Chapter 34#

Light Sinks, Sound Fades#

Pei Dan had not expected to hear such a greeting.

“…A happy new year.” Having waited too long in the snow, his voice was as dry as paper, and his expression still resembled that of a flustered youth.

This was the time when they ought to have exchanged New Year’s gifts and bowed to each other in congratulations. But Pei Dan had prepared nothing. He clumsily patted the side of his official robes. Just moments ago, grabbing Feng Bing’s hand had seemed to stem from nothing but a desperate, reckless courage born of extremity. But now that this brief instant had passed, he had nothing left—not even courage.

Feng Bing said, “What does Prime Minister Pei wish to say?”

Pei Dan froze, studying his complexion carefully. He had genuinely been worried at the palace banquet, but now, in this moment, it seemed Feng Bing no longer needed his concern. Feng Bing had his own weapons and his own ramparts. Standing this close, the crisp fragrance of snow mingled with Feng Bing’s breath, wrapping mistily around him—and he found himself strangely unaccustomed to it.

“…You heard it all.” He moved his lips repeatedly, and said, somewhat awkwardly.

It was a statement of certainty.

Of course Feng Bing had heard.

Meng Chao’en had led him into the Zichen Hall, separated by no more than several layers of warm curtains. The voices of the Emperor and Pei Dan rose and fell in volume, and every word had reached his ears.

He had not thought too deeply about it—or perhaps he had already done so long ago. Listening tonight, he was not even surprised anymore. He merely thought: So it is true.

The Emperor wished to put an end to whatever “lingering threads” remained between them. Whether it was Pei Dan or Feng Bing, one of them had to make their stance clear.

—They had long had nothing to do with each other anyway. “Lingering threads”—how vulgar a phrase, how vulgar a notion.

So he nodded and said gently, “I heard it. General Pei entering the Lingyan Pavilion this spring is a fine thing. Congratulations to the Prime Minister.”

“That was His Majesty—” Pei Dan could not finish the sentence; the words caught in his throat. “—He knew you were outside. He said that on purpose.”

Feng Bing furrowed his brow slightly. Pei Dan’s gaze was stubborn, his tone childish. Here beneath the Hanyuan Hall, openly criticizing the Son of Heaven—he was like a child who refused to turn back. Feng Bing said patiently, “And so what?”

Pei Dan said softly, “It was not for the Lingyan Pavilion. It was not to avenge these grudges… that I divorced you.” But having said this, his brows twisted again in visible pain.

Feng Bing was struck speechless. He did not even know what Pei Dan was suffering for.

This was perhaps the first time since he had come to the capital, over a month ago, that he had truly and seriously looked at Pei Dan. Five years had passed. The young man’s figure had grown taller and straighter, his shoulders broader. Long accustomed to a life of privilege and ease, his already handsome face now radiated an even more refined, aristocratic bearing. But those eyes of his were no longer the clear, luminous ones of his seventeenth year—or perhaps that clarity had been nothing more than Feng Bing’s own wishful thinking all along.

Wishfully, he had placed Pei Dan inside a bright, beautiful shell and held him, saying he loved him. But perhaps what he had truly loved was not Pei Dan himself, but merely that shell.

He could not decipher what had settled in the depths of the young man’s eyes, and he had no desire to understand it in the slightest.

So he said evenly, “The blood debt of one’s parents is one that cannot coexist under heaven. Steward Wu of your household has already told me. That you succeeded in exacting your vengeance—I am, in the end… glad for you.”

The cold wind howled. Pei Dan’s fingers clenched tight on his sleeves. He could feel a throbbing pain at the back of his skull. He rarely got to stand this close to Feng Bing, and perhaps he would never be this close again. He ought to be grateful, but deep inside, a shameless voice was still pressing him to bare his heart. He drew a deep breath and said in a rasping voice, “My father… died in Goguryeo. It was indeed Crown Prince Youke who caused it. I tried every means to investigate the truth of what happened back then. Later, when I entered the Secretariat, I saw many old archives…”

His body swayed slightly. But Feng Bing’s eyes widened. “The Secretariat?”

Pei Dan did not notice this whispered interjection. He was struggling to chisel something useful out of his muddled memories, even though it caused him pain. “I once… genuinely considered taking revenge.” He pieced the words together with great difficulty, one at a time. “But it was not so simple. He was the Crown Prince—the foundation of an entire nation rested upon him. What is more, he was your elder brother. After we… after we married, I had my hesitations—”

He raised his eyes. Feng Bing was staring at him without a word. Unsure of how much Feng Bing would believe, he could only add helplessly, “Crown Prince Youke had a guilty conscience. Knowing I harbored old hatred toward him, he saw our marriage and began to suspect that the late Emperor intended to strip him of the throne and pass it to you. From the very beginning, with that imperial examination topic, he had grown suspicious. He even tried to harm you on multiple occasions. I told you about this once before—do you remember? Ah, of course you don’t.” Pei Dan gave another dry, rasping laugh. “You never liked hearing such things.”

When they had been together, it was wind and flowers, snow and moonlight—fine wine and stringed songs. Everything had felt like a dream. Whenever Pei Dan tried to discuss court politics with Feng Bing, Feng Bing never wanted to hear it, as though Pei Dan was being insensitive to romance. But the fault must have been partly his own, for he too had wanted to hold on to that dream a little longer…

Seeing his smile, Feng Bing was momentarily dazed.

Was it that he had not liked hearing it? Even he himself no longer understood. That little house in the Prince’s Residence had been so warm and bright, like a Peach Blossom Spring hidden amid a bustling city—of course, that, too, had been nothing but his own wishful thinking. The Peach Blossom Spring would vanish; husband and wife would part; porters carrying trunks could casually trample to pieces the three years he had painstakingly built.

Those three years suddenly made him nauseous.

“Hurry, hurry!” A shrill voice rang out without warning, startling them both.

It was people from the Empress’s palace, arriving at the Hanyuan Hall to deliver medicine for the spring season. The one leading was a eunuch, followed by four palace maids, each carrying an ornate jeweled box, their sleeves fluttering in concert. After tonight, everyone in the palace would likely realize Li Feng Bing’s importance. Empress Cui, for her part, was the quickest to react.

The eunuch had just stepped onto the stairs when he heard something—something faint. Puzzled, he paused. The wind and snow were quiet and still; the dark night was deep and heavy. He hunched his neck and quickened his pace.

In Pei Dan’s embrace, Feng Bing could see nothing at all.

He turned his head away, and his hair brushed across Pei Dan’s chest. He thought he heard a heartbeat growing ever louder, though he could not tell where it was coming from—thump, thump, thump—like a fist pounding against a wall, or a bell being struck, each beat tighter than the last. It suffocated him utterly. He pressed a hand over his mouth, but no cough came out. His face turned red from the effort.

After those people had gone, Pei Dan hastily released him—only to find Feng Bing glaring at him.

“Do you want to—” Pei Dan was once again at a loss. He still had a small box of cold-dispelling pills in his robe—the kind distributed to officials for the New Year’s celebrations. He did not know if they would help. As he was about to offer them, Feng Bing had already stifled the cough that had not yet come and straightened up, as though he had finally broken free of some invisible restraint.

The embrace moments ago seemed to have been very brief. The warmth from the young man’s body, no matter how scorching, had dissipated as swiftly as snowflakes melting away. Yet it also seemed to have been terribly long—so long that Feng Bing had nearly forgotten what they had been discussing.

He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. This half-real, half-phantom embrace had made him suddenly irritable. What was he doing? Here, behind the Hanyuan Hall, on the first night of the new year, wrapped in Pei Dan’s inexplicable attentiveness.

Pei Dan said, “I have—”

“I’m only asking you,” Feng Bing cut him off bluntly. “The treason case of five years ago—was your hand behind it?”

Pei Dan’s back molars ground together with a dull scrape. The square pill box was clenched in his palm.

“Yes.”

Feng Bing closed his eyes briefly. The nausea still lingered, and worse—a current of utter despair had burrowed into his blood, nearly severing his voice. “Then you divorced me… was that also for the sake of bringing down my brother?”

Pei Dan’s words came in a rush. “I had to bring him down. I couldn’t bear to—”

Feng Bing could barely suppress his mocking laughter. “How admirable, Pei Yunwang. You endured hardship and plotted with painstaking care, and I was nothing but a stumbling stone on your path to vengeance—”

The peace of moments ago had evaporated. He could not understand why Pei Dan always had to strip away his composure like this. This was clearly the question he most wanted to ask, yet he did not even have the patience to hear the answer through. In the gloomy darkness, both stars and moon had vanished. A great wind swept up billowing clouds of snow dust. It was too cold—so cold that even Pei Dan’s voice seemed like a hallucination at his ear:

“I didn’t want the Crown Prince to bully you anymore. I pleaded my case to the late Emperor, and the late Emperor then issued a secret edict ordering me to investigate the Crown Prince’s treason… I had to divorce you before then. I was afraid the Crown Prince would drag you into it…”

Feng Bing let out a sharp, abrupt scoff.

Pei Dan’s eyes had gone red. He stared at Feng Bing—and suddenly understood.

He doesn’t believe me.

He hasn’t heard a single word I’ve said.

Pei Dan had always known he was a man unworthy of being given the chance to defend himself. Now Feng Bing had given him that chance, and he was still this clumsy.

The moment he realized that nothing he said would be believed, he could not bring himself to utter another word.

All his efforts, all his suffering, all his agonized longing—all of it, in the other’s eyes, amounted to nothing more than the shamelessness of one who turns back after the deed is done.