Chapter 13
Chapter 13
The fire at Zhaoming Palace burned until the Hour of the Rabbit before it was finally extinguished.
The official story was that Empress Jiang had committed treason, conspiring with sorcerers to murder the Grand Princess using occult arts. The Emperor, enraged despite his illness, issued a decree to depose the Empress and seize the Jiang family’s assets. Wuxiang Tower vanished from the capital overnight, and nothing but scorched earth remained beneath the Agarwood Shop.
No one dared to ask what had truly happened.
The Emperor lived for another three months. Upon his death, he passed the throne to a young prince of the imperial clan, with Xiao Lingyi presiding over the court as the Regent Grand Princess.
She did not die.
The moment Gu Huaibi returned his life to himself, he also pushed me out from the threshold of The Door. The fate-destiny my mother left behind had not completely dissipated; a very thin layer remained, just enough for me to live, and enough for Xiao Lingyi to live.
But I could no longer paint funerary portraits.
My eyes were ruined.
It wasn’t that I was blind, but rather that I could no longer see the skeletal essence of people. When the living walked before me, they were merely ordinary faces; when the dead lay in their coffins, they were merely silent corpses. My so-called divine skill had burned away along with Wuxiang Tower.
The changes to my face could not be hidden.
At first, the old scar on my jaw disappeared. Then, my brow bone lowered, and the bridge of my nose softened. The imperial physicians said it was fire poison invading the muscles, while the palace servants whispered in private that a ghost had peeled away my face.
Only I knew that it was Gu Huaibi slowly taking himself back.
On the seventh day, I saw a stranger’s face in the bronze mirror.
It was neither handsome nor ugly. The features were plain, even a bit bland. But I stared at it for a long time and suddenly smiled.
Perhaps this was the face I was always meant to have.
When Xiao Lingyi came to see me, I was packing my painting kit.
She wore black court robes. Her complexion was still pale, but she possessed more vitality than she had that night in the coffin. When she saw me, her footsteps faltered.
“You don’t recognize me?” I asked.
She stepped closer, looking at me intently. “No. I just feel that you finally don’t look like a painting anymore.”
I lowered my head and smiled.
She picked up one of my stored, old brushes. “You won’t paint anymore?”
“I won’t paint the dead.”
“Then what will you paint?”
I thought for a moment. “I’ll paint the living. But not for the powerful to see. I’ll paint them for themselves.”
She nodded, as if finding that answer acceptable.
Before leaving, she handed me an old case file.
“I looked into the case of Gu Huaibi from the Northern Prison,” she said. “His father was wrongfully executed. An old servant of the Gu Family is still alive, living in Jiangnan. If you wish to return something to them, I will send men to escort you.”
I took the file, my fingertips resting on the name ‘Gu Huaibi.’
Many years ago, I had written ‘Send him back to his hometown’ on the back of his portrait, yet I had made his face stay with me for twenty-six years.
Now, it was time to truly send him home.