Beneath such a moon, Luowei held Song Lan by the sleeve and walked along the imperial thoroughfare she had once thought she could never traverse again.

All around was perfectly silent. The garrison guards patrolling the city had all been redirected elsewhere, and so the wreckage here remained untouched. The Lantern Festival had passed only two days ago, yet every household had its doors tightly shut — as though foreseeing that something had changed within the forbidden city, afraid to go out and be caught up in the trouble.

At the far end of the imperial thoroughfare was the eastern gate of the imperial city, the one through which all the officials entered for court each morning.

Standing outside the eastern gate, one could dimly make out the great ceremonial hall within the imperial city — Burning Candle Tower — which in ordinary times blazed so brightly that the late emperor had hung a placard above the eastern gate calling it ‘Brilliant Light Gate.’

Now no one had lit the fires in Burning Candle Tower, and it sat in complete darkness. The officials of the Hall of Governance had received word and were gathered before Brilliant Light Gate; the forbidden guards and the left and right forest guards stood at both ends with swords drawn.

Before Luowei arrived, the wealthy lords and great clans who stood behind Yu Qiushi were quarreling with the civil officials of the censorate until the sky and earth spun.

The Bianhe current was swift, and it was winter; the heir’s body had been searched for two full days without being found — there was no possibility of survival. Furthermore the late emperor had died suddenly, leaving no edict, and the question of who would inherit the throne and continue the dynasty had become the most urgent matter at hand.

And so the assembled people had not even had time to discuss the funeral rites for the late emperor and the late Crown Prince before gathering before Brilliant Light Gate.

The succession was a matter concerning the very survival of the dynasty, and all the officials understood perfectly well that the slightest misstep now could set off a bloody political coup with repercussions far and wide.

The eldest imperial son had long since been sent to his domain. Crown Prince Chengming was the second son. The third prince, Song Yi, had a mother from a great clan and had also married into the great clans, so the noble families and lords all argued that in matters of seniority among siblings, the succession should fall to the third prince.

However, the third prince had no talent whatsoever for literary pursuits, was of mediocre ability, and had never been liked by any of the teachers at the Academy of Virtuous Studies — so the civil officials were dissatisfied and argued that the fifth prince, Song Qi, was gifted and exceptionally talented, and was a better fit than the third prince.

As for the fourth prince — he was a dissolute wastrel who wallowed in pleasure-seeking, and the late emperor had reprimanded him many times. The seventh prince was too young, and no one gave him a thought.

One faction said the third prince was mediocre and had no talent for governing; the other said the fifth prince was addicted to calligraphy and painting, which was a sign of losing oneself in trivial diversions. The two factions were deadlocked.

Yu Qiushi, who had ascended to become chief minister upon Su Zhoudu’s death, then spoke up with cool detachment, saying that though the sixth prince was young, he had been closest to Crown Prince Chengming among all his brothers, and his years of quiet study and self-cultivation at the Academy of Virtuous Studies had been because he was concealing his talents to avoid attracting attention.

Yu Qiushi had served as Song Lan’s opening tutor at the Academy of Virtuous Studies in his early years, and these words immediately drew a portion of the assembled men to his side.

A censor from somewhere at the back of the crowd let out a cold laugh: “The late emperor has barely passed, and the chief minister wishes to follow in the footsteps of Zhao Gao and Li Si and make a puppet of a young emperor — what does he intend?”

And some of the noble lords and families expressed displeasure, sarcastically saying: “The chief minister shows favoritism toward his own student — surely he should consider his reputation.”

Yu Qiushi retorted in fury: “I served as his tutor only for the opening lessons — we have had no dealings since. Lord Xiao’s words are outrageous!”

Whether what he said was meant as cover for someone else or as genuine support to seize power for himself thereafter was unknown — but once the words fell, Song Lan became the target Yu Qiushi had thrown out. All the court members harbored their own motives, and how could any of them risk even the slightest danger?

In the space of only two hours, Song Lan had been subjected to three assassination attempts.

Only at last, under the protection of the Jintian Guard, did he manage to escape the imperial palace and seek refuge at the Su family shrine.

When Luowei arrived at Brilliant Light Gate with the sword of the Son of Heaven in hand, the quarrel between the two factions had still not been resolved.

In the midst of the entanglement, she drew the sword and cut down a military official who had pressed forward with provocations.

That military official had moments earlier been shouting: “Though the Su family has produced three chief ministers across two generations, the Crown Consort is after all only a woman — on what basis does she hold the sword of the Son of Heaven? A hen crowing at dawn, overstepping all propriety — is this the fine upbringing of the late Minister of Civil Virtue? At this rate, that glorious and lofty name amounts to nothing more than hollow vanity…”

Hot blood splattered across Luowei’s face. She reached out calmly and wiped it away, thinking incongruously — it is not as though this was her first time killing someone, so why were her hands still shaking like this?

Someone came back to himself and opened his mouth to curse loudly — but suddenly noticed that Yan Shizi had, without anyone knowing when, already surrounded the forest guards and the forbidden guards with troops.

He drew nearer, rapping his sword hilt two times in an unhurried manner behind Luowei.

The surrounding area fell instantly silent. Luowei raised the scorching sword of the Son of Heaven high over her head and knelt before Song Lan.

“The Su family holds the sword of the Son of Heaven, and wishes to support the sixth prince to ascend the throne.”

The third prince Song Yi was a puppet of the great clans; the fifth prince Song Qi had never cared about affairs of state; and Song Lan had received instruction from Song Ling for many years — he was by no means a foolish or dull-witted person. Yu Qiushi had served only as his opening tutor, and their acquaintance was merely superficial. His stepping forward to champion Song Lan was nothing more than his desire to find himself a puppet emperor to hold power.

If she did not step forward, Yu Qiushi would be without restraint.

If Song Lan could not ascend, he might not survive through this very night.

All along the road she had walked here, she had thought through everything with perfect clarity, and Song Yaofeng had not prevented her in the least — both of them knew that this was the best choice.

And as early as the day the Thornbush Assassination case broke, Yan Lang had received his father’s guidance and slipped secretly out of the city overnight, calling back the troops stationed at the military camp outside the capital to the imperial city.

Even if Luowei had ultimately made no choice, he had brought the soldiers — at the very least, they could protect the common people of the city amidst the conflict.

Yu Qiushi looked at Luowei kneeling before Song Lan, and at the civil faction already beginning to waver, and raised his brows lightly.

Luowei and Yan Lang’s appearance had added another weight to this powerless prince’s side of the scale. She and the civil officials of the court formed their own faction — and in the future, they would inevitably become rivals contending with Yu Qiushi for power.

Yan Lang, watching his expression, involuntarily tightened his grip on the sword hilt at his waist.

Whether Biandu would descend into chaos now rested on the chief minister’s single thought.

After a long standoff, Yu Qiushi finally loosened his position and relented a step, pressing down the great noble families as he respectfully knelt at the feet of the young Son of Heaven.

At the time, Luowei had thought this gesture of his — after seeing his plan to prop up a puppet shattered — was frustration and discontent. Looking back on it now, that should have been the ease and satisfaction of everything going according to plan.

Song Lan, in the moment that she bowed her head, exchanged a glance with Yu Qiushi. He gently accepted the sword Luowei presented, and the tightly knitted brow finally eased. His gaze lingered for a long time on that bloodstained blade — and there was melancholy in it, but far more than that, there was elation.

The fifteenth day of the first month had originally been the last night of the Lantern Festival. Now Biandu sat in darkness, and naturally there was no need to extinguish the lanterns.

As the dust settled in the deep of night, the palace attendants gathered the dragon lanterns that had been hung in celebration of this year’s festival behind Burning Candle Tower and burned them from head to tail.

The ashes drifted upward in the firelight. Luowei stood beneath the vault of heaven and watched along the path where they dissolved and vanished. There were so many dark clouds, yet that moon — rounder than the fifteenth — was not obscured in the slightest. It hung in the middle of the sky, looking down at her: like a clear, bright eye that could not weep.

The dream stopped at this moment.

A gentle night breeze arose, and Ye Tingyan woke at the same instant. He looked about in confusion, and only then realized he had fallen asleep leaning against the bamboo curtain.

He rubbed his eyes and saw that the moon had already sunk toward the west.

Outside the window the flowering trees cast long shadows in the moonlight, trailing all the way into the indistinct darkness of the distance. He reached out to pull at the rolled-up bamboo curtain, but found his wrist had no strength, and had to brace against the window frame to stand.

In the light that came — hard-won — he saw on his right wrist a scar gone pale and white. Only then did he realize, with a start, that it had healed so well after all this time he had not seen it.

He could reach out and run his fingers over it, and feel no pain at all.

After the moon sinks in the west, the shadow will disappear too — yet as long as the moon is there, it is connected to the roots of the flowering tree, and no matter how far it stretches, the two remain bound together.

He sat by the window and thought carefully for a while: if one deeply loved that flowering tree, was it better to be the moon — or better to be the shadow?

* * *

The Ministry of Rites had memorialized the throne requesting the Emperor ascend to the Imperial Ancestral Temple. The intention had been to complete the name of a sovereign who revered heaven and bore virtue. But it was bad enough that the rains in the south had been late to fall — on top of that, ‘The Song of the False Dragon’ had somehow begun circulating throughout the capital.

Because it was a false dragon, the Emperor’s prayers at the Ancestral Temple had moved heaven not at all.

Though Song Lan had said not a word about it at morning court, all the officials knew perfectly well that the young Emperor had been angered by this matter, and no one dared raise again the subject of the Emperor and Empress going to the Ancestral Temple to fulfill their vow. In recent days, after deploying the Jintian Guard to confiscate the copper bells, Song Lan had also sent his personal Zhuque unit to search throughout the capital, determined to find whoever had spread the rhyme.

After more than half a month of searching, they had found nothing.

Luowei was carrying a food box and stepping up to Qianfang Hall when she first heard the sound of porcelain shattering.

Two guards in Zhuque colors slipped out of the hall without a sound, their expressions somewhat unsettled. Seeing her standing at the door, they gave a slight nod in lieu of a bow.

Luowei paid no attention, waved her hand for Liu Xi to take everyone else away, and withdrew.

No lanterns had been lit in Qianfang Hall. The palace attendants sealed the great doors of the hall shut, and the daylight was cut into scattered shards that fell across the floor. Luowei stepped across this ground of broken light and walked toward the empty center of the hall, making no bow.

She had taken fewer than ten steps when she heard a low “Elder Sister.”

Song Lan was nestled into the cushions of the dragon throne, dressed in a dark-colored everyday robe, his long hair twisted into a disheveled bun. Before him on the desk were piled many yellow-covered memorials; before the desk lay the shards of blue-green porcelain he had smashed.

Luowei acted as if she saw nothing, and walked past with eyes fixed ahead. Song Lan’s robe today had been cut too generously, and the silken brocade had piled up in several layers of folds at his sleeve. Luowei set down her food box, knelt quietly, and smoothed the creases at his cuff one by one. When she reached the last layer, his hand moved over hers as well — the jade ring cool and moist, sending a prickling, numbing tremor spreading across her palm.

Luowei said nothing, but Song Lan stroked the back of her hand, hesitated for a long while, and then began: “Elder Sister, in the capital…”

He said this half-sentence, and then would say no more. Luowei’s gaze drifted slowly across his face, and then she suddenly stood and knelt before the dragon throne.

“Elder Sister, what are you —”

“Zi Lan, do you suspect me?”

Song Lan rose to help her up: “Elder Sister, please get up. How could I suspect you?”

Luowei would not move, and fixed her gaze on him: “Ever since the rhyme affair, you have not come to see me even once. The Ministry of Rites originally memorialized to ascend the Ancestral Temple, and I agreed for the sake of your reputation — and yet there would be such an event, there would be such people, using a rhyme like this to wound both your heart and mine! That I acceded to the Ministry of Rites’ request was my error — but if Zi Lan suspects me because of this, then from today forward I would rather step down from the front hall and never again involve myself in affairs of state.”

Song Lan saw a glimmer of tears hidden in her gaze, and could not help but soften by several degrees.

Except when she missed Song Ling, she truly rarely wept.

Today’s tears were shed for his sake.

Luowei would not rise, and so he simply knelt alongside her and took her in his arms to soothe her: “Elder Sister, I would never stop trusting you.”

Luowei reached out and embraced his neck, her voice carrying what sounded like a sob: “When you ascended the Ancestral Temple, you kept Lord Ye and Scholar Chang in the palace — was that not because of me?”

Song Lan loosened his hold slightly and saw one tear fall from her.

That tear hung at her jaw, trembling on the verge of falling. He watched it with great pleasure, and even felt no desire to reach out and wipe it away for her. Yet he contrived a thousand looks of tender care and pleaded pitifully: “…Elder Sister, I was never the heir Father had chosen. If not for you back then, I would already have died at the hands of the Grand Preceptor and those in the court. I am so grateful to you in my heart — surely you know? It is only that I am terrified, so terrified — if one day you no longer want me —”

Luowei said quietly: “We have been husband and wife for four years — do you still not know my feelings? Since that year, you are also my only family left.”

The two of them murmured on, pouring out their hearts to one another, a few more tears falling. Only then did their emotions finally settle.

Song Lan lifted the lid of the food box and saw that she had made mung bean cakes, and smiled: “Elder Sister still remembers.”

Luowei settled at the desk and idly picked up a memorial, and said warmly: “Of course I would not forget.”

She went through the formality of re-reading all the memorials on the desk — those he had read and those he had not — and when she came to one from Ye Tingyan, she opened it and was somewhat surprised: “Lord Ye the Censor memorializes requesting that His Majesty not hold the Lin family’s collateral relatives accountable?”

Song Lan gave a vague sound of agreement and answered without much concern: “The Muochun affair does have some suspicious points, but it is undeniably true that Lin Zhao was a bully who abused his position and oppressed others at will. I had originally intended to execute the entire Lin clan to the third degree, but what Tingyan says has merit — for the sake of the court’s reputation, punish according to the law, and there is no need to extend guilt to those not connected.”

Luowei’s eyelashes gave a faint flutter, and she said nothing.

When she was leaving Qianfang Hall, Yan Luo drew out a handkerchief and offered it to her. Luowei took it, and before she had even finished wiping the traces of tears from her face, she walked straight into Ye Tingyan, who was coming to pay his respects.

Ye Tingyan saw her state and frowned slightly, wanting to ask. In the end he only made the proper bow: “Your Highness the Empress.”

Luowei gave him a meaningful look, and without waiting for him to ask further, walked away. He had only just managed to see clearly that there was a faint smear of red lip color at the corner of her lips.

Yan Luo turned to watch Ye Tingyan’s retreating figure and said: “His Majesty grows more and more trusting of Lord Ye the Third. I have heard that the idea to confiscate the copper bells was his. Though strict, it has been effective in enforcement — now that Biandu no longer rings with copper bells, debate cannot reach His Majesty’s ears, so naturally it is a clever plan.”

Luowei smiled gently, wiping the tears from her face: “That he trusts him so — how wonderful.”

Yan Luo, seeing that her eye makeup had smudged a little, asked with some concern: “But with the Empress in this state, will His Majesty believe it?”

Luowei tossed the handkerchief back, bit her lower lip with an air of good humor: “Who needs him to believe it? The more I appear so, the less he believes — but he enjoys it and will not expose me, so he has no choice but to send Lord Ye the Third to keep watch on me. Ten years of acquaintance, four years of marriage as husband and wife — if I cannot see through his false face, he naturally cannot see through mine. As for what is called the closest and most estranged — each has their own schemes, which is why it comes to this. If it were otherwise…”

She pressed her lips together and did not continue, only asking: “Have the lotus flowers in Huiling Lake bloomed yet?”

Yan Luo said: “There are still four or five days to wait.”

Luowei then said: “Just right, just right. Prepare some invitations for me first — this time… remember to invite Ningle and Shu Kang as well.”

Yan Luo said solemnly: “Understood.”