How painful was it to give birth?

Painful enough that her vision doubled.

And yet, even so, Xie Yuzhang had never thought to die.

Because the most fundamental desire of any person is simply to live.

Xie Yuzhang still remembered how, through a vision blurred by that agony, she had seen Nanny Xia’s face. Nanny Xia had forced her way into the delivery room, bringing Bao Zhongxin with her.

Bao Zhongxin’s face was covered in pockmarks and quite unpleasant to look at. His hands bore many small cuts from handling and preparing medicinal herbs, and even through a layer of fabric, one could feel the roughness of his palms.

He pressed on her abdomen until the pain was almost unbearable.

Yet Xie Yuzhang had known, in that moment, that he was doing it to keep her alive.

She had held onto her consciousness with everything she had, breathing and pushing as he directed, and had endured with a will that defied all reason. Miraculously, she had survived.

There was no one who understood better than she did what it felt like to want to live.

The women’s cries of pain struck her heart, one by one.

One more step forward — up the threshold and out — handing everything over to Li Gu. That was the easier path.

But Xie Yuzhang — in this second life of yours, is this the person you want to become?

Is it?

Is it?

Xie Yuzhang’s foot stopped before the threshold. She turned and looked toward the palace chambers.

On the windows, the shadows of the busy attendants running back and forth were cast in silhouette.

Someone carried bloody water outside and flung it directly onto the ground of the courtyard. The dark red liquid flowed without a sound, spreading to cover the earth.

“No,” she said.

“Yes you can,” Li Gu said.

Xie Yuzhang looked up at him. This man — for love of her — was prepared to become a devil.

Her heart ached.

“They are people. They want to live,” Xie Yuzhang said.

Li Gu said, “People all die, sooner or later.”

Xie Yuzhang said, “They are the mothers of your children.”

Li Gu said, “I will allow them to be buried alongside the imperial mausoleum and grant their parents and families rich gifts.”

“But they will not come back to life,” Xie Yuzhang said, raising her eyes. “Just like your mother.”

Li Gu clenched his jaw.

Xie Yuzhang said, “Your sword has always faced the enemy on the battlefield. Women have always been the ones you sheltered behind your back.”

Li Gu said, “Say no more.”

Xie Yuzhang said, “I must say it. I cannot stand by and watch you become your father because of your love for me — become a butcher.”

“You despised your mother’s weakness, but did your father or the butcher ever give her any path to live?”

“Are Hu Yue’e, Xiao Meiniang, and Niu Min’er the same kind of weak people as your mother? You don’t know — you never even knew their names — and yet you have already cut off their every path to life.”

“Look around this courtyard — all your soldiers, all gripping their swords. In my eyes right now, you look like a butcher. You look like your father.” Xie Yuzhang let her tears fall. “This is my fault. I was too greedy — wanting to be your wife and yet also wanting the position and power of Empress. I was the one who indulged in impossible fantasies of having it all, and I drove you to this point where you can no longer be yourself.”

She said, “Li Gu, the truly weak one has always been me.”

“I have never dared to tell you — I never wanted you to hold selections for consorts. I hate your concubines. I also hate these three women in this room. I resent that they have been intimate with you. I am jealous that they are bearing your children.”

“As Empress, I will raise all your children well and guide them properly. But I will never love your children, for every one of them was born for you by another woman. Whether wife or concubine — there is not a single woman in this world who will truly love, from the heart, the children her husband has had with another woman.”

“Even if you kill these three women and give me their children, to me they will be nothing more than pieces on a board — tools to maintain my position and consolidate my power. Li Gu, are you willing for your children to become my pieces on a board?”

Li Gu said again, “Say no more, say no more.”

Xie Yuzhang wiped away her tears. “I must say it. Because I am your wife, and also your Empress. When my husband does wrong, I must restrain him. When my Emperor does wrong, I must remonstrate with him.”

“Li Gu.” She reached out and caught his hand. “You once regarded every woman in the palace as family. You also refused to grant death sentences to the mothers of children who had done wrong, precisely for the sake of those children. It may seem very muddled — not what a clever Emperor would do. But that is the kind of person I love.”

“Because he is human.”

“Why did you want me to be your wife? Why did you permit me to address you by your given name without it being considered disrespectful? Because you wanted to continue being a person in front of me.”

“Li Gu, I cannot marry a butcher. The man I want to marry is you. I cannot stand by and watch you become that kind of person because of me.”

Li Gu asked in anguish, “Then what do you do?”

Xie Yuzhang said, “You had better live longer than I do. If you were to go first, I fear my life would be very hard.”

“Only I have spent my whole life laboring with all my mind and heart, and I have always lived in hardship. Now, I no longer wish to be this way.”

“Forget the future — only here, only now: I know my heart holds you, and I know your heart holds me. For my sake, you very nearly lost yourself. Though time cannot be made to stand still for two ordinary mortals like you and me, I am willing to set everything aside and live only in this moment.”

“For in this one life, having found you — I am already afraid of nothing. Whatever comes later, we will face it when it comes.”

“Even if floodwaters reach the heavens someday,” Xie Yuzhang gazed at the reflection of her husband in her eyes, “I can smile and say: I was never afraid.”

……

……

Hu Yue’e came to and called out in a hoarse voice.

Someone lifted the bed curtain and helped her up to drink water. The person’s forehead still bore a wound.

“Liang Chen!” Hu Yue’e burst into tears the moment she saw him. “Did you save me?”

Liang Chen said, “It was not me. It was the Empress. Just as I told you — she is a kind person.”

Hu Yue’e asked, “So I won’t die now?”

Liang Chen said, “You won’t. You gave birth to a princess. You are the safest one.”

Hu Yue’e still wanted to ask many things, but she had just given birth and was utterly exhausted. Liang Chen said, “Sleep now, sleep.”

Hu Yue’e thought: since she was not going to die, there would be many days ahead to talk. She closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

She had not imagined that the next time they met, it would be for the last time.

Of the three women, only Hu Yue’e had given birth to a daughter, and only she was bestowed the title of Baoling. Niu Min’er and Xiao Meiniang, who had each given birth to a son, were both bestowed the rank of Talented Lady.

Everyone assumed this was because she had given birth to a girl.

But the true reason was the suggestion that she and Liang Chen held feelings for one another. A eunuch and a palace maid — that had always been a forbidden matter within palace walls.

When they met again, Hu Yue’e was dressed in fine silk brocade, attended by palace maids and serving women. Liang Chen was no longer wearing the robes of an inner attendant.

“It is I who have burdened you. Still, Baoling is not so bad — yours is the lowest rank in the entire palace, and that also makes you the safest.” Liang Chen said. “I am soon to leave the palace. From now on, you must take care of yourself.”

Hu Yue’e cried out in shock, “You — you’re leaving the palace? Why?”

Liang Chen gave a bitter smile. “I am a eunuch. I had thought I would spend my whole life within these palace walls, and had hoped to find a chance to bring you out of the palace someday. I never expected everything to be turned on its head. You and I appear to have been in an illicit relationship, but you are the mother of a princess, so no harm will come to you. The only reason I am still alive now is because the Empress is kind and preserved my life.”

Hu Yue’e wept. “There was nothing between us — you only ever looked after me. The one I truly liked was Er’zhu.”

“I know. Only you must never mention your Er’zhu again from this day forward. You are a noble lady now.” Liang Chen said, “The one taking over my position is Ji Shi. He and I have always been like brothers. He has promised me that if you ever face trouble, you may go to him.”

Liang Chen offered his careful counsel: “But you must remember — never go before the Emperor to seek favor, and never go before the Empress to beg for mercy. The Emperor and Empress neither of them wish to see you.”

Hu Yue’e wept, “Can I — can I never leave the palace and go home again?”

“You are so foolish,” Liang Chen said. “I have long wanted to tell you that you are foolish. Why would you go home? After all these years, your Er’zhu has long since married and had children. At your age, your parents would only marry you off to some widowed old man in exchange for a bride price. You would spend your days endlessly bearing children, carrying babies on your back, cooking and lighting fires by the stove, toiling in the fields every day, taking a beating every two or three days.”

“You are a noble lady now. You gave birth to a princess — the palace will send people to bestow gifts and rewards upon your parents. Only remember: do not give them anything beyond that. Country folk have little experience of the world and are easily prone to arrogance. If they cause trouble by invoking your name, you are only a small Baoling — you cannot bear such a burden.”

“That is all I have to say. Have you remembered everything?”

“I am going now.”

Hu Yue’e asked through blurred, tear-filled eyes, “Where are you going? Back to your hometown?”

“No. A man with a body like mine — going back would only invite mockery.” Liang Chen said, “The Empress has given me silk and money, and I have savings of my own. Together they are enough to live on in Yunjing. I also secured a house outside the palace walls long ago, originally planning to use it for peaceful retirement in my old age. I never imagined I would need it so soon.”

He said, “You see — I will actually be very close to you, separated only by a palace wall.”

Yet Hu Yue’e knew that in all the remaining years of their lives, neither of them could ever cross that wall to meet again.

Liang Chen turned and walked away.

Hu Yue’e wept bitterly.

She ruined her eyesight crying during her month of postpartum recovery.

She did not live to see the Emperor pass. Sixteen years later, the moment the princess established her own household, Hu Yue’e was given permission to leave the palace and live out her days in honored retirement. Only by then her eyesight had grown worse and worse, until she needed a maidservant to hold her hand and guide her steps wherever she went.

She had the princess search for many years. In all of Yunjing, Liang Chen was never found again.

In later years she long forgot the face of Er’zhu, yet even at the time of her peaceful passing, she still remembered, clearly, the face of Liang Chen.

The Empress remained without child throughout her life. Yet the Emperor had five sons, and within the palace there were six Talented Ladies and one Baoling. He never again held consort selections. Court ministers remonstrated several times, but each time they were met with cold rebuff, until eventually they remonstrated no more.

In the eleventh year of the Kaiyuan reign, a peasant uprising occurred in a county in Jiangnan. An official submitted a memorial claiming that a merchant known as Lingfang Jun had stirred up the grain market, maliciously monopolizing supplies, causing a local grain shortage that sent the people into panic and a scramble to hoard food, which eventually led to the uprising. But the people dispatched by the court arrived and placed a whole chain of officials under arrest.

For the truth was this: certain county officials had been corrupt, exploiting merchants with excessive demands until the merchants could no longer survive, and so they closed their shops in protest. This caused grain prices in that county to soar and the effects spread to the surrounding counties. As the chaos of war had only just subsided a few years prior, many ordinary people still remembered vividly the days of sieges and starvation. In their fear, they hoarded grain, and rumors spread wildly from person to person until a major uprising erupted that threatened to become a catastrophe.

A great merchant known as Lingfang Jun had appeared as if from thin air, with four ships of rice and grain, selling at fair prices, and quietly dissolved the disaster before it could fully ignite.

Afterward, the officials — in order to conceal the truth — framed and slandered him. The county, the prefecture, the circuit — a whole chain of those shielding one another came down upon a single merchant, like using a cleaver meant for an ox to kill a chicken.

Yet it turned out that Lingfang Jun was no ordinary person. She sent the truth directly up to Yunjing. The Emperor was furious, and with one blow tore open the rot that had festered in the governance of that region.

Though the war had already come to an end two years prior, the majority of officials in the south were still holdovers from the old regime. The Emperor had long been quietly deliberating on how to gradually replace them.

During Da Mu’s second imperial examination, candidates from non-aristocratic backgrounds who were selected numbered one quarter of all those chosen.

The Emperor possessed great patience. What he wished to accomplish was unfolding slowly, little by little, one step at a time.

After this affair, the name Lingfang Jun entered the awareness of the people of Yunjing. It was only then that the public learned that Lingfang Jun had in fact already been known for some time to certain people at court.

For she regularly sent manuscripts to Yunjing to be carved into woodblocks and printed. Her travel accounts were written with remarkable vividness, and appended after them was a “Record of Trade and Goods in Jiangnan,” in which she categorized and documented the types of goods, market prices, and the income and expenditures of ordinary life in every place she visited. It was far truer to life than the boasts of thriving peace and prosperity that local officials put in their memorials.

The Minister of Finance, Chen Liangzhi, praised this highly, and in light of her role in quelling the grain crisis, submitted a memorial requesting that she be awarded a formal commendation.

The Emperor, however, did not grant it.

Among scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants, merchants held the lowest status. Everyone assumed the Emperor was simply unwilling to bestow a commendation upon a merchant.

What no one knew was that it was because the Empress had told the Emperor: “She does not want it.”

In the twelfth year of the Kaiyuan reign, the Marquis of Guangping, Yang Huaishen, was engaged in suppressing bandits in a southern circuit. One evening, a messenger came with intelligence about the outlaws. “Bandits on the water have laid an ambush and set their sights on us. Our master has sent us to seek your aid, and we hope the General will lend his hand.”

They said, “Our master goes by the name Lingfang Jun.”

Yang Huaishen had heard Lingfang Jun’s name before, and what was more, these water bandits were very likely the very band he had been seeking to eliminate. He immediately set out with three warships to intercept.

By the time they arrived, battle had already broken out across the water.

Though Lingfang Jun had guards, they were no match for these bandits who had once been regular soldiers. They fought while retreating, falling back. Several bandit vessels followed close behind, pressing them hard.

Lingfang Jun’s ships headed east; Yang Huaishen’s ships headed west.

The messenger who had come to report pointed to a figure at the stern of the ship and told Yang Huaishen: “General, look quickly — that is our master!”

Yang Huaishen had sharp eyes and gazed out across the distance. There were many people at the stern, drawing bows and shooting to hold back the pursuing enemy vessels. Among them, one figure stood apart — dressed in a blue robe beneath a leather cuirass, yet with a form and silhouette that was unmistakably slender and graceful, unlike a man’s.

That figure moved with swift and practiced ease, their archery excellent — nearly every arrow finding its mark.

Yet when Yang Huaishen looked, a strange, inexplicable feeling stirred in his chest.

By now the enemy vessels had entered firing range. Yang Huaishen gave the order, and in an instant arrows flew across the water like a shower of falling stars. The pressure on Lingfang Jun’s ships abruptly eased.

As the two ships crossed paths, Yang Huaishen drew his bow and nocked an arrow. From beside him came the messenger’s loud hail toward the other vessel: “Master! Master!”

He loosed the arrow like a shooting star — piercing straight through one bandit’s body and wounding a second.

Yang Huaishen turned his head.

Lingfang Jun also turned her head.

Though she was dressed as a man and wore her hair in a man’s style, the snow-white face in the firelight was one Yang Huaishen could never forget.

For a heartbeat, time stretched and slowed.

Lingfang Jun saw Yang Huaishen’s lips move. The shape of the words was — Fei Niang.

Yang Huaishen saw Lingfang Jun’s lips move. The shape of the words was — Er Lang.

They saw in each other’s eyes a murky, unreadable light.

The two ships crossed in an instant and flew apart.

With the battle before him, Yang Huaishen dared not let his attention wander. He turned forward, drew his blade, and pointed at the enemy vessel. “Board the ship!”

Lin Fei’s ship slowed its speed. She stood at the stern, gazing into the distance.

She watched as the government soldiers flung countless steel hooks and iron claws at the bandit vessel, catching hold of the gunwale, drawing close, throwing down boarding planks, climbing over. Some of the men did not even take the planks — they jumped directly from one vessel to the other.

Yang Huaishen was one of those who jumped.

Lin Fei watched the battle to its end.

When she saw Yang Huaishen again, blood was on his face and clothes. Lin Fei handed him a wet towel that had been wrung out.

Yang Huaishen took it, wiped his face, and asked, “Why is it you?”

Lin Fei said, “I knew there were government troops nearby. I didn’t expect it to be you.”

Yang Huaishen looked her over. “You are Lingfang Jun?”

Lin Fei said, “Yes.”

Yang Huaishen tossed the towel back to her. “You’ve been living quite freely.”

Lin Fei studied him. The Yang Huaishen standing before her now did not look like the accomplished and celebrated former husband she had known — he looked more like the dashing young man of his youth, galloping through the pleasure quarters of the capital. Only the bearing was deliberate, put on.

She said, “Yes. I am very content. I think these last few years have been the happiest of my life.”

Yang Huaishen gritted his teeth.

“Er Lang,” Lin Fei said, “have you still not made peace with it?”

Yang Huaishen gave a cold laugh. “I have a cherished wife and beautiful concubines, sons and daughters, success and renown. What is there for me to not make peace with?”

“Then that is good,” Lin Fei said. “I only feared that Er Lang had not yet understood.”

Yang Huaishen asked, “Understood what?”

Lin Fei said, “That someone does not love you simply because you are good to them. Nor does a person’s deep affection mean the other party will necessarily return it. You are a very fine man and one who loves deeply — I know this well. Only I was never able to love you, and there was nothing to be done about that.”

Yang Huaishen asked, “Then why did you love Gao Da Lang? Truly I do not see how he was in any way better than me.”

Lin Fei replied helplessly, “I said long ago — he was not better than you. And I have already nearly forgotten what he looked like.”

Yang Huaishen said bitterly, “You are truly a cold-hearted and heartless woman.”

“Precisely,” Lin Fei said. “Over these past two years, I have gradually come to understand — in truth, I simply have little interest in men or in the matter of love. It was only because I was a young woman, and was required to love someone or marry someone, and there were no other choices.”

Yang Huaishen suddenly felt bereft of all energy.

Lin Fei saw his expression, and her heart relented just a fraction. “Perhaps you and I simply met at the wrong time, Er Lang. When you married me, you were already a man of great achievement and renown, yet in my heart you always remained the carefree young man of his youth galloping through the streets. I know your capabilities — today is the first time I have seen them with my own eyes. Your bearing and grace truly moved me. If today had been our first meeting, perhaps I might have fallen in love with you, who can say.”

Yang Huaishen said, “You are only comforting me.”

Lin Fei smiled.

In the firelight, she stood in a blue robe with a leather belt at her waist — slender and upright as a jade tree, full of elegant spirit and vigor.

The brilliance in her eyes was something she had never once possessed in all the years she was his wife.

In those days, even her smiles never showed her teeth — the standard composed smile of a well-bred noble lady. But that smile had never reached her eyes.

Yang Huaishen in his youth had been a man of pleasure in Yunjing, with countless romantic entanglements — how could he not understand women?

Her unhappiness — he had known it long ago. But there was nothing he could do. He had already surpassed other men by so much, yet all that he gave her could not bring her joy. Who else could have done more?

Now at last he understood — she had never wanted anyone else at all.

Yang Huaishen finally let go. “In all my years of romantic debts,” he said with bitter resentment, “I have had every last one repaid in retribution upon you.”

Lin Fei saw the look in his eyes and knew he had finally set it down. She smiled. “Then let me repay the debt in our next life. In the next lifetime we are husband and wife, I will love you well.”

Yang Huaishen’s face darkened. “Keep your distance. In the next life, I never want to encounter you again.”

Lin Fei burst out laughing and walked away.

Yang Huaishen watched her go into the distance and let out a long, slow breath. Every weight in his chest dissolved and was gone.

In the autumn of that year, Li Weifeng, the Grand Protector of Beiting, sent his son — who had just turned two — to Yunjing.

Xie Yuzhang held Xie Bao Zhu’s letter and told Li Gu, “My elder sister had originally urged him to send the child once he turned one, but Seventh Brother could not bear to part with him, and so it was delayed by a year. My sister says that this is his eldest son, and she hopes we will treat him well.”

“Your sister worries needlessly,” Li Gu said. “This is Seventh Brother’s son. How could I not treat him well?”

He lifted the child and played with him — a sturdy, wide-eyed little boy who giggled happily, not the least bit shy with strangers.

Li Gu said, “Look, look! Doesn’t he look just like Seventh Brother!”

“Let me hold him.” Xie Yuzhang reached out to take him. “Oh my, what a weight! He’s a little round dumpling!”

Watching Xie Yuzhang play with the child, waves of tenderness rose in Li Gu’s heart. “Let’s keep him here in Danyang Palace,” he said.

Xie Yuzhang said, “Of course. He is so young — who would feel easy leaving him at the Marquis of Beirong’s residence? If anything were to happen to him, I’d be afraid of Seventh Brother coming at me with a sword.”

The child was brought up in Danyang Palace from then on. Upon his arrival in Yunjing, Li Gu bestowed upon him the title of heir to the Marquis of Beirong. This little one could barely walk steadily, yet already on his young head sat a string of titles — Court Attendant, General of Ningyuan, and more.

From then on, Danyang Palace was often filled with the sounds of a child’s laughter.

In the thirteenth year of the Kaiyuan reign, banditry in the south had largely been quelled, and travel and commerce moved freely and without obstruction. Northern goods flowed south, southern goods moved north. Following the example of Chengjing Academy, academies that had suffered during the war gradually recovered their vitality across the land, drawing people to study and bringing learning and civilization to the people.

Slowly, the great scene of a peaceful world began to take shape.

On the night of the Lantern Festival in the fourteenth year of the Kaiyuan reign, the Emperor and Empress climbed the city tower hand in hand and scattered baskets of small gold coins down upon the crowds below, sharing in the joy of the people.

Looking out at the lights and the throng of people below, listening to the faint strains of music and banquet sounds drifting from afar, Li Gu reflected on the long journey that had brought them to this moment, and felt within his chest a boundless tide of emotion.

Xie Yuzhang asked, “What is it?”

Li Gu said, “I was thinking back on the flames of war in those years, and seeing now how the people live in peace and contentment. I am greatly moved, only I cannot find the words.”

Xie Yuzhang smiled. “It is all because of you.”

Li Gu looked at his wife and smiled in turn.

“With me, the realm is at peace,” he said. “With you in the inner palace, my heart is at peace.”

He fastened her cloak for her and held out his hand. “Come, let us go back.”

Xie Yuzhang’s eyes curved in a smile. She placed her hand in his.

Ji Shi followed behind, listening as the Emperor and Empress walked ahead hand in hand, murmuring softly to each other.

“Too thin,” the Emperor said, clasping the Empress’s wrist. “Eat more.”

The Empress said, “All right.”

— End of Main Story —

Gengzi Year · Spring, by the Author