On the night of New Year’s Eve in the fourth year of the Jinghe reign, the city of Biandu had already begun its final preparations for the New Year festival the following day.

In earlier times the most splendid festival of the dynasty had been the Lantern Festival. The Lantern Festival coincided with the Grand Sacrifice of the Bianhe River, combined with the birthday of Crown Prince Chengming, making it a nationwide celebration every year.

But from the first year of the Jinghe reign onward, the Lantern Festival had been observed with a taboo in memory of the tragic assassination of the late Crown Prince. Aside from the sacrificial rites proceeding as before, all the other grand festivities were no longer as they had once been.

It was rumored that on the anniversary of his elder brother’s death, the Son of Heaven was particularly sorrowful, and that the sound of ceremonial cannon fire within the city was prone to bring on his headaches.

Luowei sat in the residence, candles lit as she kept the New Year’s Eve vigil. Wrapped in a great cloak, she braved the wind and snow to enter deep into the bamboo grove in the rear garden.

The Lantern Festival forbade the firing of ceremonial cannon, but the sound of firecrackers on New Year’s Eve was unbroken, rattling and popping without end, causing the snow on the surrounding branches to fall rustling down.

She walked to the foot of that false tombstone and pressed her palms together, bowing devoutly in prayer.

The gods and Buddhas pay no heed; the ways of heaven are illusory. Last night she had dreamed — she dreamed that the fire of heaven’s mandate fell within the imperial city, and behind Song Lan it condensed into the form of a true dragon.

All around, voices cried out as they fell to their knees in reverence. Even those standing behind her felt a sense of retreat — yet by her side, Ye Tingyan’s expression was calm and steady as he drew his bow and loosed an arrow, shattering the fire of heaven’s mandate in the night sky.

So the firelight scattered and fell in all directions, exploding on the ground like fireworks crashing to earth. Everything matched the Lantern Festival night that had fallen in her dreams — except that someone had taken her hand.

Ye Tingyan did not even revert to Song Lan’s appearance; he simply held her hand and climbed step by step up the long staircase toward the heavens. She followed him to the highest point and looked back — lanterns lit the four borders of the realm.

Luowei had never dreamed a dream like this.

In her carefree youth, her nights had been sweet and peaceful. After disaster struck suddenly, her dreams were mostly reflections of that one Lantern Festival night in all its variations — at most, nothing more than her wandering through the imperial city with a blade in hand, piercing Song Lan’s heart.

The ending of this dream was ambiguous — it was clearly a killing stroke, yet Song Lan, gripping her hand, suddenly opened his eyes and revealed a strange smile.

The blood was scalding to the touch, and she jolted awake in a cold sweat, not knowing whether she had won or lost.

It seemed as though it was only after arriving at his side that all that was hazy became certain — she had deeply admired his steadiness from a young age, and now that she had returned to his side, the feeling of something lost and then found again was particularly vivid in this matter.

Last night, Ye Tingyan had held her close and his tears had dampened the pillow.

He had clearly said not to cry again while kissing — yet he still could not hold back.

He said that had they not been reunited, he feared he would have spent his whole life ensnared in the web of doubt and suspicion. He often dreamed — dreamed of a person sitting alone on a cold and desolate corridor, gazing at spring flowers swaying in the sunlight.

“After escaping back from that year, I always felt that we were, the whole way along, sliding toward decay and ruin. Though we struggled desperately and wanted the spring to fade just a little more slowly, in the end it was all in vain. I gazed upon the history books, and the victors stood at the tip of a blade beckoning to me. This road was fragrant and brilliant; its blood and filth were covered over by petals, its corpses were their dye and nourishment. I tried desperately to tell myself that those flowers were that vivid red from the very beginning, but I could not forget — my every step was planted on the boundless, corroded bones of the dead. The further I walked, the colder and more alone I felt.”

Is this the path — shattered, wasted, hollow — that you and I have walked?

Luowei traced shapes on his palm. After a long while, Ye Tingyan realized she was drawing the short sword he had gifted her in those years.

“A’Tang, is there anyone you admire?”

“I admire certain extraordinary gentlemen of pure virtue. I admire the upright officials in the court. I admire the recluses who gathered ferns on Shouyang Mountain and perished in the mountain fires.”

“But they were upright officials — you are the sovereign. The sovereign’s way is like a dagger encrusted with jewels. You must kill, must protect yourself, must kill — for the sake of self-preservation.”

Luowei pressed against his palm. “We cannot spend our whole lives living in the flourishing dream our parents wove for us. This world was turbulent and unsteady from the very beginning… Grip it tight, then. The Emperor’s sword — let it shine resplendent, as it should.”

And so he was soothed by her, and slept a sleep the likes of which he had not known in many years.

Luowei stroked his hair and felt a strange sensation in her heart.

She recalled a golden afternoon in Xuzhou when locusts had struck without warning. The cries of suffering filled the air; the common people stood by the roadside watching helplessly as swarms of locusts black as storm clouds swept over the fields on the verge of harvest, carrying away a whole year’s hopes.

Song Ling stood at her side, his face bearing a grief that bordered on anguish, yet his eyes were cold.

The people did not know his identity; seeing only that he was young, and thinking back on the wickedness of officials in past years who had embezzled disaster relief funds and lined their own pockets, they cursed at him from all sides. And he only held her close as they walked in silence along the clamoring mountain road.

In truth, Luowei thought, she had not always been such a resolute person.

No one is born with unyielding tenacity, possessing a heart as unbreakable as jade even in destruction. She had drawn far too much, far too much from him — and now she was only returning to him the steadiness he had once given her.

These things, fused into bone and blood, had taken root and grown in each other’s bodies until they were inseparable.

Thinking of this, Luowei suddenly returned to the New Year’s Eve night. She tilted her head back and looked at the shadow of wind and snow above the bamboo grove, and let out a smile. Softly, she said, “Father, Mother, Uncle, Aunt — if your souls have awareness in the heavens above, please watch over me and A’Tang.”

She stood there devoutly for a long while. When she turned around, she found Ye Tingyan — returned at some point unknown — leaning at the edge of the bamboo grove, watching her quietly.

After a long silence, he finally spoke — and said only, “The snow is falling so heavily.”

* * *

After the New Year’s Eve banquet, Song Lan went first to see Yu Suiyun.

In these past months, the guards at the Pifang Pavilion had increased sharply. She was confined within, and each day at most could walk two laps around the garden. Since Yu Qiushi had not entered the palace for a long time, even by guessing she could figure out what had happened.

Yet every time Song Lan came to visit, he never glimpsed the slightest expression of displeasure on her face.

Yu Suiyun was still her former self — complaining about the food, complaining about the weather, cursing at the servants for her morning sickness, loving to throw things. In her idle time, she was earnestly poring over ancient books, saying she wanted to find a childhood pet name for the child. When he came to see her, she would still hold his arm and act coquettish, just as before.

If she had raged and gone mad, Song Lan would have known she was truly a daughter pampered and sheltered in the inner chambers. A pampered daughter’s nature, if it fell on a child, would surely taint the bloodline of the imperial house — and besides, an agitated spirit of hers would mean the pregnancy would not be well-sustained, and no matter how loath he was to part with her, he could not keep her.

Yet Yu Suiyun was no different from the ordinary, which made him think more highly of her — whether she had reasoned out that after Yu Qiushi’s death she could only live on the Emperor’s favor, or whether she intended to bide her time until the child was grown before pursuing matters later, her conduct at present was truly the finest of strategies.

Song Lan was happy to play along with her performance. In any case he did not care much for her. Once the child was born into the world, how to deal with her would depend on his mood. Yu Suiyun’s dream of cultivating influence in the deep palace and plotting for the future was nothing but a fool’s fantasy.

After the visit, Yanyu accompanied him to the Candlelit Tower to keep the New Year’s Eve vigil.

Yanyu had originally been a palace maidservant at Empress Dowager Chenghui’s side. She had attended him for several years, and she was five years his senior. She had quite good martial skills, and in his youth she had shown him some kindness.

Moreover, her two brothers were like her — quite capable in martial arts but lacking in resourcefulness. Using such people as confidants put him considerably more at ease.

Yanyu quietly told Song Lan of Empress Dowager Chenghui’s recent condition. Song Lan listened and found nothing out of the ordinary, and gave her some perfunctory words of reminder. Yanyu, reading his expression, suddenly recalled something: “Oh yes — before New Year’s Eve, when this servant was arranging the furnishings in Her Majesty the Grand Empress Dowager’s palace, I happened to discover some strange objects.”

Song Lan was indifferent. “What objects?”

Yanyu wanted to earn his approval and spoke in deliberately extravagant terms: “It was a very short arrowhead — no one knows how it got there. Properly speaking, Her Majesty the Grand Empress Dowager has spent many years confined within the forbidden palace and should never have come across such a thing. This servant remembers that the arrowhead still had a mark engraved on it.”

She traced shapes on his palm, but her memory was unclear, and no matter how long she traced, she could not produce a clear shape. Song Lan knew her little trick of angling for his favor, and lost patience with it, waving her away: “I will keep vigil alone — you may go.”

Yanyu withdrew with some disappointment, and most likely went back to look for that arrowhead.

The Candlelit Tower burned candles the year round, pervaded by the smell of melted wax. After the guards were dismissed, Song Lan knelt alone in the hall, keeping vigil until nearly the hour of dawn.

He was drowsy, thinking that today there was still the Grand Court Audience — he felt even more irritable at heart. He was just about to rise when he heard someone hurrying in frantically, crying out in terror, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

The man threw himself at Song Lan’s feet and said with incoherent speech: “Last night, a band of raiders suddenly launched an attack on the Western Capital, seized the Princess Imperial who was temporarily residing in the city and carried her away. The garrison guards from the Western Capital sent a report, saying — saying…”

Having heard only the first half, Song Lan snapped to attention. “Saying what?”

The attendant wiped a handful of sweat from his head. “Saying that those who carried the Princess Imperial away appeared to be troops from the northern garrison. Half a month ago, a dozen or so northern garrison soldiers entered the city on the pretext of scouting for enemy intelligence, and yesterday used the pretext of Youzhou military intelligence to swagger right out through the city gates. It was New Year’s Eve, the whole city was keeping vigil, and no one was on guard — which is how they accomplished this so smoothly!”

Song Lan raged, “He dared falsify military intelligence!”

“Your Majesty,” Liu Xi murmured softly at his side, cautiously, “Before this person came to see you this morning, a military dispatch had already arrived to report that the day before yesterday the northern border of Youzhou was attacked by enemies. They nearly broke through to the border of Wan City. It was thanks to the Young General Yan who led the troops that they repelled the enemy through the night. The victory report has just been transmitted back to the capital.”

Yan Lang had never returned to Youzhou at all. He had lain in wait in Luoyang with those dozen-odd soldiers disguised as miscellaneous workers, precisely waiting for news of military action in the north — the moment there was any military movement, he could swagger openly through the gates of Luoyang and take the person away.

The enemy forces in the north these days were mostly scattered troops — probing and testing, nothing more. After rescuing the person, he made a swift thousand-li sortie from Luoyang to the Ping Shao Pass, showed his face in the army camp, then transmitted the victory report back — and not only could no crime be charged against him, he deserved to be commended and rewarded!

No wonder the bait of Song Yaofeng had not lured Luowei into showing herself — from the very beginning, when she had used this as a bargaining chip in exchange, she had planned everything out. Waiting for any movement on the northern frontier, she could act immediately.

Song Lan had worked out every step of these two people’s scheming in an instant, and could not help but feel a violent throbbing pain in his skull. He fell backward, his head tilting back, and Liu Xi hurried forward to catch him, calling out urgently for the imperial physicians.

Song Lan tilted his head and stared at the rows of candle flames and spirit tablets filling the hall behind him, and suddenly remembered — Lu Hang, that man, had apparently been an old acquaintance of Song Ling.

If from the moment of her disappearance from Guyou Mountain, everything at court had been Luowei’s scheming — forcing him to kill the cicada, using the Shattered Jade affair to set the censors ablaze, scattering ‘The False Dragon’s Lament’ — and then at last Yan Lang finally seized his opportunity and rescued Song Yaofeng — he had no more hostages in hand. Surely she would move at any moment.

He steadied himself with one hand on his head and sat back up. He did not know why, but his heart began to stir with a faint feeling of excitement — he had always known Luowei was exceptionally capable, but he had not imagined she was more meticulous than anything he had conceived. After layer upon layer of these arrangements, what had she prepared as her final hand to deal with him?

And did she know that beyond the incense burned in the palace, he too had many final hands — waiting to fight to the death against her, and against Song Ling, who stood behind her as a ghost?

Liu Xi suddenly heard the young Emperor laugh twice, with obvious delight. His laughter echoed through the Candlelit Tower, empty in the early morning hour, answered only by the flickering of candlelight.

A sudden chill ran through his whole body — he had followed Song Lan for so many years and knew something of what had happened in the great case four years ago. His master, stained with the blood of his own flesh and kin, could still laugh out loud here beneath the spirit tablets of his full ancestral hall.

If the souls of the dead had awareness, what would they think?

If the gods and Buddhas had feeling, would they send down punishment?

Liu Xi helped Song Lan rise and straightened the imperial crown on his head. He walked out of the hall dressed in that extraordinarily magnificent gilt dragon-patterned crimson robe.

In the distance, the ceremonial preparations for the Grand Court Audience were already in place, and the ritual music struck up the Proclamation of Peace.