Chapter 28#

Colder Than Ash#

Feng Bing and Uncle Wu ultimately did not talk much further. After returning that night, Feng Bing slept in a dazed stupor, and the next day fell ill once again.

The season was drawing close to the end of the year. That afternoon, Zhao Wang Li Fengyan paid an unexpected visit. Chunshi hurried to fetch a soft stool, then moved to help Feng Bing sit up, but was stopped by Fengyan.

“It’s fine, I’ll take care of him.” Li Fengyan smiled with easy warmth. Chunshi froze.

Feng Bing nodded, and only then did Chunshi withdraw his hands and step back. Li Fengyan found Feng Bing a soft pillow to lean against, then moved the small red brazier used for keeping medicine warm to the bedside. He laughed. “I only just saw you yesterday, and today you’ve fallen ill.”

Feng Bing was too exhausted to bother with pleasantries. His expression, as he gazed at Li Fengyan, was as still as settled water. “I’m used to it,” he said.

Though this illness had struck with force, it was merely the result of catching cold the night before. With a little tending, it would soon pass. He had always been this way—whenever he suffered a blow, his heart had yet to react, but his body would already cry out in protest first. It was almost as if it laid him bare, and he found it humiliating.

Li Fengyan studied his face, brows furrowing with a trace of heartache. This youngest brother of his carried heavy thoughts and did not care to speak; sometimes even those closest to him could not see through him. But Li Fengyan felt that he ought to still have some youthful spirit in him.

So much so that even when facing illness, he carried a measure of arrogance.

“New Year’s Eve is almost here,” Li Fengyan said, grasping for a lighthearted topic. “I still want to pull you back to the Palace of Ten Kings to watch us light fires to drive away Nuo! Recover quickly, and we can drink together and keep watch for the new year.”

“That may be difficult,” Feng Bing said. “On New Year’s Day I must attend the New Year’s Greeting.”

Li Fengyan slapped his forehead. “Right! I forgot—I have to go too!” He shrank his neck. “The New Year’s Greeting is so exhausting, and the Emperor doesn’t even show any consideration.”

“This too is imperial grace.”

Whatever he said was delivered in the same mild, even tone. Li Fengyan had no choice but to generate atmosphere on his own behalf. “Well, the Emperor letting you come to court was also meant to make future rehabilitation more convenient.” He leaned his knees forward. “Fourth Brother, whether or not you return to Laozhou, these next month or so—when facing the Emperor, you’d best be careful. Especially—” He had spoken too much without thinking. Seeing Feng Bing’s expression, he hesitated.

“Especially on Prime Minister Pei’s side?” Feng Bing finished his sentence calmly.

Li Fengyan blinked, then coughed twice and turned to stare at the brazier’s flames in embarrassment. The air grew strained for a moment. Finally, Li Fengyan spoke to the fire: “The Emperor’s wariness of Prime Minister Pei seems to stem from the late Emperor. The late Emperor must have given Pei something, enabling him to wield such great influence at such a young age. In recent years, there has been a shift in court and among the officials—it seems they intend to re-examine and grant merits for General Pei Zheng, who died in battle in Goryeo.” Li Fengyan’s voice grew lower and lower. “The Emperor has had a pavilion constructed within the Supreme Pole Palace, enshrining the meritorious ministers and generals of this dynasty, modeled after the Qilin Pavilion of the Han dynasty. Come next year, when they perform the sacrificial rites to the mountains and rivers, perhaps General Pei will be added.”

Feng Bing’s brows hung low, showing no apparent interest, yet his fingers tightened, bit by bit, against the brocade quilt. He did not want to hear Pei Dan’s name again, but he could not help but think—think about the old grievances between Pei Dan and Crown Prince Youke. Atoning for his father’s merits and restoring his name, glorifying his ancestors and bringing honor to his lineage—was this Pei Dan’s dream?

“After all, Crown Prince Youke can never turn things around in this lifetime,” Li Fengyan wrinkled his nose in thought. “If the Emperor were willing to reopen the old Goryeo case, make Crown Prince Youke confess his crime against General Pei, and shower the Pei family with unimaginable wealth—wouldn’t Prime Minister Pei be utterly devoted to the current Emperor then?”

“Third Brother.” Feng Bing lowered his head abruptly. His lips had gone white, and he even called out Third Brother in an unseemly haste, as though pleading. “General Pei in Goryeo—was he truly harmed by Crown Prince Youke? Was Pei Dan investigating the Treason Case… was it… for the sake of revenge?”

Li Fengyan looked at him, his eyes clouded with a complicated anguish. “It seems some have said so for a very long time. Only Prime Minister Pei never proclaimed it himself. There was always bound to be a certain amount of hatred, in one form or another. I’ve heard that after General Pei’s death, Pei Dan had a very hard time within the Pei family. It wasn’t until he placed first in the imperial examinations at seventeen that he finally held his head high. These things, inevitably, fall at Crown Prince Youke’s door for the failed campaign.”

“…Then that must be it.”

Feng Bing murmured blankly.

Li Fengyan sat a while longer, chatting about some amusing New Year’s Eve anecdotes—for instance, how the Emperor had once been seized by a whim and ordered the burning of agarwood before the palace halls, consuming over two hundred cartloads of fragrant wood. That night had been resplendent and magnificent indeed, but the ash had drifted over all of Chang’an, and the sky remained grey for three days afterward.

At last, this little tale managed to draw a smile from Feng Bing. Li Fengyan gave him some final words of advice to rest well, then took his leave without further disturbance.

The moment Li Fengyan departed, the smile on Feng Bing’s face vanished. He began to cough in fitful bursts. Chunshi rushed in to pat his back and soothe his breath, carefully offering him a small sip of hot tea.

Feng Bing waved him off with his hand.

Weariness. Exhaustion. The door of his heart, already split open, could no longer be sealed shut. The cold wind blew through freely. In truth, it was nothing more than a single sentence—one he could not bring himself to utter before Uncle Wu, one he could not bring himself to utter before Third Brother. It seemed they had all forgotten one fact—

That it was Pei Dan who had initiated their divorce before the Treason Case even began.

The sentence he had been turning over in his mind since last night gradually came into clarity. He knew he had to find Pei Dan. He had to ask him, face to face—

Was it for the sake of revenge that you divorced me?

If so, then naturally that was the way of the world. He had no ground to object. But why—why hadn’t Pei Dan even told him about any of this? If parents and clan meant so much to Pei Dan—then what about him? Sharing the same bed, pressing close ear to ear, three years of indulgence and self-abandonment—was he merely a stranger at the very edge of Pei Dan’s life?

—Or worse than a stranger? Would Pei Dan shrink from him? Would he view him with hostility? After all, as the Treason Case was investigated further down the line, he had been classified as one of Crown Prince Youke’s partisans!

Absurd.

Feng Bing felt he was himself an absurdity.

He had once loved that gentle, kind, radiant Pei Dan so fiercely. But now he was made to learn that it had all been nothing but a mask. Behind that mask lay more than ten years of sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall, of secret conspiracies in hidden chambers.

It had to be this way.

How could his insignificant self possibly compare to Pei Dan’s parents and clan, to that consuming obsession? What did three years of devoted marriage amount to? When the moment came to avenge his great hatred , Pei Dan had cast him aside without a trace of hesitation.

He could not blame him. Feng Bing told himself. He had to stay calm. He had to put himself in Pei Dan’s position and think of him more.

Perhaps after his great vengeance was fulfilled, Pei Dan had retrieved a measure of guilt—for he was, after all, a man with a conscience. Naturally, a man who had resolved from childhood to avenge his parents would have a conscience. So Pei Dan had helped him, shielded him, as if that could patch up everything—as if all of it could be mended. Every gesture of concern from Pei Dan now seemed weightless, like bubbles drifting aimlessly on the surface. When he saw those bubbles, he had even felt surges of anxious anticipation. But he had not known that he was merely a burdensome sacrifice.

Just like his self of five years ago.

He still remembered the Ministry of Justice prison in the twenty-eighth year of Yongzhi—that sealed chamber underground, windowless, its brick walls damp but not filthy, with a mat laid over the straw pallet. He remembered that at first Chunshi had been locked up together with him, and the days had not been quite so unbearable. Chunshi would save all his own rations to feed Feng Bing, and at night he would cup Feng Bing’s hands and blow warm breath over them, soothing his shivering from the cold. Later, when the jailers released rats into the cells, Chunshi would shout and scramble around swatting at them, flustered and clumsy, just to make Feng Bing laugh. They would hear the sounds of prisoners being led away one by one outside the walls—many of them were old servants from his own household. But Chunshi kept encouraging him, saying, Since Master Pei is the one in charge of the investigation, he will certainly save you. A hundred days of kindness after one day of marriage—after three years of marriage, he surely wouldn’t be that heartless?

Until later, when even Chunshi was taken away, and Feng Bing did not even know whether Chunshi was alive or dead.

By then, he had truly stopped believing Chunshi’s encouragements. He had also thought: if he simply died here and now, for all the ages to come—who would remember him? He had never done anything worth remembering.

He was not worthy of love. Not worthy of hatred. Not worthy of remembrance.

And yet a person like him had actually, truly, felt anxious anticipation at Pei Dan’s weightless concern.

Feng Bing clenched his jaw tight, shut his eyes, and fell heavily back onto the bed.

The plot is going to get a bit tense soon… Compared with the beginning, Feng Bing’s state of mind has already changed a great deal, that’s why things feel so tense… ugh