Chapter 401: See the Snow

The Empress had passed away.

The Crown Prince’s birth mother was dead.

Seventh Uncle returned his sword to its sheath.

Anyone with a functioning mind understood what the Empress’s death meant.

In the near future the Crown Prince could not possibly hold his wedding.

“One time after another,” Ji Chengjue said slowly.

“First came the defeat at Wang River. The Eastern Expedition Army’s Left-Wing Army was almost completely annihilated, its corpses choking the river.

“Then beneath Yupan City, the Marquis of Jingnan slaughtered forty thousand surrendered Chu soldiers in a single stroke, murderous qi filling the wilderness.

“And now—the Empress has passed away.

“The wedding was prepared three times.

“Three times it failed to happen.

“And every single time—it came together with a bloody calamity.

“Seventh Uncle.

“At this point—this is no longer merely a question of postponing the wedding again.

“Yes, because Her Majesty has died, the wedding must inevitably be delayed.

“But after this—will anyone still dare hold it?”

The people of Yan did not revere Daoist mysticism the way the people of Qian did. They preferred sharpening their sabers and testing their courage to worshipping ghosts and gods.

But this had already happened three times.

Three times.

It was becoming impossible to call coincidence.

“The Crown Prince is the foundation of the state,” Ji Chengjue continued.

“The Crown Prince’s wedding touches the state’s fortune.

“It touches the altars of soil and grain.

“If this is not Heaven’s will—then what is?

“The Imperial Observatory.

“The Secret Intelligence Department.

“The ministers of court.

“The common people.

“They’ll all think the same way.

“This marriage—cannot happen.”

The people of Yan loved fighting and courage. Compared with kneeling before spirits and gods, they would much rather sharpen their cavalry sabers.

Yet at this point disbelief no longer mattered.

Because who could guarantee that, the next time they prepared the wedding, another disaster would not happen?

And if the wedding could no longer happen the Commandery Princess would not marry the Crown Prince.

She would not become Crown Princess.

Which meant the fundamental conflict between the Commandery Princess and His Sixth Highness disappeared.

The Commandery Princess would remain the Commandery Princess.

His Sixth Highness would remain His Sixth Highness.

Once the irreconcilable conflict of interests vanished, the two could meet again and laugh and speak together as though they truly were an affectionate elder sister and younger brother.

Seventh Uncle plainly understood this as well.

That was why he had sheathed his sword.

There was no longer any need to kill the man.

Because the target had never been some stray cat or dog.

He was an imperial prince of the current dynasty.

Without an absolute, fundamental conflict of interests, paying such a terrible price to murder an imperial prince was no longer merely a poor bargain.

It was stupidity.

“Your Sixth Highness...” Seventh Uncle began.

Ji Chengjue raised one hand and interrupted him.

“What happened today—

“I will not speak of it.

“Because truthfully—

“I am even more afraid than you are that this matter might spread.”

Someone comes to kill you.

You ask him to wait.

Wait until dawn.

Then the first light appears.

The Departure Bell tolls eight times.

The Empress dies.

If that story spread the Commandery Princess would certainly suffer.

But Ji Chengjue might suffer even more.

“Good,” Seventh Uncle said.

Ji Chengjue smiled and rubbed his face with both hands.

“Your Sixth Highness, what exactly was—”

Ji Chengjue’s gaze suddenly sharpened.

“Don’t ask.

“That is better for both of us.”

“Yes.

“I understand.”

With the threat of death no longer hanging above his head, Ji Chengjue visibly relaxed.

He immediately spoke without the slightest courtesy.

“Go back and tell my wonderful elder sister that next time she does something, she should stop being so damned impulsive.

“Seventh Uncle, you and Brother Liangshen should try harder to restrain her too.”

Seventh Uncle replied:

“Actually, I feel somewhat regretful.”

“Regret that you didn’t let the sword fall?”

“Your Highness, forgive me.

“What I regret is that, looking at things now—using that one strike on Your Highness would not have been a waste after all.”

“I’m different from Third Brother,” Ji Chengjue said.

“Your Highness?”

“I am not the same as Third Brother!”

Ji Chengjue slammed the table and almost roared:

“I am far more useful than Third Brother!”

“Your Highness is still brooding over this.”

“Seventh Uncle, that’s easy for you to say when you’re standing comfortably on the side.

“Let someone hold a sword against your throat for an entire night and see whether you really feel nothing afterward.

“Besides—cough, cough...”

Ji Chengjue started coughing.

He waved one hand.

“The palace should be sending someone to announce the news soon.

“I need to prepare here as well. In a while I’ll have to enter the palace.

“So I won’t see you out.

“If the Imperial Guards outside ask, tell them we drank too late last night and you slept here.”

“Your Highness, take care.”

Seventh Uncle left.

The sword that had been hanging over Ji Chengjue’s head left with him.

The moment he was gone, Ji Chengjue seemed to have every last thread of strength pulled from his body.

Partly because he had been awake the entire night.

Partly because he had spent all those hours sitting on the edge between life and death, fear and thought draining his spirit dry.

While Seventh Uncle remained there, Ji Chengjue had been able to hold himself together.

Now that the man had gone fatigue, emptiness, and an impossible-to-erase sense of grievance surged over him like a tide.

At that exact moment, a palace eunuch hurried into the Princes’ Residence with an urgent summons.

The three princes currently living there were ordered to enter the palace immediately.

Everyone had already heard the Departure Bell.

So mourning clothes and all necessary items had been prepared quickly.

The Fourth Prince still possessed a broad, powerful build, but his beard was unkempt and his face rough. Clearly, his recent days had not been especially pleasant.

The Fifth Prince was not tall. Among the brothers, he was the plumpest.

At this moment, however, his eyes were already somewhat red.

Fourth Brother walked over and quietly said:

“Give me one.”

“But it’s very spicy,” Fifth Brother warned.

“Give it to me.”

Fifth Brother nodded and handed over a piece of raw ginger.

Fourth Brother lifted his sleeve and rubbed the freshly cut ginger beneath his eyes.

Very quickly his eyes reddened.

There was no helping it.

The person who had died was the Empress.

Nominally, the Empress was indeed their mother.

But there was no blood relationship.

With the cultivation these imperial princes possessed in the art of social performance, they could certainly force themselves to cry if necessary.

They simply could not be bothered to summon the emotion from nothing right now.

Using an external aid was more direct.

“Fourth Brother, I also have some sour plums here.

“Want some?”

“You think the ginger isn’t enough?”

“I’m afraid that when we enter the palace and see Crown Prince Brother, I’ll remember that his wedding failed again and accidentally laugh.”

“Pfft—”

Fourth Brother, whose eyes were still burning from ginger, nearly burst out laughing.

But servants stood nearby.

So he immediately transformed the sound into a mournful cry:

“Imperial Mother!

“Why could you not wait until your son saw you one final time?”

Fifth Brother secretly tugged his sleeve.

“Too much, Brother.

“Too much.”

At that moment, Fourth Brother and Fifth Brother stood at the entrance of the Princes’ Residence and watched Sixth Brother emerge supported by two eunuchs.

Ji Little Sixth looked utterly devastated.

His spirit was withered.

His gaze exhausted.

Faint tear marks could be seen on his face.

He could barely even walk properly.

He looked like the perfect embodiment of grief so deep the heart had died.

Fourth Brother and Fifth Brother swallowed almost simultaneously.

Then muttered:

“Isn’t this a little too much?”

...

The Empress had passed away.

The Emperor canceled the morning court session.

The imperial palace was wrapped in mourning white.

And even though there was no court audience that day, ministers still arrived one after another to offer condolences.

Every titled noblewoman and court-patented lady in the capital entered through another palace gate.

From that direction the sound of crying was even more obvious.

The imperial princes entered the inner hall early.

The Crown Prince had already been kneeling there, wailing loudly.

“Imperial Mother!

“Imperial Mother!

“How could you abandon this son and leave?

“Imperial Mother!

“Wake up!

“Wake up!”

The other princes knelt behind him.

The First Prince, Ji Wujiang, was away commanding troops and naturally could not return.

Third Brother remained at the Lake Pavilion.

So Fourth Brother, Fifth Brother, Sixth Brother, and young Seventh Brother all knelt behind the Crown Prince.

What surprised Fourth and Fifth Brothers was that Ji Little Sixth, who earlier had looked ready to put on a tremendous display of mourning, simply knelt on the cushion, lowered his forehead against the floor tiles and stopped moving.

He looked mournful enough.

But compared with all the preparation beforehand, it felt somewhat like thunder roaring loudly while only a few drops of rain fell.

The truth was simpler.

Ji Chengjue was exhausted.

He had spent an entire night sitting through torment on the line between life and death.

His whole body had been hollowed out.

Then he came into the hall, surrounded by the smoke of incense and candles, and immediately felt as though he himself might follow the late Empress into the afterlife.

The other three princes simply knelt in silence.

People said the imperial family lacked affection.

But the Crown Prince and the Empress genuinely had shared profound love as mother and son.

The Crown Prince had already lost the support of his maternal clan.

Now he had lost his mother as well.

After blow upon blow losing emotional control was entirely normal.

Ji Little Sixth drifted into a dazed sleep.

Still maintaining the posture of “smashing his head against the ground.”

Fortunately, people came and went constantly around them and the hall remained noisy.

His faint snoring went unnoticed.

Strictly speaking, although the Empress had given birth only to the Crown Prince, she remained the mother of every imperial prince.

The other princes were all, in formal terms, her concubine-born sons.

The Crown Prince continued wailing at the front, devastated beyond measure.

Young Seventh Brother remained confused and had no idea how to behave in such a scene.

Sixth Brother lay there like a corpse, unmoving.

So Fourth Brother and Fifth Brother had no choice but to take on the role of “filial sons,” returning bows and rites to the ministers and titled ladies who entered one after another.

Nobody knew exactly how much time passed.

Then the eunuch announcing visitors called:

“The Commandery Princess of the Marquis of Zhenbei Residence enters to pay respects!”

The Commandery Princess had arrived.

Three times her wedding had been prepared.

And after all that the Commandery Princess was still the Commandery Princess.

She had somehow never managed to take that final step and become Crown Princess.

But just as Ji Chengjue had told Seventh Uncle that morning the moment the Commandery Princess entered wearing a white mourning flower in her hair, countless gazes inside and outside the hall immediately fell upon her.

What sort of marriage brought a bloody calamity every single time it approached?

At the front, Ji Little Sixth was still asleep.

The instant he heard the eunuch announce the Commandery Princess his body instinctively trembled.

Nobody knew whether he had awakened.

Perhaps his already weakened mind had simply suffered another shock.

Whatever the reason—

Ji Little Sixth’s neck tilted.

His entire body rolled sideways onto the floor.

A eunuch beside him immediately shouted:

“Disaster!

“His Sixth Highness has fainted from excessive grief!

“Quickly, summon an Imperial Physician!

“Quickly!”

...

By the time Ji Little Sixth awakened, the western sun was already nearing the horizon.

The medical officer who had been waiting beside him immediately rose and summoned an Imperial Physician.

“Your Highness, your vital essence is exhausted and your mind has been overburdened with worry.

“You need proper rest and recovery.

“This subject has already written a prescription and handed it to Eunuch Zhang outside.”

“Many thanks, Imperial Physician Zhao.”

“This is merely this subject’s duty. Your Highness need not thank me.”

Ji Chengjue had been resting inside a side hall.

Truthfully, after a full sleep, his spirit had recovered considerably.

But the thought that tonight he would probably have to remain with his brothers and keep vigil beside the coffin immediately made his mood deteriorate again.

Now that he was going to be a father, he wanted nothing more than to listen to his wife’s belly every night.

He had already lost last night.

Now tonight would be lost too.

But the moment he crossed the threshold—

Ji Chengjue saw the Commandery Princess standing there alone beside a small pond.

Her face was filled with sorrow.

Ji Chengjue did not believe for a moment that the Commandery Princess felt genuine grief over the Empress’s death.

After all, there was an overwhelming chance she would no longer marry the Crown Prince.

And even if she did having the mother-in-law die just before she entered the household could almost count as good fortune, could it not?

Still this madwoman might act with terrifying obsession and madness, but outwardly she remained dignified, gracious, proper, and perfectly aware of etiquette.

The Commandery Princess reached up, removed a hairpin from her coiffure, and held it between her fingers.

Ji Chengjue had already developed a conditioned response.

He instinctively assumed this madwoman had discovered Seventh Uncle failed to kill him and had therefore followed him directly into the imperial palace to personally finish the job.

But the Commandery Princess merely held the hairpin.

She made no further move.

At the same time, a gentle breeze spread around them, fresh and clear.

This should have been a Daoist artifact.

It formed a small barrier of its own.

Presumably, she was using it to block perception from outside in case someone of Eunuch Wei’s level happened to be nearby and felt bored enough to eavesdrop.

Ji Chengjue drew a deep breath.

He did not retreat.

Instead, he walked two steps forward.

“Men of the Ji Clan truly are ruthless.”

That was what the Commandery Princess said.

Seventh Uncle had already told her the entire story of last night.

Including the most important sentence:

*Please wait until dawn.*

Pair that sentence with the eight tolls of the Departure Bell and the meaning became very simple.

Either—

Ji Chengjue had personally arranged this.

His hands reached deep enough into the imperial palace to kill someone.

And not merely anyone the Empress.

Or Ji Chengjue had guessed who intended to move against the Empress and believed there was a high probability she would die before morning.

Those were the two possibilities.

The Commandery Princess had already rejected the other two.

One possibility was that Ji Chengjue possessed some great destiny, with gods and Buddhas secretly protecting him.

She did not believe in that.

The other was that Ji Chengjue could predict life and death and see the limits of a person’s lifespan.

That idea was even more absurd than the first.

“You say that,” Ji Chengjue replied, “as though the daughters of the Li Clan are soft and delicate.”

“Heh.

“In any case—you were lucky.”

Ji Little Sixth snorted.

He pointed toward the inner hall and said:

“Look at the Crown Prince right now.

“Pitiful, isn’t he?

“But I already went through this ten years ago.

“There’s something else I was too embarrassed to say to Seventh Uncle.

“But I want to say it to you.”

“Speak.

“I’m listening.”

“You thought that because the Marquis of Jingnan crippled my Third Brother, your Marquis of Zhenbei Residence could cripple me too, didn’t you?

“The two Marquises, north and south—who is inferior to whom?

“If he can do it, why can’t you?

“Was that the idea?”

The Commandery Princess did not answer.

Ji Chengjue answered for her.

“But did you ever think about what happened after the Marquis of Jingnan crippled Third Brother?

“That very night—he returned home and exterminated his own household.

“What did your Li Clan do?

“If the Marquis of Zhenbei himself had ordered this, then fine.

“I would have nothing to say.

“But you?

“Who the hell are you supposed to be?”

“Little Sixth.

“You’re becoming more and more impolite when speaking to your elder sister.”

“If I don’t show a little temper, you’ll truly think I’m some soft persimmon.

“Then the next time you go mad, will I have to wait for another dawn?”

“I only know Seventh Uncle told me you were terrified last night.

“That you spent the entire night uneasy.

“That alone tells me—

“I did not act wrongly.”

“You will not have a second chance,” Ji Chengjue said.

“I never intended to need one.”

“Let me speak from the heart.

“My father.

“Your father.

“And the Marquis of Jingnan.

“Those three men are capable of abandoning and sacrificing everything for Great Yan.

“Unfortunately, by the time you reach our generation—we don’t possess that level of enlightenment.

“But don’t assume there will always be someone behind you willing to clean up every disaster you create.

“If you behave recklessly again—the person you need to fear is not my imperial father losing his temper.

“What you need to fear is this:

“you may personally force your own father into the agony of having to kill his daughter with his own hands.”

“You’re noisy.”

“Words from the heart.

“You’re stupid.

“And spoiled rotten.

“Someone needs to say these things to you.”

“I’m only a woman.

“A great man is supposed to be some upright hero.

“I never claimed to be one.

“I only care whether my own life feels comfortable.

“Why should I suffer for the sake of some greater whole?”

“Heh.

“Then what do you plan to do now?

“When you went in to mourn earlier, all those eyes around you—didn’t feel good, did they?”

“You seem delighted by my misfortune.”

“You probably can’t marry anymore.

“The wedding never actually happened anyway.

“And Great Yan is not Qian.

“We don’t treat ritual law and female virtue like sacred mountains.

“Just stop trying to hold the damned wedding.

“Save everyone the trouble.

“I imagine my Commandery Princess sister possesses at least that much courage and breadth.”

“I am tired.

“I never wanted to marry into Yanjing in the first place.

“You men of the Ji Clan are all rotten bastards.

“My parents forced me here.

“Then I waited so long.

“Waited and waited.

“And somehow—

“I still never managed to marry myself off.

“I’m used to the endless desert.

“Without noticing, I’ve already spent far too long suffocating inside Yanjing.

“In a few days, I’ll submit a memorial to His Majesty and ask permission to go outside and breathe.

“I believe His Majesty will grant it.”

His Majesty would at least give her that much face.

And once she left the marriage could quietly fade away with her.

“Return to Beifeng Commandery and keep fighting barbarians?” Ji Chengjue asked.

“Heh.”

The Commandery Princess reached up and swept a strand of black hair away from her face.

Then said:

“I’ve grown tired of looking at sand.

“I want to go see the snow.”

[End of Chapter 401]