Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Qi Yan died on the day of the first snow.

The night before his death, he suddenly experienced a surge of energy and ordered his attendants to carry him to the imperial court.

Thinking he intended to revise the Covenant, the assembled ministers knelt in a dense crowd across the floor.

He sat upon the high throne, draped in a thick fox-fur cloak, his expression calm.

“I have only three things to say today.”

First, the Qi Royal Court was to be abolished effective immediately, and the old ways of the Northern Border were not to be restored under the new administration.

Second, during Shen Zhaoxue’s period of regency, anyone who incited chaos using old grievances between the North and South would be punished according to the laws of treason.

Third, having committed patricide and brought about the fall of his own nation, the guilt rested solely on his shoulders. After his death, he was not to be interred in the royal tombs or receive sacrifices; instead, he was to be buried beyond Changyuan Pass.

A roar of shock erupted throughout the hall.

I looked up sharply.

But he did not look at me.

He merely gazed at the snow falling outside the hall, his voice so light he hardly sounded like an emperor.

“Many people died there. I will go and keep watch over them.”

After the court was dismissed, I caught up to him in the empty, golden hall.

“Qi Yan!”

He stopped in his tracks.

“Are you unwilling to leave even a shred of your reputation untainted after you die?” I asked.

He gave a faint smile. “A clean reputation is too expensive; I cannot afford it.”

I suddenly felt a surge of intense hatred for his calm demeanor.

I would have preferred him to be like an ordinary person-afraid of death, afraid of being cursed, afraid of being misunderstood. I would have preferred him to grab my hand and say, “Zhaoxue, explain things to the future generations for me.” But he didn’t.

He tore down every path of retreat, leaving only a single path of survival for me.

“If you cannot afford it, I will buy it for you,” I said. “As long as I live, I will defend you every single day.”

Qi Yan looked at me for a long time, a hint of almost tender helplessness rising in his eyes.

“Don’t,” he said. “If you spend your whole life defending me, you will still be trapped here with me.”

My throat tightened.

“This cage of mine has already confined you for far too long.”

“Then what about me?”

He finally turned to look at me.

“Zhaoxue, you must live for a very long time. Long enough for them to forget what kind of man I was, and only remember that there has been no war at the border for many years.”

I shook my head. “I won’t be able to forget.”

“That is fine, too.”

He raised his hand, his fingertips lightly brushing the ginkgo hairpin at my temple.

“It is enough that one person remembers.”

That night, he lay in the warm side room of Weiyang Hall while the first snow fell silently outside the window.

I held his hand, sitting with him from dusk until dawn.

When he woke for the final time, he asked me, “Is the cage door open?”

“It’s open,” I replied.

“Then go.”

“I’m not going.”

He let out a very, very soft sigh.

“Shen Zhaoxue, you are always so disobedient.”

I leaned down and kissed his cold lips.

“Qi Yan, the most obedient I have ever been in my life was when I was sent here for the political marriage.”

His eyelashes trembled, like snow falling onto a dying fire.

“Don’t be obedient anymore.”

Those were the last words he left me.

At dawn, the first snow of the Northern Border stopped.

I pushed open the hall doors and saw the morning sun shining on the snow, bathing the entire city in a pure, white light.

The court historians later wrote of him as a man who killed his father, usurped the throne, destroyed his nation, and was led astray by the Southern Empress.

I did not change a word.

Because Qi Yan had said that someone must always bear the infamy.

I only wrote a single sentence in my private journal.

Within the gilded cage, the imperial family is the most heartless of all.

But Qi Yan was not a heartless emperor.

He was the cage.

And he was also the only sincere cage in this world.

Many years later, the apricot blossoms beyond Changyuan Pass bloomed into a vast sea of petals. I went to see him, leaning on a cane. There was no imperial title on the tombstone, only two words I had carved with my own hands.

Qi Yan.

The wind blew from the south, sweeping over the newly built schools, the trade markets, and the fields of the Northern Border-passing over all those people who finally had names of their own.

I buried a faded ginkgo red string in front of the monument.

“Look,” I whispered. “The land is no longer bleeding.”

No one answered me.

Only the apricot blossoms fell, covering my shoulders.