Moonlight spilled down; snow fell without sound.
“Xie Wuyan,” she called his name by his ear.
He couldn’t hear her. Pale frost and snow settled onto his slumbering features, blurring his brows and eyes in soft, desolate light.
“Once again you fell asleep in the snow,” she murmured gently.
She held him tight. Her searing body heat slowly thawed the frost and snow on him bit by bit.
She knew he was far too exhausted. The journey back had been overly long. He bore grievous injuries, collapsing senseless beside the waters.
The twisting waterways from Qujiang Canal to Eastern Palace — she had personally charted the path he took. Shutting her eyes she could envision that sunset glow blanketing the skies, flames engulfing his boat. Those sharp arrow clusters shredding his clothes as he plunged into water, billowing sleeves churning like clouds.
She understood perfectly well how he made it back. How he hid from the Divine Tiger Guards’ searches, drifting half-conscious through the frigid waters. How he struggled step by step to return to Eastern Palace and upon reaching Lotus Pond, finally depleted, both old and new wounds acted up. He heavily crashed onto the pond’s bank before reaching her.
Yet she received him all the same. Lantern held in hand she came to the waterside bringing him back.
Dusted in blood and grime, he returned to her.
“Let’s go home,” she embraced him, uttering softly.
Her warmth slowly infused his cold body. The faint rasps of his breath grew clearer. When his heartbeat finally calmed she gradually helped prop him upright by the shoulders.
He leaned against her. Through swirling snow she supported him step by step. She inhaled the fragrance on him — accumulated snow and white plum — still crisp and clean even steeped in the bloody stench. His heart thudded unsteadily against her chest, slow, gentle, and terribly soft.
Both shuddered lightly in unison.
Identical inner energy ceaselessly poured from her into him, enveloping his battered channels from all over through her tight embrace. His frostbitten coldness slowly melted away.
He shifted very slightly in her arms as his breath quickened almost imperceptibly.
She turned her head. Taking in the trace of color restored to his pallid lips she knew her method worked for healing him. More effective than Minister Ling’s exercises, surpassing even Imperial Physician Shen’s acupuncture treatments.
Thus she redoubled her fierce embrace, deeply burying her face into the crook of his neck. He drifted in and out of awareness cradled in her arms. Steaming mists tangled in their intertwined hair strands, mingling herbal fragrances to transmit a distant warmth into his dreams.
“Xie Kang,” she whispered against his ear. “You cannot escape any longer.”
Silent, wordless, endless quiet with only fierce embrace after embrace after embrace.
Like twin lotuses sharing a single stem, vines entwined around the same tree — wrapping, weaving, wrapping once more.
Starlight slanted inside through the open skylight, spilling into vast clouds of mist. The enfolded silhouettes within seemed frozen for eternity, as if engraved into the lengthy annals of time.
Beads of moisture gathered amidst entangled hair, glistening bright as tiny stars.
Much later patter patter — rushed footsteps sounded from outside the chambers. The black-clad youth shoved the doors wide, dropping to his knees behind the divider. His tone anxious and uneasy: “Your Highness!”
“Imperial Physician Shen still rushes this way. From poolside to chambers the path lies drenched in blood. As you returned earlier…”
His voice abruptly fractured off. A gorgeously dazzling girl in palace robes slowly emerged from behind the screen. An exquisite, snow-white face with drenched hair still flecked in blood. She gently assisted Lu Eleven to his feet explaining in low tones: “He’s asleep now.”
“Young Hero Jiang…” Lu Eleven blurted out thoughtlessly: “Empress…”
“I…” He faltered, at a loss for words.
“I’m aware of everything now,” stated the calm girl from behind the divider. “Best to still refer to me as before.” She went on: “Tell me, what happened at Qujiang Canal?”
“Not long after departure, His Highness noticed the assassination attempt,” Lu Eleven replied quietly. “His Highness decided to intentionally spring the trap. He ordered me to ignite the craft while using the chaos to secretly swim back through Qujiang into Eastern Palace, avoiding Divine Tiger surveillance by feigning a drowning disappearance instead.”
“But…” He grit his teeth bitterly: “That Southern Beggar Sect Master again. He shot an arrow at His Highness…”
“Thus the arrow wound prevented him from making it back here,” Jiang Kui murmured. “I was the one who brought him back. He was drenched all over in blood. After an herbal soak and redressing his injuries, the bleeding has finally stopped. He’s deeply asleep right now.”
“You have my deepest gratitude, Young Hero Jiang,” Lu Eleven said respectfully.
“His sword wounds from the past…” Jiang Kui asked very softly. “When were they inflicted?”
Lu Eleven bowed his head deeply. “…Since birth.”
“…His Highness understood his fate early on. Other than himself, only the Emperor and a scant few others know this truth.”
Behind the screen the girl slowly shut both eyes for a lingering moment.
The second imperial prince Xie Kang and his twenty condemned years of life. Fighting through nightmare-like bitter cold year after year, utterly alone amidst the death knells counting down his fleeting days. He faced imminent demise daily. Ever-impending mortality’s shadowy grasp.
She recalled that day under the crimson skies when he gently covered her ears. The temperature held between his palms — warm, yet cool. But later he wrapped them in undyed hemp for his body temperature steadily plummeted.
That lost warmth…never to return.
The girl’s voice quivered. “…So he refused my touch.”
He smiled so easily for someone so often. Languidly weary, pretending ailments on a casual whim to tease her reactions. Then he would smile — relaxed and warm unlike one possibly facing eternal sleep at any moment.
“Previously…” she pressed on. “Before my arrival, did he always rest here?”
“Yes. He spent most of his time in the chambers for frequent herbal treatments,” Lu Eleven replied still facing the floor. “In the past…sleep never came easy. He napped excessively during the day. At night when he finally roused, anxious over waking for too short a spell he often downed strongly brewed tea to perk up.”
“For him sleep was probably terrifying…fearing that once slipped into slumber, uncertain when consciousness might return… And someday, he might close his eyes in sleep never to reopen them again…”
“I advised him to retire earlier yet he rarely listened. After you came…he obeyed your words more, staying alert longer in the days, resting easier nights…”
“These months saw vast improvement to his condition.”
“His Highness did not wish for you to know any of this. His Highness never intended…on letting you meet at all.”
“I understand his thoughts perfectly well,” murmured the girl behind the screen with shut eyes.
If…
If she never intruded beyond that bookstore screen.
Never burst into those palace corridors after listening to his zither playing.
Never abruptly unveiled his mask below the red window lattice…
They would have never met at all.
Mere letter friends and nothing more.
He sought her hand to rescue her family — perfectly courteous and respectful yet keeping her at arm’s length for eternity.
She would have believed herself wed to a complete stranger. Still chaste and fancy free after his passing to choose her own path ahead.
For he prepared everything already. On the day of his leave-taking she would slowly erase all traces of him from memory.
As he told her once: “Jiang Xiaoman, your life still stretches long ahead.”
And so she would eternally remain in ignorance…
Of that smiling youth hidden in the bygone days — guarding her from afar all these many years.
Only to vanish without a trace or sound.
“…He went overboard,” she whispered.
“I want to see those letters,” turning she commanded: “Take me to the letters he left behind for me.”
Lu Eleven led her respectfully to a locked drawer inside the chambers, fishing out a small key that he passed into her hands. Amidst heavy unlocking noises she slid the drawer open. Inside lay piles upon piles of scribbled letters spilling out chaotically.
He wrote about the northern deserts beyond the Great Wall, the snow laden Kunlun Mountains, the southern hills.
He described a species of deer from southwestern woods about the size of cats.
Then he deliberately left loose threads to be picked up in succeeding letters — for example those deer in fact fed on insects.
Rumors told of a type of cicada that slept underground a dozen or so years, only bursting out on a bright summer’s day. They would flood the skies in vast numbers then live out a summertime before perishing come winter’s chill.
This little anecdote seemed to intrigue him greatly for he expounded at length across multiple letters as if a wandering traveler himself — giving imaginary little deer head pats amidst southwestern forests, lifting eyes skyward to unending oceans of cicadas, listening to their chorus lasting forever without end.
Truthfully he hadn’t witnessed any firsthand. Purely gleaned from books since he loved reading a chaotic mix of topics. His brief lifespan barred him from personal confirmation so he wrote in proxy hoping that she may verify them in his stead someday.
“And he wrote up to what point?” She asked very softly.
“Ten years.”
She shut both eyes, lowering down beside the bookcase. Heaps of snow-white letters by her side, shoulders quivering faintly with occasional flashes of light across her tear-stained cheeks dripping down unheard.
“Don’t tell him please…” she murmured pleadingly.
“He mustn’t know…my awareness of everything…” She uttered barely audible: “He refuses me privy to his secrets.”
She entreated Lu Eleven gravely: “No reactions betraying his notice. Help me keep up the ruse.”
“As you command.” Lu Eleven bowed in acquiescence.
“You may leave now,” stated the girl half-buried in letters very gently. “I wish some time alone with him.”
The chamber doors whispered shut, leaving only the sound of flowing waters.
One by one she neatly tidied the letters back inside, slowly pushing the drawer completely closed as if nothing was disturbed at all.
Next she approached his resting form and sat down beside him, watching his slumbering face bowed over. Her fingertips repeatedly traced his features — tightly shut eyes, fluttering lashes, slightly parted lips.
Then she leaned in, softly bringing her cheek against his chest trying to attune her hearing to those sluggish yet weighty heartbeats.
Something about the sight of him lying asleep in snow tonight sparked sudden recollections of a distant childhood incident.
She did once rescue him before apparently — that winter had seen freakishly heavy snowfall. Still a young child, she was visiting her auntie Concubine Tang in Penglai Palace. Wandering unsupervised out of childish ennui towards the snowy imperial hunting grounds up north.
A youth lay soundly asleep under the snow-laden flowering plum trees. Fluttering flakes already covered over his face.
Back then still an immature teen, completely oblivious this was none other than Crown Prince Xie Kang. Rather, recognizing that sleeping outdoors in snow couldn’t be the healthiest choice, she tried waking him on a whim with intentions of ushering him into the palace’s warmer quarters.
She crouched beside him, lightly rapping his head. Exerting all strength, he opened his eyes meeting a pair of limpid and clear irises reflecting his own visage like mirrors.
“My gratitude for the timely rescue,” he stated gently.
The young girl blinked with puzzlement: “I haven’t done anything substantive yet. How can you already know I’ll definitely save you?”
In remembered dream fragments of that snowy winter dawn — tranquil silence permeated the woods. Soft powder steadily falling with crisp clarity.
“Xie Kang,” she told him now, still lying over him: “Remember well that I’ve rescued you once already. And will do so once more.”
…I will pull you back out from the everlasting torments of hell into this mortal plane.
Her long locks cascaded onto his features. His lashes faintly fluttered as if soundless acknowledgement.
For countless days he remained thus in sleep. Every morning she embraced him amidst the steaming medicinal mists, channeling breath through breath to heal his fractured passages over and over, slowly mending what was once beyond all salvation.
Ensconced within her arms he rested peacefully. His lost temperature gradually returned. When she nestled near sometimes his breathing faintly hitched in reaction.
Therefore she knew he teetered on awakening’s precipice soon.
After all they cultivated identical techniques. Her embrace constituted his ultimate cure. Durinh her fierce cradling their bodies melded seamlessly heart to heart, his once deathly still pulse now gradually regaining faint rhythm, icy shrouds on him melting away bit by bit.
When Imperial Physician Shen came to administer his regular treatments Shen openly marveled at this development.
Jiang Kui explained to Shen: “Our master once sustained major injuries from the distant past damaging his energy tunnels. To heal himself he cultivated the Reverting to Origin techniques. As you know such inner force endlessly regenerates, capable of repairing ruined channels.”
Shen nodded slowly. “Then in accepting His Highness as disciple his intentions must have been to preserve the prince’s life.”
His tone grew somber: “As wandering physicians we were bosom friends, Ling and I. Over ten years prior he invited me to serve as the imperial medico — back then still a callow youth I arrogantly staked my medical credentials, swearing to succeed on two accounts…one being to rescue his student…”
“At the time His Highness was but a child. Entrusted by another to heal him, instead I tasted failure over and over…By then His Highness barely clinged onto a few remaining years left…” He sighed heavily once more.
“Not until around ten years ago when by chance he accepted tutelage outside the palace under some master or another. Through guidance in inner energy cultivation his life stretched longer perforce…thus obtaining the chance to live until his coming-of-age ceremonies. Yet despite everything I still could not preserve his life in the end.”
“Unable to fulfill either vow thus,” Shen lamented repeatedly. “After moving to Changhe Lane I busied myself daily on medicinal research, watching His Highness’ hourglass swiftly run empty…”
“He won’t be going anywhere,” stated the girl before him, still vehemently shaking her head. “I won’t permit him to leave…”
The two finished speaking. Shen administered acupuncture then took his leave. The young crown prince still immersed in herbal waters, complexion regaining traces of color. Still soundly asleep, long lashes faintly fluttering.
Below the rippling waters, fingers dangling at his sides slowly flexed within.
The girl lingered by his side for a spell before wandering the room’s perimeter.
She unlocked another drawer, digging out piles of painted opera masks. Pink powdered dan roles for actresses. White-faced scholarly sheng masks. All amusing scribbles when bored.
Most prominently featured bizarre little monster faces — ferocious and covered in spikes highly resembling a certain gentleman.
She could easily envision him sitting lazily cross-legged, clutching a vermilion brush with one hand propping up his chin. Traces of a subtle smile lingering on his lips during the drawing sessions.
“Too awful,” she soundlessly laughed, replacing the opera masks.
During this period awaiting his awakening she often poked around the locked drawers this way, piecing together his past and secreted hurts or private thoughts.
Next she glanced up and noticed that red lacquered Puqiao puzzle box — her gift to him during their riverside chess game — placed up high on a shelf along the decorative archaic tomes.
Abruptly she wanted confirmation whether he had safely stored that spider specimen away or discarded it.
She strode below the shelf stretching upwards on tiptoes, her probing fingertips barely nudging the box close enough to be clawed down into her hands.
Then she lifted the lid, blinking rapidly in shock…
Utterly engrossed by this sudden discovery, she neglected to notice the steady watery flows interweaving with faint rustling clothing noises. The resting man gradually stirred from prolonged slumber within the springs. Slowly sitting up he waded through the steaming pool towards her, emerging step by step at her back.
“My wife,” a voice sounded behind her.
That pleasantly low tone — crisp and clean yet still slightly hoarse after just rousing from sleep…
Her lashes practically convulsed as her heart raced swift as rumbling war drums.
She whirled abruptly, fingers outstretched to brush against his eyes.
He reacted in evident surprise, momentarily unsteady on his feet retreating half a pace. Losing balance after an ill step, his body plummeted sharply downwards against his will.
Fearing he might seriously injure himself from the fall she reacted swiftly, already changing positions to stand protectively at his back the very instant he staggered.
Splash splish sploosh — in a flurry of noise they both crashed heavily into the waters.
Collapsing over her he moved hesitantly to stand, seemingly anxious about crushing her. But far too feeble currently to support himself, he only barely succeeded in lifting his head.
He fell onto her, moved slightly, as if afraid of crushing her, attempting to stand up again. However, he was too weak, really had no strength, and could only lift his head slightly. The girl beneath him looked down at him.
Her hair and lashes were all soaked, and water droplets clung to the long, slightly curled lashes, a faint crimson appearing at the ends of her eyes.
Bright water glided down from the corner of her eyes, silently flowing across her face, falling into her cloud-like hair.
One by one, like a string of small stars.
“Are you… crying?”
He suddenly felt at a loss.
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