Song Huai’an stood motionless as a mountain. Yet the tip of the three-edged spear pressed against Qinzhi’s back slowly, gradually, lowered.
“Fall back!” He gave a fierce shout, swept the long spear through the air and drew it back, pointing toward those behind him. His warhorse stepped back two paces. The two-column heavy shield escort immediately rushed forward to protect him with raised shields.
At that very instant, the kneeling Qinzhi leapt to her feet. She broke free of the ropes binding her hands behind her back, and like a nimble young animal sprinted straight toward the palace gates.
“Kill her!” Song Huai’an roared, reaching back to seize a bow and nock an arrow.
My five fingers suddenly snapped open. The white-feathered wolf-hair arrow pierced the air and flew.
Behind me, the iron crossbows fired together. Arrows like a sudden squall shrieked through the air, shooting down the rebel forces’ massive shields with a soul-shaking crack.
In an instant the rebel forces’ formation broke into disorder, pressed down beneath the hail of arrows, all raising shields to block the onslaught, with no chance to counter.
Qinzhi had already run two zhang forward when she was suddenly tripped by the ropes still coiled around her body and fell. The sky full of arrows landed less than two zhang behind her.
“Qinzhi, run —” I threw myself to the city wall and screamed until my voice broke.
Behind me another hail of arrows flew in quick succession, blocking the rebel troops who tried to give pursuit.
Qinzhi fought and scrambled to her feet, threw off the ropes, and ran toward the palace gates.
The palace gates opened a crack. Four Iron Guard cavalry charged out on horseback, rushing straight into the enemy’s front line under the covering hail of arrows. Pang Kui in the lead, bending from his saddle swept Qinzhi up, then pulled hard on the reins and controlled his horse, rearing straight upright on the spot. The warhorse whinnied and lifted its hooves, then wheeled and raced back toward the palace gates. The remaining three riders followed in escort, leaving nothing but a trail of dust behind them. More than ten heavily shielded cavalry charged out from the rebel formation, braving the hail of arrows at the cost of their lives, charging in pursuit.
The four riders flashed through the gate like lightning. The palace gates closed with a thunderous boom and the heavy locks fell.
Behind me erupted a thunderous cheer — the morale of the troops surged to a frenzy.
I gripped the city parapet for support and only then realized my legs had gone completely soft beneath me, that I could barely catch the breath that seemed to stop in my chest.
“Mother —” Before I had steadied myself, a childish shriek rang out, startling me into spinning around.
Yuxiu had somehow broken free in the confusion and leapt onto the city parapet, swaying precariously above the open air.
The change came in an instant. I could only hear the child’s piercing cries. I opened my mouth but could not make a sound.
The guard at her side lunged toward her.
I watched, helpless, as the guard’s hand missed her sleeve edge by the breadth of a hair.
She threw back her head with a smile — radiant as a summer flower in full bloom. The wide sleeves of her sapphire palace robe billowed and spread. Without the slightest hesitation, she transformed before my eyes into a brilliant streak of light and plunged from the city wall.
“Yuxiu —” A cry of utter devastation, unlike a human voice, rose from below the city walls. The voice of Song Huai’an, desolate beyond recognition.
Could you hear it, Yuxiu?
Could you hear that one cry of grief from him?
Before my eyes the sapphire light still seemed to shimmer and dance. I lurched forward, reached out in a daze to catch it — and then plunged abruptly into darkness.
The light, the light… passing through my hands, no matter how I reached, I could not hold it.
Yuxiu, smiling as she looked back, her features like a painting, slowly dissolved into the mist, growing more distant by the moment.
No — I still have so much to tell you. I will not allow you to leave just like this.
Yuxiu, foolish girl — how could you not have understood? He is a general who could pierce a willow leaf at a hundred paces. If he had truly meant to kill you, that arrow would never have grazed your temple. That arrow was only to tell you not to show weakness.
You were his wife, and he was your husband by first marriage. Though there was never a love between two devoted hearts, there was always the harmony and mutual respect of a shared life — so why would you not trust him?
Just for that one arrow, you cut off all will to live, your heart turned to cold ash. You cast off all the people who loved you and watched your children shattered by grief.
Yuxiu, you were so foolish.
I called her name in a furious rush of breath, yet a single breath lodged in my throat and I fell into violent coughing.
“Wang Fei, Wang Fei has woken!”
Shadows moved before my eyes, curtains and embroidered bed hangings — I was already in the sleeping chambers.
Clearly I had returned to consciousness, yet it still felt as though that sapphire streak of light was circling before me.
My heart was stunned and bewildered. I could not recall what had happened. I only knew that Yuxiu was gone, that even she was gone now.
She had gone like this, leaving me with a responsibility I could not refuse — bound to feel guilty and remorseful forever, bound to cherish and care for her children forever.
I covered my face with a bitter, broken laugh — and then a pair of soft, delicate hands covered mine. In my palm there was a little warmth. “Mother Wang Fei, please don’t cry.”
I startled. Staring blankly at the plain-clothed, loose-haired young girl before me — she had just called me Mother Wang Fei. Qinzhi had finally called me Mother Wang Fei.
Qinzhi was leaning over the bedside, her small face still a little pale, looking at me with anxious concern. Behind her stood a crowd of palace maids and medical attendants.
I looked at this slight young girl before me and reached out to touch her thin cheek.
She smiled, but large tears rolled down one after another.
“Were you hurt anywhere?” I hurriedly cupped her small face in my hands and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
Qinzhi shook her head, and in one motion threw her arms around me and wept aloud.
That day Nanny Xu and A’Yue had taken the children and rushed to Ci’an Temple. The senior nun Guangci had immediately opened the underground shrine on the rear mountain and hidden them inside.
That was the place where the remains of the late Xuande Empress Dowager were interred — and the greatest secret in all the imperial family. The world knew that the Xuande Empress Dowager had passed away in the palace and been interred in the Hui Mausoleum, but none knew that when the founding Emperor had killed his maternal uncle and seized the throne, he had put the entire family of the Empress Dowager to death. The Xuande Empress Dowager had thereafter taken Buddhist vows and lived in seclusion at the temple, and in death had still left behind the wish that she had no face to be buried in the imperial mausoleum. The founding Emperor had honored her wish, yet could not bear to cremate her remains, and so had secretly constructed the underground shrine at Ci’an Temple to inter her there.
But as it happened, Nanny Xu and A’Yue had been blocked on the road partway there, and by the time they had reached the foot of the mountain, their pursuers were already upon them.
Their party had hastily concealed themselves in a farmhouse while the pursuers were barely a stone’s throw away.
Qinzhi seized on a moment when Nanny Xu was not paying attention, and suddenly bolted out of the back courtyard, drawing the pursuers far away so that Nanny Xu and the others could escape.
I drew in a sharp breath and looked at her steadily. “Were you not afraid, Qinzhi?”
“Nanny Xu is elderly, and A’Yue must take care of the younger children.” Qinzhi bit her lip. Her eyes shone brightly as she looked at me. “I know how to fight! My father taught me some skills to defend myself…”
Her eyes dimmed and she lowered her head, as though she had thought of her parents who died in battle at the frontier.
This child — had she been born into an ordinary family and allowed to grow up in safety, how very fortunate she would have been.
I looked at her steadily for a long while, then in silence drew her close.
“I ran very fast, didn’t I?” she suddenly raised her head, eager eyes searching mine. “I know how to undo ropes — the knot they used was no challenge at all. My father taught me how to tie up game when hunting!”
Her expression mingled pride and sorrow.
“Qinzhi was so brave — just as brave as your father and mother.” I smiled and held her gaze. “They are watching you from the heavens above, and seeing your courage today, they must be filled with pride.”
Qinzhi smiled and gave a firm, vigorous nod, then buried her face against my chest. Her slender shoulders trembled faintly.
I quietly stroked her hair and silently swore in my heart: from this day forward, I will never let this child suffer the slightest mistreatment. Whatever she might want, I will exhaust every effort to give it to her!
I entrusted Yuxiu’s three children to the care of reliable senior nurses.
The second son and the youngest daughter were still at an age of innocence, not knowing where their mother had gone — they only wept and cried out. But Song Junwen, the five-year-old eldest son, already understood something in a vague way. When he saw me, like a young animal he charged straight at me, only to be hurriedly pulled back by the guards on either side.
Facing the hatred in a child’s eyes, I could say nothing. Any words, at this moment, were without power.
This was the first time in my life I had not dared look directly at someone. Beneath that gaze, something at the bottom of my heart gradually grew cold.
“Take good care of these children. Without my order, no one is to approach them on their own.”
Junwen was still struggling in a frenzy. The two nurses could barely hold him.
I turned away with exhaustion. Perhaps I truly ought not to appear before him anymore.
Behind me came a nurse’s cry of pain. I spun around in alarm, and saw the nurse’s wrist streaming blood — Junwen had broken free and charged toward me. He threw himself at me with sudden force, and the strength of a five-year-old boy’s blow, though small, was like that of one gone mad, kicking and hitting at me.
“You killed my mother!” Junwen threw himself at me, and the guards came running to pull him off. He went on kicking and screaming even as he was carried away.
I was helped up by nurses, drenched in cold sweat, my chest heaving in waves of pain that nearly left me unable to stand.
Beside us the youngest daughter was frightened into screaming; the four-year-old boy broke into wailing and crying in turn.
“That is right — I am a great villain.” I looked at him coldly. “Song Junwen, if you cause any more trouble, I will kill your younger brother. If you refuse to eat, I will kill your younger sister!”
Junwen was instantly dumbstruck. His complexion went white. His chest heaved violently — but he stopped kicking.
I gave a rueful smile and turned my head away, refusing to look at him anymore. I walked directly away.
In the distance, lights flickered in Zhaoyang Palace, and shadows of palace servants moved faintly here and there.
Since I could remember, Zhaoyang Palace had never been so deserted and quiet.
My aunt had said that Zhaoyang Palace was the most noble and beautiful cage in all the world.
A palace maid gently took my arm. “Would Wang Fei like to return to the palace to rest?”
I looked up at the glittering and shimmering river of stars in the night sky — the same clear sky for several days running.
By my reckoning, with the speed at which Xiao Qi marched his troops, and with no rain to obstruct the way, he should be arriving very soon.
I hesitated no longer and said with quiet composure, “Go to Zhaoyang Palace.”
Hu Yao was already gaunt to the point of being bone and shadow. She sat vacantly before her dressing table, her black hair loose, letting the palace maidservant comb it out before she retired. When she saw me, the attendants on either side bowed in salute and silently withdrew.
Hu Yao turned her head, looked at me vacantly, gave a dull smile, then turned without expression back to stare blankly at her reflection in the mirror.
I walked around to stand behind her and looked at her through the mirror.
Her unpowdered face was even more pallid in the lamplight, her eye sockets sunken, her eyes dull as a stagnant pool.
In the desolate darkness of Zhaoyang Palace, only she and I, separated by a great bronze mirror, facing each other in cold silence.
I reached out and lifted a lock of her hair, let it pass through my fingers — cool as silk. She looked at me blankly and did not move — just as the palace servants had said: the Empress had lost her mind entirely, spending her days in silent muteness, recognizing no one but the Emperor.
I raised my hand. From beneath my sleeve, the short sword pressed directly against her long, slender neck. The blade edge was clear as water, casting a green sheen over her brows and hair.
In the mirror, her pupils, as still as standing water, suddenly contracted sharply.
“You still know the fear of death — so you have not truly lost your mind.” I pressed my lips together in a half-smile.
The expression on Hu Yao’s face shifted. Her eyes lit up, cold as a blade’s edge.
Others might believe she had lost her mind entirely. I did not. Hu Yao and I were made of the same material — she would face even death with open eyes. I did not believe she would choose so cowardly a way to escape. This so-called complete loss of sanity was nothing more than her means of surviving and protecting herself. She feared death. She still wanted to live — and perhaps still wanted revenge against me.
“Hu Guanglie is safe and unharmed, returning to the capital with the Prince’s forces.” I pressed the blade two inches closer, letting it rest against her skin. “The Hu clan gave loyal service and protected the throne — their former offenses will be pardoned, and their future wealth and honor are secure. You may set your mind at rest.”
Hu Yao looked steadily at me, then suddenly threw back her head and broke into a great laugh. “On behalf of the Prince, congratulations on completing his great enterprise, on unifying the realm under a single rule… You two may accomplish your imperial ambitions. I and His Majesty will simply go below to the Yellow Springs together and be a quiet couple of ordinary folk! From this day, all debts of gratitude and resentment are cleared between us, and we will never meet again!”
Well done — a clean severing of all debts of gratitude and resentment, never to meet again.
Hu Yao knows me best. Were it not for the vagaries of fate, we might have been kindred spirits.
I returned the sword to its sheath and gave a faint smile. “The road to the Yellow Springs is long — you need not go so far. You may still be a quiet couple without needing to go there.”
Hu Yao’s eyes flew open to look at me.
“Forget your identities, your surnames, your families, your past. From this day forward, there will be no Hu Yao and no Zidan in this world — only an ordinary couple among the common people.” I looked at her and spoke each word slowly and deliberately. “All debts of gratitude and resentment — let them be consigned to former lives. The mountains are tall and the rivers are long. Without love, without hatred.”
Hu Yao rose to her feet. Her body shook faintly. “You are not afraid I will seek revenge? Not afraid I will leave behind a source of future trouble to ruin your great imperial enterprise?”
I gave a slight smile. “Today I am able to release you. In days to come I am equally able to kill you.”
She said nothing. Her gaze was sharp as a needle, as though she would pierce right through me.
I looked at her steadily in return — looking at this woman from whom I had taken her son, this woman who was about to take Zidan away and share the rest of his life with him.
“Even if you release us, I will never forgive you for as long as I live.” She raised her face with stubborn defiance.
“I need no one’s forgiveness.” I smiled. Facing a woman so clear-sighted, I could actually speak the truth openly. “Releasing you — it is only because you are Zidan’s wife. The latter half of life in the rivers and lakes holds many hardships, and only you are able to accompany and guard him at his side. It is also a way for me to lay to rest the greatest regret of my lifetime.”
“For his sake, you would betray the Prince?” Hu Yao’s expression shifted through many shades, complex and unreadable. “Would the Prince ever permit you to release us?”
I furrowed my brow, unwilling to explain at length, and only said mildly, “The foundations the Wang family has built up over many years still hold some usefulness. Even the Prince cannot necessarily control everything. After tonight, the sky and earth will be overturned, and the Emperor and Empress will have their own fate. You need only remember that from this time forward you are no longer Hu Yao, and he is no longer Zidan.”
I looked at her coldly. “Should the two of you forget that…”
“To eliminate a pair of ordinary commoners would not be very difficult.”
Hu Yao’s pupils contracted. Her thin lips pressed tightly together.
“Since you can deceive the world and release us — why could you not, that day, have spared one child?”
I gave a faint smile and felt only an endless exhaustion. “If I had kept the little prince alive that day, this entire arrangement would have been exposed far too early. What chance of survival would there be left today? I spent all my effort and scheme forcing Zidan to stay alive — for no other reason than this day.”
For this day I had waited a very long time — I had promised him that one day I would restore his freedom, let him escape this cold palace, live in obscurity under a false name, and flee far into the wide world.
I too had once yearned for such a day — to retire in seclusion with the one I loved, build a simple home at the foot of a southern mountain, mornings and evenings together. No more blood, no more scheming, no more great imperial ambition. Only him and me, hand in hand, growing old together.
That wish, buried in a place in my heart where no one else could see, would never now have any chance of coming to be.
Hu Yao was visibly shaken. She stared at me fixedly, her gaze shifting through layers of complexity, and at last only gave a long sigh. “Once you betrayed him for the Prince’s sake. Now you betray the Prince for his sake… What a heartless woman you are!”
“Wang Xuan has never betrayed anyone.” I slowly raised my hand and pressed it to my chest. “I have only ever been loyal to my own heart.”
Hu Yao was startled, and raised her eyes to look straight at me.
In this life I had already received every possible grace and honor. Born into such a household, married to such a husband, blessed with such fine children — and destined to carry the name of the founding Empress for all the generations to come… Heaven had been so very kind to me. If there was still any regret remaining, it was nothing more than a hidden longing buried deep in my heart — a longing for what lay beyond palace walls, beneath white clouds, in the distance of rivers and lakes. A dream, illusory as a flower in water, that could not be touched.
This was also the wish that my aunt — that those proud and noble women who had sat upon the throne through every generation — had carried as a lifelong regret.
Long ago, the founding Emperor had killed the reigning sovereign and usurped the throne, slaughtering the previous dynasty’s imperial family. Yet in his later years, his imperial sons fought over the succession, bringing bloodshed to the palace interior, tragedy after tragedy. The founding Emperor was deeply troubled, fearing the cycle of retribution — fearing that in future generations his descendants would repeat the same catastrophe that had brought down the previous dynasty. In the fourth year of Feng Sheng, the founding Emperor ordered the rebuilding of the western palace, constructing three grand halls, nine state rooms, and twelve towers and pavilions, all with golden tiles and soaring eaves, hall upon hall of resplendent splendor. Yet beneath all this layered grandeur, a hidden passage had been secretly built under Chongming Hall’s west annexe, leading directly to a secluded and safe place outside the palace — proof against water, fire, and the sword, so that in the direst extremity it could preserve lives. This secret had been handed down solely through the mouths of successive emperors through every generation, faithfully guarded by the inner court’s secret archivists who swore their devotion to the imperial family.
By the time of Emperor Shunhui, this secret had fallen into the hands of the Empress Dowager Mingkang of the Wang family.
Empress Dowager Mingkang was the most outstanding woman of my family to date. She had with her own strength supported two emperors, quelled the revolt of the princes, consolidated the authority of the Wang clan as leaders of the great noble families, and elevated the entire clan to its peak. From her generation onward, the secret of Chongming West Annexe became an esoteric tradition passed down through the Wang family. Father had passed this secret to me only just before his own passing. At the time I had dismissed it, rather contemptuous of the founding Emperor for having so carefully built himself this escape route.
Until Zidan ascended the throne, and one crisis arose after another — watching him struggle so painfully within such a quagmire — I had slowly come to understand the founding Emperor’s good intentions, and to comprehend the loneliness of his later years. This secret passage connected not only a thread of life in extremis, but also the longing of an emperor at the very pinnacle of power — for freedom.
At the end of the road lay freedom and rebirth.