Truly, the past did not bear thinking of.

I went on, “But later I was left to do whatever I liked.”

Once, I had been beaten and scolded into studying warcraft and martial arts. When no one was there to compel me or mind me, the very rst thing I felt was unbearable emptiness.

Alas, the past is as eeting as clouds.

Liu Tongyi said, “When I was little, I was in such a hurry to have no one to stop me from reading novels, but now that I can read them openly, I rarely feel as much interest as I did when I was young. Though no life can be perfect, when I occasionally recall my youth, the joys still outweigh the bitterness.”

“You always speak so sensibly, Chancellor Liu,” I praised him.

Smiling, Liu Tongyi said, “Perhaps I have not yet regained my wits after all that counseling. Your Highness must nd it funny.” He drank some more tea, put down his teacup, and stood. “I have disturbed you long enough. I really must take my leave now.”

It was nearly the second watch of the night and much too late, so I made no more polite suggestions that he stay. I stood and saw Liu Tongyi out of the front hall.

 

For some days after, nothing of import took place.

Qizhe did not summon me to the palace. I only went on the Dragon Boat Festival, bearing a gift for the holiday. None of my older royal cousins had come, but my nephews were there in plenty. I sat down to a celebratory banquet in the palace, ate two zongzi, and drank some cups of realgar wine

with a whole crowd, after which I received no imperial command to keep me back for a private audience. I went home after the banquet ended.

The next day, the sixth day of the fth month, I received more news. I spent a long time deliberating on a course of action, then nally wrote a note to Yun Yu. When Yun Yu came, once we came to a place where we could talk privately, he asked whether I had received certain word from Dongbei.

I said that, reasonably speaking, everything ought to be settled in Dongbei, but I had not actually received word of it. I told Yun Yu that I had asked him here for a di erent reason.

The day was sunny and windless. A dry, dense heat had settled in the gazebo. I hesitated brie y, then asked Yun Yu, “Suiya, about the valley in Xinan… do you truly refuse to consider it?”

Yun Yu was fanning himself. When he heard this, he looked at me. I saw something a little strange in his eyes and expression. He had just said “Your Highness, I…” when my mind spun out of control. I cut him o and blurted out, “Suiya, I’m going to tell you the truth. I—I love you.”

Yun Yu, gripping his folding fan, looked at me. The fan did not move. His eyes did not move. His expression did not move. Altogether, he did not move.

I had not planned on saying this, but I’d had a sudden feeling that if I did not say it now, I would never have another chance.

There were many things I wanted to say, yet it also seemed I had nothing to say. My speech faltered. Hesitating again, I said, “Suiya, I only told you to go because I didn’t want you to be in danger. I—I would sooner kill myself than harbor any ulterior motive. Suiya…”

Yun Yu nally moved. He folded his fan. The corners of his mouth quirked up, and he laughed. “Your Highness has spoken of love to many people, and nally my turn has come.”

And just like that, there was absolutely nothing I could say.

And it was true that I had said the same recently to Ransi. I had said these words to two people in total, once to Ransi, once to Yun Yu.

I had always longed for Ransi, but the Ransi I had longed for was not the real Liu Tongyi, but a mirage oating among the clouds, something I had drawn in my mind.

Only when I woke from the dream did I understand what was really good for me.

Looking back over these past years, the one who had joined me in drinking and diversions, who had talked to me and teased me, was Yun Yu.

No one had ever been so close to me before. Now there was only Yun Yu, and perhaps there would never be anyone else.

Sadly, even this truth was a sham. If I had not joined the rebellion under false pretenses, Yun Yu would not have gotten close to me. One might also say that I had tricked Yun Yu into friendship.

After the fteenth day of the fth month, it was bound to all be gone.

I couldn’t think for the moment about what would come after, but I would rather have died myself than seen Yun Yu killed.

Yun Yu was still smiling. In a careless tone, he said, “Your Highness, with major events ahead of us, let us put aside other matters until we can return to them later. I have always said that, while it was fate that made me choose this path, I chose it willingly. Now that I am on it, I will follow it to the end.

It has nothing to do with anyone else. I will always follow Your Highness. I hope Your Highness will soon ascend the throne and command the empire.

And I hope that when that time comes, Your Majesty will not forget the loyalty my father and I have shown today.”

The words “Your Majesty” stabbed my ears like needles.

Yun Yu laughed again. “When that time comes, naturally the harem will be full of beauties of all kinds, and I will not join in to dance attendance and add my own contribution.”

This stabbed my ears even harder. Even if I said to Yun Yu, There could be no one but you, he wouldn’t believe me.

It was true that if I had him, there could have been no one else.

Now I felt as if I was being boiled in a pot of oil in hell, but no one understood.

I clutched Yun Yu’s sleeve. “Suiya, though what I have said today is absurd, it is what I truly feel. I, Jing Weiyi, may not be a good man, but to me, there is nothing to compare to you.”

Yun Yu looked at me. Soon, he chuckled again. “Your Highness is going to make me cry. Do you want to speak to Chancellor Liu again? Are you practicing your performance on me rst?”

I sheepishly released his sleeve. I had been holding on tight, and it was hot. I had broken out in a damp sweat all over, even in the palm of my hand.

I coughed softly and said with a sheepish smile, “Perhaps it is just hot today, and I am dizzy from the heat.”

Yun Yu looked at me earnestly and said, “Then Your Highness ought to rest. The great event is before us. You must look after your health.” He bowed slightly. “If there is nothing else, permit me to take my leave.”

When he turned and left, it made a small breeze. Before I could determine whether it was warm or cool, it was gone.

I strolled back and forth a little in the gazebo, almost letting out a bitter laugh.

It was a good thing that Yun Yu had taken it like this. I had understood him at Yuehua Pavilion. His behavior now meant he was past it. This was how it ought to have been all along.

Only it seemed I really was not fated to love anyone. First it was Ransi, now Yun Yu.

The person who had been closest to me was also growing distant.

Yun Yu was unwilling to leave, but I still had methods available to me.

The present situation was not one to weep over.

Beneath the stagnant water, hidden currents and violent rapids massed.

The waves were about to rise.

 

Yun Yu came again, only to discuss everyone’s movements with me.

On the eighth day of the fth month, provincial governments and military barracks everywhere were poised for action. The Wang and Yun clans had been operating for many years. The depth to which their roots were entrenched and the breadth to which their branches and leaves spread far outstripped my imagination. North, south, east, and west, each prefecture and every province—in virtually all parts of the nation, they had someone they could command. A partition existed between the empire’s civil and military o cials, so they could not interfere with each other. I had thought that Wang Qin and Yun Tang had mainly civil o cials at their disposal. I was slowly realizing now that they could mobilize many soldiers as well.

This spate of uprooting would open up so many ne vacancies from the court to the local governments. I did not know whether the Ministry of

Justice’s prison would be able to hold all of those who vacated them.

On the twelfth day of the fth month, I showed Wang Xuan a tally. I gured that Yun Tang and Wang Qin would be too delighted to sleep that night.

That tally commanded twenty thousand mounted imperial guards in the vicinity of the capital.

Ten thousand palace guards and twenty thousand mounted guards defended the capital. The palace guards could only be mobilized with the emperor’s seal, but the twenty thousand mounted guards were under joint control by the commander in chief, the minister of war, and a number of other o cials in important military posts. The Minister of War and Commander in Chief Li Jian each had half of an emergency tally that could make up a whole. In an emergency situation, that tally could temporarily mobilize the whole force.

At the end of the fourteenth day of the fth month, the night sky was wide, the stars were bright, and the moon was just a sliver from full. When the night watches began, Huai Manor was very quiet. The whole capital must have been very quiet.

I did not know how many pairs of eyes, like mine, were watching the moon, waiting for the new day to begin at the Hour of the Rat.

C

S

At the Hour of the Rat, I saw a rework go up in the southeast of the capital.

This was the signal to begin.

According to my arrangements with Yun Tang and Wang Qin, at the Hour of the Rat, with reworks as a signal, Minister of War Cheng Bo and Yun Tang’s nephew Yun Huan would head ten thousand soldiers as they took the area around the capital. Li Jian and Wang Xuan would lead ten thousand more into the city and join Wang Qin’s three thousand palace guards.

It was precisely because of those three thousand palace soldiers that I had made use of the twenty thousand mounted guards at the risk of being implicated.

I really had no idea what kind of foolishness that idiot woman the empress dowager had been getting up to these last few years. Before Qizhe’s personal rule had begun, she had outwardly yielded to me and the other old imperial uncles while secretly excluding us. She took those of us with the surname Jing to be untrustworthy and had assumed she could rely upon those with her own family name. And that old goose Prince Jia was steadfast to a fault; he’d put on a spectacle of loyalty at a critical juncture. He had only three thousand palace guards under his command, and after his squabble with this house sparrow, he transferred his power over those three thousand to the empress dowager, resigned his post, and went home to write poetry.

Neither side gained by his action. He had wept bloody tears of indignation, and I’d spat blood from an internal wound.

To no one’s great surprise, when it came time for Qizhe to take up the reins of power, those three thousand palace guards were seized by the empress dowager’s family and did not come under Qizhe’s control. The empress dowager’s family, like herself, had neither the moral ber to be loyal nor the wit to be traitors. Those guards became Wang Qin’s for the taking.

As thirty thousand soldiers were stationed in the capital, three thousand palace guards were insu cient to take the palace easily. So Yun Tang and Wang Qin had held out for many years.

Minister of War Cheng Bo was leaving o ce and retiring at the end of the year. Li Jian would also be transferred elsewhere.

Those who had done battle alongside my father and lived through the reign of three emperors were all now getting on in years.

To the court and the people, it was a blessing that there had been no war for many years. The sole modest drawback was that conditions did not exist to create a general to whose command tens of thousands of soldiers would willingly submit.

With Cheng Bo and Li Jian respectively retiring and leaving, it was truly hard to say whose hands command over the mounted guards would fall into.

Even I had heard it said that the minor military o cials were always locked in combat with each other, and it was a good thing Li Jian was there to keep control of the situation.

The worst outcome was that his successor would fail to keep control, and true power would ebb away bit by bit, creating an opportunity for others to exploit.

Yun Tang and Wang Qin’s years of patient waiting had been in expectation of just this opportunity.

Grand Tutor Yun’s pupils could be found throughout the court and the commons. There was little overlap in the scope of authority of civil and military o cials, which made it convenient for them to cooperate; everyone who had ever served in an o cial capacity understood this. If Yun Tang’s pupils colluded with the minor military o cials, in the future it might mean not merely three thousand palace guards, but soldiers numbering in the tens of thousands.

Although, to Yun Tang and Wang Qin, this game piece posed no small danger.

So, with Cheng Bo and Li Jian’s unwillingness to hand over power as a pretext, I had used the near certainty of taking those twenty thousand mounted troops as bait; Yun Tang and Wang Qin were naturally beside themselves with joy.

According to our arrangements, with ten thousand mounted guards and three thousand palace guards acting together inside and out, at the Hour of the Ox, I would arrive in front of the palace, lead an assault, capture Qizhe, and seize the throne.

 

It was more than halfway to the Hour of the Ox, past midnight. I was fully dressed, prepared to go out.

What Yun Tang and Wang Qin did not know was that at this very moment, the o cials who had been ready to rise in answer to this rebellion would already be bound or executed. During the banquet for the Dragon Boat Festival, numerous princes had been absent because they had already left the capital. Only Prince Zong would be left. The list I had given Yun

Tang and Wang Qin of people to join in the conspiracy contained nothing but ministers who were loyal heart and soul.

The emperor and empress dowager should not have doubted me so much, and Yun Tang and Wang Qin should not have thought so highly of me.

Total Muster Tally? Secret power? It was all fake. In reality I was empty-handed. I hadn’t a shred of power. I’d had to ask for favors, get help to make this happen.

What these people had sworn to serve with loyalty unto death was not my departed father, and not any military tally, but the empire of the Jing family and its lasting peace.

 

I was now to go openly to meet Yun Tang and Wang Qin. I would have to carry on the performance of rebellion a little longer.

I changed into a casual robe, hung a sword from my belt, and led a group to the rear courtyard, ready to mount and head out. Suddenly, a series of thumps came from atop the rear courtyard wall, and a few people tumbled down.

My attendants drew their weapons. From the shadow at the base of the wall came a weak voice: “Your Highness.”

It was Yun Yu’s voice. I stepped forward quickly. Yun Yu’s face was sickly pale in the moonlight. My heart tightened, and I hastily said, “Suiya?”

Yun Yu had a hand pressed to his left arm. Softly, he said, “Your Highness, I am afraid things have gone awry.”

Gone awry? I distinctly recalled arranging with Prince Zong that the time to act would be when we rushed the palace, when Yun Tang and the others were all out in the open. Why had things gone awry now? Had Li Jian been too impetuous?

Yun Yu laughed bitterly. “Perhaps… information got out through the imperial guards… In the palace and the city… there were ambushes laid… As for the mounted guards, they too…”

It appeared that Qizhe had made his own provisions in addition to Prince Zong’s.

“The situation is hopeless,” Yun Yu said slowly. “There is no chance of success. Those are all Jing Qizhe’s men outside.”

“Grand Tutor Yun and Wang Qin…?” I asked.

Yun Yu said nothing.

The faint sounds of ghting outside the walls gradually intensi ed. Yun Yu laughed very softly. “I never thought Your Highness and I really would die together.”

I grabbed hold of his sleeve. “Not necessarily.”

 

Pulling Yun Yu after me, I hastened onto the oating walkway leading to the waterside pavilion.

I had left all the manor’s people in the courtyard to put up a show of resistance. In the silence, there was only myself and Yun Yu.

In the waterside pavilion, I groped in the dark and took two lanterns from a bookshelf. I got out a re stick and lit one of them, passed it to Yun Yu, then pushed the bookshelf. With a creak, a trapdoor opened.

Holding the lantern, Yun Yu stood at the edge of the trapdoor. “So Your Highness was prepared.”

“How could I do a risky thing like this without leaving myself an escape?”

I said.

Carrying the other lantern, I slowly went down a ight of earthen steps into the opening. Yun Yu followed me. I ipped a mechanism on the right-

hand wall, closing the trapdoor.

The long ight of steps extended downward. Taking the stairs for long periods was di cult for me. Taking them one step at a time, the descent was interminable. Yun Yu said, “Do these stairs go to the bottom of the lake?”

“Precisely,” I said.

When we came down the nal step, ahead of us was a winding path, so dark it seemed to have no end.

At a bend in the passage, I picked up a bundle. “This contains water, dry provisions, and money. We’ll go slowly. The path is a long one.”

 

Yun Yu hardly said a word the whole way.

The other lantern had to be kept in reserve, and the single burning one wasn’t very bright. It only lit the path a few paces ahead. The swaying ame made the shadows sway as well. The sound of our breathing was unusually clear.

Yun Yu’s left arm had been injured and hastily bandaged. Blood was still seeping through the bandages.

I didn’t know what to say to him. Anything I said would be false.

I very much wanted to ask Yun Yu why he had come to me. Yun Tang and Wang Qin must also have left themselves means of escape. Since Yun Yu had been able to ee, why would he have come to Huai Manor?

Originally, I had planned to use this passage after I had met Yun Tang and the others and left to Prince Zong the righteous work of eradicating the rebels. I would feign ight, taking Yun Yu with me by this path.

After walking for some unknown length of time, Yun Yu’s footsteps faded.

I asked if he was tired, and Yun Yu nodded. He lowered himself to the

ground, supporting himself with his right arm. In the lamplight, he bent his head and closed his eyes.

I was concerned that he had other injuries besides the one to his arm. I took his hand and felt his pulse.

Yun Yu opened his eyes. “Your Highness knows how to take a pulse?”

“At least I should be able to tell if it’s strong or weak, fast or slow,” I said.

Yun Yu laughed softly and pulled his hand away.

I looked for something else to say to him. “I’ve only taken this path once.

It really feels as if it never ends.”

“Just as well if it doesn’t,” Yun Yu said calmly.

I looked intently at him. Yun Yu turned his eyes to look at me. “Is Your Highness afraid that Jing Qizhe’s men will nd this place and come after us?”

He closed his eyes again. He seemed weary. “Just as well if they do.”

 

After a brief rest, we continued on ahead. I told Yun Yu the history of this secret passage in ts and starts.

An ancestor of my father’s mother’s family, that is to say of my great-grandfather, had made his living as a bricklayer. This ancestor had saved enough money that he was able to contribute in a famine year to secure his family rights to a bureaucratic post. Unexpectedly, among his descendants, a scholar did emerge to succeed in the imperial examinations. Gradually, his descendants took on more and more important positions until my great-grandfather’s day; he obtained a government position very much in line with his ancestral occupation—Minister of Revenue.

My great-grandfather was a timid and cautious man. He thought that having risen to this post, with his daughter in the palace as a consort, his

family’s fortunes had reached their peak, and after this would come the so-called decline following prosperity. In order to keep the family line from ending, he wanted to create an escape route.

Though his way of creating an escape route was rather a little unusual. He drew an architectural plan himself and began work on excavating this secret passage.

First, he dug a big lake in his rear courtyard. At the heart of the lake, he built an island. Then he had the secret passage travel under the lake to leave the manor.

This secret passage was very long, and it had to be built in secret. He anonymously purchased some houses along the planned route. At di erent times, he brought in groups of workers to dig in each house. The diggers thought it was an ordinary tunnel and had no idea where it led. When the passage was nally complete, he had the holes in those houses lled in. Only the exit and the entrance on the island in the center of the lake remained.

Digging this passage was very hard going. The work was only nished after he passed. When my father’s maternal uncle resigned his post and retired to the country, he left the house to my father. It was then expanded and renovated into Huai Manor.

This was a long story. I told it in snatches and bursts. Occasionally we stopped to rest our feet and drink a bit of water, eat a few bites.

When I nished the story, I guessed that we should be close to the exit.

Sure enough, after a few more turns, the clay brick walls on either side gave way to limestone brick, and the passage narrowed until it was just wide enough for a single person to pass. After another two or three turns, it abruptly opened out again.

Yun Yu hoisted the lantern to illuminate our surroundings. He and I were standing in a square stone room with faint writing on one wall.

“I don’t suppose Your Highness’s great-grandfather left behind a treasure map or a tell-all,” said Yun Yu. He went to the wall and lifted the lantern to look. The writing was coated with dust but still legible.

There were two lines of writing carved into the wall.

The rst was written in a beautiful, free- owing hand. It said: The world is wide. Freedom lies beyond. It must have been written by my great-grandfather or great-uncle.

The other line was strong and vigorous. Those who make use of this room must re ect, be chastened, and strive for better. I knew at a glance that this handwriting belonged to my father, the previous Prince Huai.

I reached out to press down on the stone table at the center of the room.

The part of the wall with the writing about the wide world slowly revolved like a door, revealing a gap.

Yun Yu and I passed through the stone door together. Before us was another passage. I shut the door and said to Yun Yu, “Now there is no turning back, even if we wanted to. The doors in this tunnel, except for the one in the waterside pavilion, only open one way.”

At the end of the passage was a ight of steps, winding up.

At the top of these was another room. I ipped the mechanism and pushed open the hidden door in the wall. When we stepped out, the stone door rumbled closed behind us. Above our heads came the sound of apping wings; this seemed to be made by bats and some variety of large moth.

Ahead of us was the hazy gleam of moonlight.

 

This was a cave halfway up a small mountain near the capital. Holding Yun Yu by the sleeve, I left the cave. It was still dark. The lantern ame attracted winged insects and moths, which clustered around it. As soon as we left the mouth of the cave, Yun Yu extinguished the lantern.

I took him by a small path skirting a cli face. By moonlight, the way was just visible. At the end of the cli face, the path zigzagged straight up, narrow and precipitous. One had to choose one’s steps carefully, but one could not be too slow. It took us high up. When we looked back at the capital, half the sky was glowing a dim ery red.

I did not know what the situation was there, whether the emperor had purged Yun Tang, Wang Qin, and the other rebels, whether he had sent soldiers in pursuit of Yun Yu. My servants only knew that I had taken Yun Yu to an inner courtyard, but a number of attendants had been keeping an eye on the people who had come with Yun Yu. They likely had no idea that I had taken him to the waterside pavilion. Even if someone guessed there was a secret passage in Huai Manor, it would still take time to search for it.

I did not know whether Prince Zong had reported my part in this to Qizhe. Probably he would have a hard time explaining why I had run away with Yun Yu.

The fact that I was a spy was known only to Prince Zong.

I had no power of my own, no basis on which to plot with Yun Yang and Wang Qin. I’d had to rely on outside help.

But Qizhe of all people couldn’t know about it. There were too many eyes and ears in the palace; something would get out. I had to go to Prince Zong.

None of my father’s old comrades-in-arms liked me. They thought I had thoroughly disgraced the title of Prince Huai. If I said a rebellion was brewing, they wouldn’t believe me; but they would accord Prince Zong a

certain degree of deference. If Prince Zong investigated the ins and outs of the rebellion, they would believe it.

Outwardly, Prince Zong would act, deliberate with the emperor and the honest o cials on how to quell the internal strife; but in secret, I would be the one really taking action.

In borrowing those twenty thousand mounted guards, I had taken a particular risk.

Cheng Bo and Li Jian were both devoted heart and soul to the emperor; no one but Qizhe could mobilize those twenty thousand mounted guards.

But I needed them to lure out Yun Tang and Wang Qin. For lack of other options, I had to say to Prince Zong, Go report to His Majesty that Prince Huai wants to usurp the throne and intends to take Huai Manor’s military tally to Cheng Bo and Li Jian, and would His Majesty please order Cheng Bo and Li Jian to play along for the moment.

Originally, I could have demonstrated my innocence by changing sides at the last moment when it came time for the assault on the palace. But now, in order to protect Yun Yu, I had to set all that aside for the moment.

 

At the end of the path was the mountaintop, and on the mountaintop was a thatched cottage.

I opened the door to the cottage, then felt around and pulled a wooden box out from under the bed facing the door. To Yun Yu I said, “There are clothes, shoes, and supplies here. Take the path down the mountain, and there will be a place to buy horses by the roadside.”

In a calm voice, Yun Yu said, “Where will we be met?”

I took out a map and put it in Yun Yu’s hands. “Follow the route on this map. It will be hard for the emperor’s soldiers to pursue you. You can keep

this.”

Yun Yu folded up the map and put it away.

Then I took out a jade pendant and gave it to him too. “When you reach Xuzhou, there will be someone to meet you. Go to Yuan Alley and nd Yuan San’s wineshop. You’ll have to produce this jade token in order to get to the place in Xinan.”

Yun Yu put the jade pendant away too.

“Get changed,” I said, “I’ll go have a look around.”

I left the cottage and stood at the cli edge. To the east there was already a faint burst of blue. Soon it would be daybreak.

I was deliberating whether I ought to go with Yun Yu, or stay.

Sooner or later, Yun Yu had to know that I was a spy. I couldn’t bear to think about how he would take it when he found out.

I only wished to keep him safe as long as I lived, whether he hated me or wanted to kill me.

I had done what I had to as a loyal courtier. The throne was Qizhe’s, and so was the empire.

To the best of my ability, I had done right by Qizhe.

Now there was no one in my heart but Suiya.

 

I heard footsteps behind me. I looked back. It was Yun Yu. He hadn’t changed his clothes. He came up beside me.

I frowned. “Suiya, why have you…”

Looking toward the horizon, Yun Yu said, “Too bad that this e ort fell through at the last moment. I wonder when it will be possible to make another attempt.”

I laughed bitterly. “I don’t suppose it will ever be possible.”

Yun Yu turned to look at me. “Isn’t this escape route a secret game piece?”

I didn’t end up telling him that I had been a spy. I only sighed and said, “I risked everything on this single throw, committed all my people. This escape route was only meant to save my life.”

I looked at him with profound intensity. “Suiya, would you be willing from here on out to live with me, as ordinary commoners, secluded from the world?”

Yun Yu looked again at the horizon. With a soft sigh, he said, “My thanks to Your Highness for the favor you have shown me, but I…”

I was just about to tell him there was no reason to be so formal, when suddenly Yun Yu moved. There was a ash of light in front of my eyes as a sword wrapped in the cool, thin air of dawn came to a halt next to my neck.

I froze. Firelight blazed up all around me.

Behind the cottage and among the trees, countless torches seemed to light up in an instant, and countless clusters of black gures appeared as if through stagecraft. In the blink of an eye, they had me and Yun Yu surrounded.

In the wind on the mountaintop, Yun Yu’s sleeve ew upward as his hand held the sword. The armed soldiers parted, and two people slowly emerged from the crowd. One, dressed in imperial robes, with the imperial crown on his head, was my nephew Qizhe. The other, wearing a dark blue robe of o ce, his expression calm, was Liu Tongyi.

I heard Liu Tongyi’s voice say, “Rebel prince Jing Weiyi, there is no escape. Submit and be apprehended.”

Qizhe looked my way with inexplicable apprehension and concern in his eyes.

Could it be that Yun Yu had realized I was a spy, and in order to protect me, Qizhe and Ransi were putting on an act?

My hand moved of its own accord. Then I heard Qizhe blurt something out apprehensively—

“A-Yu, look out!”

 

My vision blurred.

Among the crowd, I could not nd Prince Zong.

Yun Yu’s smile was very clear in the relight. “Your Highness Prince Huai, will you surrender yourself, or will I use my sword while you pull me over the cli edge so we can meet our ends together?”

I had just realized that the place Yun Yu and I were standing was extremely close to the edge. If I grabbed hold of him and leapt, we would fall o the cli together.

Qizhe slowly said, “Jing Weiyi, as you are our imperial uncle, if you surrender, we will show mercy and let you live.”

The silence around us seemed to last a lifetime.

I closed my eyes and sighed. “Even an insect clings to life. I hope that Your Majesty can follow through.”

I opened my eyes and said to Yun Yu, “Supervisor Yun, it is very dangerous for us to stand so close to the edge. If one of us loses his footing, we’ll go plummeting down. My death would be more than merited, but the account does not balance with you added in. Let us back away a little. If His Majesty does not trust me, he can order a soldier to come forward and bind me. Then Supervisor Yun can lower his sword.”

There was another silence. Then two of the soldiers dashed forward and bound me tightly. The sword was nally lowered.

I saw Yun Yu toss the sword away and turn toward the crowd. Qizhe took a step forward. In the relight, their eyes met.

The expression on Yun Yu’s face and in his eyes changed. I had never seen him with such an expression.

Qizhe took another step forward. “A-Yu, is your arm wounded?”

He raised his hand. Yun Yu took a step back and looked at him. The relight shone in his eyes. Then he cast down his gaze. “Your Majesty, I have done all that I promised to do. I hope that Your Majesty will also remember what you once promised me.”

Qizhe looked into his eyes. “We never go back on our promises. We promised you that we would not kill Yun Tang.”

We’re in public, and you two are making eyes at each other. Shouldn’t you show a little restraint?

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” said Yun Yu. “As the son of a treasonous minister, would it not be appropriate by law for me to be taken to the Ministry of Justice’s prison to await trial as well?”

Qizhe sighed. “Why must you always be so…” Perhaps it would have been unsuitable for him to nish this lament in front of so many people. He swallowed it, then said, “It is through your contribution that the rebel prince Jing Weiyi has been apprehended. We have always been fair in meting out reward and punishment.”

“It was Chancellor Liu’s stratagem,” said Yun Yu. “I would not dare claim all the credit for myself.”

The relight, the soldiers, and myself, all relegated to a secondary position, seemed a little super uous.

Qizhe turned and looked at me. He frowned. “Jing Weiyi, we have never understood why you would rebel. Even if your rebellion succeeded,

according to the traditional strictures handed down from our ancestors, you would be unable to occupy the throne with your physical defect.”

“In this world, the victor is king. There are no de nite strictures to obey.

As for the traditional stricture that one with a physical defect cannot be emperor, if the ancients could decide it, why can it not be changed today?

Why can a cripple like me not be emperor?”

Qizhe raised his eyebrows. “You have always thought very highly of yourself, Imperial Uncle.”

“You are too kind, Imperial Nephew,” I said.

 

There was a fetid chill in the Ministry of Justice’s prison.

My cell was not an ordinary one. A single door led to a passage with guards stationed down its length and four cells opening onto it. I had been taken to the innermost one.

The cell was spacious enough, with a brick bed against one wall, which was fully supplied with bedding. There was a wooden table in the middle of the cell, and only a single ventilation hole in the wall. The cell had no window, so no way of telling time. An oil lamp burned, a deep yellow, shedding insu cient light.

In a corner was a commode with nothing to screen it from view. There was no way to avoid being observed during urination and bowel movements.

I had been stripped of my outer robe and dressed in prisoner’s garb. My hands and feet were both fettered. The iron chains were as thick as table legs. The end of the chain from the fetters on my feet was nailed fast to the wall between the end of the bed and the commode. The length of the chain

was perfectly calculated: just long enough to let me sleep, use the commode, and eat at the table. Beyond the table, it would not reach.

When I had spent about half a day in prison and the light coming through the ventilation hole was still bright, I had a visitor.

Unexpectedly, this was Chu Xun.

I hadn’t thought he would come, and even be the rst. I was a rebel and newly arrested. What kind of connections had he called in to come see me?

Chu Xun stood outside the bars looking at me from a distance. I stood up from the bed and walked a couple of steps forward, dragging my fetters. “A-Mi, what are you doing here? I’m a traitor now. You should go.”

Chu Xun’s expression was unreadable in the dim light. “Your Highness, when I look at you now, an expression comes to mind.”

I stared at him. “What?”

Slowly, Chu Xun said, “Heaven’s net has wide meshes, but nothing escapes it.”

Chu Xun said, “Your Highness, I have told Chancellor Liu of the location in your bedroom where the secret letters and accounts are hidden, and I have given him the key. I made a mold of it when I was at the manor.”

Chu Xun said, “Prince Huai, did you think I wouldn’t guess who it was that forced me to enter Twilight House? Just because I refused to atter you, with a crook of the nger, you left me no choice but to become a prostitute.”

I was silent.

So this was what Chu Xun had thought all along.

“Since you guessed,” I said, “would it not have been faster to kill me in bed?”

Chu Xun sneered. “How could I let you o that easy? I wanted to see you su er the wrath of heaven, to take your just punishment! I should be dead. I

should have died when I went to Twilight House. These last couple of years, I haven’t considered myself a human being; I have done inhuman things. At last I’ve lived to see this day!”

 

After Chu Xun left, when the light in the ventilation hole had disappeared then returned, Qili, Qizheng, Qiqian, Qifei, and my other imperial and royal nephews came one after another to see me.

Qifei and Qitan were the rst wave.

I remember that over a decade ago, just after my father’s death, when I fell o a horse and broke my leg, Qitan and the other children often called out, “Lame Little Imperial Uncle! Lame Little Imperial Uncle!” and pretended to limp as they followed me around.

I was young then and couldn’t help but nd these sights and sounds unpleasant. My mother told me that the malice of children was innocent.

Later, I went to the palace one day with an oxhorn pendant my father had brought back hanging from my belt. The little princes tailing after me eyed it avidly. While I passed down a corridor, Qitan jumped out from behind a pillar, crouched at my feet, grabbed the oxhorn pendant, and looked at me with wide eyes. “I want it.”

So I untied the pendant. Qitan smiled happily, showing o a missing front tooth, and extended his hands. “Thank you, Lame Little Imperial Uncle.”

I raised my hand with the pendant in it. “What did you call me?”

Qitan stood on tiptoe, desperately trying to reach high enough. Then he grabbed hold of my robe and blinked. “Thank you, Little Imperial Uncle.”

I handed him the pendant. Qitan took it delightedly and even let me pat him on the head.

This was how I had bought o most of my imperial nephews bit by bit.

Now I was in the imperial prison, yet they still did not avoid me, and came to visit and called me “Imperial Uncle.” Even if it was just for old times’ sake, I still thought it had been worth it.

Qitan was repeatedly saying to me, “Imperial Uncle, why did you have to revolt? Why did you have to revolt…?” Over and over, countless times. He probably could not think of anything to say apart from this.

Qifei sighed and said, “After Eldest Imperial Uncle was shot with an arrow, he pleaded with His Majesty. He told my imperial brother not to kill you no matter what. The old fellow stopped a sniper’s arrow for His Majesty, and the arrow was poisoned. Now his life hangs in the balance. No one knows whether he will wake. For Eldest Imperial Uncle’s sake, my imperial brother will probably show you a bit of lenience…”

So that was it. Prince Zong had been shot and was unconscious. Heaven really did seem to be toying with me.

When they had been there quite some time, Qifei hesitantly stammered out, “Imperial Uncle, about Yun… and… I thought you knew.”

I couldn’t answer. Lowering his voice, Qifei said, “Oh, Imperial Uncle, why didn’t you think? Yun Tang is the grand tutor, and Yun Yu often played with us when we were little. There was a suggestion once that Yun Yu should be my imperial brother’s study companion. I think it must have been my imperial brother who brought it up. But Yun Yu is older than him, so it never panned out.”

“It isn’t just Imperial Uncle,” said Qitan. “We played together all the time, and I had no idea. Not everyone is as perceptive as you. Now that I think about it, it’s true. Those knickknacks from Imperial Uncle’s house—when he presented them to our imperial brother, he gave them all to that one.”

Yun Yu really had sometimes come to Huai Manor with my imperial and royal nephews in the past, but I hadn’t taken much notice then. Now that I thought about it, Qizhe wasn’t particularly interested in ornaments. Perhaps he was always staring at them because Yun Yu wanted them.

So it was a predestined love between innocent playmates.

We could not speak further about this, so we sat in silence awhile, and then Qifei and Qitan left. Just as he was leaving, Qitan said to me, “Imperial Uncle, my imperial brother said he won’t kill you. When they question you, don’t say anything. Repent sincerely. We’ll plead with our imperial brother, and maybe…”

“What’s done is done,” I said. “It is too late to speak of repentance.”

Qifei and Qitan looked at me again, then left, sighing heavily.

 

When the light in the ventilation hole was gone again and I was dipping dry mantou buns in water, a crowd of guards clustered around a person appeared outside the bars of my cell and opened the cell door.

I put down the dry mantou and looked up. “Chancellor Liu.”

The clerk behind Liu Tongyi held a rectangular lacquer tray with brush, ink, inkstone, and a stack of paper laid out on it. Smiling, I said, “Chancellor Liu, you’re having me sign my name and make my mark without interrogating me at trial?”

Liu Tongyi motioned for the clerk to set the lacquer tray on the table. The clerk withdrew from the cell along with the guards. Liu Tongyi sat down at the table across from me.

“So Chancellor Liu is planning a nocturnal interrogation of the traitor.”

I put the bowl and plate on the table onto the oor, straightened my clothes, and said with a smile, “Go ahead and ask whatever you’d like,

Chancellor Liu.”

Liu Tongyi looked at me in the lamplight. Slowly, he said, “I could never understand why Your Highness would want to rebel.”

“Chancellor Liu,” I said, “ask whatever you’d like to know directly. There’s no need to be too subtle. You have known about my plans for a long time.

How could you have failed to guess the reason?”

He must have worked it out in order to be certain that I would rebel. He could only draw up a plan once he was certain.

When Yun Tang and Wang Qin came to me seeking a co-conspirator, when Yun Yu rst approached me, Liu Tongyi was not yet imperial chancellor. Perhaps it was because of this very stratagem that he had attained his position.

Liu Tongyi said, “When Wang Qin secretly obtained command over those palace guards, His Majesty became aware of his intent to rebel. Later he found evidence that Yun Tang was also involved and intended to rope in Your Highness. I was chamberlain of the Court of Judicial Review at the time and investigated this matter at His Majesty’s bidding.”

“So you presented this stratagem and arranged this game, planned it for years. With Yun Yu as a game piece.”

Liu Tongyi looked at me quietly. After a while, he inclined his head slightly. “Yes, having a planted agent was my decision.”

I sighed and said, “If I had known of this before, when I longed for you, I ought to have washed my head, cut it o , and presented it to you on a platter. Perhaps you might have spared me a look. It would have saved many people trouble.”

Liu Tongyi said nothing.

“Chancellor Liu’s investigation into my hobby was very precise. Thank you for arranging to give me Chu Xun. In order to eradicate my cabal, you had Yun Yu feign friendship with me for so many years, and sent Chu Xun to Twilight House. In bed and out of bed, I have been well looked after.”

Finally Liu Tongyi’s expression became troubled. “I didn’t send Chu Xun to you.”

With his a ections at Mount Wu engaged, what needs King Xiang in dreams to seek Jiangnan? ” I said. “Thank you for the gift of those words, Chancellor Liu.”

With his a ections at Mount Wu engaged, what needs King Xiang in dreams to seek Jiangnan? When he said those words to me that day in the waterside pavilion, what had Liu Tongyi’s intentions been?10

Liu Tongyi didn’t say a word. After a long moment, he nally said, “I really didn’t send Chu Xun to you. Though I am not nice about my tactics, I still would not sink to such a ploy.”

“It is meaningless to quibble about it now. I am a prisoner. The guilty must be punished. There is only one thing I still do not understand. How did His Majesty and Chancellor Liu know about the exit to that secret passage?”

Liu Tongyi and Yun Yu had each gone to the waterside pavilion just once.

They could not have known of the secret passage.

Liu Tongyi said that the princess had told the empress dowager about that secret passage long ago, and the empress dowager in turn had told the emperor.

So it was while the princess was brooding and having daily clandestine liaisons in the waterside pavilion that she had inadvertently discovered the

secret passage. Perhaps the father of the child in the princess’s belly had even escaped that way.

I sighed. “How thorough you were. There really was no escape for me.”

 

I picked up my bowl of water from the oor and wet my throat. “Didn’t you want to know why I wanted to usurp the throne? I recall telling you that in my youth I read books on warcraft, that there were high hopes placed on me. Later, I fell o a horse and broke my left leg, leaving it lame, and those hopes vanished. Everyone thought I was a hopeless case. Everyone thought that Jing Weiyi had thoroughly disgraced the title of Prince Huai. So I wanted to do something great so the whole world would know that, even with a physical defect, I could still accomplish a great task.”

All that had come before stemmed from those vain delusions, the foolish conceits of a cripple. Suddenly I was a little afraid that Prince Zong would wake. In the present, at least I was a scheming prince who had made an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to usurp the throne. If the truth were revealed, what would I have left? Nothing at all. I would be a clown with nothing to my name.

I took the stack of papers and ipped through them. They were lled with criminal charges. One after another—however you looked at it, this was an unpardonable evil.

I took up the brush, dipped it in ink, and signed my full name. With my hands manacled, holding the brush was a little awkward. When I had signed, I left my ngerprint as well.

“Chancellor Liu, I have confessed everything. You can rest easy and go report the success of your mission.”

Liu Tongyi stood. The clerk entered, took the confession, and lifted the tray.

Though standing, Liu Tongyi did not leave. “Does Chancellor Liu have something else to ask?” I said.

“Isn’t there anything else Your Highness would like to say?” asked Liu Tongyi.

“No,” I said. “I’ve said everything I ought to.”

Liu Tongyi still did not leave. Smiling, I said, “Does Chancellor Liu think I am still concealing something? Supervisor Yun took my very last little fallback. If you do not believe that, you can go investigate.”

Liu Tongyi said softly, “I didn’t send Chu Xun to you, and I didn’t know that Supervisor Yun was the planted agent.”

What di erence did it make?

“And so what if you did?” I said. “Morally speaking, in order to apprehend the rebel prince Jing Weiyi, you were perfectly justi ed in doing so. It was a matter of course.”

Again, Liu Tongyi did not speak. At last he turned and left.

 

I went to lie in bed and nally ended up falling asleep. When I opened my eyes, I didn’t know what time it was. I poured some water from an earthen jar and drank it. Some guards brought in a few dishes and said that Imperial Chancellor Liu had instructed that they be prepared. I was served a bowl of hot porridge and two or three side dishes, not especially ne but good enough, and all suited to my tastes.

Had I known it would be like this, I would have asked to sign the confession earlier to spare myself some meals consisting of mantou.

When I was full and sitting up in bed to digest, a number of personal guards and a jailer slowly approached my cell following someone who came to a standstill outside the bars.

It was Yun Yu.

The guards opened the cell door, and Yun Yu came in. He raised a hand to wave all his attendants out the door.

I smiled at him. “Supervisor Yun.”

Yun Yu smiled too. “Has Your Highness been well?” From his tone he might have been greeting me on a regular visit to Huai Manor.

“Naturally, prison isn’t as comfortable as home,” I said.

Yun Yu sat on a small bench beside the table. “That’s certainly frank, Your Highness.”

He looked intently at me with a small smile hovering at the corners of his lips. “His Majesty has seen the confession that Your Highness signed last night.”

“I see,” I said.

“At the morning court assembly,” said Yun Yu, “the o cials earnestly requested that His Majesty put Your Highness to death. But His Majesty promised that he would spare Your Highness’s life, and he is not prepared to go back on his word. There are now two paths open to Your Highness, though that will have to wait until all matters are complete, when Prince Zong has recovered consciousness, and the valley and Xuzhou have been investigated.”

Presumably Yun Yu had come today representing my nephew the emperor to tell me of those two paths and let me choose one.

Smiling, I said, “I wonder what those two paths are. What witty arrangements my imperial nephew has made, having Chancellor Liu bring

me the confession and ordering Supervisor Yun to show me the way forward.”

“Not so witty as Your Highness’s remark,” said Yun Yu. “Of the two paths, one is to send you to live in a quiet and tasteful spot, though a bit small and with rather a lot of servants, and the servants might not suit Your Highness’s liking.”

This was house arrest for life.

Yun Yu went on: “The second path is to ask Your Highness to re ect upon your wrongs and ultimately have a great awakening. Pufang Temple is located in the capital’s suburbs. Upon entering that pure sanctuary, all your earthly burdens would be laid down.”

So they wanted me to shave my head and become a monk.

“I can lay them down,” I said, “but I’m afraid there will be too many young monks in the temple for the abbot to feel comfortable.”

“Do not worry, Your Highness,” said Yun Yu. “This temple was established especially for you. There will be no one to provoke Your Highness’s worldly impulses.”

This was also house arrest, just house arrest after shaving my head. I would probably have more space to roam, the run of a whole temple, instead of being locked up in a single set of rooms.

“So the choice is whether I would prefer to be able to move freely at the cost of a vegetarian diet. What a di cult decision. Permit me to consider this more carefully.”

“There is no rush,” said Yun Yu. “It will take some time for everything to be appropriately investigated. Your Highness can think about it.”

He paused, then raised his eyebrows. “From Your Highness’s witticism earlier, I take it you must be angry at me.”

“No,” I said sincerely.

 

Yun Yu’s conduct toward me had been no di erent from mine toward him.

To him, I was a traitor, and he was righteous. He had been perfectly justi ed in what he did, for the nation, for Qizhe, and in order to protect his father.

He had done no wrong. He had always cautioned me against Liu Tongyi, and had even had Liu Tongyi and Chu Xun perform a duet to hint to me that they were acquainted. There had been forbearance in all of this. Only, I had been too deeply ensnared to see it.

“How could I be angry at you, Supervisor Yun?” I said, then joked, “I recall I once thought that it would be suitable to die at Chancellor Liu’s hands. Now I feel perfectly happy to have been personally captured by Supervisor Yun.”

With a rueful expression, Yun Yu said, “Your Highness certainly is the most romantic man in the capital.”

On one side of his neck above his collar, I made out a faint mark, indistinct in the light of the oil lamp.

I continued, “All your conduct toward me stemmed from the fact that our positions were di erent. Had I been in your position, I would have done the same as you. Every man chooses his own path. There is no right or wrong.

Every man has his own fate, and to live decently is to accept that fate. I lost because I refused to accept mine. It is precisely the outcome one might have expected.”

“Your Highness is not the only one like that,” said Yun Yu. “My father is the same. My father has always seen Qi… His Majesty as a young, ignorant emperor and believed himself to be experienced and astute. I am his son. I knew perfectly well there was no way to talk him out of it.”

At last a trace of weariness and frustration appeared in his expression.

It made sense for Yun Tang to misjudge Qizhe. As grand tutor, he had watched a child grow up to be an emperor; it would be easy to continue to see him as that innocent child. As if he didn’t know how quickly people could change.

Perhaps the only one who completely understood Qizhe was Yun Yu.

“At any rate, you have saved your father’s life,” I said. “He won’t be able to accept it now, but eventually he will understand that you did this to protect him.”

Yun Yu shook his head. “He cannot take the loss as well as Your Highness, nor see as clearly.”

“Thank you for the compliment, Supervisor Yun,” I said. “Well, perhaps Grand Tutor Yun and I will be locked up together, and I’ll cheer him up, help him see that it’s better to accept triumph and failure as they come.”

Yun Yu smiled again. “Your Highness is joking again. How could he lock you and my father up together?”

It went without saying that he was Qizhe.

Smiling, I said, “On the subject of jokes, there’s something I want to say.

Next time you get into a ti , don’t just grab whoever happens to be around in a drunken lark to vent your frustration. This isn’t something to play around with. You see, if it’s someone as given to self-conceited misunderstandings as me, in a few days, they’ll be coming to you with romantic declarations, and won’t that be annoying?”

That day at Yuehua Pavilion it had seemed to me that Yun Yu had something on his mind, and I had been right. My eyesight wasn’t as poor as all that. Because while I myself had never seen sincerity, I had experienced enough insincerity to be able to distinguish the two.

Yun Yu’s expression sti ened. With a bitter smile, he said, “Your Highness is a little angry at me, after all. I did go too far then. I was a little drunk that day. Later, I did regret it and didn’t feel comfortable going to visit you for a few days for fear of awkwardness.”

“Then I really must thank my imperial nephew for imposing on you, or else you might never have come to see me again. If I were angry at you, I wouldn’t be talking like this now.”

Yun Yu now stood in the position of my nephew’s wife. As an elder, I had to give him a few words of advice.

I paused, then went on, “Yet there is some advice I have to give you. Take it as long-windedness on my part. You’re a little too fond of getting your own way, too full of barbs right at the outset. It’s because you’re young. As for my imperial nephew, he isn’t especially good-tempered either. There will unavoidably be con icts between you. You must know how to compromise.

The situation with your father being what it is, in the immediate future, you’re sure to have a hard time. Think in the long term. In these matters, there is no road you cannot walk, no river you cannot cross.”

Yun Yu stared at me in silence. Some time passed, and he tipped up the corners of his mouth and sighed. “How has this ended up with Your Highness giving me advice?”

“It must be because Pufang Temple really is my fate,” I said seriously.

Yun Yu sat awhile longer, then rose. “I will bid farewell for now. In a few days I will come see Your Highness again. I hope Your Highness will take good care of yourself.”

I watched him walk up to the cell door, then spoke again: “Suiya.”

Yun Yu turned and raised his eyebrows, looking at me. “Is there something else, Your Highness?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Thank you for talking to me.”

Yun Yu smiled and said, “If Your Highness is willing to see me, I will come again in a few days.”

I nodded. “Very well.”

 

After Yun Yu left, I sat awhile, ate another meal, then went to lie in bed again. When the light in the ventilation hole had gradually dimmed, I stood and called over the guard in the passage. “Could you pass on a message for me? I would like to see Imperial Chancellor Liu.”

The guard looked impatient. “Your Highness Prince Huai, do you think your position is the same as it once was? Imperial Chancellor Liu is the busiest person at court after His Majesty. Perhaps he is still handling o cial documents at this time. Do you think the chancellor will come running just because Your Highness gives a shout in prison?”

“It just occurred to me that there was something relating to this uprising that I hadn’t told Chancellor Liu. Since he’s busy, forget about it. But maybe I won’t remember by tomorrow.”

When he heard this, the guard vanished like the wind.

About one shichen later, Liu Tongyi arrived. He must have come from home. Instead of his o cial robes, he wore a jade-green gown.

I drank a mouthful of water. When I saw him stand at the table, I said,

“Chancellor Liu, I’m sorry, I don’t have anything to say relating to the uprising. There are just some things I’d like to ask for help with. I only said what I did because I was afraid the guard wouldn’t agree to report it to you.”

Liu Tongyi’s brow smoothed. “No matter,” he said.

“Thank you for today’s meals, Chancellor Liu,” I said.

“It ought to have been so all along,” said Liu Tongyi. “They were being deliberately neglectful before. What did Your Highness want?”

I stood. “It’s like this. Today Supervisor Yun came by and said that His Majesty had made two provisional arrangements for me. Chancellor Liu must know about them as well. These arrangements already show the utmost mercy toward me, but I have spent this half day pondering, and I think that neither house arrest nor taking orders at Pufang Temple suits me very well. That is why I am asking for your help, Chancellor Liu. I know you are very busy, and I shouldn’t trouble you again, but I simply couldn’t think of anyone else I could ask. Please say you agree.”

Liu Tongyi’s eyes in the lamplight were still very clear, just like many years before, when I had seen him for the rst time in the moonlight.

“Please go ahead, Your Highness. While I may not be able to help, I will certainly do my best.”

“I can rest easy with that,” I said. I stood not far from Liu Tongyi. In the light of the oil lamp, our shadows were heavy.

“I only want to ask some tri es of you,” I said. “If Prince Zong wakes and His Majesty does not con scate Huai Manor, give everything that remains in it to Prince Dai if he likes. As for the manor itself, if he would like to sell it o , let him. Besides that, tell him that’s all there is. If he spends it all, he won’t be able to borrow any more from me. I do not know whether these events will make trouble for Han Si. When he goes to be married, please congratulate him for me. And that’s all there is…”

I put a hand on the edge of the table and coughed twice. “One nal word.

Supervisor Yun came today, but I didn’t feel like I could say this to his face, nor to Chu Xun. Please pass on a message to them both, Chancellor Liu. Say

that they should have more self-respect. There are so many paths to take in this world. They shouldn’t degrade themselves again.”

Liu Tongyi looked appalled. He shot forward and caught me by the arms.

“You…”

He turned. “Guards! Fetch a physician…”

I grabbed hold of his sleeves. “Chancellor Liu… about the conspiracy…

I’ve said… all there is to say. There’s nothing else.”

Even in the yellow light of the oil lamp, Liu Tongyi’s face managed to look chalky white. Perhaps my vision was starting to go.

“Please be merciful, Chancellor Liu… Let me go in peace, call no one…”

Liu Tongyi was still calling. My ears roared from the sound. More and more of the acid taste in my mouth surged up. I fought to gather strength to say, “There’s no use calling anyone… I prepared this as a nal step.

Naturally, there is no cure…”

Perhaps this did the trick. Liu Tongyi’s voice gradually quieted, as did he himself. Though I still had his sleeves caught in my hands, and my arms were still in his grasp, he gradually drew away.

My legs were weak, my eyelids heavy. I felt as if I was already lying in bed. The fabric slowly slipped from my ngers as I lost the strength to hold on. I struggled to preserve a last bit of clarity and said, “Ran… Ransi…”

My arms hurt a little where he was gripping them. Liu Tongyi was still listening to me. At the crucial moment, calling him Ransi was still e ective.

I said, “As I am, I can hardly be buried… without causing trouble… so let me be burned… and scatter the ashes by some mountain or river… and everything will be clean.”

After delivering this exhaustive speech, I had no more strength to speak. I drifted in a daze. I didn’t know whether I had been dreaming before, or

whether this now was the dream.

 

A dusting of snow swirled through the air. In Huai Manor’s garden, little Yun Yu overturned the teacup on the young crown prince’s knees and stood there blankly clutching his plum blossoms. Then the child in the boa-embroidered robe before him said, “There is nothing the matter with me.

Do not scold him or punish him.”

Yun Yu’s eyes opened wide. Snow that had blown in under the veranda roof settled on the plum blossom branch in his hand.

The moon like a silver mirror, a pond full of stars. The youthful Liu Tongyi sat under a lantern, reading by its light, holding The Legend of the Red-Bearded Hero in both hands with his attention raptly focused on each and every page. A fog came up, and in the blink of an eye, night turned to day. The young Zhuangyuan with owers in his hair wore a red robe. The green waters of the pond were gone, and the courtyard was full of crape myrtle, its owers bright and beautiful.

I wanted to ask Liu Tongyi whether he still remembered the last line of The Legend of the Red-Bearded Hero:

Since time immemorial, so many righteous fellowships and heroic ideals have come to naught but a pot of good wine, a drunken reverie, and a night of pleasant dreams.

C S

I passed through the dense greenery of the trellis, emerged from a moon gate, and scrutinized the house in front of me.

It was a simple but elegant two-story house, not large, with an airy hall below containing a small retiring room, and an upstairs divided into a rear bedroom and another hall in front. A veranda projected outward, accessible by opening a door in the hall. It had a wraparound wooden railing with a hanging screen of slender bamboo.

It would be just right for me to live in alone.

Bai Rujin looked at me and said, “Zhao-xiong, d’you like the looks of it?”

“It’s all right,” I said, “but why do all you southerners build your houses with two oors? It’s hard to feel grounded sleeping upstairs.”

I had planned on buying a small compound with two or three rooms. At any rate, I would be living there alone. Too much space would be cumbersome. But all the houses that met the eye in Chengzhou had multiple oors. My little two-room compound with a low half-wall, banana palm, drinking well, and grape trellis was nowhere to be found. Bai Rujin had told me that a family patriarch in the east of the city had died, and his sons and daughters were splitting up the family property. They had a little house they were eager to get o their hands and exchange for cash, and it was quite suitable for me. He had asked if I was interested and dragged me o to see it.

Next to Bai Rujin was the family’s younger son, surname Hong, given name Xin. He was in his forties, small, skinny, and clever, with a ruddy

complexion glowing with health. He didn’t look one bit like an ardently lial son who had just lost his father. Listening to me, he immediately said with a smile, “I can tell Mister Zhao is from the north. Chengzhou lies to the southeast, so it’s wet and humid. Living on the second oor keeps the damp away.” He looked me over. “Seems Mister Zhao is planning to settle down in Chengzhou?”

“You don’t know, Second Squire Hong,” said Bai Rujin, “Master Zhao is a major traveling merchant. He’s even done business in Goryeo. I got to know Master Zhao a year or two back when I was restocking my medicines. He owns a half interest in my new shop on Changlong Street. I gure he’ll still be all over the place, but now that he has a business here, he wants to buy a house to have somewhere to put up.”

Hong Xin said repeatedly that it was an honor to meet me. In a rush, I said modestly, “I can’t claim to be a major traveling merchant. I just travel around, selling a few sundry goods as I go, eking out a living.”

Hong Xin said, “If Master Zhao likes the house, I’ll sell it for a low price.

Call it making a friend. Oh, yes,” he went on, “I haven’t asked Master Zhao’s full name. My mother has been sick for a long time, and we want to buy some ginseng to make into a decoction for her. The e ects of aged ginseng might be too much at her age. I’ve heard that while the ginseng in Goryeo is bland, its e ects are also milder. If you happen to have any, Master Zhao, could you keep a couple of pieces back for me?”

“Of course, of course,” I said. “I think I still have some on hand, all top-quality Goryeo red ginseng seumnida.11 My surname is Zhao, my given name is Cai, and my courtesy name is Jiawang.” 12

“What auspicious names Master Zhao has,” Hong Xin said in praise. Then he once again began to extoll the virtues of his house to me. According to

him, the recently deceased Old Squire Hong had built it as a study. The old squire had been a Daoist practitioner and had come to stay here when he was at leisure to read and nd solitude.

Hong Xin also said that there was an ingenious concept in the layout of this house. Entering by the main gate on the right-hand side, the area starting behind the screen wall and extending to the moon gate, with the ivy-covered trellis, was called the Spring Courtyard. In the main courtyard by the house was a small shpond with two water lilies oating in it, a passable scene of summer. The small left-hand courtyard that contained the kitchen, woodshed, latrine, and well, because of its connection to eating and drinking and cereal grains, was called the Autumn Courtyard. Finally, a spot behind the house was planted with two delicate wintersweet plants; Hong Xin said that when they bloomed, the elegant and lovely scene was resplendent with the beauty of winter.

So this little house had spring, summer, autumn, and winter tucked away in it. Hong Xin said, “Therefore, my late father called it Four Seasons House.”

This gave me a bit of an ache in my back teeth, but the house really was a bargain at the price. I mulled it over and bought it in the end.

 

After two or three years of wandering, I nally had a nest.

I bought the house and moved in. My rst night there, I slept in great contentment.

Bai Rujin had said to me, “There’s another advantage to living upstairs.

Maybe you’ll learn what it is before long, young fellow.”

I did not understand at the time, but soon after, I did learn what the advantage was.

It was toward the end of the sixth month that I purchased the house. Not long after I moved in, the seventh month began. One day the sky darkened, and the sun never came out again. Pouring rain came drumming down. It fell for days. One morning I got up and went to the window and was astonished to nd an ocean downstairs.

I stood at the window, watching as the water rose, rose, and rose again. I didn’t go downstairs all day. The next morning, the water had submerged the courtyard wall. Bai Rujin came with two boatmen, paddling a little boat.

They oated into the courtyard and picked me up.

I crouched on the bow, watching boats and rafts going up and down the streets of Chengzhou. The whole city was underwater, but no one seemed to care. On second oors above the street, shops were open as usual. Hawkers who normally set up stands by the street to sell vegetables and sundry goods were selling from boats instead. Even the provincial government’s baili s swayed in little crafts as they patrolled the streets.

Bai Rujin had the boat rowed up to the second oor of a restaurant, from which a ladder hung. The boat came up to the ladder and stopped. I climbed after Bai Rujin to the second- oor corridor. Fortunately, my legs were nimble, and I could climb with ease. As soon as I set foot in the corridor, a waiter holding a towel bent down to dry and straighten my hems, then took me into the hall.

The menu was brought. I picked up a cup of tea and drank. From the corner of my eye, I saw a head emerge from a window in the restaurant across the street, then holler, “Scallions, give me a bunch!”

Immediately, a little dinghy heaped full of vegetables oated over.

I couldn’t help sighing in admiration. “Your customs here are truly extraordinary.”

Bai Rujin was ipping through the menu. He ngered the short mustache on his upper lip. “We’re used to it.”

 

Chengzhou wasn’t far from the Long River, and it was bounded by two other rivers. Floods were common.

When each of us had ordered two dishes and we were waiting for our food, Bai Rujin looked out the window at the constant stream of boats and rafts and said chattily to me, “There’s ooding around here every year. In order to protect some of the larger cities along the river, this place is often used as a spillway. Everyone’s used to it. The water will come down in ten days or so.”

Bai Rujin picked up a couple of ve-spice beans and munched them, then said, “But you know, the water never got so high in the past. At most it’d be waist-deep. It was three years ago that the water started rising especially high.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Everyone says it’s that wretched Prince Huai’s soul haunting us.”

I stared at him, then said, “Surely not? What connection does Prince Huai have to this place?”

Bai Rujin stretched his neck out further, and his voice became even quieter. “Well, you wouldn’t know about it, young fellow. Chengzhou’s name contains the character ‘cheng,’ same as in Prince Huai’s courtesy name, and we have the Jun River to the south. I think Prince Huai’s courtesy name was Chengjun…”

I laughed dryly. “Well…”

Stroking his short mustache, Bai Rujin said quietly, “Sometimes you have no choice but to believe in superstitious things like that. That miserable Prince Huai was lame, you know. And three years ago, not long after he

died, the waters rose especially high here, and outside the city a Shuibo Temple dedicated to the river god was struck by lightning—because the ‘bo’

in its name sounds like ‘lame.’ Afterward, no one could repair that temple, until the emperor in the capital decreed that a big mausoleum was to be built for Prince Huai and a ritual was performed. Over here, we changed the Shuibo Temple to a Shuishen Temple and rebuilt it.” 13

“It sounds fantastical when you put it that way,” I said.

Just then our food was brought, and Bai Rujin settled down for a bit. I picked up some shredded meat, and Bai Rujin poured a cup of wine. Outside the window, another crop of the prefectural baili s oated by standing in boats. Looking at the boats full of baili s, Bai Rujin said, “Recently, with the oods on the way, our local prefect sent to the court asking for provisions, and I’ve heard the court has sent an excellent commissioner to manage the ooding. He might be here soon. The local government has been keeping a pretty close eye on things for the past few days.”

I hadn’t kept up with court news over the past few years and didn’t know how many of the mainstays there had changed. I couldn’t resist asking,

“Which of the court’s o cials merits such a big display?”

Bai Rujin lifted his wine cup and said quietly, “I hear it’s Vice-Minister of Works Yun Yu—impressive enough? Since Imperial Chancellor Liu acknowledged his errors and resigned his post, who is there among the young o cials at court to equal him, apart from Zhang Ping? Unfortunately, he is Yun Tang’s son, and while Imperial Chancellor Liu shouldered nearly all the blame for the wrongful accusation against Prince Huai, I heard that he also had a part in it. If not for that, when Chancellor Liu resigned, the position of imperial chancellor might never have gone to Lord Zhang.”

Holding my wine cup, I chuckled a bit.

Bai Rujin shook his head. “Maybe when that commissioner gets here, the waters will only rise higher.”

 

Yun Yu was coming to manage the ooding and ought to be here in a few days. I would probably be staying in Chengzhou until the start of the eighth month. Maybe I’d be able to catch a glimpse of him, or maybe I wouldn’t.

It was all the same whether I did or not.

The decades of a human lifetime were quite long. Yun Yu, Liu Tongyi, even Qizhe—there was no saying when I might run into my former acquaintances. Prince Huai was a handful of ashes now, interred in a mausoleum in the capital, and many people had watched him burn. Likely no one suspected that it had been a fraud. Now, only the merchant Zhao Cai remained. Even if they saw me, what could happen?

I wondered how all those people I had once known were doing now.

Were Yun Yu and my nephew—no, not my nephew anymore, His Majesty

—getting along?

The emperor had been very virile over the last few years. I’d heard that there were many new little princes. Poor Yun Yu—during the events of three years ago, his whole family had become low-status convicts, apart from him.

He was actually a very dutiful person and had saved their lives, but perhaps his family hated his guts. And of all the people in the world, he had fallen for the emperor.

So the saying goes that every pot has its lid. Probably no one but Qizhe could have tamed Yun Yu, and no one but Yun Yu could have bound Qizhe.

As for Liu Tongyi, when I heard he had resigned his position and returned home, I had felt some compunction. Here I had wrecked a pillar of the court. Later I heard rumors that he had retired to live in seclusion in the

countryside, and also that he had gone traveling. I supposed he must be more relaxed than at court. He had said once that he wanted to be an idler.

When I thought of that, my remorse lessened.

This encounter in Chengzhou with Yun Yu coming to manage the ooding might well be destiny. After this, perhaps I would run into him a few more times by coincidence, and perhaps I would never have another chance to see him.

 

After we ate at the restaurant, Bai Rujin took me to visit his house and talk over some shop business.

Bai Rujin’s family ranked among the richest in Chengzhou City, with an impressive mansion. Now, half-submerged, a length of its enclosing wall still protruded from the water. A portion of the wall beside the main gate could be opened to give access to boats. Apparently all the wealthy households in Chengzhou had boat gates like this. The vessel entered the courtyard and oated right up to the main hall.

Bai Rujin had four wives, three sons, and two daughters. His eldest son was fourteen or fteen already and learning his father’s business. Bai Rujin called him over to pay respects to me. He called me Uncle Zhao.

Three of the other children were slightly younger, between the ages of seven and ten. They traipsed around the second- oor veranda, folding paper boats to toss into the water. Then there was the youngest, a precious daughter, only around a year old, and the child of Bai Rujin’s third wife.

This third madam was a shrewd, remarkable woman who took care of half the management of Bai Rujin’s shops. The women of merchant families weren’t in the habit of avoiding guests to begin with, and this third madam

often accompanied Bai Rujin to discuss business. When it came to doing accounts, she was even more skilled than her husband.

The third madam sat in the hall with us this time too. Bai Rujin explained to me his plans and expenses for the shop, as well as future projects, and the third madam sat next to him with the ledger open, clicking away on an abacus. Each and every entry was clear and precise. Behind her stood a nursemaid holding the baby girl, as well as some other maids. After one mark or so, when she had all the accounts straightened out, she passed the ledger and the abacus to a maid and took the child from the nursemaid’s arms.

 

“Bai-xiong and his wife truly are a match made in heaven,” I couldn’t help saying with admiration. “The picture of domestic harmony.”

Bai Rujin said with a smile, “Just nd yourself one to marry, young fellow.

My humble wife was so foolish, she couldn’t do anything when she rst married me. But after only half a year of study, she was able to help out.”

The third madam joined in. “That’s right. Why don’t you get married, Master Zhao?”

“Few men in the world can have Bai-xiong’s luck,” I said, “to marry so many gentle and virtuous women, lovely as owers and beautiful as jade, and above all to nd someone as remarkable as you, Third Madam, with such looks and skill. I would like to marry, but I haven’t met the right person, so I must carry on as a bachelor.”

The third madam pressed her lips together and smiled. “That’s because Master Zhao’s standards are too high. You’ve been all over the world, and still no one has caught your eye.”

Bai Rujin shook his head. “Yue-niang, you’re wrong. As I see it, Master Zhao’s problem is that he has his heart set on someone, and he can’t forget her. That’s why he has remained unmarried so long. Isn’t that so, young fellow?”

“When did you learn to tell fortunes, Bai-xiong?” I joked, going along with it.

“Just tell me whether there’s someone on your mind,” said Bai Rujin. “Be honest.”

I thought about it, then nodded. “Honestly, yes.”

Bai Rujin clapped his hands and turned to the third madam. “You see?”

Then he said to me, “Anyone who can occupy your thoughts to the point of preventing you from marrying must be a peerless beauty, no?”

“Yes, something like that,” I said.

Bai Rujin ngered his mustache. “And she must be talented as well as beautiful, and gentle as water.”

“The rst is true. The second, I wouldn’t say so. She can be quite erce.”

Bai Rujin slapped his leg with a loud laugh. “So you like to be bossed around. Does this young lady belong to a brothel, or is she a wealthy family’s young mistress?”

“She’s from a family of government o cials,” I said.

“Whoa, that’s incredible,” said Bai Rujin. “An o cial’s daughter! Why didn’t it work out between you?”

“Well, she was in love with someone else, and it was mutual,” I said. “Now they’re together.”

Issuing many sighs on my behalf, Bai Rujin comforted me. “Young fellow, since it wasn’t meant to be, you ought to know when to let go. There are plenty of good women out there.”

“I’ve let it go already,” I said. “I’m just used to being on my own. I’ve been so busy that I’ve forgotten all about it. I’ve been thinking lately of nding someone. If you know of anyone good, Bai-xiong and Third Madam, please introduce me.”

Bai Rujin immediately smacked himself on the chest and promised to help.

The little girl was playing with a necklet in the third madam’s arms. I dangled a bunch of grapes in front of her. She reached out her little hands for them and gurgled, “Dada, want.”

Bai Rujin remarked rather despondently that the child had just learned to talk and had a bad habit; she called all women “mama” and all men “dada.”

I gave her the grapes, and she immediately extended her arms to be picked up. I took her from her mother and held her, and she tugged on my collar enthusiastically crying, “Dada!” It was adorable.

In spite of myself, I thought perhaps I ought to nd a wife. I didn’t ask for much, just someone who would be sincere and pass the rest of my life with me. I could have a family, a few playful children of my own. There would be a beginning and an end to my life.

 

Bai Rujin urged me to stay at his house, and I rmly refused. He then loaned me two of his servants, a little boat, an empty wooden water barrel, and a barrel of clean water.

The two servants came with the boat in the mornings to take me for outings. I ate in town, or brought food home with me. In the evenings, the two servants returned to the Bai household.

There was water everywhere, but potable water was hard to come by.

Everywhere the water was dirty. Everyone in the city had to paddle their

boats and bring barrels to a spring on a mountain outside the city to pick up water to drink. Each family had two barrels prepared: one for holding potable water, and another to catch rainwater, which could be used for washing when it cleared.

Bai Rujin said that once the water subsided, I would have to stop up the well in the courtyard and dig a new one. The water in the original well had been polluted by the oodwaters, and using it was likely to make me sick.

The third madam also arranged to send me a case of charcoal bricks, a copper stove, and two kettles.

The charcoal bricks were kept in an iron box to keep them from catching re. Only when I needed to use them would I put them in the copper stove to burn. One kettle was for heating water to make tea, and one was for heating water for household use.

I had always liked tea. The barrel of water from the Bai house was used up in two days.

Bringing the barrel, I took a boat to the mountain to fetch water. Row after row of boats were stopped by the mountain. The Bai family’s servants showed me the way; a well-kept mountain road led all the way to the spring.

The whole road was paved. It had been the city’s wealthy families who had pooled money to pay for the work. There were also people with handcarts soliciting business on the road. I spent twenty coins to hire a cart; a carter was assigned to push my barrel up the mountain with his cart, ll it up with water, then bring it back down and help me load it onto the boat.

The local government posted a number of baili s at the spring. Later on, you would rst give the baili s your name and take a token, then get your water when the baili s called your token’s number. A tea stall was set up in an empty space where you could have a drink while you waited.

I had just sat down at the stall when a man approached me and quietly said, “Sir, I can tell from your face and clothing that you’re an important man. Your time is valuable. I have a token here that I got up rst thing this morning to get. There are only two or three people ahead of it waiting to get water. For a ten-coin tip, I’ll switch with you. Otherwise you’ll be waiting at least another shichen.”

Ten coins wasn’t much, but I didn’t have anything to do today. It wouldn’t hurt to wait awhile. So I refused. When the man had walked away, the carter said to me, “Lucky you didn’t buy it, sir. That’s one of the city’s ru ans.

He’s ganged up with the others. They come every morning to line up and get tokens, then make money swapping them with people who come later, then swap the tokens they got in exchange with people who come even later.

They make more money that way in a day than we do doing the hard work of pushing carts. The baili s already know some of them. There’s a high-ranking court o cial on his way to manage the ooding, so the local prefect wants to improve order. If you’d swapped with him, the baili s might have taken your token and not let you get water at all.”

So that was it. It seemed that government merchants weren’t the only ones who knew how to take advantage of a disaster to make money.

In another half a shichen or so, I got my water and went down the mountain, then took the boat to the city. On the way, I picked up a hunk of meat and two pounds of mushrooms from the boats along the road. All the seasonings in my kitchen had been soaked by the oodwaters, so I bought more salt, sugar, peppercorns, anise, and cumin.

When I’d gone to the desert in the north to collect furs, I had brought a grilling rack for meat. It happened to be stored on the second oor and hadn’t been submerged. When I got home today, I planned to dangle a

shing rod from the veranda, sit by the copper stove, grill meat, and drink wine. I thought it would be most pleasant.

The old lady selling mushrooms gave me a rattan basket, just big enough to hold the meat, mushrooms, and seasonings. I was ready to stop by a wineshop to get a small jar of good wine. The boat was on its way when I heard someone call, “Master Zhao.” I turned my head and saw the Bai family’s old steward aboard a boat next to me with the third madam. She must have been on her way back from checking the accounts at the shop. I returned the greeting. A nursemaid was standing next to her, holding the little girl.

The little girl was bawling, and her voice was quite resonant. I asked what was the matter. The third madam said with a pained smile, “This morning she insisted on coming with me, and now she’s crying to go back home.

Steward Zhang has to go to the shop up ahead to do some things, and she won’t settle down no matter what we do.”

“Perfect,” I said. “I’m on my way home. You and your darling daughter can go home in this boat, then it’ll take me back.”

“How could I impose like that?” said the third madam.

Smiling, I said, “It’s my pleasure, Third Madam. This boat belongs to you, anyway. I won’t like using it if you act like this.”

“If you put it that way, we certainly can’t refuse,” she said sweetly. Then she had her boat approach mine. I took the child, and the nursemaid came aboard my boat supporting the third madam.

Once the child was in my arms, she rubbed her tears and snot on my shoulder and called me “Dada,” then unexpectedly sni ed into silence. The nursemaid tried to take her back, but she twisted away reluctantly. “Let me hold her for now,” I said.

“You two have really hit it o , Master Zhao,” said the nursemaid with a smile.

“Why not just make her my goddaughter?” I joked.

Bai Rujin’s little daughter sprawled on my shoulder. The nursemaid picked up the rattan basket I had just put down at my feet, and the little girl took a fancy to the mushrooms in the basket. She reached out and babbled,

“Dada, that one, Dada, that one!” The third madam’s thin brows drew together, and she lightly smacked the girl’s little hand, scolding her for being naughty. The little girl’s mouth puckered up. I could tell she was about to start bawling again, and it would be my ears and my robe that paid the price. I quickly said, “Little kids are cuter when they’re a bit naughty.” I freed up a hand to pluck a mushroom from the basket, wiped it on my robe, and gave it to her. The little girl quickly snatched it up and gurgled a laugh, displaying her still-growing baby teeth. She got ready to put the mushroom in her mouth.

I quickly stopped her. The nursemaid said with a smile, “Master Zhao really has a soft spot for children.” But the third madam said to me in a low voice, “Master Zhao, did the boat that went by just now look like an o cial boat to you? The man in the boat looks to me like someone important.”

Oh? My attention had been focused solely on Bai Rujin’s little daughter just now. I hadn’t noticed any boat. When the third madam said this, I looked in the direction she indicated.

The instant I looked in that direction, I met two gazes.

The boat had an awning, a lacquer-black one. Its hull was brand new.

Four men rode in it. They were dressed in ordinary clothes but had perfect posture. These were not ordinary boatmen.

Two people stood at the fore, one wearing a light-colored robe. He was upright and cold, his appearance absolutely meticulous. From his gure and manner you might almost have taken him for Zhang Ping. But I kept watching him, even after he had turned away to look elsewhere.

Even without seeing his face, even though he had changed so much, I knew him at rst glance.

Bai Rujin’s little daughter squirmed, tugging on my robe. “Dada, Dada.”

I looked away and said to the third madam, “Could that be the commissioner?”

He was Yun Yu.

 

I went with the boat as it took the third madam and her daughter back to the Bai residence. Bai Rujin wasn’t there. The third madam politely asked me to stay, and I politely declined.

Turning back from the Bai residence, I bought a small jar of wine on the way, returned to the house, set up the grilling rack, then drank wine and ate meat.

When I had washed the meat and was slicing it, there was another spell of heavy rain, which evoked a particular sensation as it fell on the standing water. I lit the coal re, laid out some cuts on the rack, then poured myself wine.

Chengzhou’s local wines were all yellow wines, and the wineshops also stocked things like Capital Vintage, Bamboo Leaf Green, and apricot-blossom wine, none with especially authentic avors. The wine I had bought was Chengzhou’s local Bamboo Leaf Green, a clear wine that had a faint, mellow sweetness. Yellow wine unfortunately tends to be warming, and though with the ooding and the rains, it was quite cool now, we were

nonetheless in the hottest days of summer, and I was grilling a leg of mutton. If on top of that I downed half a jin of yellow wine, it would be throwing oil on the re, and I was sure to end up with blisters around my mouth.

By the Mid-Autumn Festival, however, the weather would be just right for drinking yellow wine and eating crabs. I would probably be out east by the sea by the fteenth day of the eighth month, where there would be fresh sea crabs to eat. I could bring a couple of jars of quality yellow wine with me when I went.

With dark clouds weighing heavy, the sky dim, rain sheeting down like a curtain beyond the eaves, and a cold wind carrying an occasional drop or two inside, there was a strange comfort in this moment. Once I had looked down on the literati, thinking they were a pretentious bunch who might sit in a dingy house composing poetry about a eld of freshly fertilized radishes. Now I was eating grilled mutton, looking out on rain and water as far as the eye could see, and I felt myself to be quite re ned, not all that di erent from them.

I had watered down the Chengzhou Bamboo Leaf Green with some of the spring water I had picked up today. It had a particular savor. It would have been even better if I’d had some watermelon, thinly sliced and chilled, or chilled dark plum juice to break up the oiliness of the food.

 

Seeing Yun Yu on the boat earlier had been within my expectations. I didn’t think anything of it.

Only, I hadn’t thought he would have changed so much in three years.

Likely this had to do with the emperor’s virility, which had produced several princes.

He and Qizhe were destined not to have easy lives. But easy or not, it had nothing to do with me. Each man walks the path he chooses. And perhaps what looks hard in the eyes of outsiders is happiness to the people experiencing it.

I wondered whether Yun Yu had recognized me. The crippled Prince Huai, Chengjun, no longer existed; there was only the merchant Zhao Cai, who could neither raise a rebellion nor covet the throne. Even if he had seen me, he had nothing to worry about on Qizhe’s behalf. Or perhaps not.

Maybe he would think that I had ed out into the world with my evil designs intact and was still using my secret power to reestablish myself.

Then he would once again come to me with a crowd of o cers, with manacles and chains.

Faking my death to escape unquestionably made me a condemned prisoner staging a prison break, a crime of treason against the emperor. If it could be substantiated and I was dragged back to the capital, this could only end in a beheading.

On the surface now, Prince Huai had committed suicide. After Prince Zong had woken up, the emperor had awarded me a big mausoleum on top of a stainless reputation. But who knew what these people were really thinking.

A dead man gave people a sense of security; all kinds of lip service might be paid to him. But if that dead man came alive, now that was awkward. If I was capable of faking my death, that seemed to bear out the existence of my secret power. Perhaps he would order me to be put away in secret. Only when the dead man was truly dead would they feel secure at last.

With the ooding, it would be hard to run. I would stay quiet and observe.

Yun Yu worked now for the Ministry of Works, not the Ministry of Justice. He had only come to manage the ooding; that was just ne. If he really had seen me and become suspicious, he would have to observe in secret for a few days. On top of that, he would be busy with his work, and letters would be di cult to send. This left me ample room to maneuver.

When I left Chengzhou, I would go to the southeast to pick up goods and go to sea, to some place like Java, to lie low for a couple of years.

 

My mother once said to me, If there is any suspicion you might make an attempt on the throne, you will come to no good. Loyal or treacherous, no one could endure you. I didn’t completely believe her. It was only later that I discovered that my father and I had both been less clear-sighted than my mother, a woman.

When my attempt to be a spy turned into a joke, ultimately it was an escape plan she had arranged for me that saved my life.

My escape had been a little unfair on Liu Tongyi. I had observed and judged the situation thus: besides Qizhe, the most astute and capable o cial involved in this matter could be none other than Liu Tongyi, and he was the leader. I could only succeed by hoodwinking Imperial Chancellor Liu.

So I had played out a melodrama in front of Liu Tongyi. It had been quite realistic. I did manage to fool him.

Anyone, however astute and capable he might be, would be thrown o -

balance by watching someone spit up blood and perish before his very eyes.

Huai Manor had no secret power, but it did have two adept individuals.

They were Zhang Xiao and Chief Steward Cao.

Zhang Xiao’s original name was Shao Feng, and Chief Steward Cao’s was Yue Su. Once, the two of them had been among the world’s most notorious

bandits. Shao Feng was an expert in disguise, and Yue Su in quick getaways.

During a drought in Zhongzhou, Shao Feng impersonated an imperial commissioner and used a falsi ed imperial edict to have grain disbursed.

There was plague in Shucheng, and government soldiers had sealed the city, leaving the people in it to die. Yue Su had been a bandit outside the city then. He went to the imperial treasure house in the capital, cut the strings of beads o the emperor’s crown, and sold them to buy medicine to provide disaster relief. While in the imperial treasure house, he also plastered notes everywhere proclaiming “Shucheng’s Yue Su Rights Wrongs on Behalf of Heaven.” The two of them each had a large bounty placed on his head by the government. One after another, they ed to the border, where they became soldiers under my father’s banner. My father feigned ignorance.

Later, barbarians invaded. Shao Feng impersonated an enemy deputy general, in ltrated their camp, and cut o their general’s head. Yue Su reconnoitered the terrain and led over a hundred soldiers by a path that let them launch a successful sneak attack on the enemy barracks. The barbarians were defeated. Unfortunately, the two men’s backgrounds were exposed in the course of performing these labors. My father made a plan: he brought to Shao Feng two corpses so he could alter their appearances; then he said the two men were dead. The deception was complete.

From there on, the two of them changed their names and became stewards at Huai Manor. There they remained for decades, and even I hadn’t known.

The Scholar of the Red Leaves of the Western Hills, who wrote The Divine White Jade Sword, was then an obscure scribe. He wrote a book called Chivalrous Bandits in Troubled Times, based on the two of them. That was

how he made his name, which later led to The Divine White Jade Sword and so forth.

Only, in the book, to set o the depiction of chivalry, the characters were unavoidably touched up, turning the near-illiterate, simple and single Shao Feng and Yue Su into romantic and dashing gures. They were young, handsome, and surrounded by a melodious crowd of countless infatuated young mistresses and beautiful heroines. When the two chivalrous bandits were killed, an infatuated imperial chancellor’s daughter and princess even perished to follow them.

I hadn’t known about Chief Steward Zhang and Chief Steward Cao’s identities when I was young. I got a copy of Chivalrous Bandits in Troubled Times from the bookbindery and became mesmerized and misty-eyed. In one part, Yue Su meets the princess on a balcony. The sentimental portion was followed by a scalding love scene. I swallowed and read on, completely forgetting myself, and was unfortunately caught by my father. He sat on the veranda reading with immense interest, laughing nonstop. “What a load of bull!”

My mother shot him a glare. “No vulgar language in front of the child.

You ought to show the book to Old Zhang and Old Cao.”

My father nodded. “You’re absolutely right.” I watched uncomprehendingly as he dog-eared some pages of the book, then bounced o with it under his arm.

It was only when my mother was on the point of death that she told me about Shao Feng’s and Yue Su’s true identities. And she said to me, You have some problems in common with your father, so I made an escape plan for you many years ago. Those two will keep you safe.

But I never thought I would really have to use her plan. When I had put that pill in the secret pocket in the collar of my inner robe, I had been planning to use it to save Yun Yu if worse came to worst. I never expected to use it myself.

The plan wasn’t a particularly brilliant one. All it took was going to a co n home to nd an unclaimed corpse of similar build to me. Everything hinged on my performance being up to scratch.

After I was put in the imperial prison, Shao Feng in ltrated the prison guards and came to see me twice, the rst time among the personal guards Qitan and Qifei brought when they came to visit me, the second on the morning of the escape, when he was once again dressed as a prison guard and came to clean up my dishes. He informed me that everything had been arranged.

During those two days, Liu Tongyi, Chu Xun, Qitan, Qifei, and Yun Yu all came on stage, giving me ample cause. So I performed a melodrama for Liu Tongyi, giving full vent to my emotions.

According to the rules, a person like me, who commits suicide in prison out of fear of punishment, could not be left in the prison. Instead, I would be placed on a mat and carried to a shed or a retiring room; once the corpse was examined, a decision would be made about my burial and funeral.

After I was “dead,” my nephew the emperor was sure to grant me a co n and set of good burial garments to show his benevolence. No one would spend a great deal of e ort making funeral arrangements for me; I was sure to be buried at once, with a memorial tablet prepared. The ministers and the emperor would put their heads together, issue a decent enough o cial decree about me, and then all would be well.

Therefore, the time to act would be after the examination of the corpse, when the corpse was to be washed and dressed. I was worried that I would still be kept under strict guard, which was why I told Liu Tongyi I wanted to be cremated. First, it would make the whole production more genuine, as if I were sincerely disheartened; it made my plight more wretched. Second, the body would have to be taken to a remote, open place in the suburbs to be burned; there were sheds and stacks of rewood out in the country, making it easier to tamper with the process. It would be an additional chance to swap the bodies. Third, this avoided issues in case Liu Tongyi recovered his senses, or Qizhe or Yun Yu or someone became suspicious and had the co n opened to reexamine the body; or if Prince Zong woke and, for the sake of decency, they wanted to move my body and hold another funeral.

Becoming a handful of ashes was more foolproof.

Perhaps everyone thought that, with Prince Huai dead, all was right with the world. Just as I had expected, they were beside themselves with happiness, and in order to make sure their happiness was merited, they all came to observe the washing and dressing of the body. According to what the two chief stewards told me later, the emperor himself came to supervise the proceedings, and Yun Yu and Liu Tongyi were naturally present as well.

The empress dowager was unable to come in person, so she sent her big brother to represent her. It was a fairly grand spectacle. Even my princess came from her convent, with her growing belly and a handful of nuns, to recite scriptures of reincarnation for me and hope that I would set aside the sins of this lifetime and be a good person in the next.

I’d heard that, of all the people present, only Qitan cried. Liu Tongyi left midway. Unfortunately, I had been unconscious at the time and had no chance to experience this grand occasion for myself. Shao Feng and Yue Su

found no opportunity to swap the bodies. Fortunately, I’d had wits enough to think of cremation and avoided the tragedy of my fake death turning into a living burial.

It was fortunate too that the weather was hot and bodies could not be left lying out for long. The emperor also thought that cremation would be more thorough. After the washing and dressing of the body, I was taken to Pufang Temple, the very one originally built for me, where my body rested for one night. Of course, no one was present to keep vigil or burn funeral money for me. Many guards were stationed to keep watch over the corpse, but because I was dead and had preferred men in life, they gave me a wide berth and did not look too closely. This gave Shao Feng and Yue Su an opportunity to exchange me for the disguised corpse.

The body was burned the next day in an empty space in the rear courtyard of Pufang Temple. Then the ashes were placed in an urn, which was consigned to a co n, which was buried behind Pufang Temple.

I opened my eyes in a carriage leaving the capital. I very much felt as though I had arrived in the next life. My own hideouts in the valley in Xinan and in Xuzhou had been cleaned out by Yun Yu, so I couldn’t go anywhere near them. Chief Steward Cao—Yue Su, that is—told me that the late Princess Huai, my mother, had arranged for my escape many years ago.

I had a registered residence and a hometown; because my parents were both in business, I had left home very young, but I still had a house in my hometown. My old neighbors still remembered that my nickname was Jiawang, that I had climbed the scholar tree of the neighbors to the east and pilfered pomegranates from the neighbors to the west.

I parted ways with Yue Su and went with Shao Feng to see the latter’s teacher, who performed acupuncture on my leg and straightened out the

sinews, which had been bunched for over a decade. Straightening them out was no easy matter. It took three months of recovery before my limp went away. I bade farewell to Shao Feng and his teacher, then went home to Qinshui Town in Shuangqiao County in Zhengyang Prefecture, where I stayed for a few days, saw the old neighbors, cleaned up the old house that had stood empty for over a decade, paid my respects at the ancestral hall and the tombs of my ancestors, then went on to travel all over doing business.

When I set out on the road, I heard that Prince Zong had woken up, and Prince Huai had transformed from a rebel prince to a wretched, wrongfully dead loyal subject. For a time this topic was regularly bandied about in public places. I listened as though they were talking of someone else, and sometimes contributed some opinions of my own; Prince Huai truly was luckless.

As expected, the urn was dug up from its grave behind Pufang Temple.

The erection of a large mausoleum was followed by a lavish funeral. The emperor very properly assumed personal responsibility, and Liu Tongyi resigned his position. It seemed there were also plans to convert Huai Manor into a memorial temple or something of the sort. At any rate, it was a very happy ending all around.

Beyond the eaves, the rain gradually weakened. As I recalled the events of three years ago and of the intervening three years, I felt like a man remembering his past life. Sadly, the Scholar of the Red Leaves of the Western Hills had laid aside his brush long ago. With a bit of modi cation, he could have turned all these events into a book. Well, if he were still alive, he probably wouldn’t have chosen this story, actually. Everyone loves to read

legends of heroes. Who wants to read an account of a shiftless prince turned merchant?

 

I sprinkled some cumin on a slice of meat and ipped it, then caught a glimpse of a boat in the distance approaching my house.

I narrowed my eyes and looked closely. It appeared to be the Bai residence’s boat.

When it reached the railing, sure enough it was Bai Rujin who darted from the cabin, jumped onto the veranda, then strode urgently inside.

“Young fellow, we have a problem.”

I stood in surprise. Bai Rujin stomped over, pulled up a chair, and sat.

Rubbing his hands together, he said, “There’s an issue with that batch of silk you ordered.”

“What is it?” I asked.

I had planned to stay in Chengzhou until the beginning of the eighth month precisely because of this batch of silk.

Chengzhou had a kind of silkworm that produced silk in the seventh and eighth months. Instead of mulberry leaves, it exclusively fed on what was commonly known as the butter tree. A great deal of silk was produced in both spring and autumn, but little in summer. One could make a tidy pro t by selling it to the weaving mills in Suzhou and Hangzhou. The silk made by this kind of silkworm was yellowish, insu ciently white, and came cheap, but once it was woven and dyed, it made quite a close weave, and none of its aws could be seen.

I had come to Chengzhou originally to deliver a batch of medicines Bai Rujin had ordered, and on the way I had stopped to eat and inadvertently overheard someone mention the state of silkworm eggs this summer. That

was how I learned of these silkworms. The locals all thought their silk was bad and had never sold it elsewhere, so I became interested in getting some and trying. In order to get Bai Rujin to act as a go-between to purchase the silk, I invested some money in his medicine shop. Then I spoke to some of the silk mills in Suzhou and Hangzhou, prosperous cities in Jiangnan with thriving silk trades, and they were also quite interested.

Bai Rujin said, “Some traveling traders have come from the Suzhou-Hangzhou area, also to purchase silk, and they’re o ering twice the price you agreed on, young fellow. I hear they’re from one of the rms you were planning to resell the silk to, called Ruihe.”

Ruihe!

Ruihe had been the largest cloth merchant rm in Jiangnan these past couple of years. They controlled several stores and around a dozen weaving mills and embroidery workshops. Most of my talks about reselling the silk in Jiangnan had been with two or three of Ruihe’s weaving mills because I had thought they were relatively trustworthy businessmen. But instead they had come to Chengzhou during a ood to undercut me.

Paying twice the price I had o ered for that silk would mean taking a loss. It was a little strange for them to come all this way during a ood in order to lose money and undercut me by stealing my deal.

“I also thought it was strange,” said Bai Rujin. “They could get the best silk in Jiangnan for that price. Why come to Chengzhou during a ood to steal someone else’s business? The concern is, now that they’ve arti cially driven up the price, once they force you out, they’ll lower the prices again.

But now the price is so high I’m afraid some of the families that ordered it here will go back on their word.”

At any rate, the whole thing seemed peculiar.

Bai Rujin continued, “We’re all in the same business. Openly driving you out like this is against the rules. I heard rst thing this morning and went over right away to talk to them. I saw two of the Ruihe people. They said they had no intention of undercutting us, they actually want a long-term partnership. One of their higher-ups has come, maybe even the general manager. He invited us to come over and chat with them this afternoon, so they can explain their reasoning to us. This manager is going to be leaving tomorrow. Do you want to come?”

I thought about it. “Why not?”

 

I put out the coal re, changed my clothes, and took Bai Rujin’s boat to see the people from Ruihe.

Bai Rujin said that Ruihe’s people had arranged a banquet on Jiqing Lane, which was the most presentable place in Chengzhou, with good wine, good tea, good music, and beautiful women. It was a good place to talk business, and the rain had petered out. Unfortunately, I had just lled my belly with grilled mutton and probably wouldn’t be able to eat anything else.

When the boat reached Jiqing Lane, a waiter led us inside via the second-oor corridor. We came to a private room, and the waiter opened the door.

The man standing at the window turned. I paused at the door.

He paused at the window.

Bai Rujin saluted and said, “Master Mei, we saw each other this morning.

This is Master Zhao, whom I told you about.”

I gave him a palm to st salute. “I am Zhao Cai.”

Liu Tongyi’s clear eyes looked directly into mine. He lifted his sleeves and smiled. “I am Mei Yong. ”14

 

The dining table in the private room wasn’t very large. Apart from Liu Tongyi, Bai Rujin, and myself, the only other person at this banquet was one of Ruihe’s accountants. Once we were seated, Bai Rujin began: “Master Mei, I am most indebted to you for your generosity in inviting Master Zhao and myself to eat with you. As for the matter of the silk, I am only a middleman.

Master Mei should really be talking to Master Zhao. You’re both in business.

Friendship begets fortunes, you know.”

As Bai Rujin spoke, I looked at Liu Tongyi.

The Chancellor Liu of three years ago had been constantly busy with government a airs and unavoidably severe in aspect as a result. Now, without the constraint of the o ce of imperial chancellor, Mei Yong’s appearance and expression were both considerably more relaxed.

Liu Tongyi was also openly scrutinizing me. Mei Yong and Zhao Cai were meeting for the rst time. It was only natural that they would want to size each other up.

When Bai Rujin was nished, Liu Tongyi said, “Master Bai and Zicheng can eat. I would like to nd a retiring room to go have a chat with Master Zhao. Would that be acceptable?”

“I would be glad of a chance to talk to Master Mei,” I said.

Ruihe’s accountant immediately went to arrange for a small room, which seemed specially made for secret business deals. It contained only a potted tree, a square table, and a few chairs.

Liu Tongyi and I sat across from each other at the table. The waiter knocked on the door and came in, bringing a few dishes and a bottle of wine. He bowed and withdrew, closing the door behind him.

I looked at the dishes on the table and smiled in spite of myself. “We said we only wanted a room to talk, but they’ve sent us food and wine instead of

tea. That’s typical of a restaurant.”

Liu Tongyi also smiled. He held back his sleeve and poured the wine. “Just as well. Now that the food is here, we may as well eat. I’ve heard there is an excellent locally brewed wine in Chengzhou. I wonder if this is it?”

I picked up my full cup and brought it to my nose. “No, Chengzhou’s local wine is yellow. Perhaps the proprietor saw that we had come from out of town to talk business and decided to send us the local imitation of Bamboo Leaf Green.”

“It would seem that Master Zhao has been in Chengzhou for some time,”

said Liu Tongyi.

“Yes,” I said, “I came before the ooding started. I have only remained here so long because of this batch of silk.”

Liu Tongyi looked at me with a smile. “I would venture to guess that Master Zhao was not previously involved in the silk trade.”

If I were to answer in the same style, What makes Master Mei think that?

Liu Tongyi would certainly have a response waiting in the nature of You seem familiar. That would be routine. But I had been away from court for some years, and I wasn’t in the mood to go around in circles. His question had been disingenuous, but I answered sincerely.

I put down my wine cup. “Yes, I travel far and wide at will and pick up all kinds of things along the way. Because I have spent more time in the north, I often have things like furs and ginseng. This time, I came to deliver medicines, but I happened to see that there was summer silk available, so I waited to buy a batch.”

I looked at Liu Tongyi and smiled again. “Unlike Master Mei, I am not engaged in regular business. I can do without this batch of silk. If you want it, I’ll simply withdraw my order. I am not in the cloth trade anyway.”

When the ooding receded, I would gather up the property I had put away in the last two years and go to Java to lie low. This deal wasn’t going to go through, one way or another. I might as well be generous and give the silk to “Master Mei.”

“Clearly you think I mean to steal your business,” said Liu Tongyi. “The reason I wanted to speak to Master Zhao this evening was in order to explain this: Ruihe is not driving up the price of silk in order to undercut you. We want to enter into a long-term business arrangement with you.”

Perhaps my years doing business had been too short. This was my rst time hearing of such reasoning behind driving up prices and stealing business.

Liu Tongyi removed a small bundle of threads and a piece of fabric from his sleeve. “This is the sample you brought to the negotiation at our weaving mill. You may not know, Master Zhao, that no sooner had you left than the people from the weaving mill brought this to me.”

I took the threads and fabric. Liu Tongyi said, “I suppose Master Zhao doesn’t recognize this variety of silk.”

“Indeed I know nothing of silks,” I said. “I’ve only heard from Bai-xiong that people in Chengzhou called it butter silk, and because the color isn’t good—not white, that is—they don’t dare to sell it elsewhere. They all dye and weave it at home to make into clothing. They call it oil cloth. It’s a little better than cotton, a little sturdier than ordinary silk, and doesn’t wrinkle much. Perhaps in the south you’ve seen silk of this kind made in other places and have another name for it?”

Liu Tongyi listened in silence while I nished, then sighed softly. “This silk does have another name—ambergold silk. The silkworm that produces it is called the ambergold silkworm. This silkworm forms cocoons at the end

of summer and only eats the leaves of the golden cedar. The silk it produces is as glossy as amber, which gives it its name. Brocade woven from ambergold silk is known as ambergold brocade, and is usually made for the imperial family’s exclusive use.”

Liu Tongyi looked at my dumbfounded expression and added, “In the past, His Highness Prince Huai often wore robes made of ambergold brocade.”