Chapter 11#

By midnight, Chuns finally found an opportunity and secretly brought Feng Bing a bowl of rice, topped with chunks of boiled sweet potato.#

Feng Bing had been kneeling so long that both his knees had lost all feeling. By evening the snow had started falling again, thickly blanketing him until he was nearly buried. While he silently shoveled rice into his mouth, Chuns took a goose-feather duster and carefully brushed all the snow off him, sending down a flurry of powder like a snow-rain. Chuns wept right there in that snow-rain.

“It’s all my fault, isn’t all of this my fault…” Chuns cried out in sorrow. “If I hadn’t been so meddlesome, you and Prime Minister Pei never would have crossed paths—”

“Disaster, once destined, cannot be avoided.” Feng Bing’s voice was hoarse as a snapped bowstring.

Perhaps Pei Dan was the calamity written into his fate.

The Emperor was warning him: do not draw close to the reigning chief minister, do not harbor ambitions for power you have no right to desire, and do not flaunt those tender old memories as leverage.

He would never see Pei Dan again. He never should have in the first place. He pulled his robes tighter around himself, layer upon layer, yet the snowmelt still trickled down the nape of his neck, running along his spine, seeping into his heart. Chuns brought him medicine and hot tea. By midnight Feng Bing began coughing again. In a daze, he thought he was still in bed, reached out for the teacup, and instead grabbed a handful of icy snow. The cold jolted him awake. The moon above the courtyard had begun to wane, a slight crescent, like a sliver of cold sneer.

The first day passed. Then came the second. Then the third.

Chuns’s care grew more and more brazen with each day. Even the guesthouse officials seemed not to know what to do with Feng Bing. The Emperor had very likely already forgotten he had ever issued such an edict, yet they couldn’t actually let the Emperor’s “Fourth Brother” die from kneeling. Feng Bing wondered—could a person really die from kneeling? Could two fragile, paper-thin knee caps truly determine one’s fate?

On the third day at noon, while the emissaries were all napping, Chuns sneaked over once more. This time, he brought someone with him.

Chen Qiu.

Chen Qiu looked around cautiously, squatted down, and handed him some pastries, saying with a sigh, “There’s something I think you should know.”

Feng Bing raised his eyes slightly, politely indicating his interest. Blood vessels webbed the whites of his eyes, his face frozen numb with cold, yet there was a certain lucid energy about him—the eerie vitality of a last rally.

“Today is Prime Minister Pei’s birthday,” Chen Qiu said. “The Emperor wished to bestow gifts upon him, but he first submitted a memorial confessing his sins, saying that his household was in disorder, thereby blemishing the sacred dynasty, and begging the Emperor to punish him.”

Feng Bing choked on a cough. Chuns hurriedly brought him water.

His household was in disorder? What a joke.

“The Emperor didn’t punish him, of course. He only teased him a couple of times, calling him ‘Prime Minister Mei Wu.’”

“Mei Wu” referred to the Han Dynasty tale of Zhang Chang, who painted his wife’s eyebrows. Zhang Chang had served as Prefect of Jingzhao, and had once been impeached for precisely this—for disorder in his household and frivolous conduct. That ru skirt Feng Cheng had turned in had long since caused a commotion within the Three Departments. Pei Dan had personally shouldered the blame, converting a public matter into a private one—a strategy of extricating himself, if nothing else.

Chen Qiu watched him finish eating, packed up the pastry box himself, and stood up. “With Prime Minister Pei pulling strings like this, the imperial pardon will probably reach you soon.” He turned to Chuns. “Lay low for now.”

Chuns was sharp enough. He didn’t show his face that afternoon, and sure enough, a guesthouse official came by in person and respectfully escorted Feng Bing back to his room. Feng Bing could no longer stand on his own; he could only half-recline in bed and take in some broth. Only under the covers did he feel the cold that pierced straight to the bone—his complexion was ashen, his lips tinged with blue. Chuns panicked and increased his medicine dose. But when the decoction was ready and he went to check, his master had fallen asleep again.

Feng Bing was desperately short of sleep. But his rest was far from peaceful. After dozing for only two shichen, he woke to a hubbub rising in the courtyard at dusk. He blinked open his eyes in confusion and asked, “What’s going on?”

Chuns wiped the cold sweat from the bedding without a word.

Feng Bing listened carefully and caught phrases like “Xihui Tower” and “Shengye Ward.” He understood. “It’s Pei Dan’s birthday banquet.”

Chuns fumed. “He’s invited the tribute envoys from every prefecture and circuit in the whole country! What a spectacle!”

The little fellow, after this ordeal, would never have a kind word for Pei Dan again. Amused, Feng Bing reached over and pinched his cheek. Chuns could only endure it.

“Wait until they’ve all gone,” Feng Bing said softly, “and then we two—master and servant—can have a proper drink together. How about it?”

Chuns’s eyes lit up with delight, then he lowered his voice. “But your body…”

“I intend to have some wine to help me sleep,” Feng Bing said. “Otherwise I’d be too much of a wreck.”

No sooner said than done. Chuns listened as the voices outside gradually faded, concluded that everyone had gone to the banquet, and slipped out himself. He went to the night market and bought half a catty of beef and one catty of yellow wine, cheerfully carrying them back to set up a small spread in the little sitting room outside Feng Bing’s bedroom. Before pulling the wine cork, Chuns ran to the window, pressed his palms together, and prayed to the moon: “May our master never have to encounter that surnamed Pei plague-god again for the rest of his life.”

Feng Bing laughed so hard he rocked back and forth. “You really changed your tune fast.”

“Before… there were so many grievances, and I never resented him like this,” Chuns muttered. “Thinking about it now, perhaps you and he just truly aren’t compatible—your Eight Characters clash.”

Feng Bing tilted his head and thought for a moment. “I remember his Eight Characters were Geng-Wu, Ji-Chou, Geng-Chen, Wu-Yin… We clearly calculated them…”

Chuns clutched his head and shouted, “Stop thinking about it! Stop thinking about it!”

After a liang or two of yellow wine, Feng Bing’s head had grown warm. His cheeks were faintly flushed, his gaze liquid and drifting. He was soon chuckling with uninhibited ease. Though his body still ached with a hollow, persistent pain, his spirits had lifted considerably—brighter, lighter. Perhaps tonight he could sleep well.

Later that night, Chuns gathered up the bowls, chopsticks, and cups. Feng Bing opened the door for him and watched him head toward the kitchen. The wutong tree in the courtyard extended its gnarled branches toward the sky. The snow beneath it still held shallow dents—the marks of two days of kneeling.

He steadied himself against the doorframe. The night wind carried fine snow crystals that brushed past the hem of his robe. He ought to go to bed, or else the tribute envoys would be returning.

“Are you alright?”

A voice broke the silence—abrupt and muffled.

Feng Bing froze. He turned his head. It was Pei Dan, of all people—covered head to toe in snow, standing just outside the courtyard. He took a few steps closer.

“Go inside quickly,” he said. “This snow is about to get heavy.”

The concern in his tone was so casual, so natural—as if Feng Bing showing displeasure at this moment would be Feng Bing’s own lack of grace. Feng Bing stepped back, retreating into the shadow behind the door.

Pei Dan walked forward urgently. He wore a striking red outfit and appeared to have been drinking. In the night, it only accentuated the brilliant contrast of his red lips and white teeth—a beautiful youth of the kind young ladies dream of. His eyes, glazed with intoxication, were fixed on Feng Bing. He didn’t watch his footing, and tripped right at the threshold of Feng Bing’s room.

—It was that raised door sill beneath the eave. It caught his foot. He pitched forward and landed face-down in the snow with a muffled thud.

Feng Bing wanted to laugh. He held it in.

He waited for Pei Dan to get up on his own.

Pei Dan braced himself against the ground, slapped the snow and mud from his clothes. When he rose, his left foot dragged slightly with a limp.

And just like that—limping, with nowhere to retreat from, in the desperate abandon of a man lost in drink—he crossed that threshold and drew closer to Feng Bing.

These past two days of business trips and meetings have completely drained my energy, wuwuwu… Tomorrow is maintenance day on Feiwen, so there’ll be no update for just one day~

Ever since I started writing this novel, I’ve received so much love from everyone—what a wonderful surprise! Thank you all!

Who could have predicted I’d end up sick and bedridden in a hotel room…