Mist coiled beneath the deep cliff.
Prince Ling stood at the edge and said to Cheng Chang, “In truth, there’s no need for you to dwell on the past and its causes. That you came here today to wait for me shows you already anticipated the outcome of this rebellion — the only difference now is who wins and who loses.”
“You say I killed you without cause, but had our positions been reversed back then, you might well have done the same thing. I simply fought for myself, in the end.”
Cheng Chang said, “Having fought for yourself, you ought to have gained something — at the very least, stopped losing. But look at what you have left now.”
“You have nothing left at all.”
Prince Ling sneered coldly. “Would you have done any better, in my place? Wasn’t it you who drove Chai Ping to his death? Wasn’t it you who used Yun Xi to force Cheng Xu back into the palace? Wasn’t it you who schemed to force me and that old emperor into open warfare? Even though I harbored intentions of regicide from the start, did you ever, out of some great compassion and virtue, actually put a stop to any of the fighting?”
“I’ve lost today, and I accept it. But you — will that old emperor spare you? Even if you survive this ordeal today, what will you do from here on?”
Prince Ling continued, “The tide of the realm flows where it will. If you survive this crisis, Yun Luo, to protect Yun Xi, will surely unite the Zhongyong Marquis household, the Pei household, and the Imperial City Command to protect you. You already hold the Three Judicial Offices — with these additional troops now in your grasp, you’ll effectively control half the realm. If that old emperor cannot eliminate you, then when the day comes for the realm to change hands, with a weak Crown Prince on one side and a prince holding real power on the other, the entire court will inevitably descend into turmoil. Even if you, in your compassion, refuse to shed blood, those beneath you will act to eliminate your rivals regardless — because they too must protect themselves, because if Cheng Xu ascends the throne and one day grows suspicious of you, these ants beneath you will find it too late to plan for their own survival.”
“When that day comes, the court will run red with blood, hundreds upon thousands of lives will be lost because of you, and you yourself will stand at the very center of that turmoil. What will you do then?”
“You’ve already set one foot into this abyss. Your hands are already stained with blood. From this day forward, if you wish to survive, there’s only one path — hatred without end, killing without end! It will never stop. In the end, you’ll become just like me.”
“You and I, in the end, are the same kind of person.”
Cheng Chang said, “If I were you, back then, I truly wouldn’t have simply waited to be slaughtered. But wrongs have their source, debts have their debtor — if you truly wanted justice, why didn’t you go to your father and ask him why he doted on Tian Ze while abandoning you entirely? Why didn’t you go to the underworld and ask your mother why, blinded by greed for a moment, she harmed Consort Wan and Tian Ze? Because you didn’t dare. You didn’t dare defy your father, and you couldn’t bring yourself to accept the guilt of your mother’s crimes. With all that pent-up resentment and no outlet, you chose instead to kill Tian Ze, to destroy the northern frontier.”
“A’Ting saved the life of the person you love — and yet you harmed her father and brother.”
“The Zhongyong Marquis household was loyal through and through — and yet you let Yun Shuguang die a wrongful death.”
“Cheng Mingying was your own blood brother — and yet you cared nothing for his life.”
“Tens of thousands of soldiers at the northern frontier defended their homeland — and yet because of a single decision of yours, they were buried in the desert sands.”
“I’ve never considered myself a good person, nor do I believe that repaying grievance with virtue is some admirable thing. In this world, everyone who takes up a blade has their reasons for doing so — to be human is to have love and hatred, feeling and desire; why should one need to renounce all of it to attain some enlightened state? So when others try to take my life, I will fight to the death if I must, to seek justice for myself, to exact blood for blood — but I will never inflict my own suffering upon the innocent.”
“Because anyone who does that is, in the end, incapable, weak — lacking the courage to fight for themselves properly, lacking the nerve to face things directly and set things right by lawful means. And so they submit to their own misery, unable ever to escape it, and drag others down with them out of hatred and resentment — evil begetting evil, an endless cycle with no escape.”
Prince Ling listened to Cheng Chang’s words in silence for a long moment, then said, “You can say all that, but if you survive this ordeal today, with the imperial succession about to change hands, bloodshed will be unavoidable regardless. Do you really think you can walk some third path?”
“How do you know I can’t?”
The wind on the cliff had died down. Prince Ling looked at Cheng Chang through the light of dawn and sneered, “Then I really do look forward to seeing it.”
In the distance came the sound of soldiers — the rebel army within the mountain had been crushed, and the Front Hall Command and the Loyal Valor Army were mopping up the aftermath. Someone would surely find their way here soon.
Cheng Chang said, “Your father is nearly here.”
The smile faded from Prince Ling’s face, and he grew unusually still.
Cheng Chang continued, “In this age of peace and stability, all military power in the realm rests in the sovereign’s hands. You already knew, from the very start, what the consequences of raising an army would be — and yet you still chose to gamble everything, because you had already gone mad, because you had had enough.”
And so all he could do now was comfort himself with the notion of winner and loser — though who was to say he didn’t simply want it all to end sooner?
Prince Ling said flatly, “Today’s conflict was truly a three-way struggle, but each of our roles was already clear from the start. You were the snipe, I was the clam, and neither of us is the fisherman — so neither of us will meet a good end. I’ve reached my end, and I accept it. But is your situation really any better than mine? That supreme sovereign, holding the power of life and death over all — he will not spare you either. You and I are the same, both in hell.”
Cheng Chang said, “I am in hell because your father wants me dead. But I have a clear conscience. If there’s a sliver of a chance to live, I will take it and live. May I ask, Your Highness — right now, with all these Front Hall Command troops His Majesty has sent, what exactly are they searching this mountain so desperately for?”
At these words, Prince Ling’s expression finally changed.
“He’s searching for you.”
“After reuniting with Tian Wang’an, your father has finally, completely let go of the past. Looking back, he realized just how much he owes you over the years — of all his sons, you’re the one he feels he’s wronged the most.”
“So even though you’ve raised an army against him, even though you meant to kill your own sovereign, he still wants to spare your life beneath the executioner’s blade. That’s why he sent the Front Hall Command to search the mountain — preparing to pin the charge of rebellion on some random general instead, and bring you back to the palace.”
“To make up, with his deathbed regret, for the debt of your wasted, wronged half-life.”
“To let you truly feel this belated paternal love. Or perhaps, in that palace built on pretense and false harmony, this is what’s meant by a loving father and a filial son.”
“Would you accept it?”
Hearing this, Prince Ling stood dazed for a long while, then suddenly burst into laughter, laughing uncontrollably.
In the distance, Front Hall Command soldiers spotted them and immediately drew their bows — but the watching officer seemed to recognize one of them as Prince Ling, and raised a hand to signal the men to lower their weapons, calling out from afar, “Third Prince!”
Beside them, Dan Wenxuan, seeing this scene, mistakenly believed Cheng Chang had spoken truly — that the Emperor really was willing to spare Prince Ling — and cried out in sudden joy, “Your Highness, wonderful, Your Highness, we’re saved…”
But as he spoke, he gradually began to detect a note of desolation and grief beneath Prince Ling’s laughter, until the laughter grew hoarse from strain, and at last, tears began to fall.
Dan Wenxuan, startled and alarmed, asked, “Your Highness, wh-what’s wrong with you?”
Prince Ling did not answer him.
His gaze fell on the cliff’s edge, a mere foot away, and he asked Cheng Chang, “The last time you fell from a cliff, how did you survive?”
Cheng Chang said, “I never survived it, not once.”
The answer was unmistakably cryptic, and yet Prince Ling, hearing it, seemed to find a strange release. “Good. Good — I was beginning to think there might really be some secret to eternal life in this world, some way to cheat death a hundred times over. I really am…” He laughed faintly, and said, with perfect calm, “I don’t want to live in this world anymore, not even a little.”
So many good times, so much beauty, had already slipped past him — in the end, these years had amounted to nothing but sinking into greed, hatred, and delusion. Love had died in a previous life, and even when he later reunited with Fang Fulan, he himself couldn’t say how much of it had been genuine feeling, how much mere use. So what was there to make amends for, and how could he even begin? Better, then, to let this careless, wasted life come to its end amid the chaos of this war.
In the distance, soldiers were calling, “Third Prince, Third Prince!” — drawing steadily closer.
The morning wind lifted the hem of Prince Ling’s robes, his tender, sentimental eyes gentle enough to seem on the verge of tears.
In truth, this man — whether in his early days as insignificant as dust, or later, wielding great and formidable power — had always been calm, always gentle, never once domineering or arrogant. And so, even now, fallen into this desperate final moment, the robes upon his body remained as neat and pristine as ever.
His heart had rotted and festered through and through, yet somewhere within him, some measure of purity still remained.
His feet stood no more than a foot from the cliff’s edge.
There were no more words left for the rest of his life — perhaps all his delusions had been buried on the day Fang Fulan threw herself into the lake, in that sky that never brightened again.
Prince Ling stood in the boundless wind. “All these years — I colluded with the enemy, caused the death of the Marquis of Loyal Valor, caused the deaths of countless soldiers at the northern frontier — I do not regret it. I sent men to kill Cheng Xu, to kill you, to kill everyone who stood in my way — I do not regret it. And even if today I am to be buried here, to die here, I do not regret that either — because every one of these was my own choice.”
The Front Hall Command’s troops had already drawn near; Emperor Zhaoyuan’s imperial carriage could faintly be seen in the distance.
Prince Ling looked at Cheng Chang and smiled. “Tell him — the only thing I regret, in this entire life, is having been born his son.”
Having said this, he closed his eyes and fell backward into the emptiness behind him.
As if shedding the burden of his entire life, Prince Ling plummeted rapidly amid the howling wind that circled the cliff’s edge, just as he had, in his dreams, all these years, felt himself falling.
The wind that swirled and howled around him was neither fierce nor violent — like a gentle hand, it seemed to reach out and enfold him.
A mortal heart fallen into obsession, sunk into the endless abyss — it turned out that this very cliff, this very chasm, had been the destination all along.
In the instant before oblivion arrived, Prince Ling opened his eyes. In the distant sky, the dawn light burned fierce as fire, the clouds glowing pure and clear.
His sky had finally brightened.