The night was deep and still. Behind the State Protection Temple, the eunuch Cao Jin stood to one side, watching in bewilderment the silhouette of the young Emperor, who had been standing alone for a long while among the pagoda forest ahead.
One emperor succeeds another, one emperor’s servants give way to the next’s. He had been a servant of the late Emperor, and after the late Emperor’s passing, he had assumed he would be cast aside. He had not expected that after the Crown Prince’s ascension, the new ruler had continued to entrust him with important duties and to show him trust in all things. Grateful as he was, he naturally gave himself all the more earnestly to loyal service.
Far to the west of Hexi, at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains at the edge of the world, there was a solitary fortified city called Jincheng. Over the past two years, after the northern peoples had been forced to retreat from Hexi, they had turned their eyes toward the Tianshan. Jincheng was garrisoned by a mere two thousand soldiers — and yet those two thousand alone had not only repelled the invading foreign tribes on multiple occasions, shattering their attempts to seize this stronghold, but the solitary city continued to stand firm and towering, serving as a guarantee of safety south of the Tianshan. The passage connecting Hexi to the Western Regions — long severed for decades since the previous dynasty — was open and flowing once again.
Camel caravans of merchants traveled once more between the Western Regions and Hexi, one after another in an unbroken stream. And more than that: today the court had received news that the kingdoms of the Western Regions — Dayuan, Anxi, Yuezhi, and others — long drawn to the splendor and prosperity of the Eastern Empire, but previously unable to reach it because the road had been closed, could now travel without obstruction. They would be sending envoys eastward to pay their respects to the Son of Heaven and to establish mutual exchange.
The news filled the entire court with a deep sense of pride and honor. Yet for reasons unknown, after the young Emperor withdrew from court today, he showed none of the excitement one might have expected. Instead, after nightfall, he had slipped quietly out of the palace and come here, his behavior so out of the ordinary that it was quite beyond understanding.
The young Emperor’s gaze had been resting deep in the pagoda forest. Then, all at once, his silhouette shifted slightly.
“Cao Jin,” he said — without turning around — “how was it that you came to know the late Emperor?”
The eunuch was silent for a moment, then said, “This servant was born lowly and incomplete in body. At the age of seven, my parents sold me for two strings of copper coins to a boat merchant who transported cargo along the Yangtze. That man kept me like a dog, and I labored on his vessel while he abused me. When I was thirteen, the man lost a parcel of a passenger’s goods and had to pay some compensation. That night, he was drinking on the boat and took out his anger on me. He stripped off my clothing, bound me with rope, and burned my lower body with a candle. I was in unbearable pain and begged him — I told him that if he would only spare me, I would do anything he asked. But he laughed all the louder. And just as I was about to faint from the pain, I saw a person not much older than me suddenly come up from underwater, board the boat, and kill the merchant…”
He spoke of this harrowing past in a perfectly calm tone, as though recounting the affairs of a stranger. It was only at this point that his voice paused and dropped lower.
“That person was the late Emperor. At the time, he was wounded — his face was pale, and from head to foot he was dripping wet and still bleeding. After killing the merchant, he threw the body into the water, sat down where the merchant had been drinking, poured himself a cup of wine, drank it, then turned his head and asked me whether I wanted to follow him and work for him.”
“That is how this servant first came to serve the late Emperor.”
The eunuch finished speaking. Seeing that the young Emperor before him had not responded, he hesitated, then bowed and said, “Your Majesty, it grows late. It is time to return.”
The young Emperor stood in silence for a moment longer, then turned and walked away without a word. Once outside the temple, under the escort of those accompanying him, he slipped back into the palace as quietly as he had left.
His thoughts seemed somewhat scattered, his steps heavy. When he reached the outer gate of the Yuanchen Palace, the palace attendants knelt to greet him and reported, “Your Majesty, the Empress Dowager has just arrived in the capital. She is in the Imperial Study at this very moment.”
The young Emperor looked up at the palace gate ahead, from within which a bright glow of lamplight flooded out, and joy blazed swiftly into his eyes. In a few long strides he mounted the palace steps at a near run.
In this young man, there was no trace of the imperial authority he wore in ordinary times. He was very nearly sprinting as he rushed inside.
The hall was empty of palace attendants. There was only a woman, standing with her back to him, facing the window. Though she had her back turned, the young Emperor recognized her at once.
“Mother!”
Overcome with emotion, he could not help himself — the word sprang from his lips unbidden.
Mu Fulan turned around, and her gaze came to rest on his face.
She had clearly been traveling in great haste before entering the capital. Her face still carried traces of weariness from the journey, but her eyes were composed — and still, as they had never been before.
The young Emperor detected the strangeness in her immediately, and a sudden feeling of dread stirred in his heart.
His heart sank a little. He stopped walking, stood before her, and said with a smile, “Mother, why did you come back so suddenly? Why did you not send word ahead so I could come to receive you?”
Mu Fulan looked steadily into his eyes and held his gaze, saying nothing.
The young Emperor hesitated, then said softly, “Mother, what is the matter? Is something wrong…”
“Xi’er, I have come to ask you — is there something you have been hiding from me?”
She spoke each word with deliberate care, and when she reached hiding from me, her voice carried a faint edge.
The last trace of a smile faded from the young Emperor’s lips.
He held his mother’s gaze, then slowly lowered his eyes.
He knelt before her, bowing his head until his forehead touched the ground.
Mu Fulan looked at this young man kneeling at her feet. In that moment, a flash of that final bloodshed from her previous life crossed before her eyes, and in that instant, the pain in her heart flared up again, sharp and sudden — exactly the same as it had been so many years ago, when she had first come back to life in this world and remembered the Xi’er she had lost. A pain that cut to the very core.
For a moment, she could barely breathe.
In this world, that man had not died. He was still alive.
She clenched her fist tight, her nails pressing deep into her palm.
“When did you find out?” Her voice was unsteady.
The young Emperor remained kneeling before her as he had been, and did not speak. His shoulders gradually began to tremble.
“I want you to answer me!” Suddenly Mu Fulan spoke in a sharp, commanding voice.
The young Emperor jolted, and at last raised his head. His eyes were red.
“Do you remember the year you took me out of Hexi — when we entered Pucheng to escape the fighting? After we came out, I told you I had dreamed that dream. It was true. On that night in Pucheng, I did dream it. Mother, at the time you told me it was only a dream, and told me to stop thinking about it. When we returned, I wanted to listen to you and forget it. But I could never forget it, because afterward, bit by bit, I kept dreaming the same things again. You never said anything, but I knew you would not want to see me always dreaming such things. So I never told you again. Before you I acted as though nothing was wrong — I did not want you to worry.”
“That went on for more than a year. One night I dreamed that dream again. When I woke, my heart was in agony. Mother, I always felt that what I dreamed seemed as though it had truly happened. And yet I was unwilling to believe that my Imperial Father could have treated you that way. That night I could not go back to sleep. I took out the sword he had given me long ago as a gift. When I drew it, I accidentally cut my hand — blood fell on the blade…”
“Mother, you may think I am speaking nonsense. But every word I say is true. In the very moment my blood touched the blade, everything came back to me — all of the past, all at once. And I finally understood all of your suffering, Mother, and why you were always the way you were when facing him.”
“In this lifetime, no matter how good he has been to me, I cannot forgive him. Whenever I think of the way you looked after your death — hung upside down from the city wall — I cannot forgive. He had to be punished. And so later I made use of his sense of guilt, and I took his throne from him, and in the end I drove him away. Mother, I should not have deceived you — but if he were still before your eyes, still alive, how could you have truly let go of the past and lived out the rest of this life well?”
The young Emperor’s eyes were red, his voice broken with grief. He bowed his head to the ground before her once more.
“Mother! Please forgive me…”
Mu Fulan stood with her eyes closed, as though in a trance.
“If he did not die, then where has he been all this time?”
After a long silence, she at last opened her eyes and asked.
The young Emperor hesitated a moment.
“Jincheng…” he said quietly.
Mu Fulan turned and took a step forward.
“Mother!”
The young Emperor reached out and seized the hem of her skirt.
“Jincheng is so far away. I had the soldiers replaced. When he went there, none of the new soldiers knew who he was.”
“He will not die so quickly either. I knew his old wound had not healed, so I sought out the Medicine Elder and asked him to go there.”
“Everything he has today is the punishment he deserves, and he himself has no complaint. Mother, he does not deserve your forgiveness!”
Mu Fulan turned her face toward him.
She said, “Have you ever thought about why he chose not to press his advantage back then — not to send troops in one decisive strike to destroy that little court that had retreated south? If my guess is right, by that time he had already begun to sense your schemes. And yet he still went north himself to pacify the frontier and left that little court standing — which was precisely what gave you the opportunity to build your reputation and consolidate your prestige before your subjects.”
The young Emperor froze. The hand grasping her skirt hem slowly loosened, and at last fell away without strength.
“There is one thing I have been mistaken about all along.” Mu Fulan continued.
“In this lifetime, from the morning I opened my eyes and woke in Xie County, I was already no longer the same person I had been in my previous life. You, too, are not the Xi’er from before. And Xie Changgeng — he is no longer the Xie Changgeng of the previous life. None of us are the same people we once were. And yet we all blundered headlong into a cage of our own making, spinning silk around ourselves without knowing to look back.”
“He need not be condemned for things he never did. I need to meet someone anew. I need to live for myself. And as for you —”
She looked down at this young man still kneeling on the floor, his face turned up toward hers.
“You listen to me. Since he willingly gave you that seat, you will sit on that throne and be a worthy Emperor for this realm — regardless of whether you still acknowledge him or not. If you do that, it can be said that the bond between you in this life has not been in vain.”
She finished speaking and walked away.
“Mother!”
The young Emperor reached out and grabbed the hem of her skirt as she moved past him, then knelt again right there on the ground.
“Was it truly Xi’er who was wrong? Mother —” the young Emperor’s voice broke with grief, echoing in her ears.
Mu Fulan’s steps slowed for just a moment, then she lifted her head and walked on, out of the palace — her silhouette gradually disappearing into the layered palace halls beneath the night sky.