“Long live the Crown Prince, may this Lantern Festival bring peace and prosperity.”
The moon hung high in the sky, lanterns blazed as bright as day, and the sound of flutes and drums filled every street. The imperial ritual procession passed through Zhuque Front Street; the crowd drew back and prostrated themselves, their voices rising and falling in a tide of well-wishes.
The third year of Tianshòu’s reign. The night of the Lantern Festival.
Su Luowei knelt beneath a horse-riding lantern hanging from an ancient tree and raised her head to look.
The crowd lay prostrate all around her; even the attending palace servants kept their eyes downcast as they walked, rarely lifting their gaze.
A deep cerulean imperial banner drifted in the night breeze. Luowei’s gaze shifted away from the horse-riding lantern, swept past the clamoring crowd, and met squarely with the eyes of the Crown Prince — Chu Jun — seated upright at the center of the procession atop the imperial jade carriage.
His features were strikingly beautiful. He wore vermilion ceremonial robes and a Distant Travel crown, holding aloft a red gold-inlaid incense burner. His bearing was incomparably noble; on his crimson ritual garments, the chased silver-and-gold floral patterns shimmered with hidden light, and crystal beads and glass strings clinked softly against each other, their delicate sound dissolving into the streets full of ceremonial music.
Across the distance — past the palace servants bearing lanterns — he caught sight of her. For a brief instant, surprise crossed his face, and then a faint, quiet smile followed.
In the sea of prostrate figures, she alone knelt upright where she stood, staring fixedly at him.
The words of the sages, the instructions of her elders — all of it rang in her ears. She knew she ought to lower her head, join the crowd in crying out blessings for the Crown Prince’s peace and prosperity. Yet in this moment, in this scene, she simply could not, no matter what, restrain the urge to look at him a moment longer.
The incense smoke rising from the burner in the Crown Prince’s hands drifted across his face, wreathing him in swirling mist. In the instant before the night wind scattered the haze, Luowei suddenly felt a sharp, aching pull at her chest.
She pressed her hand over her heart and raised her head again. The horse-riding lantern paused for just a breath — then began to spin faster than before.
The din of the crowd vanished from her ears in an instant. When she came back to herself, the Crown Prince — so distant just a moment ago, as though separated by clouds — had somehow come to stand at her side. He took her hand and led her weaving through the surging, boisterous crowd.
His palm was warm. Luowei still felt adrift, unmoored. Before she could speak, she saw a flash of light before her eyes.
She stood beside a stall covered in bronze mirrors, staring blankly at her own reflection — a girl with the last traces of childhood still on her face, a white flower of mourning pinned at her temple.
From some distant city tower, a drifting voice carried over:
“In the founding of Tianshòu, on the Millennium Celebration, on the night of the Lantern Festival — the Holy Son of Heaven grants three days of public revelry, day and night unrestricted. Walk away illness, revel among flower lanterns — may the winds be fair and the rains timely, may the five grains be plentiful!”
This was the first year of Tianshòu — three years prior.
That year she had just come of age. Her father had passed away, and at his bedside, she had received the Emperor’s Heaven-Bestowed Sword and been formally appointed as the Crown Princess-Designate, her marriage to the Crown Prince to follow after three years of mourning.
Beneath the flowering trees in the garden, she had received a crabapple jade pendant he had carved with his own hands as a token of their pledge. From that day on, the pendant became her most cherished possession, never leaving her side.
A familiar voice sounded at her ear.
“Hurry — don’t let them drag us back!”
Luowei and the Crown Prince, dressed in a pearl-white robe, clasped all ten fingers together and made their way to the banks of the Bianhe River. He bought two flower lanterns and urged her to write down her wish, then — imitating the couples all around them — pressed his palms together and prayed with earnest devotion.
Luowei reached out and cupped a handful of the cold Bianhe waters, but could not catch the lantern as it floated away. She could just barely make out her own handwriting on its surface: *Long live the Crown Prince, may this Lantern Festival bring peace and prosperity.*
And what had he wished for?
She had not had time to look again before he pulled her away from the water’s edge and back to the familiar Imperial Street.
The Imperial Street — moments ago alive with noise — had fallen utterly empty. She lifted her skirts and ran alongside him until they were both gasping for breath, then paused and glanced to the side, and there, on an old tree at the street’s edge, she spotted that familiar horse-riding lantern once more.
As if sensing her gaze, the lantern hesitated — then spun faster than ever.
The person whose hands were intertwined with hers was gone.
Luowei faltered and stopped, lifting her head, only to find herself seated at a writing table. On the table stood a bronze mirror, and within it her reflection wore a peach-blossom long skirt — and looked slightly younger than before.
Still the Lantern Festival night.
The flower-patterned window at her side was pushed open, and a young boy in white mourning clothes waved to her: “The two pots of night-blooming cereus I’ve been tending actually bloomed tonight — slip away from the banquet once you’ve changed! We’ll go with Shu Kang and Zi Lan to admire the flowers and watch the moon. It’s my birthday today; Father won’t blame us.”
She was now certain: she was caught inside some strange and fantastical space and time, returning over and over to the Lantern Festival nights of the past.
At thirteen — on a Lantern Festival night of heavy snow — Luowei and he had made a small red-clay brazier together in the garden, learning to drink the eyebrow-longevity wine newly supplied by the palace.
At twelve — he had sat beneath the Golden Hall and listened to the court ministers offer congratulations through the night, while Luowei arranged many red candles carved in the shape of lotuses in the rear palace.
At eleven — they had together tied a red silk ribbon to the largest crabapple tree in the palace.
……
The horse-riding lantern spun swiftly, swiftly, and at last reversed back to their very first meeting — that year Luowei was only five years old, and a brother a full head taller than her took her by the hand and plucked a cluster of crape myrtle blossoms to pin in her hair.
It was springtime. The crabapple blossoms in the garden were nearly spent; the crape myrtles had just begun to bloom.
He told her his childhood nickname was “A’Tang.”
A horse-riding lantern hung from the crabapple tree — and this time it reversed its direction, turning and turning until it wound all the way back.
Luowei reached out to touch the Crown Prince’s face, and suddenly realized that at some point unknown to her, he had once again become the imperial heir of the third year of Tianshòu, dressed in his vermilion ceremonial robes.
She studied his face with great care, afraid to miss even the smallest detail. Yet her chest ached with a dull, relentless pain, and even her fingers trembled.
It felt like a premonition — of something about to be lost.
He looked back at her, and suddenly asked: “Where is the jade pendant I gave you?”
Luowei lowered her head in a daze, reaching instinctively to touch the pendant.
But her waist was bare. There was nothing there at all.
At some point she had lost that pendant.
She raised her head again — and the person before her had vanished into the void. The imperial jade carriage wound its way slowly into the distance. She stood alone in the chaotic street. She wanted to cry out *don’t go* with everything she had, but it was as though invisible hands had seized her throat — she could not utter a single word.
“In the third year of Tianshòu, on the Millennium Celebration, on the night of the Lantern Festival — the Holy Son of Heaven grants three days of public revelry; the Crown Prince holds the Bianhe Grand Sacrifice, day and night unrestricted. Walk away illness, revel among flower lanterns — may the winds be fair and the rains timely, may the five grains be plentiful!”
The horse-riding lantern fell from the tree and struck the ground heavily at her feet.
A towering blaze erupted on the street. In the span of a single breath, the surging crowd reversed direction in a panicked tide; the clashing sound of armor grew louder and louder, swallowing her desperate, unwilling cry to hold him back.
“The Crown Prince has been assassinated — the Bianhe River is under lockdown!”
“The Crown Prince has been assassinated — the Bianhe River is under lockdown——”
Luowei at last recovered her voice and screamed through streaming tears.
“Don’t go! Don’t go!”
*— At the very least, stay with me through this one Lantern Festival.*
She could not move at all, and could only strain to raise her head and look skyward.
In the empty air above, the young Crown Prince stood upon the floral banquet platform built over the Bianhe River for the sacrificial rites, and turned toward her with a brilliant, radiant smile. In his dark pupils, the reflections of flames danced.
—
*
“My Lady, My Lady——”
“……”
Luowei jolted awake from this phantom dream she had dreamed countless times.
A palace servant held a handkerchief and gently dabbed the sweat from her brow.
The deep cold of winter was nearly past. Luowei turned to look out the window at the bare, skeletal crabapple grove, and slowly came to the realization that this was already the third winter since she had become Empress.
In the beginning, when this dream first came to her, cold sweat would soak her pillows and mattress. So she had gone herself to Xiuqing Temple — said to be especially efficacious — to draw a divination lot and seek an interpretation. She received a verse whose meaning was obscure, yet seemed to hold some deeper significance.
*”A person’s life is like a dream upon a pillow, like blossoms on a tree — flourishing with the spring’s arrival, spent and empty when the joy has passed. Foam on the water, morning glory blooms — do not dwell on them too long.”*
Achingly beautiful, sorrowful to the very extreme.
Yet when she turned the wooden lot over, she found another line of crooked, irregular characters on the back — as though someone had added it carelessly.
*— The bright moon illuminates the spring night, age upon age.*
Its meaning was unknown; no one could explain it. Luowei had adopted her own interpretation and taken it to heart, even carrying the lot back from Xiuqing Temple to the palace with her, placing it before the glass vase in her inner chamber — a veiled, quiet source of comfort.
Luowei had been raised on the teachings of Confucianism and put no faith in Buddhism or Taoism. Yet now her inner chamber was filled with images from every school of thought.
Her imperial husband had even laughed gently at the sight once, remarking that since ancient times Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism could not coexist — was the Empress not afraid these various immortals would take a disliking to one another?
Luowei had not minded. She wore a faint, tranquil smile on her face, while inwardly thinking with cold detachment: if even one of these immortals would reveal themselves, this world would not have been allowed to sink to such a state.
Since the gods and Buddhas could not protect the living, they would surely not hold her irreverence against her.
“My Lady — His Majesty has arrived.”
Someone lifted the curtain and entered her small world of drifting incense — intimate and sacred.
Luowei slowly turned.
In the instant she made out the face of the visitor, all the phantom dreams of the girl shattered like soap bubbles into nothingness. Through the haze of fragrant smoke, a young face appeared — bearing some resemblance to the Crown Prince of her dreams, and yet utterly, entirely different.
She knew this was no illusion. With composed dignity she clasped her hands and performed a deep formal bow.
He quickly reached out and took her by the forearm, indicating she should rise. He wore a deep blue robe with satin patterning and hidden embroidery; at his cuffs, a band of red showed through.
She looked at him.
He was a young and handsome Emperor, in the finest years of his youth and brilliance.
And the one she dreamed of — he lay sleeping in the dark forever, nothing now but a handful of scattered, extinguished ash.
How unspeakably absurd this world was.
“Elder Sister, your illness has only recently passed, and the northern inspection tour will be demanding — it is better you do not accompany us. Rest and recover well; when I return, I will need you to preside over the Spring Banquet.”
Luowei swallowed down every last turbulent emotion and left only a gentle reply: “Very well.”
After the Emperor departed, Luowei brought out her guqin and, before the gathered images of the various immortals, played a piece: *River Goddess.*
*”…From where did the pair of white egrets come flying — as if with intention, drawn to grace and beauty. Suddenly, upon the river, a mournful zither’s song arises — full of bitter feeling — to whom is it sent, that they might hear?”*
*”I wished to wait until the music ended to seek and ask — but the person is gone, and only the distant peaks remain green.”* ¹
As her fingers traced the strings, she closed her eyes. What rose in her mind was the horse-riding lantern falling to the earth.
In the jade-green sky, few flowers bloom; when spring comes, wind and rain are plenty.
Where has that face gone?
Carried by the wind, blown as a dream into the mountains and rivers.
The surface of the horse-riding lantern was entirely blank; even the red candle inside had broken into several pieces. On the blank silk surface, a flower bloomed petal by petal out of thin air — pink, white — crabapple blossoms.
A sound like a silver vase shattering — the clash of blade against blade — broke through the stillness. And then blood spread outward, soaking that crabapple blossom entirely in its crimson flood, drowning it in a blur of smoldering red, of deepening black, until it was extinguished — forever — in silence.
—
¹ *River Goddess* (江神子) — a *ci* poem by Song dynasty poet Zhang Xian (张先). The verses quoted describe a pair of white egrets, a mournful zither song heard across the water, and the image of someone sought after who has already vanished — leaving only distant green peaks behind. The poem carries a tone of longing and irretrievable loss.