When Jia Fu was buried alive, it was late autumn. She remembered clearly how the hibiscus in the Jin Bi Palace bloomed magnificently, appearing from a distance like a rainbow mist floating in midair.
She also remembered the details of that afternoon quite clearly.
She hadn’t seen the Emperor for several days. The palace servants said the Empress had been tending to the Emperor’s illness without even changing her clothes.
When she entered, she saw Empress Zhang with swollen eyelids and a haggard appearance. Before leaving, the Empress told her that the Emperor had summoned her and instructed her to serve him well.
The Empress was gentle and pleasant, just as she always was.
Between the layers of bright yellow curtains floated a bitter, nauseating smell of herbs mixed with medicine. The windows were tightly shut, and the light in the deep palace hall was dim and heavy, like a shadow enveloping her entire being.
Jia Fu gazed at the man called Xiao Yin Tang lying on the dragon bed. She had been kneeling there for nearly half an incense stick’s time.
In just a short span of ten years, the imperial power of Great Wei had changed hands four times. The reign titles had shifted from Tian Xi to Cheng Ning to Yong Xi, and finally to Zhao Ping during the previous Emperor Shi Zong’s reign. There had even been warfare in between—quite frequent indeed. But starting from the previous Emperor’s reign, Great Wei had finally ended its internal turmoil, growing increasingly powerful with the people’s lives becoming more stable. After Xiao Yin Tang took the throne from his father Shi Zong, troubles arose again at the northern frontier. The new Emperor was ambitious—in the second year of his reign, despite the desperate remonstrations and obstruction from his court officials, he mobilized the entire nation’s forces and personally led the expedition against the Turks. Though the campaign was difficult, it ended in victory. However, he was inadvertently wounded, and after returning to the capital, his condition worsened. The imperial physicians were helpless, and now unfavorable rumors had begun to spread secretly.
Xiao Yin Tang had been in a deep sleep when suddenly his hands rose and waved wildly in the air as if he were desperately resisting something.
His eyes remained closed, but his brows were tightly knitted together. His expression was painful and terrified, with cold sweat continuously breaking out on his forehead. He appeared to be suffering from some terrible nightmare.
Jia Fu hurriedly crawled forward, grabbed his cold, sweaty hands, and called out, “Your Majesty, wake up—”
The next moment, she was forcefully pushed away by the Emperor. She fell to the ground but, ignoring the pain, got up and approached him again. Then she heard him murmuring in his sleep.
“You An! You An! Is this your retribution against me? Spare me! Don’t blame me! Blame Imperial Father if you must! It was all his sin—”
Xiao Yin Tang’s throat made gurgling sounds as if an invisible pair of hands were choking him, making breathing difficult.
Jia Fu’s heart pounded in confusion. In his nightmare, Xiao Yin Tang continued to talk in his sleep, but his tone changed.
“I am the Emperor! I am the Emperor of Great Wei! Pei You An, I’m not afraid of you! You shouldn’t even be alive in this world! Even if you’ve become a ghost, what can you do to me!”
He gritted his teeth, his face contorted. His flailing hand happened to grab one of Jia Fu’s wrists and immediately tightened its grip. His teeth chattered, and in an instant, all the remaining strength in his dreaming body seemed to concentrate on those five fingers.
Jia Fu felt as if her wrist bones were about to be crushed. Enduring the severe pain, she called out to him once more.
Xiao Yin Tang finally awoke, opening his eyes abruptly. Drenched in cold sweat, he stared fixedly at Jia Fu beside him.
Jia Fu’s face turned slightly pale. After exchanging glances with him for a moment, she gave him a faint smile and said, “Your Majesty, it’s your concubine…”
Xiao Yin Tang released her wrist, and his arm fell powerlessly.
Jia Fu wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
His face was pale. After closing his eyes for a moment, he asked in a weak voice, “A Fu, did you hear what I said in my dream just now?”
Jia Fu’s hand holding the handkerchief paused slightly.
Pei You An, the eldest son of the Duke of Weiguo, had been frail and sickly since birth, but he possessed extraordinary talent. He could memorize books after reading them only once. At fourteen, he had already passed the highest imperial examination. The Emperor of Tian Xi at that time was very fond of him and made an exception by appointing him to the Hongwen Academy, earning him the beautiful title of “Commoner Minister, Young Prime Minister.” The previous Emperor Shi Zong also valued him greatly. Three years ago, he died while serving as the military governor of Anxi. He never married and was not yet thirty when he died.
It was said that on the night before he died in Suye City, his old illness recurred, and he vomited blood. When his subordinates came to visit him, they were all in tears, but he remained composed, still joking and talking as usual. He said that he had been living with medicines since childhood and had been told he wouldn’t live past ten. Having survived until now was already borrowing twenty extra years from heaven, so he had no regrets about dying.
When the tragic news of Pei’s death in the remote frontier city reached the capital, it was said that the previous Emperor Shi Zong was so grief-stricken that he fainted.
After his death, he was not buried in the Pei family’s ancestral tomb but was buried outside Suye City according to his wishes. The soldiers and civilians wept bitterly and refused to disperse for half a month. Shi Zong posthumously conferred on him the title of Prince of Anxi, and his funeral was conducted with the utmost honor and grief.
In terms of relationship, Pei You An and Jia Fu were also cousins, but two, except for an accidental encounter many years ago, they had no contact.
“I did not hear anything,” she replied, continuing to wipe his sweat.
Xiao Yin Tang slowly exhaled, closed his eyes again for a moment, and his expression gradually calmed. He gently held Jia Fu’s hand and said, “A Fu, I love you as much as my life. From the first moment I saw you, I placed you in the most treasured part of my heart. Over these years, apart from not being able to give you an official position, I believe I have loved you to the fullest extent. I am going to leave, and all matters after my death have been arranged, including provisions for your family. The only one I am reluctant to part with is you… After I’m gone, are you willing to follow me?”
He slowly opened his eyes, turned his head, and looked at her.
His face was ashen, with a bluish tinge at his brow. This once-handsome face was now covered with a faint aura of impending death.
Jia Fu, half-kneeling and half-sitting, looked into the Emperor’s eyes that were fixed on her.
“What’s the matter? Are you no longer willing to accompany me?” he asked with a hint of a smile that wasn’t quite a smile.
“Your Majesty, I am willing,” she replied, withdrawing her hand and kowtowing toward the dragon bed, touching her forehead to the ground and remaining prostrate.
“Come closer to me.” He extended his hand to her again and, with his last strength, held her tightly, heaving a long sigh filled with endless regret and unwillingness.
“I fear the loneliness of the underground palace. After I’m gone, there will be no one who can converse with me as you do and make me forget my worries. I fear even more that after I’m gone, leaving you alone in the world, you will be lonely and helpless. You should accompany me, so I can be at ease.”
“A Fu, don’t blame me. If there is a next life, I will surely grant you the position of Empress…” His lips touched her ear as he whispered, his voice full of tenderness.
…
In the autumn of the second year of Shen Guang, the Emperor of Great Wei, Xiao Yin Tang, who had been on the throne for less than two years, passed away in his prime. His posthumous title was Emperor Dun Zong.
“Dun” represents being devoted to one’s family and “Dun” also means establishing virtue.
Just as this posthumous title displayed the imperial virtues, Xiao Yin Tang, before his death, left behind an edict that everyone praised.
He said, “Using people as sacrifices is something I cannot bear. Therefore, after my departure, all consorts are exempted from burial sacrifice and shall live out their natural lives.”
Since the previous dynasty, there had been a palace rule that when an Emperor died, women of the harem who had no children would be buried with him. The number ranged from a few to over a hundred, and Great Wei continued this old practice. Xiao Yin Tang, not yet thirty, died suddenly. For the women in the harem, it was like a bolt from the blue. Originally, they had been crying daily, just waiting to hang themselves and be buried in the underground palace. But they never expected that the Emperor would spare them from death. Although their destiny was still to grow old in the cold palace, compared to being forced to follow him in death, being able to live was still a blessing. Everyone was grateful, and their crying at the funeral was especially sincere.
But all of this no longer concerned Jia Fu.
She had already accepted this arrangement of fate without joy or sorrow.
In this life, she was like a drifting duckweed without roots. After giving herself to Xiao Yin Tang, she had no name or status and lived in obscurity. Having such an end was not unexpected.
But what awaited her was not the three-foot white silk rope she should have received.
The newly elevated Empress Dowager Zhang ordered that she be nailed into a valuable golden silk nanmu coffin specially prepared for her, to be buried with the late Emperor in the underground palace.
“The late Emperor instructed me to take good care of your Zhen family. You can rest assured and follow the late Emperor. I will not fail what the late Emperor entrusted to me.”
Empress Dowager Zhang, no longer as magnanimous as before, fixed her eyes on her and said in a voice full of undisguised hatred, word by word.
The heavy coffin lid pressed down, squeezing out the last ray of light before her eyes.
Jia Fu’s final world became pitch black. She was forever sealed in this narrow space beneath the underground palace, never to escape.
There was no struggle, no cry for help. Because she knew that both struggle and cries would be futile.
This was her destiny, predestined by fate.
She had no control over her birth, her marriage, or her death.
As the air grew thinner and her chest ached from the inability to breathe, during the long, painful torment between life and death, her nails began to involuntarily scratch at the coffin walls within reach, leaving marks on the solid wooden boards.
It was only then that she realized she also feared death and the unimaginable boundless pressure of underground darkness that accompanied it.
She realized that she wanted to live on, to continue living no matter how difficult it might be.
But it was too late. In this life, she had reached the end. Her life was over.
If she hadn’t married her second cousin before, if she hadn’t met Xiao Yin Tang later, what would her life have been like?
She began to weep, tears flowing, but crying only consumed more air, making her suffer more.
Various strange illusions began to appear before her eyes. Amid the shifting light and shadow, she seemed to vaguely see a man breaking through the endless darkness of the underground palace, walking toward her with a smile.
She recognized him—he was her father.
Many years ago, when she was only thirteen, her father went to sea. She saw him off at the port. Before boarding the ship, her father promised her that on this voyage, he would bring back a necklace made of purple shark pearls for her.
Purple shark pearls came from distant foreign lands across the sea. Not only did they glow in the dark, but they were also said to bring good fortune. For seafarers, encountering them was considered lucky.
“Wearing it, my A Fu will have a smooth and peaceful life, free from illness and disaster,” her father had said.
His appearance and smile at that time were still vivid in her mind.
But after that sea voyage, he never returned.
“A Fu, father has returned and brought you the necklace. Do you like it?” Her father’s gaze was filled with boundless love.
“Father—” Jia Fu smiled through her tears, reaching out to him, calling to her father, the man who had once loved her most in the world.
The last precious breath escaped from her lungs. Her hands, with nails already broken and bleeding, slowly fell from the air and rested on her soft, warm chest, a smile on her lips.