Post-Marriage Daily Life Side Story · Quiet Serenity Meets Spring

01 · Pepper Blossoms Fall Red, Moistening the Clouds

One evening, Luowei suddenly received a strange letter.

The letter was written on a silk handkerchief, which appeared out of nowhere on her dressing table. At first Luowei did not notice it, but she grabbed it and glanced at it casually, only to see that the opening two lines read: Your Majesty the Empress, this official humbly writes—

She no sooner saw the word “official” than she was startled. She was about to demand sternly who had sent this, but she looked up and saw Chao Lan winking expressively, as though she wanted very much to say something, yet in the end she did not open her mouth.

Seeing Luowei’s expression of bewilderment, Chao Lan stomped her foot in exasperation, then took the young eunuch beside her and left.

Only Luowei remained in the dim great hall. She gazed somewhat curiously at Chao Lan’s retreating figure, and before she had time to look again at the handkerchief, she caught a faint, cool, clean scent of sandalwood rising from it.

She suddenly recalled some hazy fragments—a sweltering summer night, an ice basin placed beside the couch, candlelight flickering, Song Ling’s hair damp and clinging to her neck, both of them drenched in sweat. She had bitten her lip and pulled a handkerchief from the tangled clothing to wipe away, drop by drop, the sweat from his brow.

Thinking of it this way, there was no need to guess who had sent the handkerchief.

Luowei felt a slight urge to laugh. She sat down before the dressing table, twisted the handkerchief in her hands, and read it character by character.

“Your Majesty the Empress, this official humbly writes. Having heard that the sunset over the old familiar place is lovely, I wish to admire it together with you. On the day a flower is found in the archive tower, I hope to see a beautiful lady. With sincere wishes for a blessed spring.”

A few days prior, she and Song Ling had quarreled—not a small quarrel, not a large one. The cause was that on several occasions Song Ling had been reading memorials in the Ganfang Hall, lost track of the time, and had not eaten his meals at the proper hour.

Luowei had spoken to him about it several times, but he was incorrigible, and she finally grew angry.

So the Empress refused the Emperor at her door, and refused him for a full four days.

On the fifth day, he did not come again; instead, he entrusted Chao Lan to deliver this handkerchief, making a roundabout gesture of goodwill.

Once Luowei had finished the tasks at hand, she sauntered leisurely to the archive tower. Yet to her surprise, the man had written fine words in his letter, but had left not a single seasonal bloom by the old window of the archive tower. She went three days in a row, and only on the third day did she see one sprig of Chinese crabapple.

After Song Ling ascended the throne, he had the Gaoyangta rebuilt, though without extravagance—only the dilapidated parts were repaired one by one, and all the old furnishings inside were left exactly as they were. The two of them often came here to watch the sunset, but recently they had truly been too busy, and it had been a long time since they had come.

The Jintian Guard stood watch beyond the dense grove. Seeing her approach from afar, they quietly withdrew, not even stepping forward to pay their respects, as though afraid she might notice them.

This scene was no different from the days when Song Ling had posed as Ye the Third Young Master—Luowei would find the flower he had left in the archive tower, carry it with her into the dense grove, dismiss the surrounding guards, and meet with him in secret.

The hall inside had no lanterns lit; once the bed curtain was drawn, darkness consumed everything. Luowei truly did not enjoy this feeling of being unable to set her heart at ease, yet his scent was familiar and safe, and it always allowed her to let go.

With these thoughts drifting through her mind, she climbed the terrace step by step, and indeed found a young man in pink robes standing before the stone table, his back turned to the setting sun. Seeing her draw near, he made a show of clearing his throat and moved as if to kneel: “This official greets Her Majesty the Empr—”

Before he could finish, Luowei stepped forward and stomped on his foot.

Song Ling took the opportunity to draw her into his arms, and asked with a smile, “Does Your Majesty not like this official in such a guise?”

Luowei pressed close to his ear and asked softly, “You’ve dressed like this—aren’t you afraid of being seen by others and being buried in memorials from the Censorate tomorrow?”

Song Ling whispered to her, “Rest assured, I hid my clothes here; I only changed once I arrived.”

In her presence, he seemed never to have referred to himself as “this Emperor.”

Luowei said coolly, “How very thoughtful of you.”

Song Ling drew her into his arms and sat down with her at the table. Hearing the awkward note in her tone, he said, “What is Your Majesty displeased about? Is it because you did not find the flower in the archive tower those past few days?”

Luowei shot him a glare.

Song Ling continued, “What a grievance, what a grievance! I left the flower on the very first day and waited there eagerly for a long time, and only afterward learned that the flower had been picked up by a palace attendant.”

At these words, the two of them simultaneously recalled the old incident of a flower being picked up by Xu Dan, and they could not help but look at each other and laugh. Luowei’s anger dissolved; she leaned against his shoulder, tilted her head, and gazed toward the sunset before the terrace: “What have you been busy with these days?”

Song Ling gently swayed her as he answered, “Although Wumang died of illness, affairs on the northern border are still many. Beyond the Ezhen, there are also the Wuerhui and the Qahari. From when you saw their direction of migration in my chambers last time, I keep feeling that they have not given up hope, and that they will still come to fight one more battle with us.”

After a pause, Song Ling asked in turn, “And what have you been busy with?”

Luowei said, “Settling accounts with Shu Kang. Over these years, the realm has been lightly taxed and lightly levied; I plan to reduce the inner court expenditures, and we are still in discussions.”

The two of them leaned close together, whispering back and forth for a while, and then Song Ling lifted her sideways in his arms and walked toward the chamber atop the terrace: “It is not easy for this official and Your Majesty to meet; let us not speak of official matters anymore.”

Luowei said languidly, “How bold. What do you intend to do?”

All these years, and this game still had not grown tiresome.

Before Song Ling could speak, she leaned over and sealed his lips. Song Ling was very receptive, slightly parting his mouth and letting her move as she pleased, and before long he reversed roles and took the lead. Luowei pursed her lips to tease him; Song Ling laid her down behind the cyan-blue bed curtain, and in a low voice threatened, “Open your mouth.”

Luowei defied him, reached up, and pulled the curtain closed. The moment she turned her head, she felt something cool and damp at her eyelids—he had somehow produced a strip of white gauze used to cover the eyes, and had laid it just so over her eyes.

Though the interior of the bed curtain was already dim, that strip of white gauze still made Luowei feel a faint, delicate itch at the tip of her heart. She reached behind her, pulled out her own hairpin, and embraced him, murmuring languidly, “Your eyes have been recuperating for so long—why do you still carry this strip of white gauze with you?”

His eyes had much improved over these years; at the very least, he could now watch the sunset with her. But eye ailments were difficult to cure completely; even so, when noon came and the light was strong, it could still cause him some discomfort.

More than once, Luowei had seen his red-rimmed eyes during some important ceremony. She could not ask much in public, but in private she would stand on tiptoe and cup her hands over his eyes.

Song Ling kissed her palm and simply said, “It is nothing. If I can even watch the sunset, what could there be that I cannot see?”

……

When Luowei drew the bed curtain open again, she saw through the window paper the faint shadow of moonlight, and only then realized with a start that she had been dallying with him for so long.

Song Ling, his hair loose, lay pillowed on her lap. Their hair intertwined intimately with each other. Earlier, at the height of passion, Luowei had bitten off a lock of his hair; now, as if in revenge, he had caught a lock of her hair and was toying with it in his hand.

Luowei said, “Do you have no memorials to read today? Do not let them pile up to tomorrow and then burn the midnight oil again.”

Song Ling replied, “Yesterday I already burned the midnight oil. But does Your Majesty the Empress have nothing to do today? You have been consorting with this official for quite some time, and when you return you will be burning the midnight oil yourself—this official truly feels a great deal of tender concern.”

When he played the role of “Lord Ye,” he seemed somehow even more improper than usual.

Not really a bad thing.

Luowei yawned and said casually, “This palace has also settled everything yesterday; if I had not, would I have had the leisure to come and see you? The sky has grown late. Come to think of it, in the past you and I always had to time your departure from the palace, and we could only see the sunset—we have never watched the moon together.”

Song Ling rose from the couch and personally tidied her clothing: “Then let us go and see it now.”

Luowei nodded, and holding the jade belt, she fastened it around his waist for him. While she worked, she licked her lips and said, “I am quite satisfied with today’s apology. If the same thing happens again next time, it will not be so easy to get off.”

She finished fastening the jade belt and smoothed down the hem of his robe, but saw that he only wore a smiling expression and said nothing. She could not help but ask, “What are you smiling about?”

Song Ling feigned surprise: “So it turns out… this was my apology.”

In that case, he would not at all mind making the same mistake a few more times.

He simply twisted his hair up into a bun, while Luowei did not pin her hair at all, and with her long hair loose she walked out of the chamber hand in hand with him.

The Gaoyangta was a perfect spot to admire the moon. Silver moonlight poured across the ground, and all around could only be heard the sound of leaves rustling in the dense grove.

An extremely tranquil night.

Luowei tied the white gauze used to cover his eyes back onto his wrist. Once Song Ling had let her finish, he suddenly pointed to his own shoulder: “Come.”

Luowei glanced around on both sides, found that the guards were nowhere in sight, then put her arms around his neck and let him carry her on his back.

Song Ling carried her on his back and walked in the direction of the moon, reminiscing, “Do you remember the first time we descended from Juhwa Temple? It was already very late; I carried you down the mountain path. The wind was very strong that day, and the guards were far behind. You had not combed your hair either, and you pressed close to my cheek and asked—”

Before he had finished speaking, Luowei leaned in close and murmured softly, “Elder brother Crown Prince, do you think there might be ghosts in this mountain?”

She finished speaking and laughed herself: “In the end, you told me very earnestly that since I had not bound my hair, it was flying up high; even if there truly were ghosts, I looked to have greater supernatural powers than any ghost, and I would certainly frighten them all away… At first I was a little afraid, but after hearing that, I was not afraid at all—I spent the whole journey enthusiastically discussing with you how to catch ghosts. Come to think of it, after that, I have never been afraid again.”

Song Ling looked up: “Those days… were truly wonderful. It always felt as though every night was as tranquil as tonight.”

Luowei said, “Do you remember telling me in Xuzhou that one day, we would live to see a time of peaceful seas and clear skies? Now that the prosperous age has arrived, there is no longer any need to be confined within the red walls. I want to return to Xuzhou and raise a pair of snow geese, and a pair of white egrets—or perhaps cranes—and every day watch them circle once over the western hills before reluctantly flying back.”

Song Ling said, “Yes, one day… and are we not already walking on the road toward that day?”

Luowei narrowed her eyes and smiled, and on his back she sang a tune of “Mantingfang.”

When the song was done, she pondered for a moment and then said, “I just remembered—did the two of us once compose a verse of ‘Gaoyangta’ together? Why not take it and set it to a melody? What I wrote was ‘the white crane has long departed, and I have beaten all along the railing,’ and what you wrote was ‘old joys and new grievances—how can they ever be put to rest’—”

Song Ling, a somewhat unnatural flush rising on his face, immediately cut her off: “Enough—no need to say more.”

But Luowei continued to recite: “… A solitary soul dares not linger for the one it loves; in the bronze mirror’s reflection, you have grown thin.”

She leaned down and in an affectionate tone said, “This counts as your apology. It is because I am in a good mood. If in the future you again lose all sense of night and day, and I see you ‘grown thin,’ a single handkerchief will not be enough to settle things.”

Song Ling immediately agreed, pledging earnestly, “From this day forth, I will certainly not come home late again.”

Luowei nodded in satisfaction.

“Though letters can still be written,” her voice grew very soft; she pressed close to his ear, her words barely there, “It has been a long time since you last wrote me a letter.”

02 · Tonight, Hearing ‘Parting Willows’ on the Flute

In the winter following the Lantern Festival of the eighth year of Xuanning, late winter, a night heavy with frost, Luowei slept alone in the Qionghua Hall. In the middle of the night she could not sleep, and then heard rustling voices outside the bed curtain.

She wrapped herself in a thick robe, pushed aside the bed curtain, and stood up. Chao Lan pushed the door open and came in, and seeing that she was already awake, handed her what she held in her hands: “Your Majesty, this is from His Majesty.”

Luowei trembled with a start and quickly took it, only to find that it was a thick sheaf of letters.

Since he had set out in late summer for the southwest on a personal campaign, the fighting had been fierce, and the court had also had many matters to attend to. Luowei had wanted to write him a few letters with all her heart, had written them, and then had not sent them.

She broke the wax seal and caught from the paper a faint, thin smell of blood.

This smell of blood was mixed with the somewhat damp summer heat of the southwest and the rusty tang of cold iron; it was not hard to imagine what dangers and hardships it had passed through before it could reach her hands.

Luowei’s attention wavered for just a moment, and the sheets of paper scattered from the envelope, scattering across the table.

She gathered them up one by one with some surprise, only to discover that Song Ling’s thoughts were astonishingly similar to her own—from the moment he set out on the campaign, every three or four days without fail he had written her a letter. Not knowing whether it was for fear of the long distance, or for fear of unsettling her mind, he had kept these letters and let them pile up in a thick stack, not daring to send them back until the victory was won.

“In the middle of the night on campaign, the wind in the tent is cool; thinking of your words from days gone by, I spread this paper and write. Yet I fear that mountains and rivers stretch vast and far, and that amid the drifting life of military service, I may receive no reply. Morning and evening, you fill my thoughts.”

“On the night of the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the Ghost Festival: the southern frontier holds many ritual ceremonies. The moon is full. Military officers lead songs to call back the spirits of the dead; it is a sorrowful thing.”

“On the joyous night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, I heard that none of the palace banquets are being held this year. I look out into the distance; we are at opposite ends of the sky at this very moment. On the way back to camp I came across crepe myrtle flowers in full bloom; my heart is greatly gladdened. When I see crepe myrtle, I think of you, my darling.”

He wrote on and on patiently about all sorts of small, trivial things. On a few pages, the brushstrokes were trembling and crooked—surely because his arm had been injured. Perhaps not wanting her to notice, he had taken his brush and crossed out several uneven, wobbly lines.

Had they not been mingled in among the other pages, she would likely not have discovered it at all.

Luowei read his letters carefully by lamplight, thinking to herself that those “words from days gone by” were probably the words she had casually complained about during their dalliances at the Gaoyangta: “It has been so long since you last wrote me a letter.”

From their childhood the two of them had been together morning and evening, and they rarely had occasion to be separated by a thousand miles; letters had therefore been few. It was only in the few years after they had confided their feelings to each other, when she had not yet entered the Eastern Palace as consort, that they had regularly exchanged love letters.

Those letters were still stored beneath her dressing case; thinking back on it now, it had truly been such a very, very long time ago.

Luowei quickly read through to the very last of his letters.

“… A great victory, and on the triumphant return, Elder Brother and I passed through Gaolin and drank heartily together. Were it not for the rebellion here, I do not know when we might have met again. Leading my horse back, I heard someone in the army blowing a leaf to play ‘Parting Willows’—the sound was sorrowful and keening. Amid the melancholy, I felt quite fortunate. In those years when I wore a mask to face the world, the old home was battered by wind and rain and hard to endure; but now the sky is vast and the clouds are high, the moon is bright and the stars are pale.”

“I shall return in a matter of days. Do not pine for me.”

The southwest was pacified, and in a matter of days he would return.

Luowei tidied his letters one by one, then called Chao Lan to mail out the letters she herself had written. About half a month later, she received his reply.

“I shall return when the time comes—I shall return when the time comes—how fortunate. Quiet serenity meets spring; may prosperity and good fortune flourish together.”

He had left in late summer; now, after more than half a year had passed, it was spring again at last. The day after she received the reply, Luowei climbed the south city gate of Biandu at dusk, and as she had done long ago, she gazed into the distance through the setting sun, longing for his early return.

Chao Lan had accompanied her waiting right until the early part of the first lunar month, and said with some hesitation, “His Majesty has only sent this one letter. How can Your Majesty know when he will return? Moreover, by the look of the sky, he likely cannot return today—shall we come back again tomorrow?”

Luowei said, “His letter contained the two words ‘meets spring.’ The Start of Spring is only ten days away; by the reckoning of when he sent that reply, he was already not far from Biandu when he wrote it. Having sent this letter, he will certainly ride through the night to return.”

She had barely finished saying this when she abruptly said, “Listen.”

Chao Lan said, puzzled, “Hmm?”

Luowei closed her eyes and concentrated to listen: “There is the sound of hoofbeats.”

She leaned against the city wall and looked out toward the distance, and indeed at the far end of the great road she saw a black dot. In the moonlight, that black dot grew larger and larger, clearer and clearer—Song Ling, riding alone, came galloping from the end of the road, and reined in his horse beneath the city gate. He raised his head and looked up toward her.

He seemed to have grown stronger and sturdier. He had not even removed his armor; only his helmet had been taken off, and his hair was disheveled, roughly pinned into a bun.

A wearied, dust-covered figure, just returned from a long journey.

Chao Lan watched as Her Majesty the Empress stood atop the wall staring in a daze at the returned Emperor, not saying a word. After a good long while, she finally heard Luowei murmur to herself, “… The old home today is just right.”

A thousand miles away, ten thousand miles away, the moon shone bright.

03 · Young Men Grow Old Wandering the Jianghu

After their feigned “deaths,” Luowei and Song Ling did not immediately leave Biandu.

Luowei removed all her hair ornaments and walked through the streets with a bare, unadorned face; Song Ling walked slowly behind her with his hands clasped behind his back.

It was dusk, and the banks of the Bianhe were a scene of bustling prosperity—boatmen busy raising anchors, merchants dragging wooden carts preparing to set up their stalls after dark. As Luowei walked along, she did not even see the beggars and vagrant children who in her memory used to haunt the streets and alleyways.

The old woman who sold flatbreads and often gave handouts to these beggars kindly explained the mystery to her: “The late Empress and the Princess once opened an orphanage in the north of the city; those little rascals have turned over a new leaf now, and have all gone to study and take up trades. Just a few days ago they came back and brought this old woman some silver to spend… Come to think of it, the Empress and His Majesty were such good people—how could they have passed away so young…”

Luowei had been feeling fully content, but upon hearing this her conscience pricked her; she echoed the words in a half-hearted way, then turned and dragged Song Ling away and fled.

When these common folk caught sight of her, it was mostly at ceremonies or harvest festivals, when she was dressed in splendid clothing with heavy, elaborate makeup. With her present appearance, she naturally could not easily be recognized; but if they were to go on talking, that might not remain the case.

The two of them wandered through the streets and alleyways for a great round, then made their way back to the old Ye Mansion.

When “Ye Tingyan” had fled Biandu, Song Lan had ordered the mansion sealed off. He had intended to search it thoroughly, but at the time there were a thousand things pressing in from every direction, and the matter was set aside. After Song Ling ascended the throne, he did not lift the seal; the mansion stood empty, available for Zhou Chuyin and the others to live in during the occasional times they returned to the capital.

Luowei had once come back here with him, taken a turn around the grounds, and suddenly discovered a hidden chamber beneath the rear garden. She had toured it with great interest: “This place would be splendid for keeping cool in summer. Have you never come here before?”

Before Song Ling could reply, she answered for herself: “Oh, in those days your constitution was cold and weak—how could you possibly come to a place like this… But then why is there a bed prepared here? A dressing table, a folding screen, curtains—it seems more like a woman’s bedchamber. And it looks rather familiar.”

Song Ling’s conscience troubled him; he said nothing. Luowei looked the cyan-blue curtain over for a few more moments, and then the light dawned on her: “This looks rather like the furnishings in the Gaoyangta, and seems to have been here quite some time—did you arrange this beforehand?”

Song Ling made no sound. Luowei pressed close to him, quietly grinding her teeth: “Did you arrange this for me?”

“I only thought about it,” Song Ling raised his hands in surrender. “This place is too dark, and very cold—in the end I couldn’t bear to put you here, and in the end I had you stay in the small loft behind my study.”

Luowei was silent; so Song Ling coughed and continued, “You once had me locked up in that pitch-black hidden chamber in the Qionghua Hall, and you didn’t even allow me to think things over? And besides, I never did go through with it.”

“Had I known it would come to this…”

Luowei drew out the syllables, and said in a lingering tone, “You should have gone through with it much sooner. Once everything was laid on the table, all the problems would have been neatly solved. Tsk, Elder Brother Song, for all your heart’s desires, you had none of the nerve to act—you were not as bold as me.”

“Yes, yes, yes—Luowei’s boldness is unmatched,” Song Ling breathed a sigh of relief and laughed, “How about this: today you lock me in the Qionghua Hall—what do you say?”

Luowei added with enthusiasm, “And I will give you nothing to eat; if you want to eat, you must coax me into a good mood first.”

Song Ling reached up and tickled her neck: “Oh? And how should I coax Your Majesty into a good mood? Your Majesty, please teach me.”

……

Returning to an old haunt after many years, Luowei could not help but feel a sense of wistful melancholy: “When you still lived here, everyone was together. I was brought by Lingcheng from Mount Guyou—I truly thought I was dreaming. When I count it up, the blink of an eye is more than ten years, and all of us have not once gathered together in a full reunion.”

She walked along the somewhat dilapidated walkway, continuing to reminisce: “I still remember that at the time Lingcheng asked me why I did not call Xuechu back to help me. Only later did I learn that he and Chuyin had not been summoned back by you either. Everyone has their own world to roam; I told Lingcheng that what I needed to do did not require the sacrifice of others, and yet because we were friends, they came back to help us regardless, heedless of everything.”

Song Ling held her hand and was silent for a moment: “After the new year let us go and find them—or we could first go back to Xuzhou; get the snow geese properly settled, and invite everyone to come and drink together.”

Luowei said, “Can we get everyone together?”

Song Ling said, “Of course.”

In late spring, the two of them left Biandu together, drifting downstream along the Bianhe, and as chance would have it encountered Xu Dan on the bow of a boat, playing the transverse flute.

Luowei sat on the side rail of the boat and listened quietly for a while, then sighed with feeling, “Lord Xu… is truly a man of deep sentiment.”

Song Ling agreed: “Among the court today there are precious few officials of such pure and unaffected character. In those years when you heard of the fire at the archive tower in Youzhou, you promoted him into the Qiong Ting—you truly had excellent judgment.”

He settled cross-legged on the deck, holding his zither: “In that case, let us offer him a tune in return.”

The two boats crossed paths and were just then separated by a merchant vessel. Luowei passed through the cabin and watched from a distance as he seemed to kneel down.

“Once he has finished compiling the national history, we might perhaps invite him to Xuzhou as a guest,” Song Ling said at her side. “In the end, there will come a day when we meet again.”

“By the time he has finished compiling the national history, we shall be very old and very old,” Luowei tilted her head and asked. “White-haired, faces covered in wrinkles—perhaps we will even have lost all our teeth.”

When others spoke of approaching old age, there was always a tinge of lingering regret that could not be set aside; but when Luowei spoke of such things, her eyes were still bright and keen, and she even seemed to look forward to it with great anticipation: “The thought of growing very old together with you fills me with happiness. Now that the realm is at peace, every single day is wonderful. The finest dream I ever dreamed in my youth was something like this.”

Song Ling said, “Yes—and best of all if we can often see our friends; once everyone has grown too old to wander, we can live side by side as neighbors and plant a road full of flowering trees.”

“Young men grow old wandering the jianghu… what a perfectly complete story this is.”

The little boat sailed toward the end of the sunset, leaving behind only a trail of rippling water in its wake.