#81: A Single Lamp in a Dark Room (Part 5)

Luo Wei’s fingers ran through his wet hair, twirling them as if playing. Ye Tingyan, with his eyes closed, suddenly asked her, ‘When did you enter that study?’

Luo Wei let out a laugh. ‘Three days ago, right when you left.’

Ye Tingyan grew a little anxious. ‘And for the past three days, you’ve been...’

Luo Wei said, ‘I was happy at first.’

She lowered her head and looked into his wet, bright eyes, and the urge to taunt him with a few words instantly faded. ‘Chu Yin never lies. At the time, I was so happy I almost went crazy. I don’t know why, but I didn’t find it too surprising. I thought, that’s just the kind of person you are—even if you fall into boundless hell, you’ll find your way back.’

Ye Tingyan whispered, ‘Didn’t you feel angry... or sad?’

Luo Wei deliberately put on a stern face. ‘Of course. After I was happy, I started to think, why couldn’t you trust me? But... the truth is, I went to Song Lan’s underground chamber beneath the Candle-lighting Tower.’

Realizing what she was talking about, Ye Tingyan stiffened.

Luo Wei gave a bitter laugh. ‘Ning Le told me about it before she died. I found a chance and went to take a look. Do you know? Song Lan had redecorated the place, placing my favorite sandalwood incense there.’

‘So that’s how you guessed his intentions and risked everything to escape on Mount Guyou?’ Ye Tingyan sat up, but she pressed him back down. ‘How dare he...’

‘If I hadn’t made a move, after Yu Qiushi’s death, he definitely wouldn’t have let me go. I used to think it was just a matter of dying, but I never expected...’ Luo Wei said. ‘It was so dark in there. I held a candle and saw bloodstains on the four walls. I felt my way along, brick by brick, feeling nauseous inside. I fled back up not long after. How did you survive there back then?’

Ye Tingyan reached out and gently caressed her face, wiping away her impending tears one by one.

‘So when I came just now, I originally wanted to ask you, but when I saw you, I couldn’t bring myself to,’ Luo Wei also touched his face. She seemed to have become very fond of this gesture, repeating it again and again. ‘Xue Chu told me and Ah Fei that to be completely reborn, you need a very, very painful medicine. If your will is even slightly weak, you might even die during the process. But without it, you probably couldn’t have escaped from Bian Du, could you?’

Ye Tingyan smiled. ‘It’s alright, it wasn’t that painful. The pain you endured hidden behind the palace walls must have been a thousand times worse than mine.’

Luo Wei said, ‘Yes, we had it easy for more than a decade. Why did we have to suffer so much? Since we’ve suffered this much, why waste everything on mutual blame, suspicion, and regret? As I just said, none of this was our fault to begin with.’

‘There was a shattered bronze mirror in your study,’ she continued. ‘When I saw it, every shard reflected the moon’s shadow. Over these three days, I pieced it back together. Now, it’s a complete moon again.’

Even with cracks, it must continue to be a moon.

Ye Tingyan propped himself up to kiss her. As his tears fell on her cheek, Luo Wei heard him say with a laugh, ‘Next time, next time we kiss, let’s not cry.’

‘Ah Tang?’

‘Hmm.’

In the distant silhouette of the Crown Prince’s golden statue, the begonia flower at the tip of the sword remained. Luo Wei closed her eyes and saw a begonia tree swaying in the sunlight. Its branches were full of unopened buds. The spring breeze blew one of them over, brushing against the face of her young lover and landing on her lips.

The begonia is a flower of unrequited love, but she tasted the gentle scent of sandalwood—slightly sweet, with a hint of sorrow so faint it was barely perceptible.

Then that flower bloomed petal by petal, dodging a sudden stab from the side.

It will never wither, she remembered the words from the fortune she drew all those years ago. The moon shines forever upon the eternal spring night.

Zhou Chuyin stood on the other side of the boat’s railing and coughed softly.

After midnight, a breeze blew through the window lattice.

Luo Wei was awakened by the faint sound. Feeling a little thirsty, she turned over and got up from the couch, noticing that a lamp had been lit in the study, which had been completely dark before.

Just moments ago, there had only been moonlight.

He must have lit it while she was asleep.

The study was a mess. Many of the hanging white silks had been torn down, and the Xuan paper was scattered everywhere. Only the bronze mirror she had carefully glued back together stood upright by the window.

Luo Wei thought of how Ye Tingyan had just now held her chin and forced her to look at her own face in the mirror, and a blush crept over her face. She took a sip of the cold tea from the bronze cup and was about to go to the window for another, when she took a few steps and felt a tug at her waist.

Her snow-white undergarment was torn a little but was still mostly intact. Only the long sash hung by her side, and at this moment, that sash was being held in the hands of the person behind her.

Ye Tingyan had woken up at some point, propping himself up on his hands and watching her lazily.

For some reason, after his bath, he had changed into a light pink robe. During their entanglement, the robe hadn’t come off, but it was disheveled. Luo Wei turned to look and saw his bare shoulder, and a fresh tooth mark on his neck she had just made.

She was still admiring this beautiful sight when he pulled on the sash, and her already weak legs couldn’t support her. She stumbled and fell back into his embrace.

His hands caressed her through the silken fabric of her clothes, adding to the intimate atmosphere. Ye Tingyan kissed the back of her neck, asking indistinctly, ‘Where are you going?’

Luo Wei answered honestly, ‘I’m a little thirsty.’

So Ye Tingyan flipped her over, pinning her to the patterned silk pillow on the couch, and kissed her cheeks with an almost addicted fervor, saying between kisses, ‘... I’m thirsty too.’

Luo Wei held his shoulders, wanting to push him away, but in the end, she let her hands fall feebly.

In the darkness, she studied his face and suddenly became curious. ‘When you disguised yourself, why did you choose this appearance? Wouldn’t it have been safer to look ordinary?’

‘Not at all,’ Ye Tingyan said unhurriedly. ‘Do you remember the day you came down from Mount Guyou?’

Luo Wei asked, puzzled, ‘Hmm?’

‘I instructed Ling Cheng to make some bee sting marks on your face that day—the palace servants who were at the hunting ground had collected honey in the back mountains, and many people were stung. Those who couldn’t show their faces to the Emperor were sent back overnight,’ Ye Tingyan explained. ‘So there is no safe or unsafe in this world, only what is appropriate.’

Luo Wei suddenly understood. ‘You were using the Third Young Master’s name to travel the martial world, all for the purpose of returning to the capital to build momentum. If you were more handsome, you would naturally attract more attention. That way, when Song Lan sent people to investigate you, those who had seen you would remember the things you did clearly—so as not to waste your efforts.’

‘There’s another reason,’ Ye Tingyan said, looking at her. ‘... I wanted you to like me more.’

Luo Wei raised an eyebrow. ‘You hadn’t even returned to the capital yet, but you had already decided to seduce me?’

Ye Tingyan embraced her and chuckled softly. ‘How could I have expected it to be so smooth? Does Your Highness find me “good enough to eat”?’

Luo Wei pulled at the robe on his shoulder flirtatiously. ‘Very good.’

Ye Tingyan turned his head, his loose, long hair brushing against her cheek. ‘Then let’s have more...’

Luo Wei glared at him. ‘Don’t you have to go to court tomorrow?’

Ye Tingyan said, ‘Court resumes in two days.’

...

So they carried on until the next evening. After they had bathed and finally put their clothes back on, Luo Wei loosely tied her hair and followed Ye Tingyan to the front hall for a meeting.

Zhou Chuyin was adding something to the wall map of troop deployments with a brush, and he didn’t even look up when the two of them came in. Bo Sen-sen, however, came over to take Ye Tingyan’s pulse and said with surprise, ‘You’ve been in a good mood these past few days. You’re much better than before.’

Luo Wei quickly asked, ‘What was the reason for his frequent chest pains and coughing up blood before?’

‘It was just a result of emotional repression. The day before yesterday, when you two were arguing in the bamboo grove, he coughed up blood and fainted, which actually cleared up a lot of the blockages in his blood vessels,’ Bo Sen-sen said. ‘The “Withered Orchid” poison is difficult to completely remove, so recovering to this extent is not easy.’

Luo Wei was startled. ‘The “Withered Orchid” poison, was that from back then...’

She sighed and then asked, ‘What about his eyes?’

Ye Tingyan grabbed her wrist and brought it to Bo Sen-sen, saying, ‘The things you want to hear, I will tell you in detail later.’

Bo Sen-sen touched her wrist, and his brow furrowed slightly. Luo Wei, busy looking at Ye Tingyan beside her, didn’t notice. Ye Tingyan put his arm around her shoulder and led her to the other side, turning back to give Bo Sen-sen a deep look.

Luo Wei was completely unaware, and she asked as she walked, ‘What’s the situation in the court now?’

Ye Tingyan replied, ‘While I was in the palace, I sent Pei Xi to inquire around the Censorate. The Empress being mysteriously imprisoned on Mount Guyou has already caused a huge stir. Although the two bureaus haven’t decided to jointly submit a memorial yet, when Song Lan returns to court, there will surely be many censors and remonstrance officials presenting their petitions.’

Luo Wei said ‘Hmm’ and asked, ‘What are your plans?’

Ye Tingyan smiled. ‘Naturally, to add fuel to your fire.’

In the late autumn of the fourth year of Jinghe, in the second month after Emperor Xiaozhao’s accession to power, the two Censorate bureaus, for the first time in fifteen years, jointly presented a memorial at the morning court. The memorial cited the Empress’s inexplicable imprisonment on Mount Guyou and the Emperor’s extravagant pleasures, demanding that the Emperor release the Empress from the mountain and issue an edict to admonish himself and conduct himself with frugality.

Since the summer, the Grand Tutor and the Empress, the two regents, had both been stripped of their power, arousing the Censorate’s dissatisfaction with the Emperor’s autocratic rule. The then Censor-in-Chief’s words were particularly sharp, directly pointing out that the Emperor was not as humble as he had been before his accession.

According to a rumor, this Censor-in-Chief had a chance encounter with a young palace eunuch in the imperial city whose palm had a laceration. After asking, he learned that the wound was originally left from holding a sharp jade object—during a hunting trip to the late-spring hunting grounds, the Emperor had once treated precious jade as a plaything, throwing it to the ground to enjoy the sound of it shattering.

After the Empress entered the palace, the Emperor then gave the shattered jade pieces as a reward. The eunuchs fought over the jade fragments, afraid that others would take them first, so they held them tightly in their hands, which is how such a deep gash was left across their palms.

Since his succession, Emperor Zhao had been diligent under the supervision of the Empress and the Grand Tutor, and he had a reputation for benevolence, such as “not killing the cicadas.” The sudden exposure of the shattered jade incident inevitably caused a public outcry.

Compounding this, there had also been a rumor in the inner court a few days earlier that after the Empress’s departure, the Emperor had eagerly killed all the cicadas in the palace gardens. How many cicadas were left in late autumn? This act clearly showed his long-standing dissatisfaction with the Empress.

The tide of public opinion surged against the throne. Song Lan had only prepared a defense for Luo Wei’s disappearance. Now, the shattered jade and cicada-killing incidents were unexpectedly brought to light. Song Lan, caught off guard, was so enraged that he lost control.

Perhaps it was his bewilderment as to why such a minor matter as ‘shattering jade to hear the sound’ could cause such a huge uproar.

In a moment of outrage, former Censor-in-Chief Lu Hang held his ceremonial tablet and ascended to the hall, striking a pillar in an act of remonstrance, dying on the spot. This created the first major case of a literati’s death-by-remonstrance since the reign of Emperor De and the Mingtai Restoration.

This event is historically known as the ‘Remonstrance of Jinghe Autumn.’