Chapter 129

 

He walked slowly to the door that was opened for him, stopped, turned around and looked at her.

The door was far away from the lampstand and the light was dim, but Xuyu could still see him clearly. His face, which was originally resolute and calm, was now full of hesitation and worry.

She kept looking at him with a smile, but she didn’t say anything. Looking at her like this, his lips twitched slightly, as if he had something to say. Yet, almost immediately, something else seemed to surge within him—like a night wind snuffing out a tiny spark that had just flickered to life from a candle’s flame, and everything returned to silence.

“Well then… I’ll be leaving first. Princess, please get some rest.”

Finally, he just said this in a low voice.

The door of the pavilion was gently pulled by his hand and closed silently in front of her eyes.

But it was not like when he arrived, where his hurriedly climbing the stairs echoed against the wall.

After the door in front of her was closed, Xuyu could no longer hear the sound of his boots going down the stairs.

But she knew that he was gone.

She did not go to the high window of the pavilion to watch how he left, nor did she try to confirm whether, after stepping out of Yuyun Tower, his figure had hesitated for a moment or turned back once more to search for the glow of the lantern behind the high pavilion window above.

She only felt an overwhelming exhaustion—one that engulfed her entirely, as if the world had turned upside down and the pavilion were spinning around her.

Ever since the accident in the Forbidden Garden and her father’s loss of eyesight, she seemed to have not had a good night’s sleep for such a long time.

He was gone, and she didn’t have to think about anything else for the time being. It would be good to have a good sleep first, as he had urged.

She closed her eyes and fell asleep. However, the Night Wandering God still refused to show its mercy, and the dream it sent made her restless again. The flower forest under the moon, the boundless dark lake, the blazing palace fire that lit up half of the night sky of Chang’an, the dirty blood that slowly seeped out from behind the threshold of the deserted palace, the woman twisted and nailed to death on the painting wall by a sharp arrow piercing her throat, the shrill and vicious curses, the crazy and distorted face…

The nightmare was fragmented, but it overlapped and recurred without end. Xuyu was completely subsided, struggling desperately against it. Amidst her terror, she kept reminding herself again and again that it was just a dream, urging herself to wake up. Yet no matter how hard she tried, she could not open her eyes. It felt as if she had sunk into a pool of icy water—cold seeping through her entire body, her limbs numb and frozen.

She was awakened by the cold.

She calmed her still pounding heart and sat up, only to find that the pavilion was too high and spacious, and the burning stove could not retain heat. In her nightmare, she kicked off the quilt, making her hands and feet cold, her teeth were chattering, and her clothes wet with sweat on the back.

She rolled back the cold, messy quilt and hugged it to keep warm. But she couldn’t fall asleep anymore and fell into a daze.

In this way, it was unknown how much time had passed. In the distance, the sound of the palace clock sounded late at night, passing over the numerous palaces and towering walls, and floating behind the spacious window of this beautiful pavilion.

She got off the bed, walked to the window, pushed open the closed window, and looked outside.

The Wei River, like a jade belt, wound around the northern edge of the city, flowing ceaselessly day and night. It nourished the abundant canal system running north to south, much like the very lifeblood of this city, sustaining its vitality. Along its banks, within the neatly arranged grid of lane walls, there were mansions of princes and nobles, common people houses and shops, temples and monasteries, pavilions and towers, like a constellation of stars, all converging around this fortress city, firm as the axis of the heavens.

Under the cold and clear moonlight, the whole Chang’an lay quietly at her feet.

She withdrew her gaze from the distant view, and was about to close the window again, when suddenly, her hand stopped.

At this moment, in front of the bridge in front of Yuyun Tower, there were several lights from fire sticks. The lights were held by the palace guards, and the outline of a sedan chair parked in front of the bridge could be vaguely seen. The gold-painted sedan chair reflected the flickering light of the fire. There was someone sitting in the sedan chair. The person looked up, as if gazing in the direction of the lighted window on her side, as if trying hard to see something.

It was a dark night, and the sitting figure did not move at all, and no one knew how long he had been there.

Her heart, which had just calmed down, jumped violently again. She turned around hastily. After having a hard time finding her clothes for a while, she called the maids outside the pavilion to come in. With their help, she dressed hurriedly. She didn’t even have time to comb her messy hair, so she tied it up haphazardly, and hurried out of the pavilion and ran down the stairs.

She walked out of the door, ran towards the emperor opposite, and rushed to his knees.

“Father!” she cried out in amazement.

“What brings you here?”

The emperor had already heard the sound of her running towards him, so he lowered his head and listened carefully.

He fumbled for a moment, took her hand, and then patted the back of her cold hand with a smile on his face.

“Zhen is here to pick up my Hao’er,” said the emperor.

“Silly daughter! You are Zhen’s daughter. If you don’t want to stay outside, just go back to Father. Will Father laugh at you? Why do you have to hide in this deserted place all by yourself for the night?”

The emperor’s tone was extremely gentle, yet contained a hint of reproach.

Xuyu was stunned. She stared fixedly at the emperor sitting in the sedan chair, and suddenly, the tears that she had held back for who knows how long tonight, the tears that she had never shed in her nightmares, burst forth like floodwaters breaching a dam, spilling unchecked from her eyes.

“Are you crying?”

The emperor hesitated and raised his hand to touch her cheek. Xuyu, struggling to force back her tears, instinctively dodged and shook her head in denial. “No—” But the moment she spoke, her tears only fell more uncontrollably, and she hurriedly fell silent.

The emperor frowned immediately, his face showing anxiety. He grasped the handle on the side of the sedan chair with one hand, and tried to stand up.

“Father, please sit down!” Xuyu shouted hurriedly.

The emperor slowly sat back, paused, and opened his arms towards her.

“Come here, Hao’er. Come to Father!” he said in a deep voice.

Xuyu could no longer bear it, and choked with sobs as she cried out “Father”, then she knelt down and hugged the emperor’s knees.

The emperor stopped talking, touched his daughter’s hair, then took off his winter cloak and wrapped his daughter’s cold and thin body.

Zhao Zhongfang, who was accompanying the emperor, had already sent all the attendants to the other side of the bridge and stepped back a few steps. Seeing this, he turned away and quietly wiped his eyes.

Xuyu knelt in front of the emperor’s knees and shed tears silently for a while, but soon calmed down and became worried about the emperor’s health.

She quickly wiped the tears from her face and raised her head.

“I’m fine. Father, don’t worry about me. Let’s go back quickly!” She was about to return the warm cloak, but Zhao Zhongfang had already come back and put another cloak on the emperor.

The emperor nodded with a smile: “That’s good. You should go back with Father. This is a new palace, there’s no many people, and not a good place to stay overnight.”

Zhao Zhongfang beckoned and ordered someone to bring another sedan chair. Xuyu got on it obediently and followed the emperor back to Ziyun Palace in silence.

The emperor personally sent her to the Xianfu Palace.

This palace was not far from Ziyun Palace, and was specially built for her to rest in the palace. All the arrangements were based on her preferences. At this moment, the palace was as warm as spring. Zhao Zhongfang personally helped her to go to bed, and the emperor did not leave, but waited beside her. Finally, when Xuyu was completely settled and lay down, the emperor walked slowly towards her without anyone’s assistance.

“Father, go to sleep too!”

Xuyu wanted to get up and help him.

The emperor waved his hand and said, “No, just lie down! In bright places, Father can still see some blurry shadows. Just need to walk slowly.”

When he came to his daughter’s bed, it was as if his daughter on the pillow was still the little girl in her childhood. He leaned over and touched her hand. Feeling the warmth, a satisfied smile appeared on his face, and he coaxed her, “Go to sleep quickly. When you fall asleep, Father will go back.”

The bedroom was so quiet that she could even hear her own breathing. Xuyu closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again and looked quietly at her father. He leaned towards her, sitting quietly on the edge of the bed, his eyelids drooping so that she could not see his eyes clearly at the moment, but the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were soft and gentle.

She watched secretly, and the feeling of sadness slowly came over her heart again.

After a long while, the emperor carefully tucked her quilt, slowly stood up and walked out.

Xuyu looked at his receding back and suddenly couldn’t suppress the impulse in her heart, so she sat up.

“Father!” She shouted at the back.

The emperor halted and turned his face toward her, shaking his head with a smile and sighing. “I thought you had fallen asleep! Why are you still the same as when you were a child? Pretending to sleep to fool people, and when Father left, you got up and made mischief, which makes people worry.”

Xuyu only felt her stomach twisting and churning.

“What is it? Is there something wrong?” The emperor remained where he was, tilting his ear slightly as he waited for a moment. But when no response came from her, he asked again.

Was it really you, Father, who did what happened to General Pei back then?

She really couldn’t believe that her father would do such a thing.

This implicit and almost stubborn belief was also the biggest confidence that allowed her to dare to plot and even half-force that man to become her prince consort.

The words were already on the tip of her tongue, but just before she asked them, she suddenly became afraid and completely lost her courage.

On the path forward, kindness and integrity were often the first burdens to be cast aside. All the more so for someone thrust into the heart of the storm—how could they be judged by common reason?

Of course, there were truly noble souls in this world, those who do not bow even when battered by the wind, who remain unyielding even if shattered like jade. For example, that man’s father—the great general who fell in battle at Beiyuan.

He was a true hero, his name worthy of being enshrined among the saints.

But what kind of choices did her father face in the past, and what kind of person did he become in the end?

She stared at the emperor’s kind old face in the candlelight, and slowly shook her head.

“Nothing…” She calmed herself down.

“I just want to ask Father to walk slower and go to bed earlier.”

The emperor smiled, a smile full of affection and relief.

“Alright! You should have a good sleep too. Father will listen to you and go back to rest now.”

He turned around and Zhao Zhongfang came up to meet him. He continued to move forward with the support of the old palace eunuch, but for some reason, his steps seemed even slower than before.

As he was about to leave the bedroom, he suddenly stopped and turned to face Xuyu again.

“Oh, Father nearly forgot—there’s something important. Your Zhao Bandang mentioned some days ago that a section of the mural along the outer passage of your mother’s mausoleum was not properly done and has since peeled off. Zhen kept this matter in mind and felt uneasy about it. Why don’t you go take a look on Father’s behalf tomorrow?”

As the emperor spoke, he turned to look at the old palace eunuch beside him.

Zhao Zhongfang seemed stunned at first, but then he seemed to remember it, nodded and explained to Xuyu: “It happened a few days ago. The tomb keeper sent someone to inform this old servant, then this old servant told His Majesty, and His Majesty remembered it.”

“You’ve worked hard these past days, Hao’er. Fortunately, things have become peaceful recently. Though Father still cannot do without you, letting you go for a few days shouldn’t be an issue. Father wouldn’t feel at ease entrusting this to anyone else. Go check on it, take the chance to clear your mind, and restore the painting for your mother—then return. What do you think?” The emperor continued.

Xuyu pondered for a moment and nodded: “Alright, then I’ll go and come back quickly, and leave everything here to Zhao Bandang.”

“Princess, don’t worry. This old servant will take good care of His Majesty here.” Zhao Zhongfang lowered his head and responded respectfully.

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