That day Song Lan slept alone in the Qianfang Palace. Luowei retired early. At the deepest point of the night, the hall was utterly still and silent, when suddenly a brief wind and rain stirred, and tiny raindrops splattered against the window paper with a sound like soft drumming.

The last flowers of spring fell with the rain — come morning, there would surely be a ground strewn with fallen crimson petals.

Luowei was startled awake by the sound of flowers falling, and when she opened her eyes, she saw a figure seated at the head of the bed.

A chill wind had entered the chamber, and the bed curtains drifted in all directions. He wore a pearl-white garment, and in the dim candlelight, a pattern of twining branches emerged, cluster by cluster.

She suddenly recalled: in her youth, she had once reached out and touched a young man’s sleeve, asking him what this pattern was — she had never seen it before. Why was it not cloud motifs? Why not treasure-flower scrolls? Or dragons, or pythons, or the sea-waves-and-cliffs pattern symbolizing the endurance of rivers and mountains?

He had taken her hand and traced along the endless flowing lines, saying it was a twining-vine pattern, also called the Vine of Ten Thousand Longevities — today was the Lantern Festival and also his birthday, and this pattern, meaning ceaseless life and flourishing blessings, was a celebration.

Her cheeks had flushed at that unexpected touch, and she had been about to cover it up and pull her hand away — but when she turned her head, she saw that his face, too, had reddened suspiciously, though he was trying to maintain an air of calm indifference.

This discovery filled her with playful mischief, and she turned the tables, leading his hand to trace the pattern over and over again.

The graceful, living tendrils of vine and scrollwork, entwined and bound, thread upon thread without end. She leaned close to his ear and, softly and deliberately, said: “I am reminded of an ancient verse — ‘Let you be the bedrock firm, and let me be the rush, tough as the rush woven tight; the bedrock shall not shift.'”

The moment she said it, she felt it was inauspicious.

Looking back now, those tender words that had surfaced in the midst of such gentle closeness had become a prophecy — perhaps from that very moment, their fate of separation, like a branch snapping and falling into a lake, had already been sealed.

And so Luowei had quickly changed course, picturing aloud: “If we were in a poem, we should be two stones that fell together when the Goddess Nuwa patched the sky — born of the same origin, meeting again, striking against each other and sending out a flash of brilliant golden sparks — bright like that, and eternal like that!”

No remedy could work; the curse had been fulfilled in the end.

Luowei thought of these old memories and, moved without knowing it, reached out and gripped the sleeve of the person before her. Her voice came out like a dreaming murmur: “You have come to see me?”

He sensed that she had woken, and drew her into his arms: “Did you have a nightmare?”

The fragrance of dragon ambergris was too thick, too overpowering. In an instant, Luowei came fully awake, a coldness tracing from her spine to her fingertips — their silhouettes truly did sometimes look very much alike, and in that half-dreaming state, even she could not tell them apart.

But she should be able to tell them apart. He had never once entered her dreams. What appeared in the illusions were images of the past: the him of the past facing the her of the past, while she herself was a complete outsider, looking on.

She saw a blurred outline, saw an imagined past, and wanted to ask “Do you hate me?” — but could never get the words out.

There was no question, yet there was an answer: that very night a black nightmare came — no figure, only a voice: I naturally hate you, hate you hate you hate you hate you hate you.

But she was no longer afraid of such words. Waking afterward, she could still tell herself: it does not matter, it does not matter.

When I have done everything I must do, I will come find you.

On the last spring night of the fourth year of Jinghe, the flowers had all fallen. Luowei came back to herself quickly, and whispered: “There was no nightmare. It was a good dream.”

In the dream, she could hear a voice — even if it was one word of “hate you,” that counted as something good.

She let go and leaned against the armrest, dabbing at the sweat on her brow with a handkerchief, and asked: “How is it that Zi Lan has come at this hour?”

Song Lan answered with casual indifference: “The Lin family was dealt with today, and I could not sleep in the middle of the night — felt unsettled, so I came to look in on you.”

After the public trial by the Three Judicial Offices, it was no more than two days before Hu Minhuai obtained from Lin Zhao a signed and fingerprinted confession. Whether the confession was true or false mattered little — what mattered was that the Emperor had already deemed him guilty. Moreover, since Yu Qiushi had made no move whatsoever these past two days, Hu Minhuai had no choice but to act in accordance with the Emperor’s intentions.

Just as Ye Tingyan had mentioned offhandedly in front of Song Lan that day, the treasury was empty, and the Lin family had presented themselves at the door — the perfect pretext for the Emperor.

Ye Tingyan had stayed in the Ministry of Justice for only three days. Apart from the feather-flower wooden arrow, he had no other substantive grounds for suspicion. Hu Minhuai had initially harbored doubts and went personally to interrogate him, hoping to catch some muddled inconsistency while Ye Tingyan was dazed and disoriented.

Yet this man turned out to be cast in gold and iron — for three days he had not closed his eyes once. He had endured the rod, and had spent all his time in pitch darkness without a glimpse of light. Any ordinary person would long since have had their wits worn thin, full of gaps and contradictions.

Hu Minhuai went himself to question him, sharp-tongued and severe — yet the other remained polished and temperate throughout, with everything in perfect order. Even when he learned he was to be released, his only request was that a fresh set of robes be found for him: a gentleman soiled and disheveled, which was simply not presentable.

The Lin clan members had no official posts to begin with, which spared the trouble of removing them from office. After the public trial, Song Lan gave the order to search and confiscate the Lin household. It was said that Lin Kuishan had made a scene outside Yu Qiushi’s door, and Yu Qiushi had invited him inside — but in the end, had not submitted a memorial pleading the Lin family’s case.

Luowei reflected that Yu Qiushi knew very well: Ye Tingyan had built the witness and physical evidence to such a point that if he submitted a memorial for clemency, the very next day malicious rumors would be spreading everywhere — the chief minister, dissatisfied with his sovereign, had colluded with his own kin to stage an assassination, intending to instigate a political upheaval. History was far too full of such examples; he dared not let himself be drawn into such a whirlpool.

In the end, he only sent word through Yu Suiyun to Song Lan, mentioning nothing else, asking only that Song Lan not implicate the Lin daughters who had already married out of the family.

Song Lan gave no explicit response but sent no one to take them into custody — which counted as tacit consent.

The testimony Hu Minhuai had initially obtained said that Lin Zhao, during a drunken night some time ago, had committed manslaughter. The victim’s family were also officials, and had long been trying to bring charges. Lin Kuishan had used money to suppress the matter, and hoped his son might distinguish himself at the spring hunt and win Song Lan’s favor — should the affair come to light afterward, some small mercy might be granted.

But Lin Zhao reasoned that he had already made an enemy of Song Lan long ago, and turning things around was hopeless. Always reckless and hotheaded, he seized the chance to stage an assassination he believed “would not be discovered.”

Listening to this, it sounded absurd, and Song Lan did not fully believe it either. But since he was determined to use the Lin family’s assets to fill the deficit, he could only close the case in this fashion. Originally he had hinted to Zhuque to conduct a rigorous interrogation of the horse trainer, and nothing had come of it. He then pretended to send the man into exile — if a rescuer appeared to save him, that would reveal the true mastermind; if none appeared, the man would be killed along the road.

A plan that kills two birds with one stone.

Ye Tingyan had found witness and physical evidence for this assassination and ought himself to have become a target of Song Lan’s suspicion. But then he too was dragged into the prison — which would only make Song Lan feel that from Ye Tingyan to Chang Zhao, the evidence the two had produced was perhaps also pre-arranged.

And who could possibly have planned such a large-scale affair, and then drag Ye Tingyan down into it as well?

When the Lin household was being searched and confiscated, the manslaughter Lin Zhao had committed in a drunken state, together with the various ways Lin Kuishan had sacrificed others’ lives for his own gain over the years, all came to the surface — and most of those messes had been cleaned up by Yu Qiushi.

Only when Luowei reached this point in her thinking did she fully understand Ye Tingyan’s intent.

This absurd assassination at the Warm Spring Arena — the Lin family was not the real target. What he truly wanted was for Song Lan to “deduce” for himself the hand that had been stirring things up behind the scenes.

Yu Qiushi had paved the way for Song Lan’s rise, and Yu Suiyun had not yet given birth to an imperial son — in both sentiment and reason, he would not truly attempt an assassination.

But what if, under the guise of the assassination, the Lin family — who had long relied on him to clean up their messes — and his political opponents were quietly eliminated?

Song Lan had not been harmed, but he had been used as a pawn by Yu Qiushi, and could not find a single shred of evidence against it. How could he feel at ease?

And indeed, just as she had expected, Song Lan held her in his arms, was silent for a long while, and then suddenly said: “Lin Zhao has recanted his testimony in prison.”

Luowei started: “Hmm?”

Song Lan let go of her and stroked her cheek, the corners of his lips curving slightly in an expression that carried a trace of mockery: “He says it was all at Yu Qiushi’s instigation.”

Luowei feigned astonishment: “How could that be?”

Song Lan said: “I don’t believe it either. I had someone apply lacquer poisoning to mute him.”

Before Luowei could speak, Song Lan continued: “I have issued an edict changing the Lin clan’s execution date to the autumn.”

These few sentences were said in an oblique and incomplete fashion, and Song Lan showed no intention of explaining further. But after hearing them, Luowei, in her heart, completed the final chapter of Ye Tingyan’s scheme.

The testimony had already been given. For Lin Zhao to recant now, from within the prison, could not constitute any evidence against the chief minister — it could only be taken as a cornered dog’s desperate and random biting.

Yet in Song Lan’s heart, it would register as Lin Zhao having finally come to his senses in prison, figured out at last who had truly framed him, and resolved to bring the other down with him.

By changing the execution date, Song Lan intended to watch Yu Qiushi’s reaction. If Yu Qiushi were to ask about this matter even once, this muddled, rudderless affair would become, in Song Lan’s mind, the greatest cloud of suspicion he had ever held over Yu Qiushi.

A brilliant stratagem of psychological destruction.

She asked herself with candor: even she, had she been the one plotting, could probably not have devised a scheme so thorough and vicious — yet one that kept not a single leaf sticking to her.

Luowei concealed the smile at the corners of her lips and steered the conversation elsewhere, saying to Song Lan: “Summer is nearly upon us.”

Song Lan’s brow relaxed a little and he answered: “So it is.”

He glanced out the window: “I recall that to the east of the Qionghua Palace lies Huiling Lake. Behind the Qionghua Palace, there is a small pond fed by the waters of Huiling Lake, planted full of lotus. These past few years you and I have been busy with affairs of state and never got to admire them together. This summer we must hold a few cooling banquets in your palace — we should pick lotus leaves to use as green platters.”

Luowei said sparingly: “That would be lovely.”

Song Lan leaned against her knee, closed his eyes, and seemed to have something nostalgic on his mind: “I still remember… back when my older sister was in the palace, she and Shu Kang went out to Huiling Lake in a boat, gathering a whole boatful of lotus flowers and lotus pods. At sunset as they returned, her hair without adornment, I watched from the shore — she was truly so beautiful, so very beautiful.”

His thoughts grew drowsy with fatigue, and before long he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. Luowei settled him on the jade pillow, and then found herself completely unable to sleep.

She rose, wrapped herself in a robe, and walked to the window. It was the transition from late spring to early summer. She heard, amid the sound of light rain, the broken and intermittent calls of cicadas.

The scene Song Lan had described in words, she too remembered.

But what she remembered was the twining vine beside Song Lan, in the evening wind. The sunset had seemed to last into eternity that day, and she had held a great full lotus blossom in her arms, able to see only one person.

Just as he could see only her.

*

When summer arrived, rain finally fell in the south. The spring drought had lasted long, and the rain at this point was already too late to remedy the damage done in spring. Nevertheless, Biandu still celebrated, with a small festivity, this distant, long-overdue rain. Some officials submitted memorials flattering the Emperor’s sincerity, and others proposed that the Emperor and Empress return to the Imperial Ancestral Temple to offer prayers of thanks and gratitude to the ancestors for bestowing sweet rain.

Song Lan gladly agreed and ordered the Ministry of Rites to select an auspicious date.

Yet before the two set out, a rhyming song spread throughout all of Biandu ahead of them — children in the streets and lanes could recite it by heart, and before long it reached the ears of the officials at court.

Everyone hedged and hid their knowledge, not a single one daring to submit a memorial. They all looked the other way and pretended ignorance, for apart from the learned, no one could understand what the rhyming song truly meant.

Yu Qiushi secretly investigated for a long while and only learned that it had originated with an out-of-town merchant who had come to Biandu to sell red gold cups. The wares this merchant sold were beautifully engraved and low in price, and for a time became all the rage.

Before long, however, those who had purchased the red gold cups came filing back to find the merchant, accusing him of selling fakes — these objects were not red gold at all. With use, the surface had started chipping and peeling away, revealing the true material underneath: they were made of red copper and covered in gold leaf.

The merchant refused to admit it. So the buyers took stones and struck the cups, calling on passersby to listen and help judge by the sound, to determine who was in the right.

And from this, a rhyming song was born.

Song Lan heard the rhyming song on the day before he was due to make the ceremonial journey to the Imperial Ancestral Temple.

The young Emperor sat in the dim Qianfang Palace. Luowei sat behind the screen in the outer hall, listening as Ye Tingyan recited that rhyming song to him word by word. The moment he had finished, Song Lan flew into a rage, sweeping the scattered memorials piled on the table before him to the floor.

Luowei and Yan Luo exchanged a glance, and Luowei gently raised an eyebrow.

The young official’s warm and refined voice seemed still to linger in the hall, repeating softly —

“A false dragon’s call, a false dragon’s call — the wind rises, clouds gather, yet no rain falls; lying in the water, the golden claws are buried and hard to find. The green moss was never truly jade in color — how could such a thing be used to make fine carved bamboo? The lotus flower has been gone from its homeland for a thousand years — even after the rain, when one catches its scent, it still carries iron!”