Rebirth

The twenty-second year of Jianxi, the fifteenth day of the twelfth lunar month.

The seventh day after the crown prince's death.

The doors of the Hall of Mental Cultivation had been shut for seven days, and memorials had piled into mountains on the imperial desk. Every day, Liu An carried medicine and porridge inside, then carried them out untouched. There was not a sound within, not even footsteps.

Xiao Lin sat on the broad dragon bed. Deep within it, Xiao Huaijin's body had lain for three days before he allowed anyone to move it back to the Eastern Palace's main hall to be placed in a coffin.

On the seventh night, Xiao Lin finally spoke his first words.

"Liu An."

Liu An practically threw himself inside, not even feeling the pain when his knees struck the threshold. "Your servant is here."

Xiao Lin sat behind the desk, a blank imperial edict spread before him. A brush lay beside it, its ink already dry. He had grown noticeably thinner, his cheekbones jutting like knife edges, his eyes sunken deep. Those eyes, always as cold as a winter pool, were frighteningly empty.

"Draft an edict-"

He paused for a long time, as though searching for words.

"Crown Prince Xiao Huaijin, born of Empress Xiaoyi Shen. Gifted with intelligence, benevolent, filial, and generous. My eldest legitimate son, my-"

He did not write any further. The brush tip stopped against the silk, spreading a blot of ink. He started again. The second sheet was ruined too. On the third, he simply set the brush down.

"I will dictate the rest. You write."

When they reached the posthumous name, he stopped again.

"The crown prince's posthumous name-"

Liu An cautiously raised his head.

Xiao Lin did not meet his eyes. He only looked toward the window, where a small bow belonging to the crown prince hung, resting against the lattice. No one knew when he had dug it out. The bowstring had slackened, and there was a very faint tooth mark on the back of the bow, left when Xiao Huaijin was teething and had bitten it while his nursemaid was not looking. The horn bow was tough; he had been unable to bite into it and had left only a mark. Xiao Lin reached out his thumb and rubbed that tooth mark. His fingertip was rough, and the mark was so shallow he could scarcely feel it.

"Jade cherished in the bosom, jade held in the hand. His posthumous name shall be Huai."

His voice was very low, with a barely perceptible catch in it.

Liu An's hand shook as he wrote the character for "Huai." He dared not let His Majesty see him crying, so he kept his eyes lowered and continued writing.

"All funeral rites shall follow those of a Son of Heaven."

Liu An's brush stopped. He opened his mouth, wanting to say that this violated ancestral precedent. But when he looked up and saw Xiao Lin's eyes, he swallowed the words.

On the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month, the crown prince's funeral procession departed. The realm wore mourning white. Xiao Lin did not go. By ritual, an emperor did not see off a crown prince, but he stood at the entrance to the Hall of Mental Cultivation, gazing toward the Eastern Palace for the entire day. Liu An draped three cloaks over him, and he took each one off, saying he did not need it. White hairs had begun appearing on his head. Snow fell upon them, until one could no longer tell snow from hair.

Spring, the twenty-third year of Jianxi.

On the day Noble Consort Shen Mingzhu was executed, Xiao Lin went to the execution ground. By custom, an emperor did not watch an execution, but he went. When Shen Mingzhu was brought forward, she remained dignified even bound to the execution frame. Not a strand of hair was out of place, and her face even bore that composed smile Xiao Lin had watched for twenty years. Seeing Xiao Lin standing below the platform, she tilted her head slightly, as though looking at an old friend.

"For Your Majesty to come see me off in person today-I am truly overwhelmed by your favor."

Xiao Lin said nothing. He only looked at her. This was the woman who had coiled beside his pillow for twenty years, put slow-acting poison in his calming soup for two years, framed his crown prince, raised a private army, staged a palace coup, and caused his most beloved son to die in his arms. And only now had he seen her clearly.

"There is something I do not understand."

The corners of Shen Mingzhu's mouth curved.

"On the day Your Majesty deposed the crown prince, I was listening outside the hall. That child knelt there and begged you to investigate thoroughly, and you said-the Imperial Guard is mine, and the Eastern Palace they searched is mine. You ask me to investigate the Imperial Guard; will you one day ask me to investigate myself? Every word truly stabbed the heart. Even listening outside, I felt chilled on that child's behalf."

Xiao Lin's pupils contracted.

"Your Majesty."

Shen Mingzhu leaned forward a little, lowering her voice until only the two of them could hear.

"You are killing me today not because I am wicked, but because you want to ease your conscience. I am an outsider. When an outsider drives in the knife, you can heap all your resentment upon her. But was I the one who drove that child to such a plight? Who deposed him? Who refused to investigate? Who would not even call him by his name?"

She laughed, the sound very, very soft, like a snake sliding over dead leaves.

"It was you, Your Majesty."

The guards behind him dropped to their knees as one. Not one dared lift his head.

Xiao Lin turned and walked away, into the snow, into the shadows of the passageway.

Behind him, Shen Mingzhu called out.

"I did not win."

Her tone was unexpectedly calm.

"It is only that you and I both lost."

Xiao Lin did not look back.

That night, the second prince, Xiao Yu, was granted a cup of poisoned wine. Before dying, Xiao Yu said he wished to see his imperial father one last time. Liu An brought the message. Xiao Lin sat on the steps of the Hall of Mental Cultivation, holding that door bar, and remained silent for a long time. Then he said, "If I go to see him, my crown prince will be unhappy."

Summer, the twenty-fourth year of Jianxi.

The Tartars invaded the northern border.

When the military dispatch arrived, Xiao Lin was taking his medicine. His illness had dragged on since the winter of the twenty-second year. The Imperial Medical Academy had tried countless prescriptions, and its director knelt on the floor, kowtowing and declaring himself incompetent. Xiao Lin said it was not that he was incompetent, but that he himself did not wish to recover.

He put down the dispatch, rose, and picked up the Son of Heaven's sword. Startled, Liu An immediately knelt and clung to his legs, saying that the northern border was a thousand li away and His Majesty absolutely must not lead the campaign in person. Xiao Lin looked down at the old eunuch who had served him for most of his life, looking for a long time, until Liu An released his grip.

Leading a campaign in person sounded like a phrase filled with valor soaring to the clouds. But for Xiao Lin, it was not valor. He simply no longer wanted to sit in the Hall of Mental Cultivation. Everywhere in that hall were traces the crown prince had left behind: the doors that had been battered, the dragon bed where he had sat holding the body for three days. Living there, he feared he would go mad.

On the day the army left the capital, he passed the Eastern Palace and ordered his imperial carriage to stop. The Eastern Palace's doors had been repaired the day after the crown prince's funeral procession. The door bar had been fitted back into place, the chains removed. The parasol trees in the courtyard had sprouted new leaves, and new lanterns hung beneath the covered walkways. Everything had been restored, exactly as it had been before he was deposed. Only there was no one inside.

Xiao Lin stood before the closed gates of the Eastern Palace for a moment. Then he said, "Open the gates."

Liu An pushed them open, and he went inside alone.

The halls of the Eastern Palace had been cleaned, but he found the things he wanted at a glance. The withered peony, that tree peony he had picked with his own hands and given to his four-year-old son, had been pressed inside a copy of the Analects. Its petals were completely dry and crumbled at a touch. Xiao Lin closed the book and rested his palm on its cover for a long time. Then he went to the bedside and opened the cupboard-inside, an empty bowl lay upside down on a faded cloak embroidered with five-clawed golden dragons. He bent down, picked up the cloak, tucked it against his chest, and took it away.

He said not a word along the way. The jolting carriage worsened his cough. Outside, Liu An heard him coughing as though his heart and lungs were being torn apart and wanted to go in to attend him, but he waved him away. Inside the carriage, he held the cloak for a long time, then buried his head in it. None of that child's scent remained upon it, only old fabric and the dry smell of sunshine. Yet he still buried his face in it, like an old beast burying its head in the sand.

The fighting on the northern border lasted three months. The Tartars breached the pass, and the border troops scattered. Xiao Lin held out with his remaining personal guards for seven full days. Below the walls, Tartar cavalry surged like the tide. Clad in armor, he went up onto the city tower himself and did not retreat a single step from beginning to end.

The army returned in triumph.

On the way back to the capital, he finally became unable to stand. Liu An helped him into the carriage, his body as light as a dead leaf. The director of the Imperial Medical Academy knelt inside to take his pulse, and afterward his face turned ashen. Xiao Lin glanced at his expression without speaking, merely withdrawing his hand and fastening the ties at his cuff himself.

"How much longer?"

The director kowtowed. "If Your Majesty would agree to rest quietly-"

"I asked how much longer."

The director did not answer. But silence was an answer.

The carriage jolted along the official road. Xiao Lin leaned against its wall and closed his eyes briefly. He remembered many things. He remembered that four-year-old child lifting his face to ask his nursemaid whether Imperial Father disliked Jin'er. He remembered ten-year-old Xiao Huaijin sitting on the Eastern Palace steps, asking the grand tutor whether Imperial Father truly disliked him. He remembered fifteen-year-old Xiao Huaijin waiting in the snow for an hour, then bringing back a bowl of ginger soup he had not taken a single sip of. Then he remembered eighteen-year-old Xiao Huaijin rushing barefoot into the Hall of Mental Cultivation and taking three blade strikes for him. His final thought was that this child had spent eighteen years guessing the answer to the same question. Even before dying, he had still been guessing, still saying, Imperial Father, look, your son is very good. He had been guessing until his death.

After returning to the capital, he began arranging his final affairs. The court officials dared not say much, all thinking that with His Majesty's health worsening by the day, he ought to appoint a crown prince. Someone cautiously submitted a recommendation to that effect, and Xiao Lin hurled the memorial back at him on the spot. His voice was as cold as frozen ice as he said that he had only one crown prince. He was already dead. He would not appoint a second.

After the officials dispersed, Xiao Lin sat alone on the dragon throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony. The setting sun shone through the entrance, stretching his shadow and the throne's very, very long, all the way to the doors.

"Liu An."

"Your servant is here."

"In this life, I have done only one thing wrong." His voice was steady as he said it, as though speaking of someone else's affairs. Then he rose and slowly walked toward the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

That night, before he drifted into a hazy sleep upon his bed, he had Liu An cover him with the faded cloak. The bloodstained door bar rested against the edge of the bed, within reach of his hand.

Wind poured through a gap in the window that had not been shut properly. The candle flame flickered several times and went out. The hall darkened, and he closed his eyes.

An unknown length of time passed before he heard birdsong.

They chirped and chattered, seemingly from the direction of the imperial garden. He opened his eyes and saw a bright yellow canopy overhead. It was the canopy in the Hall of Mental Cultivation. He stared at that blurred patch of yellow for a long time, until his eyes grew sore, before slowly shifting his gaze.

The Hall of Mental Cultivation. He had lived here for most of his life; he recognized every beam and pillar. But something was wrong-the sword scar on the main beam was gone. He had cut it there himself during an assassination attempt in the eleventh year of his reign. He had deliberately left it unrepaired to remind himself that nowhere in this palace was safe. Now that sword scar was gone.

He abruptly sat up and threw aside the brocade quilt. His hands bore no calluses, no old scars.

Hearing the movement, the eunuch attending outside hurried in. It was not Liu An, but another eunuch from his younger days. Xiao Lin found him familiar, but could not recall his name at once.

"Your Majesty is awake? Allow your servant to help Your Majesty dress-"

"What year is it?"

The eunuch froze for a moment. "In answer to Your Majesty, the eighth year of Jianxi."

The eighth year of Jianxi. Xiao Lin's pupils contracted sharply. That year, a severe drought struck the northern border, and the court argued over disaster relief funds for three whole months. That year, Noble Consort Shen Mingzhu had not yet tampered with his calming soup. That year, Crown Prince Xiao Huaijin had just turned four.

Four years old. That child was still a little unsteady on his feet, spoke in a milky little voice, and would hide far away behind a pillar to peek at him. Four-year-old Xiao Huaijin had not yet begun studying or practicing martial arts, had not yet learned to talk back to him, had not yet had his heart broken by his cold words, time after time.

He was not dead yet.

Xiao Lin clenched the brocade quilt, his knuckles turning white, his Adam's apple bobbing once.

"...Where is the crown prince?"

The eunuch was taken aback. Everyone in the palace knew His Majesty disliked the crown prince. His Majesty never asked after him of his own accord.

"At this hour, His Highness the Crown Prince...should be playing in the imperial garden." The eunuch answered cautiously. "Shall your servant summon him?"

Xiao Lin said nothing. He remained silent for so long that the eunuch thought he had said something wrong, and his legs began to weaken.

"...Dress me." Xiao Lin finally spoke, his voice already restored to its customary coolness.

"I will take a walk."

The eunuch hurriedly assented and turned to fetch his robes.

Xiao Lin rose and stepped onto the icy golden floor tiles. Outside the window, the sunlight was just right, and birdsong drifted faintly from the imperial garden. He clenched his hands, clenching until his knuckles cracked. Then he released them and walked out of the hall, one step at a time.