GU MANG MADE no sound; he felt this all extremely absurd. He wasn't alone. Mo Xi, too, found the emperor's words beyond ridiculous. Precious? Something he never wanted to lose? More like discarded like an old shoe, dissolved with delight… It would be more accurate to say Gu Mang's army was a thorn in the emperor's side. A treasure? Who would believe it?
At Gu Mang's silence, the emperor turned. "General Gu, what kind of person do you think we are?"
Gu Mang's lips parted, but almost immediately, he pressed them tightly together again.
"You don't have to say it, we know. All of you people think Imperial Father was a virtuous ruler, willing to give cultivators of slave birth a chance to distinguish themselves. In your eyes, the former emperor made great strides and enacted lasting change. And we?" The emperor smiled. "We're a stickler for tradition, stubborn and inflexible."
He looked at the deluge of water streaming from the eaves. "But have any of you stood in our position and considered our circumstances?"
The emperor murmured: "We have no other choice. General Gu, as a slave on the path to where you stand today, you met with every kind of criticism and countless hardships. We've witnessed them all. What we felt most deeply wasn't admiration or pity, but a powerful sympathy. Your path and mine are equally hard to walk. We are both destined to bear the burden of endless curses and condemnation."
Gu Mang said nothing.
"No—in truth, we are less fortunate than you. At least you have a Xihe-jun you can trust wholeheartedly, and an army of brave and loyal warriors devoted to you. What do we have? Mengze? Yanping… or Murong Lian." The emperor chuckled, mocking himself. "In this vast imperial city, we have so many relatives, from side branches to direct descendants, but every one of them bears us ill will. Do you know why?"
Gu Mang shook his head.
"Because the path we took to the throne ran red with the blood of our brothers." As he spoke, he turned his face to the inky sky. "Let us share a rumor. No…better to say a forbidden tale. But tongues will wag. We think General Gu may have heard this story before."
When Gu Mang said nothing, the emperor took a breath and began, "This happened long ago, when we were born… Everyone knows we're the eldest di son of the imperial family and should have been heir apparent. But there has been a precedent of deposing the di son in Chonghua. Before one formally ascends the throne, anything can happen. When we were a month old, our mother secretly went to an oracle, who divined a star chart. The array showed great peril, and the oracle predicted we would suffer calamity in our life. It was written in the palaces of our Ziwei Star birth chart that we were destined for strife among siblings, unlikely to live harmoniously with our brothers. This star chart deeply troubled my mother, and she fell ill for many months. After she regained her health…" The emperor paused and closed his eyes. "From then on, none of the male infants born in the imperial harem lived to see their first year."
Mo Xi knew the emperor spoke true; as a child, Mo Xi went often to the palace with his father, but in all those years, he had seen but one imperial scion, now the current emperor. He had clear memories of an imperial concubine auntie, sweet and kind. She liked making pastries and desserts, and every time he visited, she would give him a few boxes of them to take home.
That concubine had a frail constitution, and when she later fell pregnant, it took everything she had to give birth to a child.
It was a young master.
Mo Xi remembered his parents discussing a suitable congratulatory gift. But before the gift had been settled, the mourning bells of the palace tolled throughout the capital—the little boy had passed.
Back then, Mo Xi had been too young, and too many years had gone by since; he didn't remember how the infant had died. Dimly, he thought it was some severe childhood illness. What remained seared in his memory was that, a few days later, while the handmaidens and guards weren't watching, that imperial concubine hung herself in heartbreak and grief.
This strange and suspicious incident became the talk of all of Chonghua. After the death of this concubine, the other ladies became afraid. It was whispered that, for these women whose rank depended on their children, a boy wasn't cause for celebration but a curse. How many mothers' tears had fallen, how many souls had met unjust ends among those countless deaths?
In the end, however, it was no more than hearsay.
The emperor gazed into the dark, eyes vacant, as if he saw in the rain his brothers of flesh and blood who didn't survive to adulthood.
"Whether such a series of misfortunes was truly coincidence or our mother's doing…it is not our place to guess. Regardless of the truth, everyone presumes we walked a bloodstained path to the throne. Who among all the concubines of the late emperor would hope to see us succeed? Of all their families and all their relatives—which would truly take our side? They've never accepted us or treated us with sincerity in the first place. On top of all this, just before the late emperor passed, he considered abolishing our title to adopt Murong Lian instead. How solid do you think our position is?"
Gu Mang watched him and said nothing.
The emperor bit his lip, his eyes flashing. "It's not that we're unwilling to continue along the path the late emperor started on, nor is it that we think you're as insignificant as floating duckweed. It's because…" He closed his eyes. "We have no other choice. We are new to the throne, beset by internal troubles and external strife; our rule is precarious. To you all, it might seem that a single stamp of the cinnabar seal resolves matters big and small. In reality, we can't even touch Wangshu-jun's Luomei Pavilion. These are the circumstances Chonghua's new emperor faces—how ridiculous."
"Luomei Pavilion is no more than a brothel. What stops Your Imperial Majesty from closing it?" Gu Mang asked.
"A brothel…" The emperor scoffed, looking up at Gu Mang. "General Gu, have you any idea how deeply entrenched this brothel is within the capital? If you look from afar, you might only know it as a venue belonging to Wangshu-jun. But if you attempt to pull it out, you'll discover its root system runs beneath most of the imperial city. Touch it, and the relationships and stakes buried deep in the mud move as one to intimidate you, harangue you, and work against you.
"Luomei Pavilion has sheltered officials and facilitated coverups. It's at the heart of such scandals as fencing stolen goods and bribery…and this is just one brothel. In Chonghua today, ten thousand eyes watch whatever we do, one thousand mouths say no, one hundred arms shove us down onto the throne. If the day comes when we wish to reform the Ministry of Rites, the Bureau of Military Affairs, or even make sweeping changes to Chonghua's political system? How do you imagine that would play out?"
The wind buffeted the rain, blowing it into the Golden Terrace. For a moment, everyone sank into silence—Mo Xi as he spectated; the emperor; his subject. Eventually, the emperor spoke again. "It was not our wish to retreat, to uphold conservative ideals. We had no choice but to enact these policies, and we have no choice but to shoulder the blame."
No choice but to enact these policies…no choice but to shoulder the blame… These two phrases seemed to stab at Gu Mang's flesh and heart like nails; his chest heaved with it.
"General Gu."
Gu Mang raised his eyes.
The emperor laid slender fingers on the crimson lacquer of the railing. "Do you know what it is we've most wanted to do, all our life? We've wanted to shut up those shameless, toadying old nobles; we've wanted to make those useless sacks of shit spit out the meat in their mouths. Chen Tang was wrong to trust Hua Po'an. Thus the Liao Kingdom came to be, and slave-born cultivators became anathema to the people of Chonghua. But Imperial Father was right to trust in Subject Gu, and thus Chonghua gained an invincible general to oppose the Liao Kingdom. First there was Hua Po'an, but now there is you, Gu Mang, and him, Lu Zhanxing. The path the late emperor chose was correct—but we want to walk farther than he did."
As he paused, his distant gaze gained focus, his fingers slowly and subconsciously clenching into a fist as if he were about to face a thing he found abhorrent. "Those talentless officials who cling to the fringes of our court, those stick-in-the-mud old nobles…they've never cared for the nation of Chonghua. They think of nothing but what rewards they'll receive today and what titles they'll receive tomorrow. If they were to step onto the battlefield, they'd be useless—a crowd of armchair strategists! All these years, they've brandished the excuse of Hua Po'an's treason to relentlessly oppose letting capable officials or knowledgeable soldiers take initiative; the moment a slave-born cultivator stands out, they rush to surround them and fling a pile of baseless charges at them, dooming them to death in Fengbo Pavilion —"
At these words, it was not just Gu Mang, but even Mo Xi who was shocked. When had the emperor ever said so much in one breath, so fervently and openly, his eyes flashing with intense light? It seemed to pierce the thick shell he wore in front of outsiders; at this moment, he looked like any zealous and passionate youth.
"They're afraid of Chonghua changing, they're afraid of understanding black magic techniques, they're afraid of all the possible upheaval the future brings. They want to grow old and live easy, striving for momentary gratification. They care nothing about how, in a hundred years, the country may fall, their families may perish—these are the nobles of Chonghua. My brothers," said the emperor.
"But you're different," he continued. "My brothers, my noble peers, those whose veins flow with the same blood as mine—they merely think how to suck another mouthful of blood from Chonghua, how to guard their glorious place at the top. But General Gu, you're different. Your brothers, your army—they're a sharp sword the likes of which Chonghua hasn't forged in hundreds of years. Even if you don't believe it, we meant what we said: this is our treasure."
The moth, trapped by the rain and unable to escape, danced madly before the candle, finally throwing itself into the fire. With a sound like a sigh, flame licked up, emitting the acrid scent of char… The moth died for the light at last, falling into the pool of wax.
"We wish to do more in this life than follow in Father's footsteps —we want to curtail the power of the nobles, demote the fringe officials, and blaze a new trail, go where no one's dared before. Chonghua blindly rejects forbidden black magic techniques—but we must know them, we must master them! We needn't use them, but what's wrong with understanding them? We ask you: if Chonghua had studied more of the three great forbidden techniques, would Lu Zhanxing have met such an end?"
Gu Mang flinched.
"General Gu, one Subject Lu is enough…we don't want to see a second or third harmed by black magic while we languish in ignorance."
He looked to the heavens. Another bolt of lightning forked across the sky, and a boom of thunder rumbled in its wake. The emperor's eyes blazed. "It's high time Chonghua had a storm like this…"
The leaden clouds roiled overhead. On this dark night, most of the candles in the depths of the palace had already gone out. Only the Golden Terrace perched at the highest peak of the imperial city still glowed faintly amid the howling winds. It was like an icy sword pointed straight up into the nine heavens, piercing the thick clouds.
"General Gu, we need someone loyal enough, brave enough, and clever enough. We need this person to infiltrate the Liao Kingdom and send information back to us—to become the poison in the bellies of both Liao and those old nobles."
Gu Mang wasn't stupid. By now he'd guessed why the emperor invited him to the Golden Terrace today. As he anticipated, what the
emperor said next was: "Subject Gu. Are you willing to endure a difficult mission as Chonghua's right hand?"
For a moment, Gu Mang was quiet. "Your Imperial Majesty wants me to pretend to defect?"
In the silence that followed, the sound of rain pouring over the roof tiles seemed to drill into their ears. Gu Mang was waiting for this answer, and so was Mo Xi. The atmosphere was taut as the string of a jade bow pulled to full draw, waiting for that last ounce of force.
The emperor closed his eyes. "Yes."
The bowstring snapped with a terrible sound, and the bow left behind couldn't stop shaking, couldn't stop trembling… Even as a passive spectator within the jade scroll, Mo Xi felt the tragic misery of this night slashing deep into his flesh. Blood surged to his head, where it congealed into dark ice; this single word from the emperor seemed to have frozen him solid. He couldn't feel his limbs.
It was cold, so cold.
Or perhaps it was because he had always been waiting for this line of exoneration, this explanation of the truth behind the treason. He had waited for eight years, grieved for eight years, suffered for eight years, and despaired for eight years. When he finally heard this —that Gu Mang really did have a secret, that he was in fact a chess piece Chonghua had pushed into the Liao Kingdom, every emotion he had felt for the past eight years transformed instantly into grievance and heartache…
Dying with jeweled sword in hand to repay the trust of the king's command…
How ironic.
Only those who truly ascended to this platform that thousands of people held in envy would understand what a "trusted subject" was. You would be thrust into an eternal darkness; every plot or scheme, sacrifice or machination flew from the ruler's mouth to your ear. From then on, a brilliant and sincere smile was bloodily torn from your face, while a mask you had no choice over was locked in place. Once the bloodstains dried, the scars faded, and you raised your head, you'd never recognize your own face in the bronze mirror again.
This so-called hero nodded as the storm raged above, perhaps for the sake of a dream or a goal, or for a person, a promise, or an ideal. From that point on, he offered up his life, forsaking every avenue of retreat.
As the wind blew through his wide sleeves, Gu Mang tucked back the loose hair at his temples. "Your Imperial Majesty wants to prove you're right. You want to take on an earthshaking cause, to give those old nobles who don't believe in you reason to reconsider whether you're trash that stepped over the bloody flesh of your brothers to ascend the throne, or a monarch who can hold up the vault of the heavens. Is that not so?"
Gu Mang's tone was too measured, as if he was striving to repress some emotion. The emperor waited for him to finish.
"Your Imperial Majesty wishes to be a wise ruler, to reform the foundations of Chonghua. This is a good thing to be sure, and I admire it very much."
The emperor let out a soft breath of relief. Yet just as he parted his lips to speak, he heard Gu Mang continue: "But, Your Imperial Majesty, I've already died seventy thousand times. The wounds over my heart have yet to scab, and there are seventy thousand heroic souls who have yet to receive burials. Yes, I'm willing to become your sharp blade, the poison fed to the Liao Kingdom, the spy that gathers their secrets of black magic, the sacrifice you offer to placate the old nobles.
"I can agree to all these things, I'm willing to do all these things. As long as you, on behalf of my seventy thousand dead, let my brother live. I'm not some god of war. I'm merely one among those hundred thousand slave cultivators. I will become your traitor and endure a lifetime of infamy, but I ask that you give them the justice they deserve."
The emperor slowly closed his eyes, as if Gu Mang's words pushed him into pained unease. "We won't let you suffer for nothing," he said. "There will come a day… Subject Gu, there will come a day when we clear your name. On that day, we will personally bestow the blue and gold ribbon of heroes upon you. We will announce to the great breadth of Chonghua, announce to each and every safe and happy citizen, that they are only blessed with such a world because of your sacrifice…"
Gu Mang's eyes flashed, but he remained unmoved by the future the emperor painted. He was clearheaded yet, unwaveringly sinking his teeth into the boon he had asked, unwilling to let go. He faced the emperor squarely, tone solemn. "Then, what about Lu Zhanxing?"
The emperor looked at him, their gazes locked in some intangible battle. In the end, in this dead and unnerving silence, the emperor was first to concede. He closed his eyes. "Subject Gu, there is no way Subject Lu can live."