he patted the young man’s shoulder and said something sincere, a rare thing for him: “The day I ascend the throne, I will surely see that you return to your homeland in glory.”
Jing’an was his most outstanding advisor — skilled not only in medicine, but capable of handling every matter, great or small, with perfect care. He rarely met someone who understood him so well, and even facing death, this was the only person he could think of to see him buried.
Amid the fierce wind atop the city wall, Song Shiyan tilted his head back to look at the sky, recalling the tune Bo Ying most often hummed.
It was “Song of Eternal Peace,” written by Bai Shating.
Bai Shating had written those lines searching for him, and the song had spread through every street and alley of the city. Bo Ying always claimed he didn’t care about such sentimental attachments — so why did he keep humming that same tune, over and over?
It seemed even the person he trusted most was hiding something from him.
Song Shiyan suddenly found he couldn’t laugh anymore. Li Yuanjun’s soft whisper, spoken close to his ear just before she’d left, echoed clearly in his mind.
“Does Your Highness want to know who stands behind me? Your Highness… though you don’t care for the bonds of blood, you still have a brother in this world.”
Before his eyes flashed the parrot at the end of the corridor, the Lantern Tower gradually brightening, the dim red glow of Fanlou at dusk… Once, drunk, he had draped an arm around Jing’an and said, half in earnest, half in jest, “Sometimes, I truly feel that Jing’an is more like family to me than anyone else.”
Bo Ying had lowered his eyes, his expression unreadable, and hadn’t answered him directly, only saying, “Your Highness, Lady Qu wants to send her family members south of the river — I have a feeling something isn’t right about it… allow me to follow on Your Highness’s behalf, and make this journey myself.”
“Good, good. If it weren’t you going, I wouldn’t feel at ease either.”
Daylight over the capital, nine layers of phoenix mountains.
If the “empress’s true-born child” the woman brought by Su Huaixu had spoken of really did exist somewhere in this world, then who was he supposed to be?
“I’m leaving now, Your Highness… you must guard the capital well. By the time I return, you’ll already be His Majesty. I’ll prepare the finest wine, to personally congratulate Your Majesty on ascending the throne.”
Through his hazy drunkenness, Song Shiyan looked up. “…If this plan fails, then come back and see to my burial instead.”
The young man neither offered his usual words of caution nor any comfort, only bowed deeply and answered calmly, “Understood.”
Sitting atop the city wall, Song Shiyan suddenly saw everything clearly, and couldn’t help bursting into laughter.
Zhou Tan tried to grab at his robe, but failed to catch him.
Song of Eternal Peace… so it truly was a gift sent by the immortals.
Then may it carry me all the way, falling like a cold and distant star.
[03. Walking Upon the Clouds]
Late one night, Bo Ying and Bai Shating, both thoroughly drunk, walked arm in arm down the empty streets along the Bian River.
The two of them staggered along, laughing uproariously, until they simply couldn’t manage to get home and passed out drunk in a covered boat on the Bian River.
Fortunately, Ye Liuchun had had the foresight to arrange for a boatman in advance, instructing him that if the two of them ended up drunk, he should simply row them straight back to the Spring Rain House to be settled for the night.
As the water lapped softly against the hull, Bai Shating lay sprawled on the boat’s deck, blinking his eyes open blearily. Catching sight of a few stars, he immediately began shouting, “…Where are the stars of the Northern Dipper and Shen constellation tonight? Follow me, riding the wind, up to Penglai!”
Bo Ying leaned against the side, scolding him. “Reckless! Absolutely reckless!”
Bai Shating laughed on, undeterred. “Six divine dragons shield the sun from view… fear not, my friend, for we shall walk upon the clouds!”
He clambered clumsily up from the deck and leaned in close to Bo Ying. “Eleventh Brother, tell me honestly — are you perhaps fond of Lady Zhou…”
Bo Ying jolted and shoved him away. “What nonsense are you spouting!”
Bai Shating chuckled. “Loving a beautiful woman is nothing to be ashamed of.”
Bo Ying glared at him, then looked up at the moon in the sky, muttering, “Honestly, I don’t even know myself…”
“I don’t think it’s the kind of love between a man and a woman. It’s just that from the very first moment I saw her… at Fanlou during the Flower Dawn Festival, I felt as though I’d known her before. I felt I ought to seek her out and get to know her, even felt like… I owed her something. It’s a feeling I can’t quite grasp, appearing and vanishing without warning — I can’t even say clearly what it is anymore.”
Bai Shating clung to his leg, only half taking in what he’d said. “You’re getting on in years too, and you don’t even have a close female friend, and the only one you’ve shown any interest in happens to be someone else’s wife — whatever will we do about this…”
Bo Ying didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Stop talking nonsense.”
Bai Shating continued, eyes narrowed. “I’ve already thought of a name for your child. Since you don’t want to take the surname Bai anyway, why not keep the surname Bo… ‘Where can one find the Chancellor’s shrine? Beyond Jinguan City, where cypress trees grow thick.’ How about naming your future nephew Bo Senshen — quite cute, don’t you think?”
Bo Ying paused for a moment, then answered slowly, “Sure, why not.”
“Alright, I think that’s a fine idea too…”
“Enough about my business — weren’t we talking about yours just now,” roused by all this nonsense, Bo Ying felt himself sobering up considerably. “What exactly do you plan to do about you and Chun Niangzi?”
Bai Shating clutched his head and yelled, pretending not to hear.
“What’s the use of running from it? If you truly mean to change your ways, you’d do better to take the imperial examinations soon, establish some property, and marry her properly.” Bo Ying said angrily. “A person only gets so many chances in life to regret things — the opportunity is right there in front of you, why do you never treasure it?”
No one answered. Bai Shating had already passed out drunk on the boat, and there was no telling whether he’d even heard any of it.
Reflected on the river’s surface was the Spring Rain House, with only a single lamp still lit.
Bo Ying said quietly, “Eleventh Brother having a friend like you — wherever his spirit rests now, he’d be glad.”
The first time he’d heard the line “the water of the great river drifts and flows away,” he’d sat at the mouth of the alley, silent for a long while, and afterward had copied out the entire poem, reading it over word by word.
The water of the great river stood for San.
Daylight over the capital stood for Jing.
Some people, even after death, were still remembered so fondly by others.
But some people, even while alive, never had anyone leave a single lamp burning for them through the night.
He and Song Shiyan were, in truth, both pitiable men — the difference was only that one suffered a loneliness he understood clearly, while the other lived amid splendor that was rotting from within.
It was hard to say who was more pitiable, though he supposed it was probably himself.
Because even at his most ruthless, he still couldn’t match Song Shiyan’s sheer purity of purpose.
Bo Ying rose unsteadily to his feet, gazing off into the distance at the imperial palace shrouded in night mist.
It felt so very, very far away.
“I’ve never been able… to be pure of purpose. Perhaps I’ve always known that, and that’s why I’ve kept resisting rising any higher…”
He laughed, imitating Bai Shating’s bold manner, and recited once more the poem he’d just composed on the spot.
If only life could be lived so freely, so completely.
“Where are the stars of the Northern Dipper and Shen constellation tonight? Follow me, riding the wind, up to Penglai… Six divine dragons shield the sun from view… fear not…”
Walking upon the clouds.
[04. The Heart of Grass and Trees]
After Fu Qingnian’s death, Du Hui fled the capital with his family, only to die on a road out in the countryside.
Bo Ying heard Song Shiyan click his tongue with great interest and call out to him, “Jing’an, come take a look.”
Leaning in closer, he saw before him a craftsman’s sketch laid out on the table.
Not the original — it looked like a hastily traced copy.
He glanced at it twice, then said in shock, “Your Highness, this is…”
The imperially commissioned blueprint of the Zhenru Palace.
Song Shiyan said, “When I was young, I once witnessed my father force my grandfather to his death.”
Every servant in the room, sensing the moment, quietly withdrew. Bo Ying swallowed hard, hearing his own voice tremble slightly. “Force him… to his death…”
“Don’t be afraid, Jing’an,” Song Shiyan glanced at him, smiling faintly. “You weren’t in the palace, so you wouldn’t know. Before my father took the throne, rumors spread through the palace walls for quite some time — that my father might not actually be my grandfather’s blood, and that my grandfather had summoned Prince Jing to the capital because he was considering changing the line of succession.”
“My father struck first, keeping my grandfather so plagued by illness that he had no strength left to deal with the matter, and thus secured his own position. Back then he only assumed the rumor was baseless gossip — it was only through what I overheard by chance about the Zhenru Palace affair that I began to suspect the truth.”
Bo Ying’s gaze dropped to the secret chamber beneath the Zhenru Palace on the drawing.
“Do you know why he was so insistent on building the Lantern Tower? Fortunately Du Hui still had this on him when he fled — it let me guess at part of the truth. These secrets of the imperial family run far too deep, and far too filthy.”
As he spoke, Song Shiyan shook his head. “But after the Lantern Tower was built, from what I gathered through careful inquiry, I always felt my father never actually found a body beneath the Zhenru Palace. Why…”
After leaving the crown prince’s household, Bo Ying immediately sought out his most trusted confidants and spent half a year carefully investigating, traveling between Ruo Prefecture and the capital.
The moment he’d seen the drawing, this doubt had struck him — if the Zhenru Palace had contained a secret chamber from the time of its construction, why had Consort Zhao’s child only appeared after the fire in the Southern Garden?
“When Master Gongshu built the Zhenru Palace all those years ago, he clearly wrote in his notes: ‘What is meant by zhenru, true suchness, is that which is revealed when the self is absent’ — neither real nor illusory, neither born nor destroyed, neither square nor round. And so he designed the Zhenru Palace with the ground level and the underground chamber mirroring and complementing one another — the underground palace was a replica of the true suchness hall above ground, itself an integral part of the whole structure from the very beginning.”
“Back then, the Late Emperor and Consort Zhao were deeply devoted to one another, and Consort Zhao’s elder brother was a powerful minister at court — there was no shortage of jealousy within the palace… I believe this so-called error in lineage was likely fabricated and spread by someone with an agenda, meant to undermine His Majesty.”
Indeed… Chancellor Liu of that era, unable to stomach Consort Zhao’s favored status, had, upon happening to learn of the Zhenru Palace’s layout, immediately devised a scheme, embellishing the story and spreading it far and wide.
The rumors had taken hold with remarkable success, and even though Emperor Xuan had known perfectly well it was someone’s deliberate scheme, he’d had no way to refute it convincingly.
Consort Zhao, citing the noise and disturbance, had moved out of the Zhenru Palace.
The palace fell into disuse, but the rumors never faded.
Emperor Xuan’s hesitation over naming Song Chang as heir had stemmed only from his perception that the boy’s temperament ran to extremes, having nothing at all to do with his lineage — but those with ulterior motives had seized upon it as a bargaining chip in their scheming.
It made sense, in hindsight — Song Chang had never actually held any real power at that time. If there truly had been an error in his lineage, why hadn’t Emperor Xuan simply issued a decree to remove him as heir? Even in his final illness, Gu Zhiyan had remained at court to advise him.
Later still, Fu Qingnian too had come across the sketch, and following in Chancellor Liu’s footsteps, had fabricated the entire narrative further.
One single rumor, two generations of court factional strife — how much had it destroyed, in the end?
Bo Ying didn’t dare even imagine.
By the time Emperor Xuan found himself powerless to refute it, all he could do in the end was instruct Gu Zhiyan to guard the secret.
Emperor De was destined to learn of it eventually.
And once Emperor De resolved to excavate the Zhenru Palace and build the Lantern Tower—
Whether or not he ever found a body, the shadow of doubt was destined to take root in his heart for the rest of his life.
Bo Ying’s mouth twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile, a chill creeping up his spine.
Until this very day, he had never realized just how dark and terrifying the shadows of court factional strife truly were — far beyond anything he’d imagined.
He had once seriously considered — if he were to rise to power himself, could he find someone he could trust absolutely, gather all authority into his own hands, and put an end to this factional strife once and for all?
After much thought, he realized he couldn’t do it.
Probably no one in this world could.
Not until he heard what Qu You had said—
“My husband told Chancellor Su he was willing to use his own reputation as a stepping stone, to help him rise to power and take control of the court… The Chancellor already comes from a distinguished family with an untarnished reputation among scholar-officials, and once he removes one more treacherous official the court despises, he can achieve a fame to rival even Chancellor Gu’s, and help put an end to factional strife while nurturing the common people.”
The world bustled and swarmed, all driven by profit, coming and going…
What he himself couldn’t accomplish — someone else could.
After hearing those words, Bo Ying knew he had already lost.
Hatred had blinded him to everything, and whatever sense of “principle” he’d once carried in his heart had scattered and crumbled away. Because of everything he’d been through, he would never, in this lifetime, become the wise and enlightened ruler he’d once envisioned himself to be.
He and Song Shiyan, it seemed, were really no different from one another after all.
“I have no choice but to go through with this… otherwise, I would be betraying my own fate.”
Better, then, to die gloriously and completely than to live on in a haze, drifting through life without purpose.
He remembered how, not long after they’d first met, Qu You had asked him about the origin of his name, and later Zhou Tan and Bai Shating had asked him the same thing.
In truth, there was no real story behind it at all — Bo was simply an impure form of white, and Ying was merely a shadow cast in the dark of night.
The first time, he’d brushed off the question vaguely. The second time, before he’d even decided how to answer, Bai Shating had suddenly slapped his thigh in realization and said, “I know! It’s from that line — ‘algae and duckweed crisscrossing in the water, that’s merely the shadow of bamboo and cypress’! Isn’t it?”
Zhou Tan had added quietly, with mild approval, “A fine name, for someone who wanders the night with a close friend.”
What night is without moonlight? What place is without bamboo and cypress?
It was only that there were too few close friends, and too many worries… A person who might stroll by candlelight through the night — he supposed he’d had one, once, but was always fated to lose him in the end.
Bo Ying smiled, silently accepting this explanation.
…
“The heart of grass and trees needs no reason of its own… why then would it ask to be plucked by beauty?”
“Today, let’s bring this to an end, once and for all.”
Author’s Note:
Notes:
- “I repay your kindness, expressed atop the Terrace of Gold. I would carry the jade dragon sword and die for you.” — Li He, “Song of the Governor of Yanmen”
- “Where can one find the Chancellor’s shrine? Beyond Jinguan City, where cypress trees grow thick.” — Du Fu, “The Chancellor of Shu”
- The interpretation of “zhenru” (true suchness) is drawn from Baidu Baike.
- “Algae and duckweed crisscrossing in the water, that’s merely the shadow of bamboo and cypress. What night is without moonlight? What place is without bamboo and cypress? It is only that there are so few leisurely people like the two of us.” — Su Shi, “A Record of Night Travels at Chengtian Temple”
- “The heart of grass and trees needs no reason of its own — why then would it ask to be plucked by beauty?” — Zhang Jiuling, “Stirred by Feelings, No. 1”