Does every person’s life have one phrase that defines their entire existence?

For me, it would probably be one word: “empty.”

Empty – the gate opens into emptiness and silence. What rushes toward me is the breath of human crowds carrying the fragrance of rouge, powder, and carnal desires from the world of red dust, yet not a single part belongs to me.

Not a single part belongs to what I long for – those scents written in blood and memory that could wake me from deep dreams at any moment.

Thus this tide, striking the empty city that is Prince Jing’an’s mansion, is destined to return in loneliness.

And I am merely a lonely tide myself, flowing out of my empty city on this blood moon night, driven by those hidden restless stirrings.

Such stars, such a night.

The red lantern in my palm sways in the wind, its dim red glow reflecting the blood-colored moon above – the same hue. I raise the red lantern toward the moonlight, and the red silk flows like mist swirling beneath the moon, while she dances gracefully within that mist.

Dancing with black hair and bare feet, her bracelets jingling melodiously, flower branches sweeping the ground as wind rises, her palace-slender waist light as a feather in one’s palm.

In a trance, I see again that stunning woman dancing above the vast expanse of ice and snow from years past, her steps creating clouds and rainbows, each spin and leap transforming into a sky full of fragrant flowers – each one a red spider lily from the distant shore.

Those flowing, long deep red petals have brushed through my life both gently and sharply since then, leaving marks light yet profound, pressed into the pages of memory like eternal flower bookmarks that never wither.

The red lantern flows and sways – I cannot tell if it’s the blood moon’s light or my heart that has been swaying restlessly for years.

I cannot help but smile slightly.

Suddenly a child whistles past me, carrying a small lotus-shaped lantern that casts floating dark yellow lotus blossoms on the shadow-painted bluestone street.

Those lotus flowers drift past my feet, leisurely connecting with the darkness at the end of the long street.

Suddenly I remember many years ago, that Lantern Festival, when I took my little sister to see the lanterns. Her small, soft hand rested in my palm, while my other hand held scattered silver coins. Whatever lantern caught her fancy, I would buy for her.

Such a small person who didn’t understand money, yet would shake my hand continuously when she saw a rabbit lantern she liked, her tender fingers brushing across my palm in waves – soft and tickling.

That day I had especially many silver coins in my palm. When our parents sent us out that day, they gave me a handful of silver, saying, “Go, Xi’er, play well, buy well, buy whatever you want however you want.”

I looked up in surprise at father, usually so serious and rigid. Didn’t he always say things like “Be diligent for the nation, be frugal for the family” and “Frugality is virtue shared by all, extravagance is the greatest evil”? Normally he never allowed me to be extravagant in the slightest. The court and countryside all knew that Grand Minister Yu Jie was upright and incorruptible, hating evil like an enemy, the most honest and just person, with family traditions beyond ordinary people’s reach.

But father turned his gaze away without looking at me. He only stared at the half-closed double doors, whose black paint had fallen off considerably due to father’s clean sleeves and lack of money for repairs, yet still reflected father’s slightly trembling profile, even his mustache seeming to quiver in the wind.

I looked at mother in surprise again. She tucked a small cloth bundle into my sleeve pocket, the smile at her lips appearing no different from usual, yet somehow my chest felt uncomfortable. I wanted to pull her along too, reaching out to drag her toward the door, but she gently broke free from my hand and said softly yet firmly, “No, mother cannot go, Xi’er. Have Uncle Shun follow you.”

Uncle Shun came to take my hand, trembling as he said, “Young master, this old servant will accompany you and the young miss.”

Hearing his strange tone, I looked back at this old family retainer who had always followed father, but mother suddenly pushed me forward, saying, “Go on, play for a long time. It’s a rare… good day.”

Uncle Shun pulled me out the door, my heart heavy with unease. Looking back at mother, she leaned against the doorframe, watching us in a daze. Seeing me look back, she gave me a strange smile.

That smile, scattered in the spring-tinged night wind of the Lantern Festival – I felt no joy from it, but was too young to understand its meaning.

Only years later did I understand – that smile was called poignant sorrow.

We really did wander for a long time that night. Uncle Shun carried an armful of lanterns, and later when my sister grew tired, I carried the lanterns while he held her. Halfway through our wandering, there was suddenly commotion on Zhengyang Street. Through the crowd, we vaguely saw a team of golden-armored cavalry galloping past – these were the palace guards who specialized in delivering imperial edicts, and they reportedly always carried decrees demoting high officials, earning them the nickname “House-Breaking Guards.”

Those whistling, flying carriages adorned with gold and jade flashed through gaps in the crowd like a golden torrent cutting through the bustling fireworks, rushing toward some unknowable fate. I stared blankly at those mighty iron hooves, suddenly noticing Uncle Shun’s palm was ice cold.

I looked up at him, and he turned his face away. In that instant, all the market’s flowing lights and shadows reflected a flash of moisture on his face.

I wanted to ask something, but Uncle Shun was already pulling my hand in the opposite direction, saying, “Young master, that crystal lantern ahead looks special. Let’s go see it.”

My sister cheered and clapped her little hands, kicking her legs on Uncle Shun’s back, clamoring to go. She was so eager, her smiling face brilliant as orchids among the flowing multicolored lantern light. Seeing her smile always made me happy – I didn’t want to disappoint her, so I followed along.

That crystal lantern was indeed beautiful, shaped like a ruyi scepter and studded all over with crystals, sparkling like scattered jade and琼珠. The colorful lanterns on all sides paled before it, and the flowing colored light reflected on its snow-white faceted angles created another realm of seven-colored enchanting radiance. Cherry red, willow green, goose yellow, and water blue all carried faint halos as they spread outward, making people’s faces seem as illusory as reflections in water.

Such beauty – beautiful as a fantasy.

Like this lantern market – everything so wonderful it made one’s heart panic with its beauty.

We lingered before the lantern for a long time. The crowd gradually dispersed, my sister fell asleep on Uncle Shun’s back, and I began walking home.

Uncle Shun stopped me.

His ice-cold, rough palm gripped my fingers tightly.

He said:

“Young master, we cannot go back.”

Such stars, such a night.

Even this blood-colored night has starlight – the first time I’ve seen it in all these years. Those stars are tinged with intoxication by the confused pale red moonlight, like the unconscious blinking eyes of someone drunk.

…

When Emperor Yuanmo ordered father’s execution, it was reportedly during one of his drunken episodes. Was he also like this then, blinking crimson eyes and ordering: “Execute”?

Such a simple word decided the final fate of thirty-eight lives from the Yu family.

So life is both precious and worthless – precious to the point that even my later wealth and lifelong glory could not buy it back, worthless to the point that a drunkard’s casual grinding of teeth could easily erase it.

…The red lantern sways, casting deep red ripples on the bluestone ground, like the fresh blood that flowed from the bodies of those I knew.

…That night, the Lantern Festival celebrated throughout the realm, was the death anniversary of my Yu family. Grand Minister Yu Jie was sentenced to complete family extermination on the groundless charge of “disloyal heart” without any reason or explanation. One of his students serving guard duty in the palace accidentally heard this order and risked his life to deliver the message ahead of the swift-killing Golden Guards. Father refused to believe this terrible news. When family urged him to flee quickly, he wouldn’t go – how could a minister loyal to royal service flee without cause? He insisted on seeking imperial audience to clear his name and argue his innocence, but mother immediately sent us out the door.

Then my father, who hadn’t yet entered the palace, was blocked by the Golden Guards at his own front door. They gave father no chance for any defense, directly erecting a wooden frame in the courtyard, burying father’s entire body in quicklime with only his head exposed, then pouring cold water over it.

In an instant the lime rapidly burned and boiled, roaring and exploding over father’s body. Amid the rising steam and smoke, flesh and skin completely stripped away, leaving only white bones on the wooden frame in the blink of an eye.

Only his head remained intact, never closing his eyes until death, staring wide-eyed toward the palace.

His lips slightly parted, as if wanting to question that tyrant he had painstakingly assisted for years yet who still acted perversely – asking “Why?” in the moment his flesh exploded and soul boiled.

There was no why. Grand Minister Yu Jie was upright and daring in speech, known as the court’s foremost remonstrating minister. Through years in office, he had offended countless people. Those sycophantic ministers who curried favor had wanted him dead for a long time.

And this foolish ruler Yuan Cang had been dissatisfied with him for a long time too.

So when a favored concubine in the palace died of illness and Yuan Cang was melancholy, the ministers slandered that the Grand Minister harbored resentment toward the concubine and had cursed her after court sessions, causing her untimely death.

The reason to kill someone can sometimes be as easy as stepping on a fallen flower on a path – if only you have the heart for it.

So the Grand Minister was executed in the most brutal way. His virtuous wife then ordered a coffin brought into the courtyard, personally took down her husband’s white bones with only the intact head remaining, then calmly embraced the bones into the coffin, waved her hand, and commanded: “Nail it shut.”

Everyone was shocked.

Listening to a woman facing brutal death make her noble, irresistible decision about her own fate.

The domineering, invincible Golden Guards were stunned by this composed, determined woman. These guards who only ever obeyed the emperor’s orders, for the first time in their lives obediently carried out the command of a condemned female prisoner.

The remaining thirty-odd close clan members of the Yu family were all beheaded and their bodies abandoned in the marketplace.

The Yu family had never benefited from the Grand Minister’s glory, yet suffered complete annihilation because of the Grand Minister’s loyalty.

In the end times, loyal ministers are worse than dogs.

…The red lantern moves rapidly across the black ground, swift as flowing light… Oh, my steps are quick. My steps have always unconsciously quickened when walking alone for many, many years, because I want to walk more roads, run farther – perhaps then I might find my sister Zhiyuan.

But I know very clearly in my heart that Zhiyuan probably can never be found again. She was so small and lost in those chaotic times, in that era when human life was cheap as dirt – she couldn’t possibly have survived.

When I think of her, I always think of her eyes that night at the Lantern Festival, so vivid among the chaotic tide of colored lantern light, bright black agate-like radiance. She looked at me with joy and quiet trust – a completely trusting gaze.

But I betrayed her trust.

We didn’t escape the city until the third day. On the second day, news of the Grand Minister’s brutal death spread throughout the city. Uncle Shun tried every way to keep me from hearing it, but I heard anyway. I went mad trying to rush back home. Uncle Shun was old and frail and couldn’t hold me back, so helplessly he gritted his teeth and knocked me unconscious.

That night I began running a fever, burning unconsciously as if lying on hot coals. In my delirium I called for father and mother. Vaguely I seemed to feel a cool, soft hand cover my forehead, penetrating to my heart. I thought it was mother coming to see me and struggled joyfully to wake up, only to find my sister constantly stroking me with her little hands, calling softly: “Brother, brother…”

Seeing me wake up, she threw herself on me joyfully. I caught her small, soft body and suddenly remembered I wasn’t just my parents’ son – I was also an elder brother. With our parents gone, I still had someone I needed to protect.

I struggled to get up and told Uncle Shun we had to leave. Uncle Shun kept wiping away tears, nodding repeatedly, “Don’t worry, young master. This old servant will risk his life to get you safely out of the city.”

I was so sick and confused then that I didn’t notice Uncle Shun said “you,” not “you both.”

The next day Uncle Shun found a horse cart and told me to get in. I turned to look at my sister. She stood below the cart, her clear, bright eyes sparkling, sucking her finger as she smiled at me.

I said, “Zhiyuan, come with me.”

My sister reached for my outstretched hand, but Uncle Shun blocked her, saying, “Young master, the city gates check siblings very strictly. This old servant is disguising you as a consumptive patient. Such patients couldn’t possibly share a cart with anyone. If the young miss were inside the cart, it would give us away.”

I thought this made sense, so I turned to stroke Zhiyuan’s head. “Zhiyuan, be good and don’t cry. Once we’re outside the city, you can call for brother again.”

My sister had always been well-behaved and still smiled sweetly, sucking her finger as she nodded.

I stroked her face once more, then turned and got in the cart.

I truly didn’t know then that this was the last time in my life I would see her, the last time I would touch my blood relative.

Once in the cart I began burning with fever again. In my drowsy haze, many lights and shadows flashed rapidly past. I vaguely heard cart-stopping and shouting, and people poking their heads in to look. I was so sick then that my face was sallow yellow, having lost much weight with my eyes sunken in. Apparently the inspectors found nothing suspicious, and Uncle Shun finally safely delivered me to the city outskirts.

Three days later when I awoke, I found myself still in the cart, with Uncle Shun no longer beside me and Zhiyuan nowhere to be seen. My companion was now a middle-aged man of rather heroic bearing. He was father’s friend who had once come to the capital to take the military examinations but abandoned his official position after discovering the darkness of court politics, preferring to be a carefree wanderer of the martial world. Though his time in office was brief, he got along very well with father. Hearing of the Yu family tragedy, he traveled thousands of li to meet us at the city outskirts.

But he didn’t know where Zhiyuan was, because Uncle Shun had told him that siblings couldn’t escape the city together. The court had decreed that any siblings seen traveling together must be executed. He could only get me out first, then return for the Yu family young miss. But Uncle Shun never returned. He waited three days without seeing Uncle Shun, and had even gone back into the city to search, but in that vast sea of people, where could he look? Meanwhile, the city was still searching for Yu family survivors. Afraid that leaving me outside would bring disaster and cause the Yu family’s sole heir to perish too, he had no choice but to take me away.

He brought me to Qingma, where I was accepted under the Wuding Sect of Sacred Qingma Mountain. He reportedly went to great lengths for the Wuding Sect to take me as a disciple. I refused to learn – I wanted to find Uncle Shun and Zhiyuan. He told me they were no longer alive. He had later received word that shortly after Uncle Shun returned to the city, he was recognized and executed along with my sister.

When I heard this news, I prostrated myself at the foot of Qingma Mountain and wept bitterly. Mountain birds throughout the range were startled by my crying, soaring skyward with mournful cries. When I had exhausted myself with weeping, I heard an ancient, calm voice drifting from somewhere unknown, singing strange melodies I couldn’t understand – distant and deep, as if in this vast sea of clouds someone was using green mountains as drums and long winds as mallets, striking eternal, ageless songs.

I fell into deep sleep to such melodies. When I awoke, I was already within the Wuding Sect.

With the Yu family completely exterminated and Uncle Shun and Zhiyuan dead too, I came to understand that the Yu family’s blood vengeance would ultimately fall to me to repay. How could I avenge this without mastering martial arts?

In my third year of martial study, while practicing lightness skills on the cliffs of Sacred Qingma Mountain, I accidentally saw a flash of green light in a crevice. Having always been fearless, I immediately followed it. The green light flickered in an extremely narrow fissure. Though my bone-shrinking technique wasn’t yet perfected, I relied on a youth’s flexible body to squeeze into the cave and retrieve the object.

It was the Green Fruit, a Qingma treasure that bore fruit once every hundred years, obtainable only by the fated.

But what kind of fate was this, really?

In my final year of martial study, Bai Yuan came up the mountain. This little junior brother was about the same age I had been when arriving, yet I disliked him from first sight. I felt this small child’s eyes held too much desire, even his smiles seemed masked. Such a person at such a young age – he would probably become another world-shaking troublemaker in the future. I disliked this unsettling child, so I deliberately left the mountain a year early.

After descending, I returned to the capital, thinking to search for Uncle Shun and Zhiyuan. I was still a child then and had never thought to doubt uncle’s words. But over the years I often wondered – perhaps uncle only fabricated their deaths to make me focus on martial study. Perhaps they weren’t dead yet?

After so many years, trying to find a sister whose face I could barely remember, recalling only her clear eyes, and Uncle Shun who had already been aged beyond recognition – it was harder than finding a needle in the ocean. I could only search while attempting to infiltrate the palace to assassinate the emperor. But I had still thought things too simple. That tyrant’s palace had nine layers of prohibition – I alone could only breach six layers. The last time I was even injured.

Due to my injury and the city-wide manhunt at the time, I was forced to leave the capital, wandering all the way to a small Huainan city. Wherever I went, I tried searching various brothels for my sister – in such times, if she could survive, she could only survive in brothels. For this I constantly frequented brothels throughout my life, earning the reputation of a debauched prince, yet I never found her.

Zhiyuan, many years later I no longer remember your face, yet in many dreams I see your eyes, staring at me so strangely. In dreams I hazily feel you truly died, and before death, you probably still resented the brother who abandoned you to blood and fire.

Many years later, when Luo Xiang gracefully walked to my side, looking at me with strange, curious, cool eyes, in that instant my heart moaned in past events, and I said to myself: Zhiyuan.

…The bluestone path stretches long, like brocade under moonlight, spreading endlessly until abruptly stopping at some dark terminus where silent Shanglin Mountain looms.

…That year, I chanced to meet Xiao Jue, the unfavored fourth young master of Huainan Prince’s mansion. That youth’s heroic and forthright nature pleased my heart, and thus we became friends. Most of our time together was spent discussing military texts. He cared about the people’s livelihood under heaven and often sighed deeply when mentioning state affairs. I would prop my arm and watch him, thinking this person was probably destined for a lifetime of toil. I also thought that if I truly wanted revenge, destroying this dynasty would be the right path. The Yuan dynasty already showed signs of ending – why couldn’t my hands be among those about to grasp Yuan Cang’s throat?

Later Xiao Jue had someone deliver a message telling me he was going to join the army. He said the tyrant was lawless and the people displaced – this was precisely the time for men of purpose to save the people from water and fire and reverse the overturned cosmos. I went to Mingjing Creek to wait for him and saw the ground covered with maple leaves red as fire. He and she galloped along, riding through the fire colors, their horses’ hooves carrying jade-white frost from the plank bridge.

Beside him rode an unfamiliar girl in simple dress with a peerless face. Her pair of clear, wonderful eyes looked over like nine-heavens fairy springs cascading from the Jade Pool, startling one to breathless shock.

She was Chang Ge.

That woman on the black horse with a smile empty of mirth – one glance drew her into a lifetime where she and I could hardly distinguish between kindness and enmity.

…This is no longer the bluestone path, now changed to withered grass and slightly muddy dirt road. Further ahead lies Shanglin Mountain. The red lantern points forward as if it could illuminate that dark forest halfway up the mountain.

There sleeps that woman who smiled with one glance from horseback – the final portion of her bones.

The faint relationship that ultimately connected her and me surprisingly ended in this finale of death and memorial sacrifice.

With a touch of ethereal smile, I enter the forest without a speck of dust touching me. Here carries her familiar aura. This arrangement must have come from her hands. The ground, trees, even a single leaf – none can be casually touched. This viciously clever woman whose temperament so matched mine…

Gently hanging the red lantern on a tree branch, I lift my robes and step onto that stone platform in the forest. There, three zhang below, lies a section of her charred bone.

I prop my cheek with my hand, lying down among the fallen leaves and dust scattered everywhere, remembering that blood moon night years ago when I hurled the fake Wei king’s head dozens of zhang, repelling a thousand troops, while she turned back in surprise from atop a withered tree. At that moment her gaze was both extremely weary and confused yet also extremely joyful and bright, reflecting my figure holding a blade toward the moon.

Chang Ge, if you saw me now, what expression would you have? Probably like Zhiyuan – initially trusting, ultimately resentful?

…The red lantern sways overhead, illuminating the withered leaves before me that seem to have a brittle, demonic beauty.

One zhang and three chi ahead, there are extremely subtle breathing sounds, mixed with night bird calls from somewhere unknown in the darkness – it sounds rather cool.

I smile slightly.

Who could it be?