Xiao Nanhui was awakened by the throbbing pain in her shoulder and neck.
*Thump. Thump. Thump.*
A heavy, rhythmic sound vibrated against her ear. A steady warmth pressed against her cheek, and the air she breathed was warm and dry, yet carried a faint, bitter chill.
That familiar scent now clung to the fabric against her skin, seeped into her hair, and lingered in every breath she took.
Blinking, Xiao Nanhui heard the sound of her eyelashes brushing against silver-threaded brocade.
She suddenly realized she wasn't lying on a bed, but on a person.
The sound she had been hearing was that person’s heartbeat, and the warmth beneath her cheek came from his chest.
Xiao Nanhui felt her entire body flush with heat. She shifted uncomfortably, and a voice sounded above her head.
"Don't move if you're awake."
His voice had returned to its usual indifference, carrying a hint of the "Zhongli Jing" she had known.
"You fell into a patch of Datura. You inhaled too much pollen; that is why you lost consciousness."
Her vision focused on the soft, hanging bed curtains before her. Flowers entwined within silver-threaded vines swirled and bloomed, their centers a deep, pitch black.
She finally understood what these flowers were—the ones that appeared so frequently around the Emperor.
When she had been stationed at the southern border, Xiao Nanhui had heard traveling monks speak of the legends surrounding the Datura.
The pure white Datura symbolized the sacred and the divine. Legend said that when the Buddha attained enlightenment, a rain of white Datura fell from the heavens. It represented the impartial, desireless nature of the gods, capable of purging all delusions, suffering, and the attachments of life and death.
However, there was another kind of Datura that was entirely black. It was said that when a god fell from grace, these flowers would burst from the earth along the road to hell. They symbolized boundless desire and pain, the bitter fruit of love, hatred, and revenge. Even a speck of its pollen carried a fragrance so fierce it could stir the demons within one's heart.
Black and white—sacred yet dangerous. Just like the man before her.
Xiao Nanhui curled her fingers. Though her mind was now fully clear, she didn't dare move her body at all.
The clothing on her shoulder had been pulled down halfway. She could feel his fingers, coated in cool medicinal salve, moving gently across her back and shoulder.
He applied it slowly, his fingertips tracing her skin as if sketching a fine-line painting. Only after the salve had warmed to the same feverish temperature as her skin did he finally pull away.
"It is done."
She immediately tried to push herself up, but the sharp pain in her shoulder left her without strength. In her frantic haste, Xiao Nanhui nearly tumbled off him.
Scrambling to her feet in a daze, her gaze landed on a small side table by the bed. The dagger resting there looked extremely familiar.
The scene before she lost consciousness rushed back into her mind. Xiao Nanhui blurted out, "Where is that palace attendant?"
"Dead."
"Dead?" She couldn't hide her shock. "How is that possible? I clearly saw..."
She had clearly seen Ding Weixiang only sever the man's right hand. How could he be dead?
Xiao Nanhui was still reeling from this string of bizarre events when the man’s voice suddenly drew closer.
"Do you have nothing else to say to Us?"
Seeing him approach, Xiao Nanhui instinctively shrank back. Though the wound on her shoulder burned as it was pulled, it lacked the bone-deep agony she had felt right after the punishment.
Yet her trembling right hand served as a reminder of what had just happened: she might never be able to hold a bow again.
Supporting her arm, she slowly prostrated herself in a formal salute.
"This subject cannot accept Your Majesty’s medicine."
He did not tell her to rise. His voice remained steady and unhurried. "But the medicine has already been used on you. What do you intend to do about it?"
The man on the couch had sat up, leaning half-against the railing. He had removed his heavy cloak; his moon-white robes were unwrinkled, save for a slight messiness on the chest where she had been lying.
Even in such a languid posture, he remained high and mighty, untainted by the world. Even his emotions seemed to have no ripples, as if everything that had happened before was merely a passing mist that left no mark upon him.
*You like him.*
Bai Yun’s words suddenly echoed in her mind without warning.
No, she didn't... How could she like such a person? How could she allow herself to fall to this state for someone like him?
The sorrow, grievance, despair, and rage she had endured in the hall surged into her heart all at once, making her momentarily forget where she was and who stood before her.
"Since Your Majesty wished to punish me, why waste these things on me? Or perhaps Your Majesty simply enjoys this—torturing someone half to death and then offering comfort, thinking it will earn their eternal gratitude..."
"Silence!"
Her words were cut short by his cold, harsh voice.
She could almost feel the terrifying rage erupting in that instant—an emotion that should never have appeared on the man before her.
In the next second, she was hauled up from the floor.
If she hadn't felt the physical force on her arm, she would hardly have believed that someone who looked so frail could possess such frightening strength.
"Xiao Nanhui, even now, do you still not know where you went wrong?"
She stared at that pale face. In those eyes that were usually as flat as still water, a blizzard of cold wind now resided. Their darkness reflected her own distorted features.
"It was my own doing. I have confessed, and I have received the punishment. What more is Your Majesty dissatisfied with? Why not state it all today so I may endure it all at once? It would save me from having to walk onto the execution ground a second time..."
Her voice was faint, carrying the lifelessness of utter exhaustion.
But the words he spoke next truly pierced her heart like a sharp blade.
"Do you know what you look like right now? You remind Us of a hound kept by a hunter. On ordinary days, he tosses it a few scraps, and in the critical moment, that dog will give its life for him. Is that not how Xiao Zhun treats you? Why is it that We never encounter such a profitable bargain?"
Xiao Nanhui felt herself shaking with rage, her words becoming difficult to form. "If Your Majesty wants my arm, then take it. Why must you... humiliate me so?"
Her hand inside her sleeve was clenched tight. If the person before her weren't the Sovereign, she might have made his blood spill on the spot.
"Was it Us who crippled your arm?" Su Wei narrowed his long, thin eyes, his gaze filled with unabashed irony. "No, it was Xiao Zhun. The moment he placed you on the edge of the blade and chose not to pick you first, he had already abandoned you. Xiao Nanhui, you are nothing more than a target he raised—a shield to take the blow for Bai Yun when the time came!"
The humiliation that had been building in her chest for so long flooded out like a deluge. Xiao Nanhui felt a rush of heat hit her head. She suddenly shoved the man away, grabbed the military cap from her head, and tore it off.
The rank-four official's cap with its feathered plume was hurled violently to the floor. The red cherry-beads that had been tied at her neck scattered upon impact, bouncing and rolling beneath their feet.
When she spoke again, she realized how raspy her voice had become. "It is difficult to be Your Majesty’s subject. Xiao Nanhui requests to resign and return to her fields."
Su Wei’s eyes locked onto Xiao Nanhui, as if he might destroy her in the most cruel way possible in the next second.
For a moment, the only sound in the air was their heavy breathing.
After only a brief interval, the anger on his face suddenly vanished.
He returned to that face like an immovable ancient mountain. A faint smile even played at the corners of his mouth, but it didn't reach his eyes, sending a chill deep into one's soul. "What? Are you throwing a tantrum with Us?"
Xiao Nanhui gritted her teeth, refusing to say a word.
In all her life, she had never felt this way. Even though the person before her was physically no match for her, he left her with nowhere to run, even evoking a sense of dread.
"When it comes to tantrums, no one has ever won against Us."
The Emperor’s cold hand touched her palm. Xiao Nanhui flinched.
In the next heartbeat, a cold, hard object was pressed into her hand. His low, husky voice sounded above her head.
"If you harbor resentment because of this, We shall return it to you."
Before Xiao Nanhui could react, the force covering her hand suddenly tightened. A silver light flashed before her eyes, and something warm splashed onto her face.
Her gaze moved downward stiffly. She saw the dagger, adorned with exquisite cloud patterns, driven straight through the Emperor’s hand and pinned into the side table. Her own hand was gripped over the hilt.
He held her hand and wrenched the blade sideways. The sickening sound of grinding bone and tearing tendons rang out as the thin, fast blade ripped a large gash into those long, porcelain-white hands.
Xiao Nanhui snapped back to her senses. She frantically shook off Su Wei’s hand and yanked the dagger out.
Blood gushed out. His face turned a shade paler, and beads of cold sweat broke out on his forehead, yet he gritted his teeth and didn't make a sound.
"Xiao Nanhui, we are even."
Xiao Nanhui’s mind exploded with a roar, followed by a vast, white void. Only fragments of absurd verses flashed through her thoughts.
They were vaguely like the lyrics she had heard children in Bijiang chant, or perhaps snippets she had read by lamplight in Yao Yi’s backyard.
*Before the age of five, he could recite; at seven, he could compose poetry. By nine, his zither playing echoed like a solitary valley, and no court musician could match him. Today, I saw Wei at the Shangsi Feast, performing 'Presenting Shoes at Yi Bridge.' The sound was transparent, the realm profound and lofty, untainted by the mundane, a style of its own. Having heard it today, I am ashamed to be called a Sage of the Zither; thus, I break my fingers and leave the feast, vowing never to speak of music again...*
Her vision blurred. Those hands—hands capable of playing ancient, sublime melodies—were now bloody before her eyes. The crimson liquid that had sprayed out landed on his moon-white hem like a blooming flower of sin.
In a daze, she seemed to hear Shan Jiangfei rushing in, crying out as he ran toward the Emperor.
Someone held a blade to her neck, shouting reprimands. A moment later, she was roughly pushed away, blocked outside the palace doors.
She walked out of the side hall alone, like one who had lost her soul. Following the night-shift attendants, she exited the palace gates in a stupor.
Dawn was breaking. Inside and outside the palace, the guards began their rotation. The Emperor’s carriage was prepared to depart.
At the start of the hour of the Dragon, an attendant carried the last basin of bloody water out of the side hall. Shan Jiangfei dismissed everyone and personally cleaned the final traces from the floor.
A plain silk handkerchief wiped away the last speck of blood. The entire side hall looked as if nothing had happened.
Shan Jiangfei brought out a set of dark-colored casual robes for the Emperor. His gaze fell on the man’s left hand; even layers of gauze and medicine couldn't hide the faint glimpse of mangled flesh beneath. He couldn't help but sigh.
"Why must Your Majesty go to such lengths? From now on, let alone playing the zither, even holding a brush will likely be difficult."
The Emperor used one hand to adjust the hook of his new robes, remaining elegant and composed. "We can use Our left hand as well."
The person in question was perfectly calm, as if the one who had just self-harmed in a fit of pique was someone else entirely.
Shan Jiangfei’s lips pulled down uncontrollably. "The Black Feather Camp still relies on melodies to follow Your Majesty’s commands. Will Your Majesty use only one hand then as well?"
"If I do not play in the future, there is still you."
Shan Jiangfei froze. "My skills are crude; how can I be compared to Your Majesty..."
"When We had someone teach you the zither, We never intended to hide this skill from you. You have always been deep-thinking; while the spiritual realm of your music is somewhat lacking, your technique is proficient. Those melodies for commanding the Black Feather Camp should not be difficult for you."
A flash of alarm crossed the young eunuch’s face. He immediately knelt. "Your Majesty..."
"Why the alarm? We are merely stating a fact."
The palace doors swung wide, facing the east. On both sides, attendants waited respectfully in two rows.
The Emperor turned to face the pale morning light.
"It is merely a pair of hands for playing the zither. If they can be traded for a single stir of her heart, it is a most fitting bargain."
He raised his hand slightly. The wide sleeve fell back, revealing long fingers with distinct joints. A deep, bone-exposing wound tore through that beauty, evoking a sudden sense of tragic regret.
"She bears the marks We left upon her, and We bear the marks she left upon Us. Even if our paths never cross again in this life, We shall ensure we can never be parted."
***
**Glossary**
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
---|---|---
曼陀罗 | Datura | Also known as Devil's Trumpet; associated with both divinity and danger/desire in the text.
武弁 | Wubian | A type of military cap worn by officials.
樱珠 | Cherry-beads | Decorative red beads/tassels on the official's cap.
解甲归田 | Resign and return to the fields | An idiom meaning to retire from military service and return to civilian life.
圯桥进履 | Presenting Shoes at Yi Bridge | A famous historical allusion to Zhang Liang and the Old Man of Yi Bridge; here, the title of a zither composition.
辰时 | Hour of the Dragon | 7:00 AM – 9:00 AM.
