“You’re going to kill him, Father.” He balled his fists and loosened them. Again and again. The muscles of his bare chest and shoulders bulged. He looked as though he had just stepped off a wrestling ring, but there was something different in his eyes. Those were not the eyes of a fighter but an injured man.
“I will kill him.” The Emperor pointed at the boy. “This thing shames me. What he did in my court, under my nose. I shall kill him a thousand times; still, a thousand deaths of this thing doesn’t make me feel better. I do not feel better.” He pointed his sword at his son. “I shall kill you too, so nobody knows what an ignominy you are. You are my son, my heir, yet you’re an abomination—you shame me.”
Taizi’s bloodshot eyes remained fixed on the figure on the ground.
“Confess now. Why did you do this to me? Why?”
The heir did not answer.
“Did he tell you to do this to me?”
“No one told me, Father.”
“He.” The Emperor breathed hard and waved wildly, pointing at something in the air. “He! Did he tell you to do this to me? He said this would happen. He said he would shame me!”
The Emperor was trembling, the skin on the right side of his face stretching longer, and suddenly the corner of his mouth twitched, and his whole face contorted. So familiar… He looked just like that when he had talked to me in the ring of candles…and I could even hear a thread of fear in his voice that I had never before heard during the daytime.
“It has nothing to do with anyone. It’s my fault, Father. Let him go.”
The Emperor stood perfectly still. Then, clang. His sword slipped to the ground. His shoulders slumped, and his head drooped. He looked as if he had aged ten years.
“Wake him up, Chengqian.” He picked up his sword, calling Taizi’s given name. “He’s losing consciousness.”
He sounded resigned. I breathed out in relief.
Casting a grateful look at his father, Taizi tore a strip of cloth off the boy’s pants, knelt down one knee, and wound it around his shoulder. There was tenderness in Taizi’s eyes that I had never expected to see from him, the mountain-size wrestler.
“Look into his eyes, call his name, make certain he sees you and knows it’s you.” The Emperor tossed his sword to the heir. “Then kill him.”
I shuddered, and the stark light reflected off the blade and pierced my eyes. I shielded them with my sleeves. When I put down my sleeves again, Taizi, his hands trembling, was still winding the strip of cloth, his movement slow and broken.
“Do it.”
“Father—” Taizi’s voice cracked.
He would not do it, I was sure of it. He would plead with the Emperor and make him change his mind. I did not know what the heir would say, but he had to.
“Do it! Or you are no longer my son.”
Taizi lowered his head. The muscles on his back swelled to form round mounds, those on his shoulders hardened, his skin glittered, and his eyes were still like death.
Then he picked up the sword and slid it through his lover’s heart.
There was a moment of silence, so long that it seemed it would never end. Taizi howled, pounding his chest. The crowd murmured. Plum whispered something. I turned away and wiped my face, pushing back the moisture welling in my eyes. I might never understand why the heir loved a boy, and I might never know how it felt to kill a beloved person—I hoped I would never have to do that—but his helplessness and anguish thrust deep inside me like that sword.
I could not watch anymore. Straightening, I glanced at Taizi one last time before I took a step back, but I froze. Pheasant was there, standing next to him.
“Go away, go away!” Taizi hollered. “It’s all your fault!”
Pheasant’s shoulders slumped. He murmured something and tried to hold his brother’s shoulders, but he pushed him aside. “You’re a traitor. Traitor! I hate you. I hate you. Stay away from me!”
Pheasant’s hands dropped, tears mapping his handsome face.
Then he ran.
My heart wrenched. I turned around, searching for him. His head appeared and disappeared above the crowd around me, and I shifted behind the people to keep track of him. Finally, I pushed aside the servants, eunuchs, and ladies, ignored their frowns, and ran after him.
I found him in a garden at the back of the bedchamber, where he held a branch and slashed at the air like a madman.
“Pheasant,” I called.
“What?” He threw away the branch. “What are you doing here?”
“What’s going on?” I walked closer to him.
He sat down on a rock. “He saw me come in with Father. He thought I had betrayed him. I didn’t! I was trying to stop Father!”
“Perhaps you can explain to him later.”
“He wouldn’t listen to me. I tried to warn him when Father came, but he didn’t hear. He’s never going to forgive me, and now…” He buried his head in his hands. “Now his favorite boy is dead. Do you think I wanted that?”
His voice was hoarse, and his shoulders trembled. I could not stand to watch him like that.