Chapter 5

In the first days, he called for his brother all night. He called for his mother too.

But the stone door sealed every cry inside.

My heart was petty. Bit by bit, I returned the suffering Pei Wujiu had endured.

When only his last breath remained, he didn't beg me to let him live.

He only smiled.

“Sister-in-law, consider this my last request.”

“Don't let Mother come in to see me.”

Ironically, I had already brought the empress dowager to the door.

She heard both sentences herself and watched him breathe his last.

At last, she went mad.

She rushed into the chamber and clung to his body, crying over and over that she had chosen wrongly.

This time, no one would answer.

She had given birth to twins. She should have been the most fortunate mother in the world.

Instead, she had cast one away with her own hands, then watched the one she chose die.

Knowing her cruelty, Pei Wujiu feared she would strike back before death and intended to deal with her himself.

I raised my hand to stop him.

The charge of killing his mother was too heavy. I wouldn't let him carry it.

I would hold the sword.

She sat in the blood, glaring at me with a face that resembled her sons'.

Through her, I saw Pei Wujiu as a little boy.

She had chosen his younger brother, ruined his face, hidden him in darkness, and forced him to serve as a slave who bore his brother's punishments.

Of course a little child would resent it.

But however deep that resentment, when he hurt he would still want to call for his mother. When hungry, he would still want a mouthful of hot food.

Seeing his brother held close, he too would wish someone might stroke his head and call him a good boy.

Pei Wujiu had told me that as a child, he tested medicine, took punishments, and studied on Zhao Chengyao's behalf.

Once, he had a fever that wouldn't break.

Afraid his illness might spread to her younger son, the empress dowager ordered the hidden chamber locked.

Delirious with fever, he still hugged the policy essay he had copied for his brother.

From that day, he never complained of pain again.

Just thinking of those memories tore at my heart.

I raised the sword.

This stroke was the choice I made for the child who had never once been chosen.

The blade fell.

The false Buddha collapsed in blood and made no further sound.

13

As autumn began, the imperial physician brought a new medicine.

After taking it, Pei Wujiu seemed more energetic by the day.

Before, a few steps had left him breathless. Now he could review memorials until late at night.

I should have been happy.

Instead, my unease grew.

He began teaching me statecraft in earnest, starting with salt, iron, and flood control, then moving to agricultural colonies and the frontier armies.

Even at official banquets, he explained whom I should toast first and which marriage alliances lay behind each man.

He pressed every detail into my mind, piece by piece.

It was painfully clear that he wished to pass on everything he had learned in his life in the shortest possible time.

At last, I couldn't bear it.

I knocked the medicine bowl from his hand.

“I won't learn any more of this.”

He paused. His first reaction was to fear that the broken porcelain might cut me.

He immediately crouched to clear it away.

“My wife is so clever. How can she be lazy?”

As indulgent as ever, he touched my nose and deliberately teased me with an old saying.

“If you won't study when you're young, what will you have to stand on when you're old?”

I stared at the fresh blood staining his cuff.

“Tell me. What medicine is this?”

He didn't answer.

The physician kneeling nearby trembled too hard to say a word.

At last, I understood.

It wasn't medicine to save his life.

It exchanged the years he had left for a brief spell of clarity.

I wanted to stop it at once.

He gently took my hand.

“One less day taking it means one less day I can teach you.”

He looked at me with such longing.

“Qinghe, I truly can't bear it.”

He didn't finish saying what he couldn't bear.

I didn't dare make him.

While he slept, I tucked a talisman into my robe and went alone to the Buddhist shrine.

The first time the tortoiseshell fell, the omen cut off every path to life.

I refused to believe it.

I tried copper coins, then yarrow stalks. Finally, I used the eight characters of his birth.

No matter how I cast the divination, the answer remained a death sentence.

Every road led to the same end.

Kneeling on the cushion, I wept silently and begged every god and Buddha I could name.

Pei Wujiu was the only person in the world who had picked me up from the snow, respected me, loved me, and never truly abandoned me.

Why couldn't someone like him live?

Even if I had to trade my life for his, I wanted only another half a lifetime together.

But the art of exchanging lives had only an even chance of success.

The talisman crumpled in my fist.

Dawn was near. I still hadn't found a way to hide it from him.

The gods remained silent.

Then the shrine door opened, and morning light streamed in.

The deity I had begged all night stood there, his body wasted by illness, still smiling gently at me.

I threw myself into his arms.

The tears I had held back all night finally poured out.

As on that snowy night years ago, he wiped them away and soothed me softly.

“Don't cry, Qinghe.”

Then he took my hand.

“It's your birthday. I've prepared a surprise.”

14

Only then did I remember that today was also the day we had promised to leave the palace.

Pei Wujiu had said that on this birthday, he would take me home.

Now he had indeed come for me.

Yet it felt as though... he had come to say a final goodbye.

He led me into the hall.

Several young advisers knelt below the platform. All were handsome. Each bore some resemblance to him.

He smiled.

“They've all drunk blood wine and sworn binding oaths. They will never betray you.”

He stroked my face, his tone like someone soothing a child.

“Qinghe, you will govern the realm well. And live well for me too. Won't you?”

My heart sank. He wouldn't let me turn away.

“If you're willing, choose one and have a child. Let the child inherit our realm.”

I looked at him in disbelief.

“What about you?”

He embraced me, as though finally releasing the last strength he had struggled to maintain.

He lay across my knees, his voice so faint it might vanish at any moment.

“Make them imperial consorts. Will you?”

Then he lifted his head and had me look at the young faces.

“Aren't they all beautiful?”

Like someone presenting treasures, he raised his chin.

But tears quickly fell.

“I spent so long choosing according to your tastes. No one in the world knows Qinghe better than I do.”

I clutched his robe. My tears fell over his face.

“Pei Wujiu, you're the only one I love.”

He actually smiled like a child.

“Of course I know.”

Then he deliberately teased me.

“That's why I chose men who resemble me. You won't think me too greedy, will you?”

As the words ended, he suddenly vomited a great mouthful of blood, staining my skirt red.

Still trying to smile, he gave me instructions for after he was gone.

“The edict of succession is written.”

“With Qinghe as emperor, I have nothing to worry about.”

At last, as he once had in the palace passage, he coaxed me.

“I'm truly tired this time. Let me be lazy for once. Please?”

I called his name again and again, shaking my head desperately.

In the end, I couldn't keep him.

His cold hand slowly slipped from my cheek.

A smile still lingered at his lips.

“Happy birthday, my wife.”

Everyone in the hall prostrated themselves.

I sat on the imperial throne, holding Pei Wujiu, and said nothing for a very long time.

15

Later, I took the throne according to his last edict and chose imperial consorts from the advisers in the hall.

They helped me stabilize the court and secure the borders.

Over many years, I made the realm Pei Wujiu had placed in my hands into a flourishing age.

On the first night I truly summoned a consort to my bed, every light in the hall suddenly went out.

A wine cup fell to the floor though there was no wind.

A gloomy sigh came from behind the curtains.

“Qinghe, I'm only dead. I haven't divorced you. How can you favor another man in my bedchamber?”

I stared for a long time.

Then I laughed.

“Didn't you choose these men yourself?”

Pei Wujiu's ghost emerged from the darkness, as beautiful as he had been in life.

Seeing that I really meant to send the consort away, he instead advised me quietly.

“A country must have an heir.”

“And you're so clever. Wouldn't it be a pity not to leave a child of your own?”

“I can endure a little grievance. It isn't impossible.”

Having said that, he circled the consorts.

He couldn't hide the jealousy in his voice.

“If you really must choose, choose the one who looks most like me.”

He left me torn between anger and laughter.

But when I did select the gentlest, most refined man, ghostly wails immediately rose outside the window.

An icy wind even swept down the bed curtains.

I could see spirits. Naturally, I knew Pei Wujiu had never left.

At every full moon, I dismissed the palace attendants and extinguished all the lights myself.

Then I stayed with him until dawn.

During those hours when yin energy was strongest, he could finally hold me.

In the darkness, we fulfilled the dream that life had never allowed us to complete.

...

After my daughter was born, Pei Wujiu watched beside her cradle all night.

He complained that she looked nothing like him.

The next day, he found fault with every renowned tutor at court.

When she began to toddle, she always stretched her arms toward corners other people couldn't see.

He followed behind, afraid she might fall, yet worried his cold spirit energy might harm her.

Both arms would reach out, only to stop just before touching her.

Sometimes, I dreamed of the night of the palace coup.

Whenever I woke with a start, a cool hand would cover my eyes.

He still used the same soothing voice as on that snowy night.

“It's all over now.”

After my daughter grew up and took charge of the realm, silver slowly gathered at my temples.

On the night my allotted years came to an end, I struggled to open my eyes.

Pei Wujiu was already standing beside the bed.

He was still young, as he had been when we first met.

Dressed in white, the young man smiled and held out his hand.

“Qinghe, the palace gates are open.”

Beyond them, red pomegranate blossoms filled the trees.

The little yellow dog we had never been able to raise wagged its tail, waiting for us.

He took my hand firmly.

“Qinghe, let's go home.”

I rose beside him.

The palace gates slowly opened before us.

All the long nights we had endured together lay behind us.

Beyond the gates, it was spring.

From now on, through all the years ahead, no one would ever part us again.