The hour of Yin was ending; the east was not yet light. The hills and fields were shrouded in a deep indigo, like the depths of the sea.
On the mountain road leading to the capital, the sound of hooves rang sharp and urgent. A team of riders in swift pursuit galloped through the forest and dew, led by none other than Shen Qi, Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
Ahead, in the middle of the mountain path, a faint light suddenly appeared, dimly illuminating a standing figure. Shen Qi instinctively reached for his blade, but then heard the other call out from afar, “Lord Shen.”
Recognizing the voice, Shen Qi slowed his horse and approached, seeing clearly that it was indeed the imperial guard Chu Yuan.
“Why are you here?” Shen Qi asked. He knew this dark-faced man’s significance, though his rank was not high, he was a true confidant and loyal death warrior of Emperor Jinglong, even more trusted than Long Quan, the commander of the Tengxiang Left Guard who held elite troops. Of the emperor’s feigned death, only a handful knew the truth, and Chu Yuan was the only one among the imperial guards who was privy to it.
Chu Yuan replied, “I’ve come to stop you, and to receive you.”
“Receive me? To where?” Shen Qi asked.
On his dark, unremarkable face, Chu Yuan revealed a barely perceptible smile. “Lord Shen, please follow me.”
***
“Qilang has returned to the capital? When did that happen?” Beneath the eaves at the entrance of the Su residence, Su Yan shook the raindrops from his umbrella, somewhat surprised.
As Su Xiaobei wiped the moisture from his clothes with a dry cotton towel, he replied, “The morning before yesterday. I only heard about it today when I ran into a servant from the Shen residence while out making purchases.”
Besides surprise, Su Yan also felt a bit displeased: Well now, he goes off on a case for several days, comes back to the capital and doesn’t even come see me, doesn’t even send a message, just goes straight home… Something’s not right.
Then another thought crossed his mind, perhaps Shen Qi had been injured while handling the case and deliberately kept it from him so he wouldn’t worry. Su Yan hurriedly called back the carriage that was being unhitched, intending to visit the Shen residence.
Shen Qi was not injured.
When Su Yan arrived, he saw Shen Qi dressed in a light blue summer under-robe, his bearing as agile as ever. Only, there seemed to be an extra trace of gloom between his brows, which vanished the moment he saw him.
“When did you get back?”
“…Just now.”
“Bullsh*t! You got back the day before yesterday and you call that ‘just’? Then I just turned eighteen the year before last!”
“Aren’t you just eighteen?” Shen Qi said. “Eighty years from now, it’ll be the same.”
Su Yan kept a straight face but couldn’t hold it, breaking into laughter.
Shen Qi pulled him into his arms and kissed him again and again. The two chatted at length, mixing serious matters with idle talk, one sentence about official business, the next about personal matters, yet it never felt out of place; mutual understanding was enough.
Learning that Shen Qi had returned from the southwest, Su Yan asked, “That route isn’t too far from Lotus After Rain Villa, did you stop by to check on the Emperor Emeritus for me?”
Shen Qi had once promised that if he passed by while on assignment and conditions allowed secrecy, he would take the opportunity to check on Emperor Jinglong’s condition, since Su Yan now held a high position and was watched by countless eyes in the capital, making many things inconvenient.
“I did.”
“How is the Emperor Emeritus?”
Shen Qi held him tighter, lowering his gaze, his tone flat. “The same as before, no sign of waking.”
Su Yan could not hide his disappointment. “I actually went to see him myself in the middle of the night a couple of days ago, and indeed… sigh, just last month it felt like his fingers moved, how is there still no progress? How long do we have to wait for him to wake…”
Shen Qi comforted him, “Everyone has done all they can. What remains depends on fate. By the way, it’s best if you don’t go to Lotus After Rain Villa for the time being.”
“Why?”
“I ran into Chu Yuan. He said that recently there seem to be people of unknown identity lurking nearby, watching something. He’s worried the Emperor Emeritus might be exposed. To be safe, don’t go for the next few months. Also, remind His Majesty as well. If there’s any change in the Emperor Emeritus’s condition, Mister Yingxu will send word to me, and I’ll pass it on to you.”
Su Yan frowned with concern and nodded. “Understood. Don’t worry, Helin isn’t someone who can’t distinguish priorities.”
Helin… Shen Qi was suddenly struck by a pang of jealousy, clenching his fist again and again before finally suppressing the surge of bitterness.
Should I tell him? Su Yan thought.
Should I tell him? Shen Qi thought.
The two looked at each other in silence for a few seconds, then both shifted their gaze away.
The conversation suddenly went cold. Shen Qi felt a faint irritation, while Su Yan grew somewhat restless. After this inexplicable awkwardness lingered for a moment, Su Yan stood, about to take his leave, but Shen Qi grabbed him back in one pull and pressed him into the armchair, since talking wasn’t going well, they might as well get down to business.
At this very moment, in a quiet chamber within Lotus After Rain Villa, Chu Yuan knelt before the floor-length curtain, holding his breath as he waited.
Before long, from the gap beneath the curtain, a folded slip of paper was silently pushed out.
Chu Yuan picked it up and unfolded it. Two lines of writing were on it.
The handwriting was extremely unpracticed and labored. Even though it was written with a double-tipped bamboo pen similar to a modern hard pen, easier to handle, the first few characters were especially crooked, like those of a young child unable to properly hold a pen.
Chu Yuan felt a pang of sorrow. After reading the note, he burned it to ashes with the candle beside him, kowtowed, and rose to leave the quiet chamber.
Outside the door, he encountered Chen Shiyu, who was waiting. Chu Yuan moved his lips, unsure what instructions or requests to give, whether they gave instructions or not, whether they asked or not, Mister Yingxu had already done everything possible with a physician’s heart.
Chen Shiyu smiled and nodded at Chu Yuan. “Go on, Lord Chu. Leave things here to this old man.”
Chu Yuan clasped his fists and bowed deeply. “His Majesty’s health rests entirely in your hands, sir.”
***
After that night of “treatment,” Zhu Helin kept trying to find opportunities to be alone with Su Yan, pondering how to open his heart and have a proper conversation, and in turn get the other to accept his feelings.
Unfortunately, Su Yan strictly upheld the agreement of that night, once they stepped out of the hall doors, everything was settled. When they met again, he was entirely formal, treating him as ruler and minister, handling matters strictly as business. In modern terms, it would probably be called “heartless after getting what one wanted.”
Zhu Helin ran into rejection after rejection. No matter how full of passion he was, he couldn’t help but feel thoroughly chilled by the cold treatment.
Fubao couldn’t bear to see him troubled and suggested a rather unscrupulous idea: “This servant can find a pretext to invite Lord Su into the palace for a banquet and coax him into drinking the imperial wine ‘Cold Pool Fragrance.’ It’s sweet and easy to drink, but its aftereffect is quite strong. When the time comes, this servant will lock the hall doors… and the rest will depend on Your Majesty’s abilities.”
Zhu Helin laughed and scolded, “What a despicable trick, you dare to say it out loud!” Yet he was somewhat tempted.
He and Su Yan had known each other since youth, thoroughly familiar with each other’s dispositions. On one hand, he secretly resented how Su Yan flirted around without restraint; on the other, he felt that beneath that frivolity lay integrity, if pushed past his bottom line, things might end in mutual destruction. The contradiction troubled him.
Fubao apologized, then grinned. “Though this servant is rootless, I still know that matters of the heart follow no logic. Coming together or parting all depends on the feeling of the moment. No matter how firm Lord Su is, if Your Majesty puts in enough patient effort, slowly wearing him down, perhaps he’ll eventually soften.”
Zhu Helin hurled a tribute fruit from a plate at him. Fubao dodged with a laugh and withdrew from the hall.
In a corner of the great hall, Huali and Haitang were tangled together, biting at each other. Perhaps one had bullied the other too much and was finally being counterattacked, Huali let out a string of sharp, almost shrill cries. Zhu Helin jumped in alarm, fearing his beloved cat might be injured, and hurried over to separate them.
Only upon getting close did he see clearly. The Son of Heaven looked at the two mating cats with a complicated expression, then turned away with a “tsk,” thinking resentfully: even cats can get things done, while I can only hug an empty pillow to sleep… what injustice!
Su Yan did not attend Fu Gonggon’s invitation, not out of caution, but because he had become busy again lately and truly had no time.
With May approaching and the date of the nationwide public memorial drawing near, he had to ensure that the various local administrations carried out the arrangements without mishap. Thus, official documents had to be sent out one after another, supervisory censors dispatched one by one, and the secret agents of the Embroidered Uniform Guard mobilized on a large scale in coordination.
The Western painter Ai Huaduo had worked without rest for a month, nearly exhausting himself, and had wanted to complain a little and claim some credit from Su Yan. But when he reached the entrance of Wenyuan Pavilion and took a look, he found Su Yan even more worn out, practically buried beneath the memorials piled on his desk.
Su Yan didn’t feel especially tired, just busy, overwhelmed by countless matters all at once,
Battle reports from Beizhili, Henan, and Shandong kept arriving in the capital: Liao the Madman had shaken off his initial daze from being struck and realized that the combat strength of the capital army led by Yu Chezhi far surpassed that of local garrisons. Thus, under the schemes of his scholar-strategist Shi Sui, the “righteous army” changed tactics and returned to their most adept method, guerrilla warfare, hoping to stretch the battle lines and drag down the massive capital army.
As a result, the recent fighting had become extremely stalemated. In Yu Chezhi’s view, Liao the Madman’s forces were like a pack of rats darting through alleyways, just when they seemed cornered, they would vanish in an instant, impossible to find for a long while, only to suddenly emerge from a gutter and bite viciously at your ankle. It was endlessly frustrating.
Deputy Commander Qi Jingtang suggested capturing the ringleader first. Yu Chezhi replied: how could I not know? This Liao the Madman, I’ve been trying to suppress him on and off for five years. Who knows what ancestral luck he has, he’s escaped capture or death several times, and after catching his breath and lying low for a while, he gathers troops again to stir up trouble. Truly, cutting weeds without removing the roots!
Hearing this, Qi Jingtang fell into thought.
Meanwhile, the Wang brothers roaming within Shandong, under the banner of reinforcing Liao’s forces, had looted several granaries and armories. With tens of thousands of garrison troops in pursuit, they were handling things more deftly than Liao the Madman.
Through believers of the Void Sect responsible for transmitting messages, Liao the Madman repeatedly urged the brothers to hurry and join forces. Wang Wu readily agreed, but then turned to his younger brother Wang Chen and said: our opportunity has come.
Wang Chen had been struck by an arrow in the right side of his ribs during an earlier battle. The arrowhead had lodged between the ribs and could not be removed; later the flesh healed over it, sealing the metal inside his body, leaving the spot intermittently painful and itchy. As he scratched, he scoffed: what opportunity? The chance to be chased by both local garrisons and the capital army?
Wang Wu cast him a sidelong glance. Fool, an opportunity to swallow up Liao the Madman! Do you want to spend your whole life as a mere left or right protector?
Wang Chen knew his elder brother had ambition, and that in recent years it had grown ever more inflated. If they swallowed up Liao’s tens of thousands of troops, the next step would likely be marching on the capital itself.
But who among those who accomplish great things lacks ambition? It’s just that most of the time, people don’t look at the process but only at the outcome, victor becomes king, loser becomes bandit. Wang Wu patted his younger brother on the shoulder. “Are kings, marquises, generals, and ministers born that way? The founding emperor could do it back then, so can we brothers.”
Wang Chen was not as aggressive as his brother, but he did not refuse either. After thinking it over, he felt that the opportunity was indeed rare. If this time Liao the Madman’s luck finally ran out and he fell into the hands of his old enemy Yu Chezhi, then the remaining troops would naturally be absorbed by them without courtesy. So this reinforcement could neither be too early nor too late.
Wang Wu felt his younger brother was becoming more perceptive and was very pleased. But then he heard him suddenly say, seemingly out of nowhere: “I heard that the deputy general in charge this time is surnamed Qi, personally recommended and promoted by that guy. What do you think their relationship is? If I capture that Qi on the battlefield, I’ll have to interrogate him properly… cough, why isn’t he leading troops himself?”
“That guy” and “he” both had specific referents, and the twin brothers understood each other without words. Wang Wu was furious enough to punch his younger brother in the right ribs and curse, “It’s been three years and you’re still thinking about it? You’re hopeless!”
The old wound where the arrowhead was embedded hurt even more, but the itch subsided. Then that itch crept from the old wound into his old heart, turning into a strange, irresistible thought, had he grown into a mature man now, or was he still like a youth? Was he still as before, with fingers carrying a faint scent of ink, and milky-white feet without a single callus?
Wang Wu slammed the door and left the room, leaving behind a hopeless younger brother to continue indulging in fantasies.
Wang Chen thought: If one day he falls into my hands, the first thing I’ll do is… force him to personally dig out the arrowhead lodged between my ribs.
Su Yan had no idea that he was still being remembered by the bandit brothers. But even if he knew, he wouldn’t care much, too many people thought of him, with both goodwill and ill intent. If he had to respond to each one, how could he manage?
Aside from the attention of the current Son of Heaven giving him a headache, the rest hardly counted.
But what Su Yan did not expect was that far away in the Northern Steppe, there was another person thinking of him. This person did not even remember his name or appearance, only in vague dreams and fragmented flashes repeatedly glimpsing the back of a scholar dressed in Central Plains attire.
Aletan, who had unified the Northern Steppe and now reigned as Khan, took the reply letter sent by the newly enthroned emperor of Great Ming and flipped through it again and again on a table covered with colorful felt, searching between the lines for a name that could connect to that vague figure in his memory,
After a long while, Aletan frowned and shook his head. Golden and green beads in his braids clinked softly against each other. He unconsciously reached out to touch the dark green ribbon wrapped around his left arm.
Among the names of the officials listed in the state letter, he had no impression of any of them, and did not know whether the person he sought was among them. Perhaps only when the end of June arrived, before the sacrificial ceremony to Heaven on the grasslands began, and he could see these people in person, would he gain something.
He did not have much time left to live, if he could not find an antidote to the blood poison in time, find the person who had stained his tattoo with their own blood.
Far away at Mount Wulan, the old shaman sent him a piece of sheepskin through a lost hunter. On it, in the form of a shamanic chant, was written:
“Blessed by the sacred tree in the depth of winter,
Forsaken by the sacred tree in the depth of winter,
Three years near their end, three years near their end,
The son of the divine on earth must return to Eternal Heaven.”
It was now early summer, the fourth month. Only eight short months remained until the final deadline of the poison’s onset.
