Cui Xun’s remains, according to his wishes, were buried in Luoyan Ridge.
He was not a perfect person by worldly standards, and future historical evaluations of him would be highly controversial. On one hand, there was his extraordinary achievement of driving out the Turks and reclaiming lost territory, and his unwavering integrity as he persisted alone for six years to finally clear his name. On the other hand, there was his past as a hound of the court. All judgments of right and wrong, merit and fault, would be left for future generations to discuss.
In Chang’an, Li Ying sat in Cui Xun’s bedchamber, hugging her knees, holding a grass grasshopper he had made.
The wooden box contained exactly one thousand grasshoppers.
He had once said that if he made her angry, he would make a thousand grass grasshoppers for her forgiveness. He had indeed made her angry—he had promised he would return, but he had broken his promise. How could she not be angry?
She hugged her knees, silently weeping: “I won’t forgive you… I’ll never forgive you…”
She threw the grasshopper in her hand forcefully away, but as soon as it fell to the ground, she crawled to pick it up again, carefully brushing off the dust. Cui Xun’s fingers had been injured, and these thousand grasshoppers were far less exquisite than before—they were quite rough. Li Ying could imagine how he had used his spare time in the military tent, with fingers that were no longer nimble, folding grass leaves and clumsily crafting each grasshopper.
She held the emerald-green grasshopper to her chest and finally broke down in tears.
News of Cui Xun’s death reached Yu Fuwei, who was extremely surprised and then hurried to the Cui residence to accompany Li Ying.
While Li Ying grieved alone in the bedroom, he sat outside. For three days she grieved, and for three days he accompanied her. On the night of the third day, the carved wooden door finally opened.
Li Ying’s eyes were red and swollen. She had changed into a plain white garment, as if in mourning for Cui Xun. Silently, she sat down in the corridor, looking at the bare begonia tree. Chang’an had just experienced a snowfall the night before, leaving the courtyard covered in white. Li Ying’s mind wandered, remembering how in the spring of the previous year, the begonia tree had been full of blossoms. She and Cui Xun had sat here, watching as the breeze blew, causing the pink and white begonia flowers to fall like snowflakes, creating a stunning image of “begonia snow.” That day, Cui Xun had said she was the moon in the sky. She had asked him, “Then what are you?”
He had said he was the mud on the ground, but she told him he wasn’t. She said he was Wangshu, the moon charioteer in the sky.
But now her moon charioteer was gone. Search as she might through the blue sky or the yellow springs, she would never find him again.
She sat in the corridor for a long time. Scenes from her time with Cui Xun flashed before her eyes. Those memories were so vivid that she could not forget them.
After a long while, she finally said to Yu Fuwei, who had been silently accompanying her: “Yu Fuwei, I’m leaving.”
“Going… where?”
“Luoyan Ridge.”
“To see Cui Xun?”
Li Ying nodded.
Yu Fuwei hesitated: “Actually, you don’t necessarily need to go to Luoyan Ridge. I have many friends in the netherworld. I can ask them to find out where Cui Xun’s soul has gone.”
Li Ying shook her head: “He has no soul anymore.”
Yu Fuwei was stunned.
Li Ying slowly opened her palm, revealing the Buddha’s crown relic, crystal clear and round as a pearl. Li Ying said, “He obtained this Buddha’s crown relic at the cost of his soul’s eternal dissolution.”
Yu Fuwei was even more astonished. He still remembered Cui Xun’s miserable state after forcibly taking the Buddha’s crown relic from Famen Temple—covered in blood from head to toe, with a bowl-sized wound on his head. Li Ying said: “He knelt on all two hundred and one stone steps, kowtowed two hundred and one times, before he could ascend the pagoda. Once there, he could not touch the Buddha’s crown relic, so he vowed that after death, his soul would scatter and vanish, paying for his sins. Only then did he obtain this relic.”
So that was how the Buddha’s crown relic had been obtained.
In an instant, Yu Fuwei’s heart was filled with mixed emotions.
He wondered if he was thinking of Zheng Yun from his previous life. Comparing the two, he remained silent for a while before saying bitterly, “Cui Xun truly deserves the Princess’s deep love.”
Li Ying handed the Buddha’s crown relic to Yu Fuwei: “The sins he accumulated in this life, he has cleared himself. Only the forceful taking of the Buddha’s crown relic and whipping the abbot of Famen Temple remain unpaid. I don’t want him to be resentful of Famen Temple after his death. Please, Mr. Yu, help me return this Buddha’s crown relic to Famen Temple. Also, I wish to donate ten thousand gold in Cui Xun’s name to Famen Temple to restore the golden statue of Buddha, seeking their forgiveness. I’m troubling Mr. Yu with this matter as well.”
Yu Fuwei held the Buddha’s crown and was stunned: “But if you return the Buddha’s crown relic to Famen Temple, what will happen to you? You cannot be separated from the relic now.”
Her soul had been damaged twice, and without the Buddha’s crown relic maintaining a trace of her spirit, she would have long since dissipated.
Li Ying shook her head: “I won’t need the Buddha’s crown relic anymore.”
Yu Fuwei finally understood her intentions. His eyes reddened, and he turned his head away.
As the saying goes, a man does not shed tears easily. Only now did Yu Fuwei understand that tears are not shed easily because the moment of heartbreak has not yet arrived.
Large teardrops rolled down from his eyes. After a while, he asked Li Ying: “Princess, are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.” Li Ying said softly, staring at the bare begonia tree. “Before, I didn’t want to be all alone, so I desperately tried to uncover the truth, to be reincarnated. But now, I’m no longer alone.”
Before her eyes, that lotus-like face seemed to appear again: “Seventeen Lang suffered too much in this life. From now on, he won’t suffer so much, because I will be with him.”
Yu Fuwei gripped the relic tightly. With his head bowed, after a long time, he finally said through gritted teeth: “Alright, I will return the Buddha’s crown relic to Famen Temple.”
“Thank you. Eleven thousand silver pieces will be sent to Mr. Yu’s residence tonight by the paper maid.”
Yu Fuwei nodded, and Li Ying continued: “Mr. Yu, since you have decided to be Yu Fuwei, the past is past. And the Yu Fuwei I know did not mind a merchant’s daughter ruling. I hope that in the future, you can fulfill your long-cherished wish, enter the court, and help in times of danger.”
Yu Fuwei smiled through his tears and nodded: “I also wish the Princess a smooth journey.”
He stood up, gave Li Ying a formal bow with cupped hands, then hurriedly left the compound. He could not stay here any longer; he feared that if he remained, he would try to stop Li Ying from going to Luoyan Ridge.
After taking just a few steps, he hesitated for a moment, then turned back to Li Ying and said: “Princess.”
Li Ying looked up.
Yu Fuwei paused, then said: “The ghost officials in the City of Wrongful Deaths wear red robes.”
After Yu Fuwei left, Ji Qingyang arrived. He had also heard about Cui Xun’s death and, concerned for Li Ying, had rushed to Chang’an overnight. Like Yu Fuwei, when he heard Li Ying was going to Luoyan Ridge, he was first shocked, then saddened and silent. Before he left, he also said some strange things to Li Ying.
He said that the reason he had transformed from a vicious hound of the Hundred Riders Bureau into a wandering knight who upheld justice was actually because of something Li Ying had once said to him.
Li Ying thought for a long time but could not recall what she had said to him. When she asked Ji Qingyang, he refused to tell her, saying instead: “Actually, after the Princess died years ago, I tried to assassinate the late Emperor to avenge you.”
Li Ying was stunned. Ji Qingyang continued: “The late Emperor was heavily guarded, so naturally I was captured after a fierce fight. But after interrogating me, the late Emperor did not kill me; instead, he released me. Conversely, he, out of guilt, died early, not even reaching ten years on the throne.”
He did not explain what the Taichang Emperor had asked him during the interrogation, nor why the Emperor felt so guilty that he died early. Like Yu Fuwei, he simply wished Li Ying a safe journey.
Though Li Ying was puzzled by the words of Yu Fuwei and Ji Qingyang, her heart was already filled with the pain of losing Cui Xun, leaving her no extra energy to ponder their words. Dressed in plain white, carrying the box of grass grasshoppers, she boarded a sedan chair and set off for Luoyan Ridge.
The paper sedan bearers could only travel at night. Along the way, Li Ying just stared at the box of grass grasshoppers in a daze. The long journey made her spirit increasingly weak. By the time they reached Luoyan Ridge, she was wrapped in a snow-white fox fur, barely supporting herself as she stepped out of the sedan chair.
This was her first time seeing Luoyan Ridge, the place that had changed Cui Xun’s destiny. The northern winter was desolate, with the ridge’s vegetation covered in a thin layer of frost and snow. A few withered yellow leaves hung sparsely from the branches. Li Ying walked on the frost and snow, moving forward until she saw the vast array of Tianwei Army graves.
After Cui Xun had captured Feng Prefecture, Luoyan Ridge returned to the Great Zhou. The scattered remains of the Tianwei Army soldiers, which had been left for six years, could finally be properly buried. However, after six years, the corpses had all turned to white bones, and it was impossible to tell who was who. He Shisan and others had picked up the bones piece by piece and buried them together, including his brother He Jiu, who had been killed by arrows. His remains had also been found and moved to Luoyan Ridge.
In front of the rows of graves, densely packed tombstones inscribed with names stood. Amidst the calls of winter crows, Li Ying knelt with deep respect and, as a princess of the Great Zhou, solemnly kowtowed once to thank the fifty thousand loyal martyrs who had guarded this land with their lives, regardless of their safety.
After rising, she passed through these tombstones and finally came to a new grave.
This grave had been newly built, with a simple tombstone in front of the mounded yellow earth, inscribed with just two characters: “Cui Xun.” The paper sedan bearers brought over the box of grasshoppers, then bowed and left. Suddenly, only Li Ying remained in front of the desolate new grave.
The moonlight washed over the thin snow, and crystalline snowflakes began to fall from the night sky. A snowflake slowly drifted down, landing on Li Ying’s eyelashes, melting into tiny droplets. Li Ying slowly knelt in front of the tombstone. She gently touched the tombstone inscribed with Cui Xun’s name, as if caressing his slightly cool face. Tears gradually welled up in her eyes, and she bent down to kiss the name on the tombstone.
She said, “Seventeen Lang, I’ve come to see you.”
Her eyelashes were covered with glistening drops. She murmured, “You’re such a big liar. You promised you would do everything possible to return to Chang’an, but you didn’t even let me see you one last time… I’m really angry.”
“However, I promised you before that as long as you made a thousand grasshoppers, I wouldn’t be angry with you. I never expected you would really make a thousand, so I can not be angry with you now.”
The wooden box lid was opened, and green ghost fire turned into phosphorescence, falling on the grass grasshoppers. The thousand grasshoppers seemed to come alive, fluttering their wings and flying into the air. Then, one by one, they burst into red fireballs, like twinkling shooting stars, slowly falling to the ground along with the dancing snowflakes.
In this grand spectacle of meteoric fireworks, Li Ying gently embraced the tombstone, resting her cheek against the cold blue stone as if leaning on Cui Xun’s chest. She slowly closed her eyes, her form growing fainter and fainter in the red flames until she disappeared completely.
In forty thousand Buddhist temples across the Great Zhou, the eternal lamps lit for Princess Yong’an were extinguished simultaneously in a single night, never to be lit again.
In Penglai Hall, the Empress Dowager seemed to sense something, and the perforated gold incense sachet in her hand dropped to the ground with a clatter.
And in Fengyang Pavilion, thirty years ago, Princess Yong’an Li Ying, who had been resting reclined on a couch, slowly opened her eyes.