Chen Liang and Wang Qian were dead.
Chen Liang and Wang Qian were dead!
*Here, my fortune remains unknown. There, life and death are just as hard to judge.*
Princess Fang clenched her teeth until their roots creaked. Beneath the greasy coating on her skin, her face darkened toward blue. The news was too unexpected and too terrible.
Now she even regretted seeking information. She deeply regretted using the emperor’s secret agents to obtain it. She should have honored the oath she once swore: never to use the imperial agents for anything that did not serve the country.
If she had held firmly to that oath instead of forever moving along its blurred edge, she would never have heard such dreadful news.
Chen Liang and Wang Qian were dead.
Princess Fang remembered the thunderous words for a third time.
*My mind is humming as if a gong has been struck beside my ear. My eyes are wide. I blink again and again, but I cannot see anything. There is only darkness, endless darkness.*
*I force every piece of my mind into my senses. I try with all my strength to hear and see, but I feel only my panicked thoughts, my heart pounding like thunder, and a despair without a name.*
*(To “Falling Geese with Triumphant Command”)*
*Sweat drenches my body as if I were boiled,*
*While frantic fire burns within my heart.*
*A snow-bright blade is hidden at my breast;*
*Fear scatters my soul and breaks my courage.*
*One step–ah! I weep and wail,*
*Hurrying down a distant, twisting path.*
*Gladly, I see the morning star above,*
*Then clouds and mist conceal it in an instant.*
*The wind roars, and leaves come falling;*
*Tiger cries shake the forested hills.*
*Now mourning apes call out as well.*
*Ah! I flee until soul and courage fail,*
*Running like a dragon colt in flight.*
*Yet in all my haste, I cannot leave*
*The ancient road before the mountain.*
*What should I do now?*
No. Princess Fang shook her head fiercely and pressed it hard against the carriage floor.
*I need do nothing now. My sons are dead, but that does not prevent me from escaping this country. Their deaths do not prevent me from healing and doing everything possible to recover my inner energy. If I cannot restore it, I will guide Zhang Hua and use him to take revenge.*
*When Chen Liang and Wang Qian went together to assassinate Fang Luo, their only use was to attempt something that could never succeed or to draw Fang Luo’s attention away.*
*But I never thought they would die.*
Even while madness raged through Princess Fang’s heart, her outer expression remained calm.
*I never thought Chen Liang and Wang Qian would die. I imagined them captured. I imagined they might be treated unjustly. Fang Luo would not treat them well, but he should have killed them through another person’s hand, not beheaded them himself. As long as Fang Luo was not the one who ordered the killing, my sons could find a way to escape.*
*For the sake of his reputation, his principles, or even his pride–if Fang Luo possessed any sense at all, he would never kill his own adopted sons.*
*(To “Gathering the Southlands”)*
*Ah! Crows rise crying from the pine tops,*
*While broken horn calls silence fisher and woodcutter.*
*I hurry to a village inn and lonely company,*
*Dreaming vainly of the curtain of my family home,*
*Dreaming vainly of the curtain of my family home.*
*Wind and rain cannot stop me passing the night.*
*One whole night I run through the empty wilds,*
*Struggling to save this fragment of a life.*
*Fang Luo has gone mad. I should have understood long ago that if he could kill me, he had already lost the ability to weigh advantage against harm.*
Princess Fang sank into bottomless remorse. Her soul stirred weakly, like a torn strip of gauze descending into an old well filled with black, bitter water.
She held her breath and bit her lip until blood seeped out, but felt no pain at all. She used the method by which she had always fought suffering: forcing her head hard against an unyielding surface. Between the pressure trapped in her body and the pressure trapped in her heart, she simply lost consciousness.
“Mother?” Zhang Hua called softly.
Then his voice rose. “Mother! Mother! Mother, are you all right?”
He stopped the carriage, turned, and lifted the curtain. Princess Fang lay unconscious, her face blue-gray and blood running from her mouth. One hand crushed a paper slip in a death grip.
Zhang Hua lowered himself as far as he could against the carriage floor and tried to read it.
*[Yesterday, *** Qian–beheaded and displayed to the public.]*
The three hidden marks lay beneath her thumb.
Zhang Hua tried everything, but could not pry her fingers open and read the missing portion. He had only to look at her face, however, to understand what filled every fine line on her cheeks.
Pain. Regret. Despair.
It was as if she had lost her most precious treasure, her most beloved son.
Coldness entered Zhang Hua’s heart. Part of it was grief over Chen Liang’s death. Part came from something else: he had always believed he was Mother’s favorite son, followed by Wang Qian, who was irritable but clever, then the foolish little dark egg Jin Wuniang, and only at the bottom Chen Liang, whom she kept beside her every day like the chief of her guards.
No. No. This was no time to compete for affection.
Besides, Her Highness plainly loved her eldest daughter most–the proud girl who resembled her so strongly. The child was not only beautiful and quick-witted, but possessed true intelligence and courage. In looks alone, Princess Fang’s eldest daughter was several times more beautiful than her mother.
Two days ago, all four adopted sons had still been thinking about how they might win the hand of Mother’s eldest daughter, that proud, cunning girl obsessed with sword practice.
Now Jin Wuniang’s spirit might linger beneath the thousand-pound barrier at the little city’s gate, while nothing whole remained of Chen Liang and Wang Qian.
Zhang Hua felt as lost as a homeless dog.
He looked up at the sky, but the stars offered no future. There were thousands upon thousands, more than he remembered ever seeing, though his favorite pastime had been sitting on a roof in white robes, drinking wine, practicing swordsmanship, and watching the stars in hopes of attracting Princess Fang’s eldest daughter’s attention.
The heavens seemed freshly washed. In pale-blue and silver shadow, countless stars shone and joined into a river of light. The Milky Way stretched above him, at once a river and a belt of jade.
Zhang Hua felt not only wonder, but the weight of age.
*Mountain passes divide us, leaving two hearts in doubt;*
*What use is ambition that would pull the River of Stars?*
*I hold a bloodied blade, yet have not struck the traitor down;*
*I mourn heroes torn by danger, life, and death.*
If he were still sitting on the roof of the Star-Plucking Tower in the grand chancellor’s residence, dressed in soft, flowing white and drinking the finest wine, Zhang Hua would never have felt old. He would never have reflected upon anything so grounded and real. Like any fashionable youth, he would have recited pretty poems about breezes, flowers, snow, and moonlight, straining to sound sorrowful simply because a new verse demanded sorrow.
He would not do that now.
Zhang Hua silently closed the curtain. Suddenly, he did not want to speak to Princess Fang or comfort her.
The only thing she needed was a place of relative safety where she could silently lick her wounds and grieve. Then she could appear before everyone again as she always had: solid as stone and impossible to destroy, even in Zhang Hua’s eyes.
*I have never seen Mother this heartbroken or out of control. I should not have seen it. She would never want anyone to comfort her. She only wants to recover by herself.*
Princess Fang eventually woke and lay weakly for a long time.
Four hours later, Zhang Hua drew a deep breath. He arranged his face as if he knew nothing, then lifted the curtain.
“Mother, we have reached the border. That ruined temple you wanted is here–some sort of Goddess Temple in the gorge between two mountains.”
“Yes. This is what I was looking for.”
Princess Fang needed only one glance to be certain. The bare basin held no trace of green and resembled a huge, rough bowl of yellow earth. At its center, the small and mottled temple looked like a die cast into the bowl, ready to offer a different future with every face.
“Zhang Hua…”
Princess Fang looked haggard and exhausted. She had never shown such weariness before another person. It had nearly stripped away her will to fight and resist, leaving her like a wounded woman whom anyone could wound again.
Still disguised as a monk, she forced herself upright and spoke with hesitation.
“Zhang Hua, take me to the temple.”
“Mother, that cannot be a good hiding place. It is far too obvious and completely isolated.”
“I know. You need only take me there.”
* * *
Princess Fang opened her eyes. Everything before this point had been the events of the previous three days.
*(The story now reconnects with Chapter 1.)*
Zhang Hua sat nearby with his head lowered, using a knife to work on something.
“Behind the altar is a particularly ancient stone slab,” Princess Fang said calmly. “Pry it up. There is a barrel of oil beneath it. Take out the oil and pour it over the doors and windows. When Fang Luo’s men arrive, set it alight.”
Zhang Hua surged to his feet.
“Mother, after all the effort we made–after all three of my elder brothers died for you–did you come here only to kill yourself? If you had told me sooner, I might as well have let you die and carried your corpse into the Golden Throne Hall to make an uproar. The grand chancellor would have paid a far greater price.”
“You truly are adorable.”
Princess Fang beckoned him closer.
“I supervised the building of this temple fourteen years ago. It is an escape route this Fang prepared for herself. No one knows what lies beneath it.
“A secret passage leads from the temple to an underground palace. I stored a considerable amount of treasure and weapons there, along with enough food and clothing to supply one hundred people for a month. I replaced the food and clothes five years ago.
“Fang Luo does not know this route exists. Neither does my younger brother. I did not normally keep secrets from him, but there were certain things he had no need to know: the tunnel leading to the underground palace beneath the imperial palace, this passage, and one other escape route. I never told him about any of them.”
Princess Fang’s eyes reddened slightly.
“I have failed all of you. I swore that the inner guards the emperor entrusted to me, and the inner guards I gave to him, would serve only the people of this realm. They would never serve my private interests, grievances, or revenge. I am capable of breaking that oath, but I cannot allow myself to do it.”
She tried to sound as if nothing were wrong. “If all four of you had reached this place, we could have left together.”
Zhang Hua asked, “Where is the passage? No, no–you do not need to tell me yet. I understand.”
“I came here to escape, begin a new life, take revenge, and reclaim everything that belongs to me.”
Strength returned to Princess Fang’s voice.
“Now prepare the lamp oil. Once this temple is burning, it will delay them for at least an hour. There is no water source within sixty miles, so they will have no way to fight the fire.
“I buried a large supply of gunpowder underground. Once we enter the passage, we can light a candle from inside through a connecting fuse. Either the mechanism or the fire above will ignite the gunpowder fifteen minutes later.”
Zhang Hua saw troops covering half of the bowl-shaped valley. He rose at once, pried up the old slab, and lifted out the oil. Following Princess Fang’s reminders and instructions, he poured it carefully without spilling any over himself.
An unusual light erupted in Princess Fang’s eyes. Supporting herself on her arms, she crawled toward the altar. In a low voice that might have held either excitement or grief, she said, “Let me begin by deceiving him. Let this be the opening of every deception to come.”