Two years after the new Emperor’s ascension, the Great Wei welcomed a harvest the like of which had never before been seen.

Since the implementation of the new policies, the cultivated land across the realm had more than tripled. Sweat sown always yields a harvest in the end — the court historians recorded that beginning this year, the granaries overflowed with rice and the imperial treasury brimmed with wealth.

Han Linfeng had spent these past several days hardly returning to the palace, pressing to finish what remained on his hands so that he might clear a stretch of time to take his wife and child out for some leisurely travel and proper rest.

The moment he returned to the palace, a plump little rolling ball came bouncing out from the palace gates — Xi’er, not yet two years old, waving his pudgy little hands as he ran to welcome his father home.

A slender woman with hair pinned high and dressed in a pale-colored long skirt was chasing after the little one from behind: “Xi’er, slow down — your father isn’t going to run away!”

Before the words were fully out of her mouth, the little ball had already launched himself at Han Linfeng’s thigh, seized hold, and immediately proceeded to wipe the drool he had laughed up all over his father’s trouser leg.

Han Linfeng bent down and scooped his son up, pressing a firm kiss onto that soft, round little face.

The little one was having none of it, however — his father’s stubble was scratchy, and laughing, he twisted around to be held by the much softer and sweeter-smelling mother.

Han Linfeng, still holding his squirming little son, casually drew his beloved wife — not seen these past few days — into his other arm, and told her: “The pleasure boat has been arranged. We can set out early tomorrow morning.”

Since the Emperor had entered the capital and bestowed honors upon the meritorious officers of the Iron-Faced Army, Cao Sheng — that man of the people — had at last been given his proper recognition. He was enfeoffed as the Marquis of Northern Pacification, entitled to his land and stipend.

But Cao Sheng had declined the Emperor’s rewards, distributed the greater portion of the estate among his own officers, and then set off with his wife and daughter to wander the mountains and rivers at leisure.

Cao Sheng had never fought for fame or profit. Having witnessed far too many brothers who had lived and died beside him fall on the battlefield, his detachment from glory, wealth, and life itself was fit to rival an enlightened monk.

His body, marked by the wounds of old campaigns, was sustained only by a constant regimen of medicines. Naturally he wished to cherish what years remained and spend them well in the company of his wife and daughter.

As for Cao Pei’er — though she had passed through the grief of a broken heart, her spirited and bold nature had not changed in the slightest. In the end, she had married a young scholar she met during her travels. Luoyun had seen this scholar, and he was genuinely very fine-looking.

Word had it that the scholar had come expressly because of the Cao family’s reputation. Having heard no end of it in the teahouses, he had developed a wholehearted admiration for Cao Sheng himself. Add to that the teahouse storytellers’ vivid rendering of the Cao daughter’s willow-slender waist and beauty, and the scholar had actually proposed marriage before he had ever laid eyes on her.

As things turned out, when he did see her in person, he was so struck dumb by the sight of her that he couldn’t manage a word for quite some time — but a gentleman’s word, once given, cannot be taken back, and having proposed, he simply had to hold firm through it.

Whether he had set his heart on Cao Sheng’s name and standing, or whether he truly admired the young lady, was another matter entirely — for after becoming Cao Sheng’s son-in-law, even without any titles to his own name at present, his path through the official world would certainly smooth considerably in the future.

Cao Pei’er, however, had privately told her father on no account to promote her husband too greatly.

For she had already killed one husband with her own hands, and had no wish to spend the next several years sharpening the blade again for another faithless man.

There was that old verse: “Suddenly I see the willows turning green at the roadside, and regret I sent my husband off to seek a noble rank.” Cao Pei’er had grown wiser now, and would not let herself be wrung dry as Qiu Zhen had once done to her.

Cao Pei’er had indeed sharpened her cleverness considerably — she even looked at Su Luoyun and shook her head, clicking her tongue and sighing outright that Su Luoyun’s husband had climbed too high these days. She advised Luoyun to be careful: a woman must keep a little vigilance for herself, and not be taken in by a pretty face.

Su Luoyun could only smile and agree to everything, expressing that Miss Cao was so very thoughtful, and that she herself spent every day in anxious worry over her husband’s wandering heart, and was having quite a difficult time of it.

Cao Pei’er, upon hearing this, felt a mysterious sense of satisfaction rise within her — quite cheered. She concluded that the greatest gain of her entire life was not that she had married two handsome men in succession, but that she had made the Crown Princess her bosom friend.

Before she took her leave, she slipped Su Luoyun a packet of medicinal powder with great conspiratorial air, saying it was an extraordinary remedy for producing many children and grandchildren. Should the Crown Prince ever grow lukewarm toward her and lack the energy to exert himself, this could be put to use — she guaranteed it could restore a man of seventy to the vigor of his youth.

Su Luoyun accepted this gift with solemn gratitude, then glanced over with considerable sympathy at the son-in-law standing behind Cao Sheng — listless and hollow-eyed. By the look of him, he had been toiling day and night without rest, the dark circles beneath his eyes quite profound.

Just a month prior, Cao Sheng had been delighted with the arrival of a grandchild, and had taken the opportunity to boast to the Crown Prince about the places he had traveled with his wife and daughter — and son-in-law — over these past two years.

Han Linfeng had then realized with some shock that in these two years absorbed by affairs of state, he had truly neglected his wife far too much. And so he had deliberately carved out time on this occasion, intending to take Luoyun away properly to lift her spirits.

Luoyun was, naturally, delighted. As her mother-in-law was fond of saying — though the capital was vast, it was not without its limitations.

Luoyun could slip out from time to time in disguise to wander the wharves and docks, but she could not simply set off on a whim the way she once had as a girl.

When word spread that Han Linfeng was going to take Luoyun out for some travel, Han Xiao immediately clamored to join them.

His poetry had improved considerably of late under the tutelage of his talented wife, and he was now lamenting that his heart lacked the stirring of real mountains and great rivers — that without it, he could never write lines like “The Yellow River’s waters come down from the sky” with any true grandeur.

His request to come along on the pleasure boat was refused by his elder brother without a shred of mercy.

After all, one was taking one’s own beloved wife out for an outing — why in the world would one bring a pedantic poet along for the ride?

And so Han Linfeng, without ceremony, boarded the pleasure boat and departed.

The first stop of the journey was Yun Zhou, taken at Luoyun’s request.

Yun Zhou was not far from the capital, and in early spring its scenery was most pleasant. Han Linfeng brought Luoyun there to take in the mountains and rivers, and to call upon old friends along the way.

These past two years, Luoyun had written often, inviting Princess Yuyang back to the capital.

Knowing the princess loved gaiety and excitement, she had sent advance notice every time a particularly refined and elegant banquet was to be held in the capital — and yet each time, Princess Yuyang had declined.

Shortly after Luoyun had given birth, Yuyang had delivered a baby girl in Yun Zhou. It had been a difficult labor for a woman of her age; it was said she had narrowly escaped a dangerous delivery.

Zhao Dong had apparently gone to be there, but Yuyang would not let him through the door, and he could only pace frantically outside.

A woman who had been willful and indulged all her life had, in middle age, at last heeded one piece of her mother’s counsel: that for the remainder of her years, there was no need to pour her energies into any man.

Upon hearing that Luoyun had come, however, Princess Yuyang brought her daughter and attendants and personally went to receive the Crown Prince and Crown Princess at the river landing.

And yet, when they met again, Luoyun almost failed to recognize the woman before her.

The princess who had always worn exquisitely sumptuous robes now had on an undyed cotton-linen robe of simple cut, without any elaborate tailoring. Her hair, now half-white, bore neither comb nor ornament.

Luoyun understood. She was in mourning for her parents. For just the previous year, the imprisoned Empress Wang had quietly passed away from a grave illness.

Once the empress of a nation, she had died a convicted woman; bound by the late Emperor’s dying words, she was forbidden from resting in the imperial mausoleum. Not a single funeral proclamation had been issued at her death.

Princess Yuyang could not publicly observe full mourning rites for Empress Wang — she could only wear plain-colored clothes each day, grieving her mother in silence.

Though the Great Wei did not follow the custom of three years’ mourning, observing only three months as a rule, it seemed that the Princess, who had once loved nothing more than merriment and play, was as if trying to make up for the filial debt of having defied her mother in her youth — observing a long and earnest mourning.

The daughter she had given birth to was called Fu’er in her childhood name. She was carved from pink jade, adorable beyond words.

The moment the little girl caught sight of Xi’er — with his distinctive foreign blood, his high nose and full cheeks — she stared without blinking. Then, while the adults’ attention was elsewhere, she trotted over and threw her arms around the younger child, planting a big wet kiss on his face.

While the servant girls took the two little ones to play along the field-ridges, Luoyun and Yuyang walked through the countryside, able at last to speak privately.

Though they had not seen each other for a long time, the bond between them had never frayed — they had kept it alive through a steady exchange of letters.

When Yu Shanyue had been fomenting rebellion in the old days, stirring up trouble everywhere and even going to Yuyang to agitate and stir up discord — counting on her, as the Grand Emperor’s eldest princess, to come to the capital and take sides — Yuyang had instead sent word, laying out every one of Yu Shanyue’s movements for Luoyun in full detail.

As Yuyang herself had once put it: without having lived in a humble position, one never knows the suffering of common people.

When she had been in the capital, her days had been spent in eating, drinking, and merry-making, her hours turning in a flow of cups and toasts — and she had never felt anything particularly wrong with that.

But when she came to Yun Zhou, and saw her tenant farmers, unable to pay their rents, weeping and throwing themselves before her palanquin to beg that the estate steward not take away their young daughters — it was only then that she truly understood what the people endured.

Her late father, the Wei Emperor Hui, had been a loving and devoted father to his children. But to the realm and its people, he had not been a good emperor.

Han Yi and his son, on the other hand, were — in a certain sense — something like hope and salvation to the people of the land.

Having seen things clearly, Yuyang would naturally not have stood with those great families and thrown herself into the unrest in the capital.

Her entire heart now was given over to her daughter — like the seedlings taking root in the fields of her estate, she watched little Fu’er grow taller each day, and even days that seemed flat and uneventful were filled with boundless possibility.

Luoyun asked why she did not return to the capital — for General Zhao Dong, when drinking privately with the Crown Prince, had reportedly let slip his regret over that hasty separation brought about by misunderstanding, and if she were to return now, it was believed that the broken mirror could be made whole again.

Princess Yuyang only smiled with easy serenity: “I’m not a young girl anymore — what is there to forgive or not forgive? In truth, a person can live contentedly without anyone. When I think about how stubborn and rigid I used to be — wearing everyone out, myself included — I find it all rather pitiable and absurd looking back. Having a daughter, I finally understand a mother’s heart. I would not want my daughter to inherit my obsessive nature either. Besides, I am doing quite well here in Yun Zhou. I don’t have to worry about where I’ve fallen short or given offence to anyone. As for Fu’er — I have never stopped her from seeing her father. Only the other day, Gui Bei came with his son to play with Fu’er. My little Fu’er has a mother, a father, and an elder brother who loves her — that is more than enough. I have grown well-suited to country life now. If I returned to the capital — that city is no longer the glittering, towered capital of my youth.”

At this, Yuyang caught herself and stopped abruptly, feeling she had spoken out of turn.

She had meant only to lament that things were no longer as they once were — but saying it that way sounded uncomfortably like she was complaining that the Han family had usurped the throne. Most improper.

Luoyun, however, only offered a quiet smile, and reached out to give her arm a gentle pat — conveying that she understood perfectly what she had meant to say.

A person often reaches a certain age and depth of accumulation before they come to realize that the clothes they once wore, though beautiful, were heavy and cumbersome — not at all comfortable to wear.

Yuyang now wore only what felt comfortable to her, and no longer forced herself to do anything, nor tried to please anyone.

Clothes were like this. Everything else was like this too.

Luoyun was quietly moved. Her father-in-law and mother-in-law had bickered and quarreled their whole lives, yet had eventually softened into harmony — Emperor and Empress at peace. While a couple who had once been harmonious enough had, in middle age, drifted steadily apart.

Perhaps in the way of husband and wife, demanding too much, pushing too hard, only brought the opposite of what one sought.

That day, after bidding farewell to Yun Zhou and boarding the boat, Su Luoyun remained lost in thought for a long while.

When the boat moored at a green and tranquil spot to rest for a time, Su Luoyun held her plump, round-cheeked son in her arms, breathing in the fresh, damp air along the riverbank with quiet pleasure, and said at last with a sigh: “Who would have thought — Princess Yuyang has ended up living the kind of life I once used to dream of.”

Han Linfeng had his trouser legs rolled up and was fishing from the stern. Upon hearing this, he raised an eyebrow: “And what kind of life was that?”

In the years when Luoyun had been blind, she had always harbored the thought that her marriage to Han Linfeng might not last — and had quietly envisioned the day she might slip free and go and live a contented, unhurried life in the countryside.

She had simply not anticipated that she and this man would become so deeply entangled, and that she would end up walking step by step alongside him all the way to the heights she now stood at.

Looking back now at those old dreams, they seemed rather distant and out of reach.

Han Linfeng, hearing her speak in such detail, could naturally piece together just how thorough her plans had once been — she had even selected a place of retreat: a land of fish and rice where three crops of paddies could be grown in a single year.

Though she spoke of it now in a tone of jest, Han Linfeng still felt a prickling of annoyance.

Everyone assumed that the one living in uneasy anxiety within the Eastern Palace must be the Crown Princess — the one of humble origins. After all, as the Crown Prince, the temptations and distractions around him were so many as to be impossible to guard against.

No one would ever think that the one who had truly been wracked with uncertainty was him — the one with all the choices.

Han Linfeng understood too well just what kind of restless woman he had married. All these years, even while living within the Eastern Palace, Luoyun had never let her commercial enterprises sit idle.

It was not a matter of greed — it was simply an addiction she could not help.

By now her personal wealth, compared to the late Wandering God of Wealth at his peak, was likely as great or greater.

If one day this woman ever picked a quarrel with him, climbed aboard an ocean-going vessel, and sailed away — he would have nowhere in the world to go looking for her.

Now, hearing Luoyun express her envy of Yuyang’s life — raising a child alone, unbeholden to anyone — the reigning Crown Prince found it rather grating to hear.

He handed the child to the attendant beside him, swept Luoyun up in his arms, and carried her into the cabin.

Luoyun had not expected this — that the stately Crown Prince, once outside the palace, could turn so thoroughly uninhibited. In broad daylight, no less, and intending such absurdity. She could not help but laugh and struggle: “What are you doing?”

“I’ve decided you have too much idle time, since you’re busy with all these wild imaginings. I think it’s time for Xi’er to have a younger brother or sister.”

“Was it not just yesterday that — stop this nonsense, it’s broad daylight!”

“What is there to be afraid of? If you find yourself lacking in energy, use that medicinal powder Cao Pei’er gave you — wasn’t it supposed to be a miracle remedy guaranteed to produce children and grandchildren?”

“Oh, be quiet. I threw that away long ago.”

The spring day was warm, and from the gently rocking boat, laughter and playful bickering floated out without cease.

Historical postscript:

The descendant of Emperor Xiande, Han Yi, held the imperial throne for twenty years, and in his later years abdicated to enjoy his remaining years in peace, passing the throne to his eldest son, Han Linfeng — known to history as Emperor Wei Xian, the Worthy Emperor of Wei.

At the time of his enthronement, the Great Wei was at the height of its strength, a true golden age. The new Emperor and Empress received the imperial seal upon Mount Tai, accepting the obeisance of all under heaven.

The Emperor had come to know his Empress when both were at their lowest — and having felt great remorse that when he first took her as wife, the gifts and ceremony had been meager and simple, he treated this investiture as an occasion comparable to a second wedding. The ceremony at Mount Tai was a spectacle of unprecedented magnificence.

Yet there exists an unreliable account in certain unofficial histories, recording that at the time, the new Empress — weighted down by her towering phoenix crown — was heard quietly complaining to the new Emperor that the crown was so heavy it could be melted down to make a suit of armor. Had they made her wear it on her wedding day, she said, she would sooner have run from the marriage than put it on.

It was recorded that upon hearing this, the Emperor’s brow furrowed, and he said in a cool voice: “Too late.” He then pressed the crown down a little further upon her head.

Naturally, such preposterous words could never have passed the lips of a Empress renowned through the ages for her virtue. Who did not know that the Emperor and Empress had cherished and respected one another throughout their lives — a rare example, even among imperial couples, of one lifetime, one person?

Such bickering, worthy of quarrelsome children, was most likely fabricated by some disreputable, self-indulgent scholar of little standing — written for the amusement of readers, and not to be taken as truth.