Song Yaofeng × Yu Suiyun Extra · Part 2 · The Seafarer’s Carefree Heart

04 · If Only Eyes Could Be Free of the Pain of Parting

Yu Qiushi had not objected to the marriage between the two of them after all.

When Song Yaofeng had raised the matter that day, she had not expected the union to go through so easily. Though she and Luowei had pretended to fall out with each other, Yu Qiushi was far too shrewd — given his wariness toward Luowei, how could he fail to see through Luowei’s calculations behind this marriage?

Yet Yu Suiyun had threatened to die if denied, and in doing so wrested his father’s consent. Whatever exchange had passed between Yu Qiushi and Song Lan, after a few months of mourning observance, the wedding proceeded without a hitch.

Song Yaofeng was married off in haste. Clad in an elaborate bridal gown, she stood in the main hall and bowed slightly toward Yu Qiushi at the head of the room, offering him a cup of hot tea.

Yu Qiushi accepted the teacup and took a sip. Without looking at her, he said with a genial expression, “Suiyun, from this day forward, you must take good care of Her Highness.”

With tears in his eyes, Yu Suiyun replied, “Your son takes Father’s teachings to heart and will do everything in his power to protect Her Highness.”

Before the wedding, Song Yaofeng had rescued Qiu Xueyu and arranged for her to be placed in Luowei’s palace quarters. However, to avoid drawing attention, Luowei had not yet called her to her side — that would have to wait until no one was paying notice.

Afterward, Song Yaofeng and Luowei met secretly in the dense grove before the Gaoyang Terrace.

Although half of the Jintian Guard had already been won over by Song Lan, Luowei had spent years performing acts of kindness within the palace and still had loyal followers among the Imperial Guards. She had them stand watch over the grove, then walked slowly with Song Yaofeng deeper into the trees.

After only a few steps, Luowei suddenly said, “Do you remember — when we were little, we were rowing on Huiling Lake, deep among the lotus blossoms, and I asked you whether you had ever thought about the future, whether you had any wishes…”

Song Yaofeng nodded, smiling faintly. “I remember. I told you I had no desire to think about the future — I only wished that things could always be as carefree as they were that day.”

Luowei lowered her eyes and did not look at her. “You and I were born the same year, our birthdays only a month apart. Though I am only a month older, both I and A’Tang have always thought of you as the dearest younger sister. When I heard those words of yours back then, I was a little taken aback. I am an only child, and my parents loved each other dearly — and yet even I could not help but worry about the future. Yet you, who had grown up from childhood inside the imperial court, had somehow cultivated such a pure and guileless heart.”

“I once believed that you could remain so innocent forever. When my uncle assigned me to be your companion reader, I was willing to protect your innocence. But we had thought too little of this world — there are truly too many storms, the roads truly too rough. No matter how large or sturdy an umbrella, it will one day be worn through.”

Song Yaofeng stopped walking and said quietly, “You and my brother have already been through so much. And I have grown up now — you don’t need to hold the umbrella for me anymore.”

At those words, Luowei turned her head. Song Yaofeng met her gaze and saw a faint redness rising in her eyes.

Luowei raised a hand to rub her eyes, then laughed. “Ah, I thought I could plan everything out for you — but you are right. You have your own umbrella now. If you wish to walk a path where the rain falls harder, I should not stop you.”

As she spoke, she drew a handkerchief from her sleeve. Song Yaofeng took it and found it embroidered crookedly — the pattern on it was barely recognizable as two rabbits lying side by side beneath a crabapple tree, their eyes half-closed.

“In my youth, the thing I hated most was needlework. You could at least sit still for it, but I never had that sort of patience. You used to scold me in a fury, saying I ought at least to learn it — so I could embroider a phoenix on my own wedding garments.” Luowei wiped her tears and laughed, reminiscing in rambling detail, “And then I said…”

“You said that if that was the case, you would not send a wedding gift when I was married — you would embroider me a handkerchief instead, and that would show me your sincerity.” Song Yaofeng laughed along with her. “Yes — you still remember.”

“I never had the chance to embroider a phoenix on your wedding garment. Now… things are truly rushed, and I could prepare no other gift. So let this show you my sincerity.” Luowei said, “When you have a quiet moment, bring this handkerchief back to me, and demand your wedding gift from me then.”

“All right — you had better not go back on your word.”

Song Yaofeng stepped forward and gently put her arm around Luowei’s shoulders.

“Weiwei, take care of yourself,” she said.

“You too — take care of yourself.” Luowei choked through her tears. “I ask nothing of you. Only keep yourself safe — if you keep yourself safe, that is comfort enough for me. I hear that the second young master is a man who loves books. If you have leisure, read with him — study the art of war, read the histories, learn the ways of the human heart.”

Song Yaofeng’s shoulders trembled slightly. She understood the unspoken meaning behind those words.

“There will come a day when I need you. May we… meet again on that day.”

……

Life after the wedding became very tranquil — even more tranquil, strangely, than the carefree days of her youth inside the palace. Yu Qiushi never consulted Yu Suiyun on matters of state; when there was business, he called only upon his eldest son. And so within the Yu household, Song Yaofeng heard nothing of the storms churning through the court.

In an ordinary family, a second son might have harbored resentment over such treatment — but Yu Suiyun did not care in the slightest. His whole heart was devoted to her.

He never kept company with scholars and men of letters, nor did he have any ambition toward the imperial examinations. He loved poetry, literature, and all things elegant and refined. The courtyard of their newlywed home was filled with trees and flowers he had planted with his own hands, tended with great care. A long corridor was hung with calligraphy and paintings by famous masters, and the garden was beautifully laid out — picturesque at every turn.

In this way, Song Yaofeng found herself gently drawn away from the treacherous world of politics. Together, they spent their days composing verses and couplets, or losing themselves in the appreciation of flowers and plants. Each morning, Yu Suiyun would take up the eyebrow brush and paint her brows with focused attention. She would breathe in the faint fragrance of soap locust on him and feel a sense of peace that could not be put into words.

After the wedding ceremony, Luowei never again sent her an invitation to any banquet. Song Lan rarely summoned her into the palace either. Old faces and old matters drifted further and further away beneath this mutually sustaining pretense.

Only she herself, at every moment, reminded herself what truly lay hidden beneath all this tranquility.

Three years into the marriage, Song Yaofeng and Yu Suiyun had never once quarreled.

In his presence, she played the part of the good wife as written in the books. He, in turn, acceded to her in everything — not a single matter went against her wishes.

Were it not for the bowl of contraceptive medicine that Zhong Yi would bring to her each day after they shared a bed, she might have all but forgotten the unspoken estrangement between them.

On the fifteenth of each month, Song Yaofeng and Yu Suiyun would go to the garden together to admire the moon. This custom had been proposed by Yu Suiyun not long after their wedding, when he noticed her often gazing at the moon in a trance. Song Yaofeng was ordinarily full of chatter — only on these calm, moonlit nights of the full moon would she fall quiet and speak half-truthfully from her heart to her husband.

On the Mid-Autumn Festival in the third year of the Jinghe era, Yu Qiushi had gone to the palace to attend the banquet, and the Yu household held no family reunion dinner of its own.

Yu Suiyun brought out a prized vintage wine, and they drank together.

Song Yaofeng had not been drunk in a long while, but that evening, gazing at the moon, she was inexplicably reminded of a certain night many years past during the Lantern Festival — that night that had altered the fates of everyone — the moon had been just as full and round, just as clear and luminous.

Moved by what she saw, she unintentionally drank more than she should have. She leaned against Yu Suiyun’s shoulder and spoke ramblingly at length.

“When you were young you were so obedient — I still remember… at my mother’s funeral, I looked up and saw you kneeling there, reciting the eulogy. Afterward, you greeted me in the grove and asked whether I still remembered your name.”

Song Yaofeng spoke in fragments, and Yu Suiyun held her patiently without interrupting. After a long while, he said quietly, “But that was not our first meeting…”

She paid no heed to his words, and clutched his arm, swaying back and forth. “You were so foolish — why did you send white chrysanthemums every day? Father cherished Mother deeply, and the chrysanthemums in the mourning hall were all the finest varieties of the age. Even if I had wanted to find somewhere to arrange flowers, he would not have permitted it. And those pastries… how did you know that Mother’s favorite thing to make was lotus-leaf cakes? I was kneeling alone in the middle of the night and felt a little hungry. I lifted the lid of the food box, took one bite, and felt like crying. I cried and ate at the same time, and nearly choked.”

Yu Suiyun said nothing, gently patting her back as if soothing her to sleep.

“What I remember most vividly of all is that spring banquet. After you fell into the lake — did you fall ill? The peach blossoms were beautiful. I walked around several times. The cross-collar robe you wore that day suited you very well. What a pity we barely exchanged a few words.”

After recalling all of this, she spoke of many other things — what exactly she said, she could only vaguely remember when she reflected on it the next day, for her tolerance for alcohol was, as ever, quite poor.

The only thing she remembered clearly was a low, quiet question from Yu Suiyun, asked somewhere between dream and waking: “Yaofeng, are you happy?”

“I don’t know,” Song Yaofeng answered thickly, her words unclear. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know…”

She shook her head a few times and turned the question back on him: “And you, Suiyun — are you happy?”

Something wet and cool brushed her cheek. When she raised her hand to wipe it, Song Yaofeng realized she had been crying without knowing it. She murmured in a daze, “Wealth and honor are not my concern; I would return and make my pact with the white gulls… you should not have been born into this place. Neither should I. If there were a next life…”

She did not finish before she caught the scent of him drawing near.

Yu Suiyun leaned down and pressed a cool, wet kiss to her lips.

Song Yaofeng felt the unrest within his kiss, and so she pushed herself upright, wrapped her arms around his neck, and returned it.

Yu Suiyun was overcome with emotion. He gathered her up in his arms and, stumbling, carried her back to the bedchamber.

Their clothing half undone, their hair in disarray, lost in a haze of desire — Song Yaofeng heard a sound of longing rise from his throat, and leaned in to press her lips to his bobbing Adam’s apple.

In those days, she often dreamed — of a small rabbit with an injured ear, fleeing in panic from arrows flying through the air, running wildly through a forest. After running a long while, she followed the rabbit to a young man who had been tied to a tree with a bowstring. He had struggled so violently that the cord had bitten into his wrists, leaving them slick with blood.

The rabbit hurried forward, seeking to help, stretching out its soft tongue to lick the hem of his shoe — yet there was no response. She looked up in alarm and saw that an arrow had been driven through the young man’s brow, and his entire face was the color of blood.

He had not even had time to close his eyes. He seemed to have been someone who cared deeply about neatness, yet now his hair was disheveled and his expression frozen in terror, his locks tangled with dried fragments of leaves.

Song Yaofeng’s heart pounded wildly. Long after waking, she could not calm herself. She could not recall the young man’s face — only the sense of loneliness, of cold. The dream, too, was cold. The young man had died alone in a silent forest, with no sound of people, no sound of animals — only the immutable sunset sun, casting its heavy light across every inch of the tree trunks.

In the midst of this intimate, close embrace, that cold returned to her — and she could not help but tighten her arms around him, calling his name: “Suiyun…”

At this critical moment, Yu Suiyun suddenly gave a start, and then reached out and gently pushed her shoulder away.

For a long while, Song Yaofeng could not come back to herself. She knelt there with a dazed expression amid a tangle of disheveled silk on the bed, watching Yu Suiyun grab his robe, drape it carelessly over himself, and hurry out of the room.

The door closed softly. He left her without a single word.

She did not understand why this had happened. She only felt a kind of absurdity. She laughed once, then again — and then found she could no longer laugh. The cold remained.

After that night, the two of them fell into a peculiar awkwardness.

On the surface, they were still a model couple, harmonious and devoted. Yu Suiyun treated her just as well as before — in ordinary times he seemed too much like a carefree young man of a noble house, his speech innocent and cheerful. Song Yaofeng could not read his thoughts, could find not a single trace of what lay beneath.

Yet while their relationship remained amicable, he never again shared her bed.

Within the Yu household, only Zhong Yi knew this secret — for from that day onward, Song Yaofeng no longer needed to drink the contraceptive medicine.

Yu Suiyun slept fully clothed beside her every night. Occasional tenderness there was — an embrace was the furthest it went.

Song Yaofeng had long suspected that Yu Suiyun knew something, but she would never bring herself to ask, and naturally he offered no explanation.

If it was not something to do with his father, then it was… had his long years of devotion finally worn him out with weariness?

Perhaps he had come to realize that though she had grown much quieter than before, she was still at heart a block of ice that could not be warmed. Since she would not melt for him, seeking consolation elsewhere was something the men of this world commonly did.

With her parents and brothers gone, Song Lan caring little for her, and no rule in this dynasty forbidding a prince-consort from taking concubines — no one was there to stand up for her. Whatever Yu Suiyun wished to do, there would be no consequences.

She only did not know whose daughter it was, or perhaps some charming maidservant within the household.

Song Yaofeng thought on this and found it absurd again. Why should she trouble herself over such a small matter? There was no need to guess at the other party’s identity either — in the end, this was something she ought not to mind, should not deign to mind, and did not care to mind.

After all… the sun and moon are the most lofty and radiant of all things; husband and wife are the most intimate yet most distant.

It had always been thus. No one was above such things.

Those unshakeable bonds of affection, those pledges of eternal constancy — all were capable of deceiving. The wound on his arm from when he had sworn a blood oath had long since healed over. New flesh had grown in its place. It was as though none of it had ever happened.

The young man nailed to the tree trunk in her dream suddenly came back to life — the horrifying hole in his brow and all — and grinned at her merrily: “You actually believed it? You’re a fool.”

Song Yaofeng was jolted awake by a sharp pain in her chest. The bedchamber in the dead of night was utterly empty — there was no one to bring her the warm comfort they once had.

I really believed it, she thought, lucid as ice even as she felt herself plunging into freezing water.

I really am a fool.

05 · Parting Ways, with Chu Pass and the Rivers Far Between

At last there came a day when Yu Qiushi returned from Tingshan in a daze, shut himself in his study, and did not emerge for a very long time.

For Song Yaofeng, stealing Yu Qiushi’s specimen calligraphy and official seal for Luowei had been a trivial matter — even had she not done it, Luowei would have found a better way.

Yu Suishan arrived at their door in a fury, carrying evidence that she had implicated Yu Qiushi. To protect her, Yu Suiyun took a blow from his own elder brother and received a wound at his temple.

After Song Yaofeng bandaged his wound, she was summoned to the study by Yu Qiushi, where she received his written confession.

Rain had begun to fall again in the spring night. On her way back, she and Yu Suiyun crossed paths under the covered corridor. Yu Suiyun, heedless of her attempts to stop him, strode off in the direction of the study.

Outside the door, the sound of armored soldiers could already be heard. The accusations had thrown the court into an uproar — by Song Lan’s reckoning, it was time to act.

She suddenly felt a wave of dizziness and barely managed to steady herself against the corridor pillar. Zhong Yi appeared from the far end of the covered walkway and knelt before her: “Your Highness, this servant has already swept out the Princess Consort’s residence, and Her Majesty the Empress has also informed the Imperial Guards who are coming to make arrests. Let us go back now.”

It was all over.

Song Yaofeng watched Yu Suiyun’s retreating figure and thought: it is all over. Only today had she understood why Yu Qiushi had not objected to this marriage from the start — he had long since anticipated that he would come to this, and had eagerly hoped that if he were condemned and executed, with Yu Suiyun married to a princess, the princess’s protection might spare his life.

She had no real desire to grant him his wish. After all, when he and Song Lan had conspired to massacre the imperial family back then, he had shown no regard whatsoever for her own kin.

But watching that retreating figure, her mind filled with so many memories of the past — and in the end she could not bring herself to be merciless. She said to Zhong Yi, “Go — go and bring him along too.”

Zhong Yi did not move at once. She gave Song Yaofeng a long, searching look.

Never before had she questioned her decisions — this was the first time she hesitated upon hearing an order. “Your Highness, even if His Majesty has pardoned the prince-consort, in his heart he surely does not wish him to live. If we return to the Princess Consort’s residence alone, it can still be counted as a pledge of loyalty to His Majesty. But if we truly bring the prince-consort with us, it will inevitably cause His Majesty to take notice of Your Highness once more.”

“All things considered, it truly is not worth it.”

Rainwater splashed onto her eyelids and slid slowly down her cheeks — a cool, chilling dampness.

She did not know whether this was rain or tears. She only said in a daze, “Never mind. I cannot think so clearly right now. Go first and bring him here, so we may leave together.”

Zhong Yi hesitated. “What if he refuses to come?”

Song Yaofeng said, “Then knock him unconscious and carry him back.”

……

Father had cherished her and Ningle, but not to the point of excessive indulgence. Both of their princess’s residences were former estates of the previous dynasty within the capital, Biandu — no great efforts had been made to choose new sites or build anew.

Song Yaofeng had been long absent from the Princess Consort’s residence. Though Zhong Yi had had it swept out, the place still had the feel of a thin layer of dust over everything.

By rights, she could have come to stay here from time to time after her marriage — but the residence was some distance from the Yu family’s estate, and she had not wished to directly confront the past. She had not returned in all these years.

Song Yaofeng brought Yu Suiyun back to the residence. The moment she stepped through the front gate, the gate was locked behind her — Yu Qiushi was not yet dead, and though Yu Suiyun was a prince-consort, as the son of one guilty of treason, he inevitably implicated her in house confinement.

She understood that if she had exercised better judgment, she ought not to have brought Yu Suiyun out of the Yu household in the first place. Had he gone with his elder brother into the Ministry of Justice’s prison, even if she changed her mind now, she would no longer have had the power to save him.

Or, at this moment, she should have petitioned Song Lan in writing — with sincere and earnest words, writing that though she and her prince-consort were in perfect matrimonial harmony, loyalty to her sovereign took precedence over personal affections, and that if he were truly implicated, she would never allow him to escape punishment through his status as prince-consort.

Whether or not Song Lan believed such words, simply writing them would serve as her own guarantee of survival. Yu Suiyun’s sister, Yu Suiyun, had avoided being implicated due to her pregnancy — and if the Emperor could be partial out of consideration for bloodline, her letter in hand could create the impression among court and public opinion of “righteousness that transcends personal ties.” Even if Song Lan wished to use this as an opportunity to move against her, it would be difficult to act.

She knew perfectly well that this was the right course of action, yet she simply could not bring herself to do it.

Even if she were suspected and guarded against, even if it left a vulnerability, even if it led to her death…

Song Yaofeng had been willful in her youth, and just as obstinate then. Even now she did not know what she was clinging to — only that, by instinct, she felt that this was how it ought to be.

After waking, Yu Suiyun did not make a scene.

He behaved as though nothing had happened and began to concern himself with small, mundane matters.

Such as where the small kitchen was, and whether there was still fresh bird’s nest — in the past, he had always cooked her bird’s nest soup with his own hands.

And whether some new flowers and trees could be planted in the garden, now that it had grown sparse. The pond could be cleared of silt and lotus flowers planted.

The stone steps bore the poems of the Fifth Royal Prince — had the princess carved them herself, or had Song Qi carved them in the past?

Song Yaofeng found herself increasingly unable to read Yu Suiyun.

He was an intelligent man — perhaps even more intelligent than his elder brother and father. If he were not, how could he have maintained such an unruffled calm in the face of his family’s ruin, while facing her, who was half the cause of it?

She detected something unusual within this calm, and so she quietly instructed Zhong Yi to put away all sharp objects in the room, then assigned two manservants to follow Yu Suiyun every moment, lest he do something that would exhaust her heart and strength.

The fifteenth of July was Ghost Festival — the dead of night was eerie and inauspicious, not fitting for admiring the moon — so Song Yaofeng postponed their gathering by one day, and on the night of the sixteenth, following their old custom, she and Yu Suiyun drank wine in the garden.

Though they were under house confinement, the Imperial Guards dared not be negligent. In those days, whenever Yu Suiyun requested tree saplings or lotus seeds, they had diligently sent them.

The heavy dead wood in the garden had been removed, replaced by the young saplings he had newly planted. The newborn branches and leaves trembled lightly in the summer night breeze.

Song Yaofeng filled his cup for him: “Suiyun, try this — it is an aged vintage I buried beneath the great tree in the residence when I was young.”

Yu Suiyun held her hand and drained the cup in one go. “Truly a fine vintage — fragrant the moment it touches the lips. A single cup is enough to make one drunk.”

The wine was finished, but he did not let go of her hand. His fingers slid upward along her forearm, leaving a tremor that had grown almost unfamiliar.

Song Yaofeng studied him carefully — from the wooden hairpin he now wore in place of any sharp object, to his face, which had grown thinner.

The eyes on that face were gentle and sorrowful, and the tender longing within them was unchanged from before — not by a single fraction. Whether it was true, or whether her own longing had gilded him with a false light, she could not say.

Yu Suiyun reached out and drew her into his embrace.

His embrace had always been as gentle as he was, and had never been so forceful as this. Song Yaofeng pressed close to him — so close that even the sound of their heartbeats mingled into one.

He buried his face in her shoulder and asked quietly, “Yaofeng, are you happy?”

Song Yaofeng looked up at the moon, but a dark cloud passed across the sky and obscured her view. She suddenly felt very tired — too tired even to say what was not true. “I am not happy. The joyful days have been too few, far too few…”

She finished her answer and turned the question back: “And you?”

Yu Suiyun replied after a long pause, “I…”

He did not finish. His hands slid down and cupped her face, drawing her into a kiss. Song Yaofeng closed her eyes and felt a tear fall onto her face from him.

Yu Suiyun carried her back to the room and they intertwined beneath the gauze canopy.

It had been a long time since they had been so intimate — they did not even have time to undo their hair or fully remove their clothes. When his kiss fell upon her neck after so long an absence, Song Yaofeng thought of the “other woman” who existed only in her imagination — whether real or not — and her feelings grew impossible to name. She could not help but give him a small, gentle push.

That insignificant resistance enraged the man who had never once lost his temper. Yu Suiyun seized her wrists and pressed them against the pillow.

Even so, he still asked, breathing roughly at her ear, “You are unwilling?”

Song Yaofeng shook her head and answered in a trembling voice, “I am willing.”

And so he finally smiled — wider and wider, louder and louder.

He often smiled, but those smiles that never reached his eyes were, when set against this unbridled, unguarded laughter, a world apart.

She was his wife — she could see the difference most clearly.

When the clouds and rain had stilled, it was deep into the night.

Neither of them felt the least bit sleepy. They dressed and went out once more to admire the moon.

Yu Suiyun took up the fine-toothed comb and drew it through her hair from root to tip, combing with care. As he combed, he said with a smile, “At our wedding, the wedding matron combed your long hair in just this way, saying auspicious words all the while. I still remember them — one comb down to the ends, husband and wife in loving harmony with nothing to lament—”

Song Yaofeng gazed at her reflection in the bronze mirror and softly continued, “…ten combs down to the ends, bound together in this life and the last, sharing white hair till the end of time.”

Yu Suiyun said in surprise, “You remember too?”

“I remember,” Song Yaofeng said. “Why should you be so astonished? Is my memory not good enough? Just the other day I was recalling the scene of our very first meeting — I rescued you and then left you by the roadside. I walked quite far, then looked back and saw you still standing there.”

Yu Suiyun said warmly, “Yes — and from that moment on, I thought: someday, I will marry you.”

He bowed his head a little, somewhat self-conscious. “But after that, it was a long time before we met again. At the time, Father was not yet prominent, and when I sat the imperial examination for the first time I was too young and did not place well. Anxious as I was, I took my writings to prominent figures to recommend myself, naively thinking that if I could climb a little higher, I might be a little more worthy of you.”

Song Yaofeng wanted to turn and look at him, but he steadied her face and would not let her. So she said in surprise, “But to be a prince-consort, you would not have needed any of that.”

“Yes — I was older before I asked and learned as much,” Yu Suiyun said with a rueful laugh. “That was just before my second attempt at the examination. When I heard that a prince-consort was forbidden from holding high office, I gave up on sitting for the exams. After withdrawing, I felt troubled again — how was I to catch your eye? Riding and hunting were not my strong suits. The poetry and literary arts I prided myself on seemed of no interest to you. And I was not a man of exceptional talent, either — there were so many scholars and men of letters in Biandu that standing out among them was no easy thing.”

Song Yaofeng thought back on those years — they truly had not shared a single point of intersection.

“Later, Father rose in rank, and at last I had the opportunity to pay court to you — but I was too clumsy, and always managed to make a mess of things.” Yu Suiyun said with some chagrin. “At the spring banquet that year, I wanted to scatter a rain of peach blossoms for you — and ended up falling into the pond myself. What you thought of me, seeing that, I can only imagine.”

Song Yaofeng was about to say something when she heard his tone shift abruptly: “I know that after the Thorn-Killing Case came to light and you learned of Father and His Majesty’s conspiracy, you would never have married me had it not been to protect yourself — to make use of me.”

So he had known all along.

Song Yaofeng felt a jolt, and her tone grew unavoidably stiff and cold. “Then you… did you not think clearly about this before? And having thought it through, do you regret it?”

But Yu Suiyun shook his head. “How could I? When Your Highness asked me whether I was willing to marry you, I had already thought it through.”

He bent down, cheek to cheek with her, so they both looked at the mirror together. His voice was very soft. “A man dying of thirst — even if he knows the drink is poison, he would still find it sweet as nectar.”

Song Yaofeng’s heart gave a great lurch. She hid her trembling hands inside her sleeves and barely managed to hold herself steady. “What your elder brother said when he burst into the study that day was largely true.”

“I married you to take advantage of your father’s power and protect myself under Song Lan’s reign. Within the Yu household, I was watchful at every turn, searching for evidence of your father’s crimes so I could one day hand it to the Empress. Your family’s downfall today is half my doing.”

She did not dare look back at him, and for a long while Yu Suiyun said nothing. At last he said quietly, “How could Your Highness be blamed for that? If I were in your position — having lost those dearest to me — I would have done the same, borne such humiliations for the same purpose.”

Song Yaofeng’s voice began to tremble beyond her control. “After all these years, having understood all of this — how could you feel no grief, no pain? Later, when you refused to be with me, perhaps you sought comfort elsewhere. Was that not regret?”

“Ha ha ha ha ha…” Yu Suiyun held her shoulders and knelt down behind her, laughing so hard he nearly fell over. “Yaofeng, do you truly think I never once noticed the dregs of medicine outside your window? Chinese angelica root, peach kernel, safflower, curcuma… though the doses were always so careful, over the years and years — how could they not have harmed your health? Why did you never say anything? I also wanted to tell you: you need not drink those medicines anymore. Even if we are not truly husband and wife in that sense, I cannot bear to see you suffer so.”

Song Yaofeng went pale as a sheet and turned around — lost her balance — and the two of them tumbled to the floor together.

She reached out trembling to touch Yu Suiyun’s face, but saw his expression change suddenly. He clapped a hand over his heart, curling up in pain at once: “I… suddenly… it hurts here…”

Before Song Yaofeng had time to react, he abruptly reached up and pulled the wooden hairpin from atop his own head.

By the light of the candles, Song Yaofeng could see that the originally smooth and blunt wooden pin had been sharpened to a keen edge at some point unknown to her. It was so unassuming — and yet it had been made into a weapon!

Her eyes flew open in horror. Heedless of the risk of injuring herself, she seized the wooden pin — but Yu Suiyun used his other hand to swiftly grip her wrist, guiding her hand forward, and drove the pin squarely into his own heart.

Blood surged out at once, staining her hand crimson.

“Someone — someone come — help!”

A dream-like wash of red returned before her eyes. Song Yaofeng’s hands and feet went ice-cold. She wanted to call for help but found herself so gripped with terror she had nearly lost her voice, managing only a faint, muffled sound from her throat.

Yu Suiyun, heedless of the wound in his chest, drew her back into his arms.

As if sleepwalking, Song Yaofeng heard his voice, self-mocking: “Do not… cry. Have you ever truly loved me?”

Only then did she realize that tears were streaming down her face. For a moment she could only say, over and over: “How dare you — how dare you…”

Yu Suiyun pressed her head down hard, forbidding her to rise or look up.

He drew a few ragged breaths and said with great effort, “At the spring hunt… what you saw… was that general who died. When he died, you wept your heart out at Fengle Tower… such tears you never cried for me…”

“I had meant to… but now there is no chance left. The whole family is dead, and I alone remain in this world — I feel so alone, so exhausted… Before the wedding, I swore I would protect you always, and I have not broken that oath… After I am gone, remember to write to His Majesty — even if it can only buy you one slim chance at survival, it would be… worth it.”

Song Yaofeng sobbed as she struggled against his hold. “Having already brought you into the Princess Consort’s residence, your life is mine. How dare you seek your own death! I forbid it — I forbid it!”

Yu Suiyun’s breath grew faint, and the hand that held her down went slack.

He rested against her shoulder and said faintly, “…You are right — we should not have been born into this place. Ten combs down to the ends — why is there only the last life and this one? In this life… may you be as your title proclaims — at ease and in good health… and I wish you the next life as well — you must listen to my name: ‘the immortal must wait to ride the yellow crane; the seafarer’s heart is free, he follows the white gulls’ — in the next life, no matter who you are, you must come to the sea. I will be the carefree white gull over the waters… I wish only to soar at your side — even if I circle around you but once, it will be all that I could ever want in a lifetime…”

Blood had dyed the front of Song Yaofeng’s garment crimson. After hearing these words, she felt as though a blade were turning in her heart. No longer willing to keep up any pretense between them, she spoke her true feelings in a daze: “Do not die — do not die! Who said I never… Before the Thorn-Killing Case, I had always wanted to marry you! That spring, passing through the peach grove, the fallen blossoms like rain — I remember the eyes behind Luyun Mountain, I remember you!”

The night breeze moved through the newly planted young trees, sending up a mournful sound.

And he had already breathed his last in her arms, his expression peaceful — not knowing whether or not he had heard her final words.

The attendants arrived belatedly, lighting lanterns in the covered corridor, calling out in a panic for the physician.

On the stone table in the garden, the red candle for the full moon was still burning. Candle wax dripped, one drop after another. Song Yaofeng sat before the overturned bronze mirror and cradled Yu Suiyun’s body in her arms, while in her ears she heard, unbidden, a question he had asked at some unknown moment.

“Yaofeng, are you happy?”

Both life and death stretch out into emptiness.

06 · On This Night, the Young May Yet Live to See Their Hair Turn White

Afterward, Song Yaofeng often thought of that question — on the jolting road, on nights when assassins struck, in the hazy moonlight of the border, as she rode with Yan Lang for two days and one night without stopping. In the extremity of exhaustion she felt the freedom of an emptied mind.

She followed the army physicians at the border, staining her hands again and again with blood; she learned to draw a bow and shoot arrows, wearing rough calluses into her fingertips. She sat in military tents listening to the generals deliberate strategy, and in the moonlight drew out her long sword, crying out together with the soldiers: “Drive back the barbarians — defend our homeland.”

When she returned to Biandu, even Luowei nearly failed to recognize her.

She bid farewell to many people, yet had not expected the joy of reunions after long separation — her elder brother had not died after all; that battle flag unfurled beneath the walls of Biandu, as vivid and brilliant as before.

Yet not everyone had the steadfast resolve to remain unchanged even when fallen to dust.

Song Yaofeng walked in a daze through the imperial palace, passing through one courtyard after another. At long last she found a single rose bloom.

She took the flower in her hand and entered the imperial prison.

Chang Zhao raised his head in the dim light and looked away from her.

Song Yaofeng suddenly recalled that early in the year, she had accepted the Empress’s invitation and gone to see Yu Qiushi — and in his study had encountered an official in green robes she had never seen before.

She had never met that official, yet from the moment she entered the room, his gaze had fixed on her and stayed there.

There was another time, when she and Yu Suiyun had gone to Fengle Tower together, and midway through, Yu Suiyun encountered a friend among the poets and went to the private room next door for a drink. She stood holding her round fan at the balcony railing of Fengle Tower, and this man came to make conversation: “Is Your Highness waiting for someone?”

She remembered him as the person from Yu Qiushi’s study — she dared not speak at length and gave only a few perfunctory replies before turning to leave. As she walked away, she heard him call after her: “The heat has been intense lately — Your Highness, do take care against heatstroke.”

Further back still — had there been his gaze, too, among the newly placed scholars riding on horseback through the streets?

On Bianhe Street, in the pavilion, outside the pleasure boat — the chance encounters as they passed each other: coincidence, or long-premeditated design?

The world is never short of devoted souls, nor of grand and sweeping farewells.

Yu Suiyun had died before hearing her true feelings. Before Chang Zhao went to his death, she was willing to offer him one word of consolation — even if it was only one word: “A traitor to his country is no gentleman.”

Those who have gone do not return.

After her brother and Luowei successfully ascended the throne, she realized she could no longer remain as she had before, deaf and blind to the affairs of the world — for truly too many people had left her behind.

From her mother and father to her lover and old friends — the former had bestowed titles such as “Shu Kang” and “Ningle” upon their daughters, praying that they might live at ease and in good health, in peace and in joy. The latter had led her, through fog-shrouded paths, to find her way — and she had walked alone out of the unceasing rain that had fallen for years.

To go on living with their wishes in her heart — perhaps that, too, was what they had hoped for.

Song Yaofeng accomplished many, many things in Biandu. At first, some people took issue with her connection to the former Grand Tutor’s household, but as time passed and more and more people came to benefit from the princess’s kindness, the matter was gradually forgotten. Only praises for her were left in the lanes and alleys.

In the eighth year of the Xuanning era, she attended court and was praised throughout the land.

During the Guangshi era, her name grew ever more renowned, and when Song Ling resolved to establish her as heir apparent, even though she was a woman, the voices of opposition from court and public had nearly vanished.

After becoming Empress, Song Yaofeng never married again.

When Song Ling first established her as heir, she had already intended to support her seventh younger brother, the Prince of Xiaoxiang, — but he was still too young, and to hand power to him abruptly would inevitably stir up chaos.

She sat upon the throne for ten years, until she felt her seventh brother was mature enough and fully capable of managing affairs on his own — and only then did she relinquish power with an easy heart and leave the palace to travel freely.

At first, Song Yaofeng did not go seeking Luowei and Song Ling, but traveled east along the great river until she came to the seashore.

Though she had traveled to many places as a princess, she had not joined her father on his spring tours and had gone mostly to Youzhou and the southwest — in truth, this was her first time at the sea.

At a riverside inn in Jiangnan, she looked at herself in the bronze mirror and discovered she had grown a strand of white hair.

The sea was so near here — on summer nights, leaning at the window, one could hear the sound of the tides. Yet having come this far, she inexplicably lost her nerve and fled in the night.

After much wandering, many more years passed.

Song Yaofeng eventually did marry again. Her husband was a gentle and refined county magistrate who did not know her true identity, nor the origins of the brother and sister-in-law who lived next door. He admired her as Yu Suiyun had admired her, had no particular ambition, and lived a life as free as floating clouds and wild cranes. While in office, he served the common people with all his heart; in his leisure time, he liked to tend vegetables in the back garden.

Time flowed like water, and at last a day came when her own hair had turned entirely white.

Waking from an old dream one day, Song Yaofeng understood that she could wait no longer.

And so, heedless of the distance, she set out alone in a southbound carriage.

At last she came to the sea. She scattered her hair and climbed up the reef rocks at the water’s edge, gazing out to the horizon.

The sea was boundlessly blue, vast and mighty. Though she had never seen it before, she felt a strange, inexplicable familiarity.

The sea wind stirred her silver-white hair. She reached out and caught a strand between her fingers — and then, from the far sky, a snow-white gull came flying toward her. The white gull circled around her with what seemed like joy, round and round, many times — then folded its wings and alighted on her forearm.

Song Yaofeng smiled faintly. She sat on that reef until evening fell and dusk gathered all around, and facing the magnificent sunset, she said softly, “I have been very happy — and you?”

No one answered. Only the white gull at her side flapped its wings and let out a clear, bright cry.

—

Author’s Note:

I am weeping so hard, I could kill myself.

Notes:

[1] “Wealth and honor are not my concern; I would return and make my pact with the white gulls.” — Xin Qiji, Water Melody (written at a farewell banquet for Chen Duanren at Sanshan, in the year Renzi)

Translation: Wealth and honor are not what I seek; better to return to my home by the lake and honor the old pact I made with my lifelong friend the white gull.

[2] From Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi’s “Song of Eight Extremes” (Ba Zhi Ge).

[3] “The immortal must wait to ride the yellow crane; the seafarer’s heart is free, he follows the white gulls.” — Li Bai, “Chanting on the River”

Translation: Even the immortal in the heavens must depend on the yellow crane to soar through the sky; yet I, a carefree wanderer on the sea, am of one mind with the white gulls and follow them freely wherever they go.