Chapter 30#

Perhaps it was the New Year’s Eve goodwill rubbing off, but Feng Bing’s illness had eased somewhat. When Chun Shi returned from the market carrying an armful of little New Year trinkets, he was seated at his desk, drinking his medicine and reading. Chun Shi went off to hang the peachwood charms and paste up the spring couplets, and Feng Bing followed along beside him, occasionally steadying the ladder. With a small residence, there was the advantage of smallness — tidying up and decorating were no trouble at all, and once the fire was lit, warmth filled every corner. Come evening, Chun Shi walked around the courtyard lighting the warding fires, then dragged his master up to the roof of a three-story pavilion at the back of the grounds for dinner. The moment the takeout boxes from the restaurant were opened, the fragrance of fine dishes wafted outward, as if trying to climb up to the slender moon just showing itself at the edge of the sky.

Household by household across Chang’an, the warding fires rose one after another. The firelight spiraled up boldly from the depths of Feng Bing’s eyes, winding its way out of the city and stretching all the far distance to the Zhongnan Mountains in the south. In the yellow-bright haze and smoke, a procession of thousands bearing exorcism torches passed through the Mingde Gate from the south. Everywhere they went, heads crowded together, the atmosphere was extraordinarily lively. They marched all the way to Chongren Ward, where the clamor nearly pierced Feng Bing’s eardrums. North of Chongren Ward, the grand and thunderous procession sang and danced their way toward the Daming Palace to perform the exorcism, accompanied by an unbroken string of firecrackers.

Feng Bing’s gaze followed after them, but at that moment he noticed that Pei Dan’s residence still had no fire lit — or rather, not even a single lamp. Amid the resplendence of the whole city, its pitch-black outline stood out all the more jarringly.

He withdrew his gaze without a word.

Chun Shi didn’t know why his master had been so gloomy these past days, only that it had something to do with Master Pei. All he could do was tend the little brazier until it glowed warm, and pour all his effort into cheering him up. The moon stayed out only a brief moment before the dark thickened again. A howling wind whipped up heavy snow; from the top of the pavilion, the rushing roar was especially startling. Many of the fires across the city had been extinguished, but all were stubbornly relit almost immediately, as if trying to wrest a blessing for the night out of the storm. Chun Shi said with some worry: “They say the palace will set off a huge firecracker tonight. I wonder if they’ll still manage it?”

Feng Bing asked: “What’s a huge firecracker?”

“The kind that shoots into the sky!” Chun Shi gesticulated wildly. “I heard from someone that the late emperor tried it once, a year before he passed. The firecracker shot up into heaven and burst open into countless great flowers, then transformed into ten thousand galloping horses, and finally produced the four characters ‘Auspicious Wishes Fulfilled’ —”

Feng Bing couldn’t help laughing. “You actually believe that?”

“But everyone at the firecracker stalls in the market says so!” Chun Shi scrunched up his brows and nose together, desperate to make his master believe him. “They say the thing is exceedingly rare. Only the palace has a few batches stored; ordinary people will truly never see one. This year His Majesty means to share the joy with the people, so he’s specifically ordered them to set it off!”

“Then how long do we have to wait?” Feng Bing gazed out past the pavilion. “With snow falling like this.”

Chun Shi gently nudged the burning coals with the fire tongs and said, brimming with anticipation: “Perhaps around midnight? Well, we’ll be staying up for the New Year anyway, so let’s just wait and see!”

Feng Bing said he didn’t believe it, but in truth he did want to see. So the two sat on the pavilion, munching peanuts and sipping pepper wine, chatting idly as they waited for midnight to come.

The wind and snow grew more and more fierce.

Pei Dan finally made it home near midnight, his greatcloak crusted with snowflakes, travel-worn and windblown. Wu Bo went to heat water for a bath, but Pei Dan stopped him, saying never mind — fortunately he’d washed that morning; right now there simply wasn’t time. He could only rest for an hour or so before heading to the palace to prepare for the New Year’s audience.

Wu Bo’s heart ached to see it. He urged his master to go to sleep, but Pei Dan was in surprisingly good spirits. Wrapped in his robe, he stood in the courtyard watching the snow, then turned and smiled at Wu Bo: “His Majesty is setting off fireworks today — did you know? It’d be a shame to miss it.”

Wu Bo said: “Haven’t you already seen them, the year before last?”

His mood dampened by Wu Bo’s remark, Pei Dan turned away and stopped talking to him. Wu Bo had no choice but to let him be. He spread a soft mat on the open ground by the frozen garden pool, set out a brazier, and left him to hold his own umbrella, drink his wine, and stare blankly at the sky.

The vast, boundless estate of the prime minister was desolate beyond measure in the deep of night. Wu Bo watched his master’s back and thought of the Ten Princes’ Residences — cramped and oppressive as they had been, during New Year the warding fires blazed brilliantly and the imperial princes raised a boisterous din. In those days, his master would hold Master Li’s hand for an entire day, never caring where they went or who saw, terrified that outsiders might not know he had a wife. Even when Master Li swatted him with a peach branch, he wouldn’t let go.

Wu Bo had believed his master was deeply dependent on Master Li. He had never imagined that the years following their divorce would pass by so quietly, without a ripple.

The Pei Dan of this moment was not so very different from that child in the great Pei household of Hedong, head bowed, quietly fiddling with a nine-linked ring amid the clamor of quarreling relatives.

After standing in a daze for long enough, one inevitably grew cold. Near midnight, Wu Bo brought out a thick padded jacket to drape over him. His hands had not yet fallen when a deafening explosion shook the sky.

The fireworks shot suddenly into the sky, pressing the wind and snow into silence. For a time, ten thousand purples and ten thousand reds, floating ice and falling stars — all of it was reflected in Pei Dan’s eyes. In the end, he smiled, faint and dazed.

Feng Bing’s eyes went wide, watching the flowers that had abruptly bloomed and then withered in midair. He suddenly reacted, turning to Chun Shi: “You liar! There were no characters about auspicious wishes at all…”

Chun Shi hadn’t expected to have truly been duped either. His face flushed crimson. “B-but — but it really was pretty!”

Pretty it certainly was. In an instant the night sky blazed as bright as day, ten thousand purples and ten thousand reds stretching endlessly. But it had also been far too brief — just that one moment. Feng Bing hadn’t even had time to make out its shape before it had returned to darkness.

After witnessing such a grand spectacle, even the lights across the whole city now seemed vulgar. The iron curtain of night descended once more under the wind and snow, and he no longer had the mood of silent endurance and waiting he’d held moments ago.

“Ah!” Chun Shi suddenly slapped his own forehead. “Quick, make a wish! Master, close your eyes — whatever you wish will surely come true —”

Urged by Chun Shi, Feng Bing squeezed his eyes shut. In his fluster he couldn’t think of what to wish for, so he could only recall the words Pei Dan had said to him: May your heart’s desire be fulfilled, and may all things go smoothly — a smooth, all-purpose phrase that could fit any occasion.

But what of Pei Dan? Was Pei Dan at this very moment surrounded by honored guests at his table, his cup ever full of wine?

The cold wind blew the fireworks’ embers toward the city. Chongren Ward lay especially close to the Daming Palace, so wisps of smoke and ash drifted against Feng Bing’s face.

Only then did he know that such a grand flower, once withered, was cold as ice.