Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Qi Yan did not die immediately after the Covenant was signed.

He held on for five more months.

During those five months, he accomplished three things.

First, he personally interrogated the remnants of the Old Royal Court and publicly announced the truth behind the Taoxi case, the Changyuan grain route case, and the Southern Woman slave case.

Second, he abolished the slave status in Northern Yan, burned the royal court’s genealogy records, and permitted the various tribes to establish their own households. They were to pay taxes based on their land and would no longer be born into hereditary slavery.

Third, he appointed me as the Northern Border Governor.

In truth, there were many smaller matters as well.

He ordered the gold artifacts in the old treasury of the royal court to be melted down and forged into farming tools, which were distributed to the refugees on both banks of the Changyuan. The silks that the nobles had hidden in their cellars were sent to the women who had regained their citizenship to be made into winter clothes. The high platform of the Priest Court was dismantled, and the timber was transported to the west of the city to build a school.

I accompanied him on the first day classes began.

The children understood nothing of emperors or fallen nations; they only knew that the newly issued paper was white and clean, and the aroma of the porridge in the courtyard was hot and fragrant. A Nanliang child and a Northern Yan child fought over half a piece of flatbread, only to end up sharing it in the end.

Qi Yan stood outside the door and watched for a long time.

I asked him what he was looking at.

He said, “I’m watching them not know who they should hate.”

I replied, “Isn’t that a good thing?”

He gave a faint smile. “It is a good thing. When they grow older, it would be best if they didn’t even have to remember my name.”

I did not respond.

At that time, I had begun to understand that it wasn’t that he didn’t want to be remembered. He simply felt that a man like him did not deserve to be remembered by those who were clean.

I was wiping his hands as he spoke.

His hands had thinned until they were nothing but bone and knuckles. His fingertips were perpetually icy; no matter how I tried to warm them, they stayed cold.

I said, “You’re pushing me to the front again.”

“You are more suited for it than I am,” he said softly. “I carry the blood of the Old Royal Court. I bear the weight of patricide and the fall of a kingdom. A new Northern Border cannot grow from my hands.”

I asked, “Then what about you?”

He thought for a moment and actually answered seriously, “I will be your infamy.”

I laughed out of frustration, but as I laughed, I began to cry.

He reached out, wanting to wipe away my tears, but he lacked the strength to lift his hand.

I took his hand and pressed it against my face.

“Qi Yan, have you ever thought about how things would be if we hadn’t been born into such a world?”

He looked out the window.

Outside the window stood an apricot tree. It was a branch I had brought from Great Liang, grafted into the cold soil of Northern Yan, and it had actually survived.

“We would have met,” he said. “You would be a Noble Lady in the capital, and I would be an idle prince in the borderlands. If we met on a spring day, you would dislike me for being sickly, and I would dislike you for being too good at accounting.”

“And then?”

“And then, I would still fall in love with you.”

My tears fell onto the back of his hand.

His smile was very light. “Only then, I suppose I wouldn’t dare lock you in a Golden Cage.”

“You locked me in long ago.”

“Do you hate me?”

I remained silent for a long time.

“I did.”

He closed his eyes. “And now?”

I leaned down and embraced him.

His bones pressed against me, making my heart ache with a sharp pain.

“Now, I feel that there is at least one sincere heart inside this cage.”