When confined in a narrow space for too long, one’s thoughts only become more peculiar and obsessive, and actions increasingly twisted and incomprehensible.

When Li Yuanji realized that his father, the Retired Emperor Li Yuan, founding monarch of the Great Tang, had passed away, he stood dumbfounded in his prison cell atop the Xuanwu Gate tower. How time passed afterward, what he did during that period – looking back, he had no recollection.

Father died because of me – this thought kept circling in his mind, haunting him like a vengeful ghost that couldn’t be dispelled.

It was quite laughable. Even when he had decided to guide foreign assassins into the palace that night, he had anticipated such consequences, or even ones a hundred times more severe and cruel. In that situation, one wrong move or poor coordination, and Sangsai and the other assassins might have slain the Retired Emperor in his bedchamber, then none of the participants would have escaped, all being captured and formally executed.

At that time, his mind had been consumed with thoughts of his kidnapped younger sister from the same mother, and he had been heartbroken and angered by the fate of the women from the Chai and Wei families. He had been extremely dissatisfied with how the three generations – the Retired Emperor, Emperor, and Crown Prince – wielded their power and had steeled his heart, deciding he wouldn’t regret it even if the worst consequences befell him. However…

However, the Retired Emperor had truly passed away.

Strictly speaking, he could absolve himself: that night’s chaos at the Great Peace Palace had no direct connection to the old man’s death from illness, as quite some time had passed between the events.

But such self-absolution was meaningless. Although he hadn’t personally seen his father that night, he had later heard detailed accounts from Chai Yingge and Wei Shubin, knowing that the terminally ill old man had indeed suffered terribly in the deep winter night. While it hadn’t killed him on the spot, that night’s experience certainly couldn’t have helped the Retired Emperor’s failing health.

Li Yuanji even felt that his brother Emperor Li Shimin’s angry imprisonment of him was largely due to resentment over the worsening of the Retired Emperor’s condition – no, he wasn’t naive enough to think his second brother truly respected and was filial to their father, but he believed the Emperor genuinely wished the Retired Emperor could hold on longer, at least until… the Tuyuhun campaign was won, then pass away, allowing the court to handle “proper business” before dealing with state mourning.

Had the Tuyuhun campaign been completed? He didn’t know. He guessed not, because the desolate world outside his window showed no signs of victory celebrations, only the sorrowful solemnity created by white hemp banners.

When Cheng Yaojin personally opened his prison door to deliver a set of mourning clothes, Li Yuanji was kneeling beside his bed, his mind and vision both unable to distinguish day from night. It took two servants’ help for him to remove his old clothes and change into the coarse hemp garments with grass rope bindings that marked deep mourning.

“Unfilial son with grave sins, not dying by his hand, bringing disaster upon his late father, wailing cannot redeem…” The formulaic phrases from ancient and modern eulogies passed through his ears, surprisingly fitting. Hearing General Cheng murmuring words of condolence and comfort, he had neither the strength to respond nor the energy to weep and wail. It seemed all strength had been drained from his body; he could barely stand without collapsing.

But Cheng Yaojin had come on imperial orders to take him to keep vigil at the Taiji Hall.

For the first time in what must have been months, he walked out of his tower cell. The bright sunlight poured down from above, and before he could even reach the stairs, he was dizzy and weak, about to fall. Cheng Yaojin’s large hand caught him, and half-forcibly had servants support him on both sides down the stairs, then half-carried him in a large circle, from the northernmost to the southernmost part of the palace city, all the way to the Taiji Hall.

All along the way, everything he saw – palace gates, walls, towers, pavilions – wherever there were people to arrange things, was covered in an endless sea of white hemp mourning banners. This was the first state funeral since the founding of the Great Tang, with no established precedents, and given the awkward relationship between the Retired Emperor and the Emperor, all the officials in charge seemed somewhat panicked and at a loss.

Approaching the Taiji Hall, intermittent sounds of weeping could be heard. This grandest and most majestic hall in the palace had been arranged as a temporary spirit hall, with the dragon-carved hearse bearing the imperial coffin stationed below the western stairs. Officials from the Palace Administration, Court of Imperial Sacrifices, and Ministry of Rites were setting up offerings of grain in eight baskets, while others were installing wooden frames in the southwestern courtyard to hang eight vessels of rice gruel.

Li Yuanji lifted the hem of his hemp robe and stumbled up the high platform stairs of the Taiji Hall, with all who passed by turning to stare at him.

In the dazzling, dizzy sunlight, all the moving figures and voices retreated beyond his field of vision, transforming into lifeless corridors, pillars, railings, and banners. Under the azure sky, above the yellow earth, between the stone steps and dragon-tail path, only he dragged his feet forward, walking alone.

His soul seemed to leave his body, flying up into the air to suddenly open its eyes, calmly looking down at everything without ripples in his heart, even able to think clearly and keenly: the Retired Emperor had drawn his last breath in the Great Peace Palace in the northwest of the forbidden garden, his body respectfully transported to the main Taiji Hall, and the princes and imperial consorts, princesses from the Great Peace Palace should have also come together to wail and keep vigil, naturally moving as a large group. Only he had been imprisoned alone for so long, coming by himself, no wonder he attracted attention…

As one foot stepped into the corridor of the Taiji Hall, the world before his eyes suddenly turned dark and gloomy. He wondered if he had gone blind, and only after a long while could he faintly make out that the group of mourners standing facing north in the eastern section were the princes from the Great Peace Palace, his brothers, while those facing south were the imperial sons.

Behind the curtains in the western section were also figures and sounds of weeping, surely the Retired Emperor’s consorts and princesses. And on the raised platform of the Taiji Hall, the usual throne had been removed, replaced with a lying-in-state bed.

Among the surrounding curtains and offering tables lay a heavy human form covered with a great quilt on the imperial bed.

Li Yuanji stumbled forward a few steps, his knees giving way, no longer able to support his body weight, and collapsed to the ground. No one stepped forward to help him up. Gritting his teeth, he supported himself with his hands, dragging himself forward, crawling toward his “birth father.”

He still couldn’t cry, not even tears in his eyes. The surrounding mourning clothes, funeral banners, and wailing that filled the space above and below only made him feel weary and numb, his heart like dead ashes. He crawled to the front of the imperial bed, panting, and saw that the deceased old man’s snow-white beard and hair had been neatly combed, his face covered with a black silk face cloth lined with red, and from the neck down he was wrapped in layers of burial clothes and quilts – the initial funeral rites of placing cotton in the nine orifices, calling back the soul, washing the body, and placing rice in the mouth had been performed, but he had not yet been placed in the coffin… This was also the chance for all of the Retired Emperor’s children and grandchildren in the capital to see the deceased “one last time.”

Li Yuanji propped up his upper body, staring fixedly at the face cloth covering his father’s face. The black silk had openings for the eyes and lips, faintly showing the crimson lining, but it wasn’t tied on top of the head. He thought he could reach out and lift the face cloth, to look one last time at that face covered in wrinkles and age spots, and none of the royal family members or ritual officials present would stop him, but… never mind.

He couldn’t lift his arm, nor did he want to do something so troublesome. What difference would one more look make? This face with an all-white beard and hair, showing such advanced age, had never brought him much feeling of fatherly love or comfort even when alive, and he couldn’t even remember if he had ever called him “Father” to his face…

He must have called him that at some point, and perhaps had been held too, just as he had personally seen his father holding and playing with his younger siblings. But he couldn’t remember.

Li Yuanji had never been good at acting cute or competing for favors since childhood. When siblings close to his age would make noise and play together, he preferred to stay quietly aside, learning characters and practicing martial arts. His mother had scolded him for this multiple times, but after each scolding, she would still help him put on more clothes, bring him hot soup, and trim lamp wicks and candle flowers.

He remembered the earth-shattering heartache when his mother passed away, how he had held her cold body in a side hall of the Great Peace Palace and cried until he fainted, remaining unconscious and disconnected from reality for a long time afterward. He also remembered the heartache, anger, and helplessness when his sister from the same mother was forcibly taken away, but these emotions, when facing his sovereign father’s remains, were… completely absent.

All he could feel was fatigue, fatigue to the point of numbness, fatigue to the point of despair.