◎Bonds of Devotion◎

On the sixth day of the sixth month, Bai Shating married.

Though he had once been exiled from the capital over the Chunming poetry scandal, his years of romantic escapades since had left more than a few women of the pleasure quarters heartbroken at the news of his marriage — until Song Xixuan bestowed the two characters “Spring Wind” upon Ye Liuchun, and everyone realized at last that his bride-to-be was none other than the famous Chun Niangzi, who had left the capital all those years ago.

Before the Spring Wind and Gentle Rain Pavilion had closed its doors, Ye Liuchun had been the toast of the capital, celebrated by all as a great beauty of her craft — and now, having received the imperial brush’s own blessing, her glory was without equal.

The timing of Ye Liuchun’s departure from the capital had coincided precisely with Bai Shating’s demotion and exile, and it did not take the public long to piece the story together — Chun Niangzi had been Thirteenth Teacher’s beloved companion for many years, and everyone had assumed it merely the bond between a courtesan and her favored patron. Yet when he was demoted, Chun Niangzi had followed him into exile without a second thought, and Thirteenth Teacher, moved beyond words by her devotion, had petitioned the emperor for her hand in marriage the very moment he was restored to office.

More than a few courtesans found themselves consumed with envy. Bai Shating’s reputation in his early years had been far from spotless — he had once sold verses to courtesans merely to make a living — and yet somehow, fortune had smiled on him, carrying him swiftly up through the ranks of officialdom. Now, with both literary talent and official rank to his name, he had become one of the finest matches in the entire capital. Ye Liuchun’s reputation, though renowned, was still that of a woman from the pleasure quarters — and yet he had chosen to marry her as his principal wife.

When word of this reached her chambers, Ye Liuchun merely smiled. Gao Yunyue, arranging hairpins and ornaments for her nearby, scoffed at the gossip. “Sister Chun and Thirteenth Teacher have known each other since childhood — as if she cared one bit for his rank or fortune. These people are far too bitter.”

The scar on her cheek had largely healed by now, leaving only faint traces behind.

Ever since the deposed crown prince had fallen to his death from the tower, Gao Yunyue’s great vengeance had finally been settled. She had shown no fear at all, gathering up the crown prince’s shattered, scattered remains from beneath the tower, burning them, and casting the ashes into the wilderness.

Though her family had been utterly destroyed, once her vengeance was complete, she had knelt before her parents’ graves for a single day, and never again showed a trace of her former despair. Qu You had worried greatly that she might fall into lasting despondency, but after Emperor Ming’s enthronement, Gao Yunyue had gone in search of Ai Disheng instead.

“Back when I lived at home, pressed so urgently by my father to marry, I used to think — if I were simply a commoner’s daughter, and marriage were not merely a tool of political maneuvering… I would surely open a little shop somewhere in the streets and alleys, and run it myself as its mistress. If my husband proved capable, I’d bring him on as a hired hand; if not, well, he could simply live off my earnings instead.”

She sat resting her chin in her hand beside Qu You, speaking with genuine sincerity. “You needn’t worry about me. Now that my great vengeance is settled, I will live on well, in whatever way I can, to honor what my parents once hoped for me. It was the deposed crown prince who framed my father — and even if, in the future, I should happen to cross paths in the capital with some noble lady I once knew, I will face her with a clear conscience. None of this was my fault, and I refuse to punish myself for it.”

Just then, a maidservant called Gao Yunyue away to choose some handkerchiefs. Qu You took the golden hair ornament Gao Yunyue had selected earlier and pinned it at an angle into Ye Liuchun’s hair, smiling. “I wish you and Thirteenth Teacher a long and happy life together, growing old side by side.”

Ye Liuchun looked at her reflection in the bronze mirror and gave a wry smile. “I never once imagined I would grow old beside him either.”

Qu You, watching her face in the mirror’s reflection, recalled the song Ye Liuchun had once sung in the back garden of the Gao residence, and nearly asked her about it — but in the end, she said nothing.

Ye Liuchun reached up to smooth the fold at her shoulder, then took hold of Qu You’s hand. “Well, no matter. They say a reformed rake’s heart is never truly dead. I’m willing to give it another try.”

Four days earlier, Zhou Tan had just been named Chancellor, driving the court’s factional disputes to new heights.

Having previously been impeached for nepotism, his relationship with Bai Shating had been somewhat awkward — and yet he had still come in person to attend the wedding banquet.

Su Chaoci sat at a table across from him; their eyes met briefly, and they raised their cups toward each other from a distance, somewhat stiffly, without exchanging a word.

On the very first day he received the chancellor’s seal, Zhou Tan had summoned the Council of State’s three remaining ministers and six cabinet officials to the main hall and stated plainly, “I intend to enact reform under the banner of the Order of the Fallen Blossoms, and I ask for all of your support.”

The suddenness of the announcement caught even Su Chaoci off guard.

He examined the draft statutes Zhou Tan had prepared with great care. Under the pretext of the Order of the Fallen Blossoms, Zhou Tan proposed a sweeping reform, adding twenty-four new articles to the legal code of Great Yin, the most significant changes concerning official administration and the military system.

Every single article struck directly at the failings of the present age, each one approached from a fresh and innovative angle, clearly the product of painstaking, repeated refinement. A single glance told him how much effort Zhou Tan had poured into this work.

And yet…

Once everyone else had departed the Council of State’s main hall, Su Chaoci drew a sharp breath, slammed the document down upon the table, and said, “Do you understand that if you truly wish to reform the law, you cannot do it with statutes like these?”

Reformers throughout history had always faced tremendous difficulty.

Any reform was bound to threaten the interests of the old nobility and powerful clans, who cared nothing for the fate of the dynasty itself, only for whatever immediate advantage lay before their eyes. With the new reign only just established, whoever dared to lead such an effort would surely be dragged down and trampled by the rest.

The blood of those who had come before had not yet even dried.

Zhou Tan’s lashes trembled faintly; he asked, though he already knew the answer, “Why not?”

“When the late emperor still lived, the court…” Su Chaoci hesitated, then swallowed the rest of his sentence. “Everyone already knows how deeply entrenched these problems are. But if you wish to reform, you must proceed gradually — build momentum, test the waters, play along with the noble clans while patiently managing every faction above and below… You are no stranger to court politics. Surely you already know all these methods yourself?”

Zhou Tan looked at him intently, and a smile crossed his face. “Of course I know.”

“Then why—”

“But Chaoci, do you know something? The common people no longer trust the government at all.”

Zhou Tan coughed once, then continued. “During my time at the Ministry of Justice, I handled countless cases myself — take, for instance, that infamous case of the fall from the tower, which shook the entire court. Over a hundred officials were implicated in some way, and yet how many were ever truly held accountable? When the notice was posted, the common people did nothing but mock and jeer at it. My wife has told me the same — when misfortune strikes them now, reporting it to the authorities is no longer even their first thought.”

Su Chaoci fell silent.

“Proceed gradually? But how, exactly, are we meant to compromise? Should we sacrifice the interests of the common people simply to win the support of the nobility? Without decisive, sweeping legal reform such as this, do you truly believe we could ever reverse the corrupt customs that have accumulated over so many countless years?”

Zhou Tan leaned forward over the desk, bending down to look at him directly. “Aside from you, most of the elder ministers in the Council of State believe in doing nothing at all — preserving what exists rather than risking change. Even if they could be persuaded eventually, I no longer have that much time to spare.”

Su Chaoci looked at him, startled. “What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing in particular,” Zhou Tan said, straightening up and avoiding his gaze. “Everything you’ve said, I’ve already considered myself, many times over. The realm has only just been stabilized, the laws remain lax, prices are soaring in the east, floods threaten the south, and though Xishao has agreed to pay tribute, it remains far from settled… His Majesty is young, and though the lords and nobles across the land appear outwardly compliant, every one of them watches with hungry eyes. Can this realm truly afford to wait any longer?”

“For every thousand enemies struck down, eight hundred of your own fall as well,” Su Chaoci said, his voice trembling despite himself. “Have you even considered what the consequences might be, should this entire effort fail?”

Zhou Tan answered evenly, “Some things simply must be done, by someone.”

Su Chaoci raised his hand and slammed the paperweight down upon the desk. “Then why didn’t you discuss this with me beforehand?”

The paperweight, carved of white jade, shattered into fragments upon impact. Zhou Tan stepped back, and, unexpectedly, began to laugh.

Su Chaoci asked, “What are you laughing at?”

The hall of the Council of State was piled high with the accumulated documents and memorials of successive reigns, mountains of paper and ink. Zhou Tan raised a hand, pointing toward the wall of books behind him, his wide sleeves billowing in the wind blowing in through the open lattice window. “Great Yin has always favored the civil over the military. You — all of you, the scholar-officials raised on the teachings of the ancient sages, all of you climbing and scheming here in the Council of State, throughout this entire court — what is it, exactly, that all of you truly seek?”

Su Chaoci had never seen him in such a state, and for a moment found himself entirely at a loss for words. “I…”

He suddenly recalled that night at the Qionglin banquet, years ago, when Gu Zhiyan had once asked him this very same question. Zhou Tan had answered, and the entire hall had burst into laughter.

“Young scholars are always like this.”

“It reminds me of my own early days at court, when I too held such naive, wide-eyed ideals…”

That night, the banquet hall had bloomed with flowers, the still waters calm beneath the settled day.

Su Chaoci had entirely forgotten what his own answer had been that night — but Zhou Tan’s answer, he remembered with perfect clarity.

“Let me answer for you,” Zhou Tan said, lowering his hand, a faint trace of mockery rising in his eyes. “What civil officials seek is renown — in this life, and in the history books that follow.”

“When the late emperor reigned, the Bureau of Remonstrance sat cold and neglected. Now that Ziqian has taken the throne, it has recovered all its former bustle and clamor. The Remonstrance officers close their eyes to the cries echoing from every corner of the realm, fixing their gaze solely on His Majesty, on power itself — even dreaming, perhaps, that one day they might die in righteous protest before the throne, their blood staining the palace pillars, their names remembered for ten thousand generations!”

This was the first time Su Chaoci had ever seen Zhou Tan display such blunt, cutting contempt so openly before him, and for a moment, a tangle of emotions rose within him, leaving him utterly unsure how to respond.

“Fame, power, gold and silver, official salaries — what do any of these truly amount to?” Zhou Tan looked at him again, a trace of self-inflicted pain now visible in his eyes, burning fiercely red. “That night at the Qionglin banquet, I said I wished to establish a moral compass for heaven and earth, to secure the livelihood of the common people, to continue the broken teachings of the sages of old…”

“…and to bring lasting peace to ten thousand generations,” Su Chaoci finished quietly, in a low voice.

“Of the first three, I can say, in all honesty, that I have already achieved every one of them. Only the last remains…” Zhou Tan said, the corner of his mouth curling. “You might even call me selfish for it, but to me, being able to fulfill my own promise to myself matters more than anything else in this world.”

“Fine, fine…” Su Chaoci nodded, almost without realizing it, and without a moment’s hesitation drew his own personal seal from his sleeve, intending to affix it to the document. “Since you insist on this so firmly, I will join you…”

But Zhou Tan moved faster than he did, snatching the document back from him at once.

Any statute issued by the Council of State required the seals of all four ministers before it could be sent for the imperial seal’s final approval.

“Chancellor Cai and Chancellor Luo will certainly not affix their seals,” Zhou Tan said, his voice calm now, low. “There’s no need for you to do so either.”

This, at last, provoked Su Chaoci to genuine anger. “If the two of them have already made clear they won’t join you, then what exactly is your meaning here — why refuse even mine?”

Zhou Tan opened his mouth, meaning to explain, but just then a timid attendant appeared at the door, asking him to come at once to Xuande Hall. Zhou Tan immediately fell silent, gathered up his document, and turned to leave without another word.

The two parted on poor terms, and neither spoke to the other again after that.

Su Chaoci closed his eyes and drank a cup of the banquet wine before him.

Before he could open his eyes again, a familiar voice spoke beside him. “Young Master Su… no, I suppose it’s Governing Advisor now — where did you get that string of five-colored prayer beads?”

Qu You had been passing by the banquet tables and happened to notice the cup in his hand.

Su Chaoci gestured for her to sit across from him, glanced around, and confirmed that Zhou Tan had, once again, wandered off somewhere.

“No need to stand on ceremony — just call me Brother Su. Sister-in-law has a sharp eye. These were… a gift from Xiaobai. He said they were given to him by Master Jiyun at Xiuqing Temple, and on my birthday, he passed them along to me.”

He saw clearly the flash of profound astonishment that crossed her face, and could not help but pause in surprise himself. He and Zhou Tan were close friends, and Qu You surely knew this — a small gift between them was hardly unusual. Why would it startle her so?

Qu You’s gaze remained fixed on the string of five-colored prayer beads.

She had once puzzled over this very string of faded beads in a painting, searching through countless old texts without ever finding its origin — and now it turned out that the very prayer beads Su Chaoci had worn without fail his entire life, even to his deathbed, had been a gift from the man history would remember as his greatest political rival.

She could not decide whether to laugh or to weep at the thought.

She slowly looked away, and, listening to the noise of the hall around her, murmured softly to herself, “There was clearly true devotion between them once — why, then, did it all end in such ruin?”

Su Chaoci, thinking she was speaking to him, took another sip from the cup beside him before answering. “Devotion in this world is, for the most part, fragile. But if it is ever truly tempered by fire and remains unchanged, I do not believe it could ever end in ruin.”

He coughed lightly, then asked, lowering his voice, “Does Sister-in-law know of the reform underway within the Council of State?”

To his surprise, Qu You smiled faintly. “Of course I know.”

Before he could respond, she continued, “What does Brother Su make of those statutes?”

“The statutes themselves are certainly sound. It’s only… might they not be moving a bit too quickly?” Su Chaoci answered. “Xiaobai is so stubbornly set in his ways, unwilling to compromise at all. If this continues, I fear he’ll bring harm upon himself. I…”

“Does Brother Su know that these reform statutes…” He had not finished his sentence when Qu You cut in. “If we’re being honest about it, I drafted half of them myself.”

Su Chaoci gave a visible start, sobering up at once.

“Brother Su surely knows that a slow, gradual approach to reform would accomplish nothing at all. It has to be done this way,” Qu You said, her gaze sweeping across the bustling hall before returning to rest on him. “This is the path he has chosen to walk. Even knowing it’s strewn with thorns, he has no choice but to walk it. I cannot stop him — all I can do is try to gamble everything on his behalf, even if it means perishing alongside him on that same path…”

One life, two lives, three lives… never before had she lived to see this point.

The gods and Buddhas of every heaven had granted her wish, and yet, with cruel irony, had left her still struggling within the cracks and gaps of history. Even a thousand years later, poring over the old texts, she had never once learned what became of Zhou Tan after his reforms.

But even in her past life, after her own early death had left him utterly without hope, he had still insisted on seeing this work through to its end.

She did not know what she was meant to do, now that she had crossed this threshold — but she could not fail to honor the unwavering ideal he had carried with him all along.

Even though, deep down, she understood clearly that this very reform would almost certainly be the cause of his lonely, sickly death.

Qu You asked herself honestly — if she were Zhou Tan, even coming from a thousand years in the future, even able to nearly foresee her own fate, would she not choose exactly the same path?

And if even she, in his place, would choose this path — how could she possibly ask Zhou Tan to abandon everything for the sake of his own safety?

Besides, this time was different. This time… she was here.

Su Chaoci studied the woman before him.

The first time they had met, he had thought her simply strikingly beautiful. But through several later conversations — particularly the matter of her choosing to remain alone in the capital — he had come to see her in an entirely different light, and had come to understand, at last, why Zhou Tan had opened his heart to her so completely.

After this latest exchange, he understood it fully.

In caring for his friend, his own hope had always been that Zhou Tan himself would remain unharmed.

But she understood him — she knew that his ideals mattered to him more than anything else in the world, including his own safety.

Thinking this, Su Chaoci let out another sigh. “In a few more days, the ministers of the Council of State will have to render their final decision on the Order of the Fallen Blossoms. Chancellors Cai and Luo have always favored the old ways, and will surely refuse to support it. As for myself…”

Qu You’s eyes flickered, and she, too, let out a heavy sigh alongside him.

After the banquet, Zhou Tan and Qu You rode home together in their carriage. Passing by the Bian River, Qu You suddenly felt the urge to step down, and the two of them walked slowly together along the riverbank.

Bai Shating’s wedding banquet had been a truly grand affair; he had spoken warmly at length with each of his close friends, and had finally ended up clinging tightly to Bo Ying, weeping and refusing to let go. By the time all the commotion had settled, the streets along the Bian River lay entirely deserted, empty but for a single, imperfect moon hanging in the sky above.

Qu You lifted her gaze toward the hazy expanse of the Bian River ahead.

The moon lay veiled behind dark clouds, and the river’s waters, in turn, had taken on a murky, shadowed black. The night lay hushed and still, save for the distant sound of a patrol boat cutting through the water’s surface, somewhere far off.

At that same hour, within the depths of the imperial palace, the lights still burned bright.

And yet everything remained deathly silent.

An attendant lowered his head and closed the heavy palace doors. The young emperor, his face utterly expressionless, burned a confession scroll lying beside him, though a single bead of cold sweat slid down from his temple.

He passed through the drifting gauze curtains and pushed open the chamber doors once more; beneath the glow of the lamplight, the moon’s own light seemed dim and pale by comparison.

A pair of hands reached out from behind him, wrapping around his neck.

Song Xixuan tilted his head back, without turning around. “Jiang Ting, do you believe there exists, in this world, a bond of devotion strong enough to withstand anything?”

Luo Jiangting paused for a moment, then smiled sweetly, charmingly. “Why does Your Majesty say such foolish things? Of course such a thing exists.”

He let out a low laugh, cold sweat trickling down his neck and soaking into the pale gold outer robe beneath, leaving no visible trace.

“Let us hope so.”