Chapter 27

Chapter 27

In the deathly silence, Naihe suddenly laughed.

“What are you laughing at?” Chen Dong barked.

“The First Prince interrogated people all night, and this is all he learned? The banquet lasted three full hours. Her Majesty was hardly the only person who briefly left.” Naihe rose, straight as a pine. Smiling, he continued, “Why not ask the First Princess Consort where she went one hour before the banquet ended?”

Chen Dong’s expression darkened. “She could not hold her wine and went with an attendant to the pavilion in the middle of the lake to sober up.”

“Any witnesses?”

“The attendant who accompanied her.”

“Then no.”

“Absurd. How could a weak woman kill anyone?”

Naihe said mildly, “Is Her Majesty not also a woman?”

Chen Dong was silent for a long while. “You truly do not fear death.”

“His Majesty ordered me to discover the truth. Why fear death in its pursuit?”

Chen Dong had honed on the battlefield the aura of a murderous god. Naihe was only a young monk, yet standing before him, he yielded not in the slightest.

“If you fail to find the killer in three days, His Majesty will be the first to kill you,” Chen Dong said darkly.

Naihe smiled gently. “But this is only the first day.”

Chen Dong swept out. I meant to follow and question him about the sky-blue brocade, but stopped myself.

I could not let him know what I suspected.

When I returned, Naihe was examining an old zither. Danchi had bestowed it upon me some time ago. It was a decent instrument, but had sat untouched for so long that even I had forgotten it.

“You can play?”

“I learned a little from an elder in my family.”

“Play for me.”

He casually plucked the strings, and music flowed through the chamber like water. It was an ancient Southern Xu melody called “Longing for Home.” His playing was not exceptional, yet sorrow slowly rose in my heart.

Every child of Southern Xu nobility, male or female, learned the zither. My brother had been among the finest. When I was small, he liked to hold me in his arms and teach me simple melodies. “Longing for Home” was one of them.

“Longing enters dreams by night;

Snow falls as someone knocks.

Softly I ask who has come,

Thinking an old friend returned.”

I had nearly forgotten the old days of Southern Xu. Every day brought schemes and killing, and I believed I no longer needed such tender memories.

But after Naihe appeared, I discovered I had never forgotten them at all.

Who are you? I watched him and asked silently. Did you come to protect me, or destroy me?

The melody ended.

“Apart from Yu Ning, who else left the banquet that night?” I asked softly.

Naihe took a small booklet from his sleeve and offered it to me. “Everyone who left, and the time of each absence, is recorded here. Please examine it, Your Majesty.”

“When did you investigate this?” My surprise was genuine.

Naihe did not answer. He merely offered me a cup of tea.

By the time I finished reading, the world seemed utterly still. A conclusion hovered on the verge of revelation.

“You already know who the killer is?”

“Yes.”

“The killer’s identity is not truly important. What matters is whom they want the killer to be,” I murmured.

Naihe smiled. “What they want is also unimportant. What matters is whom Your Majesty wants the killer to be.”

I looked into his eyes. Never before or after did I see eyes so tranquil, like amber lakes.

Yet the stillest lakes conceal the strangest undercurrents.

I looked away. “I want only to preserve the present balance and prevent further conflict.”

Naihe nodded and said no more, lowering his head to stroke the strings.

“And the curse…”

“Do not worry, Your Majesty. Within seven days, I will find a way to break it.”

I watched him uneasily. Only then did I realize how many times he had helped me in a handful of days, while I had shown him neither gratitude nor kindness. It was unfair.

“Naihe, is there anything you want?”

He kept his head lowered, but suddenly smiled. “That is the first time you have called me by name.”

For some inexplicable reason, heat rose to my cheeks. I deliberately snapped, “Names exist to be spoken. If you dislike it, I will call you little monk! Little bald head!”

“That is not what I meant.”

He continued idly touching the strings. Our arms did not meet, yet I could feel a faint warmth slowly spreading along mine.

For a time, neither of us spoke. Only the distant drone of cicadas filled the chamber.

Youchun entered with tea and pastries. “Why bring out a zither if no one is going to play it? People admire flowers, but do they admire zithers too?”

I coughed and stood. “You should return to your quarters. Whatever else happens, you must at least make a show of investigating.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, you still have not told me what you want.”

He ran a hand over the zither. “If Your Majesty can bear to part with it, would you bestow this instrument upon me?”

“This one?” I walked over and briefly examined its condition. It was a fine zither, but nothing more.
“Take it. His Majesty gave it to me once. Northerners know nothing of zithers. If you like them, I will find you a better one another day.”

“This one is already excellent.”

He carefully placed it in its case, then said without looking up, “Whatever Your Majesty chooses to call me, I will like it.”

I froze. By then, he had already picked up the zither and left.

Yu Qing’s influence at court ran deep. The Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Revenue – nearly every pillar of government had once been his protégé. Chen Dong, meanwhile, held military power firmly in his hands. If the two went to war, Northern Qian would inevitably fall into chaos. The secret that Danchi was already a madman would become known to all, and then… there would be no place for me in Northern Qian.

Over the years, I had painstakingly cultivated my own strength at court. Yet the hatred between north and south was carved into the bone. Few northerners sincerely pledged themselves to me, and few people of Southern Xu could hold important office in Northern Qian. I had spent these years walking the edge of a blade. One careless step would send blood flying.

What was I to do? Return to the remnant court in the west?

The absurd thought made me laugh at myself.

In all the vastness beneath heaven, where was there any place to which I could “return”?

I dealt with state affairs all day. When night fell, I had Youchun remain beside me and continually rouse me so that I would not fall asleep.

“Youchun, do you think I am growing old?”

She examined me carefully. “When you dress up, you’re prettier than before. Without adornment, you’re uglier.”

I smiled at myself. “Beauty is the first thing to fade. After that comes the spirit. I fear that one day I will no longer have the strength to maneuver among them. When that happens, what will you do? What will become of all our sisters in Northern Qian?”

Youchun answered as if it were obvious. “Then we will go find the young master together. If we cannot find him, we will live in the little house again.”

The young master – Helan Zhiyan. A man of extraordinary gifts, yet there had been no news of him for years. I did not know whether he still lived.

Everything I had experienced, everyone I had known, passed before my eyes like revolving lanterns: Chen Dong, Yu Qing, Yu Ning, the magnificent sky-blue brocade, the ghostlike Old Ge, and the hidden currents at the banquet…

My fingers loosened. The book fell from my hand. Youchun’s voice receded into the distance.

I was dreaming again.

This time, I dreamed of the Southern Xu capital that year.

The northern army had invaded the southern capital. They had no conception of settling the Central Plains. They seized whatever they saw and killed anyone who resisted.

The vendors on the long avenue, the steaming wonton stall, the girl buying rouge, the old man carrying a birdcage and haggling with an antiques dealer – in the blink of an eye, they became lifeless corpses trampled beneath horses’ hooves. Blood flowed toward the end of the avenue, staining the capital a red more intense than sunset.

The guards around me died one by one.

They were young nobles of Southern Xu, tested again and again before they were chosen to serve my brother and protect me when disaster came. They were so young, men who had not yet had time to become generals guarding distant frontiers, and they died beneath Northern Qian blades.

Their loyalty was such that even as they died, they would not address a lady of the palace with familiar words. They said only, “Your Majesty, you must go…”

Your Majesty. For a moment, I thought they meant me. Then I saw a figure standing at the far end of the blood-soaked avenue. Sunset traced her lovely silhouette, and her autumn-colored palace robes streamed in the evening wind.

I knew who she was.

She was the empress of Southern Xu. She was the wound I could not touch. But… I knew that the moment I saw her face, the final string in my mind would snap.

Yet I stood frozen.

“Xihe…”

The blood-scented wind carried her gentle voice. Slowly, she turned and reached for me. “Come here, Xihe…”

The crimson sunset hid her face. Still, I walked toward her step by step, as though I were the barefoot little girl searching everywhere for her. Where did you go? I looked everywhere and could not find you, Zhiqiu…

Suddenly, a small hand took mine.

I looked down and saw Xia Wan’s jade-pale face, the red mole between his brows like the Buddha’s mark.

“Aunt Xihe,” he said softly. “She is already dead. But you must live.”

I shook my head and stubbornly pulled my hand free. “No. Living hurts too much.”

Xia Wan did not let go. In the dream, his face was indistinct, but his voice remained clear and gentle. “Then what will become of me? Do you not want to see me again?”

I stared at him, suddenly desperate to cry. I crouched, wrapped him tightly in my arms, and began to sob until my voice broke.

“Do not go. You are all Aunt Xihe has left. Please do not leave me.”

I clung to him like a drowning person to her final piece of driftwood. The world collapsed around us. The avenue, the sunset, the capital, and distant, blurred Zhiqiu all dissolved like a world seen through tears until nothing remained clear.