Night of Blood

Winter, the twenty-second year of Jianxi.

A thin layer of snow lay on the glazed tiles of the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Xiao Lin remembered how cold it had been that day. Wrapped in a cloak, he sat behind his desk reviewing memorials. The calming soup beside his hand had gone completely cold, untouched. These past few days, his chest had felt tight. The imperial physicians had examined him and said only that he had overworked himself. They prescribed a few mild remedies, but taking them brought no improvement.

He did not know that it was not overwork.

It was a slow-acting poison.

Footsteps sounded outside the hall, but they were clearly not the soft, mincing steps of palace servants. They were the clang of iron armor. Xiao Lin's brush hand stilled.

He had been emperor for twenty-two years. He knew that sound all too well.

Armored soldiers.

He looked up and saw the doors of the Hall of Mental Cultivation pushed open from outside. Cold wind poured in. The candle flames lurched, stretching his shadow long and slanted across the wall.

Outside stood ranks of private soldiers in armor, blades in hand-no fewer than a hundred by his estimate. Behind them, torches burned in a crimson sea, staining even the cold moon in the night sky the color of blood.

Xiao Lin set down his brush and slowly leaned back in his chair. He did not panic. He did not even rise. He simply looked at the people standing at the head of those soldiers for a long time, then gave a very faint laugh.

"Xiao Yu."

The second prince, Xiao Yu, stood with his hand on his sword, blood still wet on his armor. Behind him, Noble Consort Shen Mingzhu wore court robes, her face as lovely and composed as ever, as though she had merely come to pay her respects to His Majesty.

"Father." Xiao Yu cupped his hands, observing every courtesy, his voice unhurried. "Your son has come expressly to ask you to abdicate."

Xiao Lin did not look at him. He looked at the noble consort.

"My calming soup," he said calmly. "How long have you been tampering with it?"

Shen Mingzhu smiled faintly. "Two years."

Xiao Lin nodded.

He remembered how his health had deteriorated day by day over those two years, with no improvement despite several changes of imperial physicians. He had investigated the imperial kitchens, the imperial dispensary, and every place he could investigate. Only that bowl of calming soup had escaped his scrutiny. It was a prescription he had been drinking since he was still a prince, the one thing against which he had never guarded himself.

And Shen Mingzhu knew.

"The crown prince," Xiao Lin said suddenly.

"That was your doing too."

The noble consort's smile deepened. She did not answer, but her eyes held every answer. Looking at her, Xiao Lin suddenly felt that this woman was a snake, and he had let that snake coil beside his pillow for twenty whole years.

"...Good."

He slowly rose. Two years of illness had severely depleted his body; that single movement brought sweat to his temples. Yet he still stood straight, his back held as though it had never bent.

He drew the emperor's sword hanging on the wall.

"If you want my throne," he said, his voice quiet yet carrying over all the clamor outside, "come and take it yourself."

Xiao Yu's expression shifted, and he instinctively retreated half a step. He knew his father all too well-even a wolf with only one breath left could tear out a hunter's throat.

Then he remembered that he had brought three hundred private soldiers.

Three hundred against one.

He steadied himself.

"Father is advanced in years." Xiao Yu waved a hand. "Men, escort His Majesty to the side hall to rest."

The private soldiers surged inside.

Xiao Lin drove back the first wave.

His swordsmanship had not deteriorated, even though his hands had begun to shake. Three soldiers fell at his feet. Blood spattered his dragon robe, impossible to tell whether it belonged to others or himself. But when the second wave charged, his sword was half a beat too slow.

A blade grazed his left ribs, shearing away a strip of flesh.

He gave a muffled grunt and dropped to one knee, bracing his sword against the floor to support himself. He did not fall.

His vision began to darken.

It will probably be today, he thought.

He had been emperor for twenty-two years. He had killed brothers, meritorious ministers, and everyone he had deemed deserving of death. In his entire life, he had trusted no one and loved no one. He had even deposed his own son with his own hands.

And in the end, this was how he would finish.

He suddenly wanted to laugh. To laugh at how he had exhausted every scheme, only to fall to a bowl of calming soup. To laugh at how, after a lifetime of coldness and indifference, he could not think of anyone worth holding in his thoughts as he lay dying.

No.

There was one person.

He thought of the Eastern Palace. Of the crown prince he had deposed, his son, Xiao Huaijin. That child had been imprisoned in the Eastern Palace for a year now. In all that time, he had never gone to see him, never asked a single question about him. He had deliberately avoided thinking of Xiao Huaijin, because whenever he thought of that child, he remembered those eyes when he issued the decree deposing the crown prince.

There had been no hatred in those eyes, only emptiness. As though he had waited seventeen years and finally received an answer.

Xiao Lin closed his eyes. The sword slipped from his hand and struck the floor with a clang.

Just then, a sudden commotion broke out beyond the hall.

Someone had broken in.

The Imperial Guards? No, not the Imperial Guards. They would not make so little noise.

It was one person.

Xiao Lin's eyes flew open.

A figure stumbled through the side door. He wore a thin garment riddled with holes and was so emaciated that he was nothing but bones. His hair was as tangled as grass. His feet were bare, covered in chilblains and overlapping wounds, old and new. He clutched a wooden stick.

A wooden stick taken from the door bar of the Eastern Palace.

"Father-"

That figure threw himself in front of him, shielding him with his thin back as he faced the armored soldiers filling the hall.

Xiao Huaijin.

Xiao Lin's mind rang. He wanted to ask how he had come, whether the Eastern Palace had not been sealed, how his body had become like this, what he was holding, whether that could even serve as a weapon. But he could say nothing.

"Go." Xiao Huaijin did not turn around. His voice had the dry rasp of someone suddenly speaking after years of silence. "Father... go..."

Xiao Yu recognized him. He froze for a moment, then laughed. "My dear elder brother, you're in this state, and you're still protecting him? He deposed you. He locked you away for so long. Look at you now-you don't know, do you? While you were imprisoned, he never even asked about you."

Xiao Huaijin's hand trembled.

Xiao Lin saw it. The wooden stick swayed in his hand, as though it might fall at any moment.

But he did not lower it.

"...I know."

Xiao Huaijin's voice was very, very soft, so soft that Xiao Lin had to hold his breath to hear it.

"I know Father doesn't like me."

He paused.

"But-"

He did not go on.

The private soldiers had already surrounded him.

Xiao Huaijin raised that wooden stick.

It was a battle he was destined never to win.

Before the palace coup, Xiao Huaijin had been the crown prince. He had trained in martial arts, practiced archery, and ridden horses. But that had been a year ago. A year of imprisonment, hunger, cold, and illness had hollowed out his body. He trembled merely standing. How could he possibly defeat three hundred armored soldiers?

But he fought.

Swinging his wooden stick, he charged into the crowd like a spark falling into a cauldron of oil, swallowed in an instant.

The first blow landed on his shoulder. He swayed but did not fall, swinging his stick back into that soldier's face.

The second blow landed on his back. He gave a muffled grunt, dropped to one knee, then stood again.

The third blade pierced his chest.

Xiao Lin saw the tip emerge from Xiao Huaijin's back, gleaming bright, bringing with it a spray of blood.

"No-"

At last, he shouted. The sound seemed to come not from his throat but from between his bones, a roar stored up for half a lifetime, hoarse and shattered.

He did not know how he got to his feet. He lunged forward and caught that body as it pitched toward the ground.

Too light.

Too light to belong to an eighteen-year-old youth. Holding him, Xiao Lin felt warm blood pour from that pierced chest, soaking through his dragon robe, through his inner garment, through his skin.

"Huaijin," he called hoarsely. It was the first time in his life he had called this child by his name. "Huaijin-"

Xiao Huaijin's eyes were open, looking at him.

Those eyes held bloodshot veins, tears, and far, far too many things he could not put into words. But the corners of his mouth were lifting. He was smiling.

"Father..."

His voice grew softer and softer, as though drifting over from somewhere very, very far away.

"See... your son... is very good... isn't he..."

Xiao Lin's tears struck his face.

He nodded desperately. His throat felt as though something had seized it, and he could not utter a single complete word. He wanted to say yes, you are the best-behaved, you are Father's best-behaved child, Father has wronged you, you are the one Father has wronged most in his life, can you hear me, can you hear me?

But he could not say it.

He could only hold that body as it grew lighter and lighter, his whole body shaking like a sieve.

Xiao Huaijin's hand stirred. He tried to lift it, wanting to touch his father's face, but before his fingertips could reach that high, his hand fell.

Into a pool of blood.

Those eyes were still open. That faint curve still lingered at his lips. But the light in his eyes went out.

At last, the horns of the Imperial Guards sounded in the distance. Xiao Yu panicked. Shen Mingzhu's expression changed. The private soldiers began to scatter. But Xiao Lin could no longer hear any of those sounds.

Holding his son as he slowly grew cold, he knelt on the freezing floor of the Hall of Mental Cultivation. The sounds coming from his throat were like those of a trapped beast caught in a hunter's jaws: low, stifled sobs that would not stop.

That emperor who never shed tears before others wept in a pool of blood for an entire night.

The snow fell and stopped. The wind rose and died. When the horizon turned the pale white of a fish's belly, the Imperial Guards had purged all the rebels. Xiao Yu was held below the steps, and Shen Mingzhu was bound to a corridor pillar. People came to report, people came to seek instructions, people asked His Majesty how the rebels should be dealt with.

No one dared approach.

For their emperor knelt there, holding a dead youth, covered in blood, without a word.

A very, very long time passed, so long that everyone thought he would turn into a stone statue. Then he spoke.

His voice was very soft.

"...Carry the crown prince to my bed."

The palace servants froze.

The crown prince was dead. According to ancestral custom, an adult prince who died within the palace could not lie in state on the imperial bed. Yet no one dared utter the word "no"-because when His Majesty raised his head and looked at them, there was nothing in his eyes.

An emptiness that frightened them.

At dawn, Xiao Lin sat alone outside the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

He had changed out of his bloodstained dragon robe, but dried blood still marked his hands. He did not wipe it away. He looked at those hands covered in his son's blood and sat there in silence for a long time.

Then he bent down and picked up that wooden stick from the ground.

The door bar of the Eastern Palace. The rough wood was covered in blade marks. One part had been split halfway through, exposing jagged splinters. It was soaked in blood.

He gripped that wooden stick and held it against his chest.

"...You once asked me why I deposed you."

He spoke to the empty air. Or rather, to the person who could no longer hear him.

"Back then, someone brought evidence of your rebellion. There were witnesses and material proof. I investigated, but I could not get to the truth. I was afraid-afraid you really would rebel, afraid I had misjudged you, afraid this realm would be ruined in my hands."

"I have been emperor for twenty-two years. I have been betrayed too many times. I dared not gamble. So I deposed you."

His voice began to shake.

"But I was wrong."

He lowered his head.

"You were not someone else-you were my son-"

His voice choked off. Only after a long time did he force a sentence from his throat.

"...My crown prince."

Snow fell again, fine and thick, settling on his hair, on his shoulders, on that bloodstained wooden stick.

Within and beyond the palace walls, all was plain white.

At morning court that day, Emperor Jianxi issued a decree.

Noble Consort Shen Mingzhu was to suffer the ultimate punishment, with her nine degrees of kinship exterminated. The second prince, Xiao Yu, was to be stripped of his rank and made a commoner, imprisoned for life in the imperial dungeon. The entire Shen Clan was to be executed and its property confiscated.

No one dared plead for mercy.

For as His Majesty wrote those words, a bloodstained wooden stick still lay on the desk before him.