On the day I ascended the throne, her blood had yet to dry within the carved patterns of the dragon desk. The cinnabar inkstone was shattered into powder, mixing with the dark crimson to form a winding river across the white marble floor, resembling the cracks on Taiye Pool when the ice breaks—she always said the sound of spring ice splitting was like jade shattering. Back then, I held her hand and taught her how to grind ink while snow fell on the plum branches outside the window, and a warm stove was tended beneath the inkstone.
"Your Majesty must change into the court robes." The eunuch's hands shook as he held out the bright yellow python robe, the twelve imperial symbols embroidered in gold thread casting a cold gleam in the candlelight. I stared at my own crossed fingers, the knuckles still stained with the rouge from her neck. She had once joked that the shade was "the frost-dyed woods of dawn," yet now it had soaked into the center of my palm like a dirty blemish, looking precisely like the blood that spilled from the corners of her mouth before she drew her last breath.
Three years ago at Chuxiu Palace, when we first met, she was reaching up to pluck a plum bud by clinging to a branch. Her goose-yellow cloak had slipped to her elbows, exposing her lotus-white wrists, and the Golden Dangle Hairpin in her hair swayed gently with her movements, startling the accumulated snow off the eaves. "Has the Crown Prince ever witnessed 'Mao-hour snow'?" She placed the bud into my palm, her fingertips colder than the petals. "This is snow that began to fall at the end of Yin hour and stopped at the beginning of Mao hour. When it lands on the plum branches, it forms patterns like golden stamens."
Only later did I discover her father was a condemned minister sentenced to death by my imperial father. She hid her sharp edges to live the life of an unconcerned palace maid, yet every night while I studied bitterly by lamplight, she quietly placed a cup of warmed milk on my desk, copying notes from Song dynasty scholars onto fine paper with regular script: "When Emperor Taizhou once asked Zhao Pu what was the greatest thing in the world, Pu replied: 'Principle is the greatest.'" She drew circles in cinnabar around the word "principle," the ink bleeding through to the back of the paper like the light in her eyes when she looked at me.
At what moment did I begin to taste the flavor of power? Perhaps it was when my father first let me review memorials on his behalf, or perhaps it was the night she swapped the cup of poisoned wine third brother had offered during the princes' banquet. She knelt outside my study, pressing her forehead against the bluestone floor: "Does Your Highness know that the Liuli cup you bestowed upon the Third Prince the other day has auspicious beasts carved on the base that belong exclusively to the Crown Prince's Eastern Palace?" I gripped her wrist, soaked through with cold sweat, catching the scent of agarwood mixed with ink in her hair, and suddenly I thought of the storytellers in the market alleys speaking of Han Xin's humiliation of crawling between a man's legs before being appointed general.
"If you kill me, can you sit securely on the dragon throne?" When I pressed her down onto the dragon desk, her hairpin fell and broke into two pieces. Her Eastern pearl earrings flashed dazzlingly, and I saw myself shattered into two halves in her pupils: half was the boy catching snow beneath the plum tree that year, and half was the Crown Prince clutching the cup of poisoned wine. The jade pendant at her neck pressed hard against my palm—the birthday gift I had given her, carved with the words "endless joy"—how laughable, the master of Weiyang Palace was never worthy of joy.
"Your Majesty, it is time for the ancestor worship ceremony." The voice of the Director of the Ceremonial Directorate pierced through my memories. I let them tie the twelve-string imperial crown upon my head; the hanging beads swayed so heavily that my vision blurred, yet I could still see that speck of dark crimson in the crevices of the dragon desk. Yesterday's torrential rain had melted all the ice on Taiye Pool, and palace attendants reported seeing a solitary wild goose crash to its death against the carved railing, its droplets of blood splashing onto the withered plum blossoms like her final smile.
The yellow silk banners for the ceremony snapped in the wind. Looking down at the sea of heads beneath the Altar of Heaven, I suddenly remembered what she said before she died: "Look, the wind in this Jinluan Hall has never been warm." At that moment, the wind whipped fine sand against my face, and I tasted a salty bitterness—so a monarch's tears are more bitter than poisoned wine.
The night was too deep; the candlewick popped three times. Holding the jade hairpin she used to wear, I wrote the Song lyric she had taught me on a blank memorial: "I wish to trade deep intoxication for sorrow; let not the clear song break our hearts." The ink was ruffled by the wind before it could dry, resembling her furrowed brow at the end. The watchman's drum sounded from outside the window; at the third quarter of Mao hour, it should have been the time she used to bring me milk.
The tea in the Liuli cup had grown completely cold, and I raised my cup to the empty air: "Look, this realm is finally mine." The echo bounced within the empty halls, stirring dust from the beams. So this position above ten thousand people was truly, just as she had said, bone-chillingly cold. The newly ground ink in the inkstone gleamed faintly, and I dipped my brush to write crooked characters on the rice paper—the first poem she ever taught me: "Suddenly seeing the willow colors by the roadside, I regret having taught my husband to seek a title and rank."
When the morning bell tolled, I saw my face in the bronze mirror. White hair had actually appeared at my temples, looking terribly like the white plum blossoms she had pinned in my hair that year. The morning bells and drums sounded from outside the hall, and I touched the carved patterns on the armrests of the dragon throne, suddenly recalling her saying that the dragon-scale carving technique was identical to the ritual vessels her father had overseen—from the very moment we met, we were both trapped in this cage of power, and neither of us could escape.
"Your Majesty, the officials are waiting outside the hall." The little eunuch's voice interrupted my thoughts. I stood up, hearing the jade pendants on my court robes strike against one another, their chiming sound seeming to carry her smile. The moment I stepped out the palace doors, the Eastern wind swept fine snow across the eaves, and I dazedly thought I saw the figure in the goose-yellow cloak beneath the plum tree, standing on tiptoe to reach the highest flower bud.
Snow fell upon my palm, cold enough to make the heart tremble. I clenched my fist, letting the ice crystals sting my palm just as I had gripped that cup of poisoned wine back then. The sharpest blade in this world has never been the dragon-patterned precious sword in Jinluan Hall, but rather the unsaid "I love you" and the unyielding "this realm."
The bells and drums beat on, striking terror into the heart. I stepped upward along the white marble stairs, the jade pendant at my waist swaying gently with each step, the four characters "endless joy" carved upon it polished to a bright sheen. Yet within this Weiyang Palace, there was no longer anyone to experience joy.
The wind rose again, sweeping withered plum blossoms across the imperial terrace. Gazing at the fluttering catkins filling the sky, I suddenly smiled—so the peak of power was truly, as she had said, a lonely and desolate tomb. And I had long since been buried with her on that snowy spring night.