The White Moonlight Turns Out to Be a Black-Hearted Lotus - Chapter 2

After that night, the matter was put to rest, and life continued as usual. Having been a devoted couple for so many years, Ji Yuanhui understood better than anyone that Pei Xu harbored no double-mindedness.

The man had practically offered up his heart with his own hands; if Ji Yuanhui were to cling stubbornly to such trivialities, it would be far too cruel.

In the first year of Ji Yuanhui’s reign, the transition of power between the old and new monarchs left the imperial court unstable. The long-scheming Tujue tribes finally saw their opportunity. Like hungry wolves catching the scent of blood, they rapidly surged southward, swallowing several cities in their wake.

The enemy’s morale was at its peak, their advance fierce and relentless, while the imperial army was fragmented and disheartened. This was not an easy war to wage. After careful consideration, Ji Yuanhui decided to lead the campaign personally.

Before departing the capital, Ji Yuanhui performed three acts: First, he established the Crown Prince. Second, he appointed Pei Xu as the Chancellor (Shangshu Ling). Third, he handed the golden tally for mobilizing the Imperial Guard to Pei Xu.

Zhou Shining, Ji Yuanhui’s childhood friend and close confidant, cursed him for his folly upon hearing this, claiming he had truly gone mad. To grant so much power to a man of a different surname, he warned that Ji Yuanhui would regret it when he returned from war only to find that Pei Xu had rebelled.

Ji Yuanhui merely smiled, joking that if his own “wife” rebelled, it was still better than a brother rebelling. If his spouse took the throne, the worst that could happen was that he would become the Empress Consort; a hundred years later, the Emperor would still be their child. But if a brother rebelled, it would be different—there would be no path left but death.

Zhou Shining pondered this and felt that, indeed, there was a certain logic to it.

Having arranged everything in the capital, Ji Yuanhui departed with peace of mind. The war lasted for over two years, but fortunately, it ended in a grand victory. It was only after the triumph that Ji Yuanhui learned of the crisis in the capital: Pei Xu was gravely ill and had been bedridden for over a month.

To avoid distracting Ji Yuanhui while he was locked in a stalemate with the Tujue on the battlefield, Pei Xu had strictly suppressed the news of his critical condition. It wasn’t until the victory on the Northern Border was secured that Ji Yuanhui learned Pei Xu had reached the point of repeated fainting and vomiting blood, yet he clung to a final breath as if waiting for him.

Ji Yuanhui rode five horses to death, traveling day and night to return, barely arriving in time to see the man one last time. When he grasped those ice-cold hands, the man only said to him: “Your Majesty… this subject has not failed your trust. I have guarded the capital well.”

Pei Xu always spoke unhurriedly, but now his words were so slow they were punctuated by gasps. He seemed utterly exhausted, yet he remained worried, murmuring slowly: “I was fortunate to accompany Your Majesty through humble beginnings. To have met you is the greatest blessing of my life. Though this life is short, it is without regret. There is only one thing I cannot leave settled… Sheng’er is still young, and his health is poor. Losing a parent so suddenly, I fear he will fall ill. Please, Your Majesty, look after him for me…”

“Why do you call yourself ‘this subject’ and not ‘I’?” Ji Yuanhui couldn’t describe his feelings—or perhaps he felt nothing at all, his heart completely numb. He heard himself ask, “You spoke of the capital and of Sheng’er, but what about me? Aside from those formalities, do you have nothing to say to me?”

For a fleeting moment, a look of extreme, sorrowful agony flickered in Pei Xu’s eyes, but it was quickly masked. He opened his mouth slightly, but in the end, nothing came out.

To keep questioning would be too cruel—both for Pei Xu and for himself.

Thus, Ji Yuanhui spoke no more. Instead, he gathered Pei Xu into his arms. Pei Xu’s body was too cold; Ji Yuanhui felt that by holding him, he might make him warmer.

Pei Xu tilted his head toward the window. “Is it snowing?”

Ji Yuanhui wrapped him tightly in a cloak and carried him out of the hall.

Pei Xu leaned against Ji Yuanhui’s chest. His spirit seemed slightly better than before, a sign of the final flare of life before the end. He seemed to realize it himself, yet he only whispered: “How wonderful… an auspicious snow heralds a bountiful year. May I touch the snow?”

Ji Yuanhui stepped down the stairs, and Pei Xu reached out to catch two snowflakes. “When I first met Your Majesty, it was a snowy day like this. You pulled me out of the snowbank and held me in your arms just like this…”

Pei Xu’s voice grew fainter. Ji Yuanhui learned for the first time what it felt like to have one’s heart torn asunder. It turned out that when pain reaches its peak, one loses the ability to make a sound. His eyes were dry and burning, but though he wanted to wail, he had lost his voice.

Pei Xu’s consciousness was fading; he no longer called him “Your Majesty,” but “Your Highness.”

Ji Yuanhui felt Pei Xu’s hand caress his face. That habitually gentle and steady voice was now stained with a sob: “Your Highness… it is not that I have nothing to say to you, it is just… I fear that once I start, I will never finish… I fear…”

As he spoke, he coughed violently and spat out a mouthful of blood.

Ji Yuanhui forgot to breathe, frantically and tremblingly wiping the blood from the corner of the man’s mouth.

“I fear that once I speak, I will no longer be content to let go…” Pei Xu’s tears finally fell, mingling with the blood. He looked at Ji Yuanhui with a gaze both sorrowful and stubborn, clutching Ji Yuanhui’s sleeve tightly as if he could hold onto him forever. “I am not gentle or peaceful at all… I am so jealous of those who can stay by your side for a long time. I have already begun to feel resentful…”

“Is this retribution? To stay by your side, I have done many terrible things. Though the past is unsightly, I never regretted it, yet I did not want you to see me as foul and ugly. But you… You clearly knew everything. You never mentioned it… I know it is because you loved and respected me, and so you preserved my dignity.”

Tears rolled down silently as he smiled faintly with a breathy voice. “Even if it is retribution, I accept it.”

In Ji Yuanhui’s eyes, only two piercing colors remained: the red of blood and the white of snow.

“Your Highness…” Pei Xu’s breath weakened, asking very indistinctly: “When you return from the war, can you take me horse-riding?”

Ji Yuanhui’s voice was hoarse, filled with pleading: “Don’t sleep… Rongrong, don’t sleep…”

“We can go riding anytime… You don’t have to lean over the wall waiting for me to pass by your house anymore. We can go riding whenever you want…”

Ji Yuanhui’s cries could no longer elicit a response. The person he had picked up from the snow had returned to the snow.

Exhausted from days of travel and devastated by the shock of Pei Xu’s passing, Ji Yuanhui’s vision went dark. He collapsed into the snow, losing consciousness.

Before his awareness vanished completely, he pulled Pei Xu tightly into his embrace.

Just like the countless embraces they had shared before.

When he woke again, he investigated the cause of Pei Xu’s death with madness.

During the two years Ji Yuanhui was away at war, the court was far from peaceful. With the Emperor absent, it was inevitable that some would harbor crooked thoughts of rising from old ministers to powerful autocrats. Pei Xu, of course, could not allow them to form factions for private gain. He moved to suppress and control them, and naturally, these people came to hate him.

Wave after wave of poisoning, assassination, malicious incitement of student riots at the Imperial Academy, and sabotage in the court followed.

The final straw that broke Pei Xu was a false report claiming that Ji Yuanhui had been assassinated on the battlefield. Upon hearing this, Pei Xu vomited blood and collapsed, never to rise again.

Logically, such news was clearly unreliable. But sometimes, emotions outrun logic by a long distance. There is no time to think; before the mind can turn, the heart has already been pierced by a sudden blade.

The intent of the person who spread the false news was obvious: they could not profit while Pei Xu lived, so he had to die. Pei Xu was in poor health; by agitating and torturing him repeatedly, they hoped he wouldn’t survive until Ji Yuanhui’s return. Then, with no one to lead the capital, everyone could scramble for a piece of the chaos.

Ji Yuanhui rounded up a group of people and threw them into the Warden of the Imperial Edict. He told the executioners that he wanted them “lingchi” (death by a thousand cuts)—they were to suffer without a moment’s rest, but they were not allowed to die too quickly.

The executioner asked, “How long is ‘not too quick’?”

Ji Yuanhui replied, “Two years, three months, and fifteen days.”

Ji Yuanhui’s temperament became increasingly volatile. He even ordered the Pei family’s ancestral tombs to be dug up, exhuming Pei Xu’s father, and whenever he was in a foul mood, he would have the corpse whipped.

No one could guess what he was thinking. To say he was deeply devoted, he desecrated the man’s ancestral graves and whipped his father’s corpse. To say he was cold-blooded and heartless, he went mad daily in front of the man’s memorial tablet. Anyone who had ever harmed Pei Xu—not just the living, but even the dead—was exhumed by him and hung from the city gates like kites to “catch the breeze.”

A censor stood up stiff-necked, claiming that whipping a corpse was improper and violated the Rites of Zhou. Ji Yuanhui stared at him for a moment and suddenly laughed.

“So the Minister feels this whipping doesn’t fit the Rites? Then surely you have your own unique method of whipping. I especially permit you to take the place of the Golden Feather Guard tomorrow to whip the corpse. Remember to use a method that conforms to the Rites of Zhou. I would like to see exactly how one whips a body, according to the Rites.”

The censor’s eyes rolled back, and he fainted on the spot.

From then on, the entire court fell silent, one and all, fearing that a single moment of Ji Yuanhui’s displeasure would send them to whip a corpse.

Years passed. Certain things are only magnified by time, never eroded.

Those past moments of warmth had now become a venomous snake coiled in Ji Yuanhui’s heart, emerging occasionally to bite him. The lingering poison eroded his heart over the years, and his suffering intensified.

He occasionally remembered that he and Pei Xu had once raised a pair of turtle doves.

They weren’t particularly beautiful birds, but they were deeply loyal; once one died, the other would never live on alone.

He remembered that when the female died and the male followed shortly after, Pei Xu had sadly buried them together, sighing softly: “What a pity…”

Ji Yuanhui had pulled him into an embrace to comfort him: “To die in the same place can also be considered finding one’s rightful destination.”

Looking back now, he felt that he and Pei Xu were like those two birds. If either died, the other could not survive for long.

On his deathbed, Ji Yuanhui called to his side not only the Crown Prince and several regents but also the only prince of a different surname in the dynasty, Xuan Congsi.

Xuan Congsi was a few years older than Sheng’er, an adopted son he and Pei Xu had taken in many years ago. This child was composed, peaceful, brilliant, and cautious. There was not a single flaw to be found in his talent or character, and his loyalty to the imperial family was second to none.

Now that the Crown Prince was young, having him as a protector was most appropriate.

“Today, I bestow the Imperial Sword upon the King of Huaian. To see this sword is to see me. If there are treacherous ministers in court, you may execute them with this blade.”

As Ji Yuanhui’s voice fell, a shadow guard emerged from the darkness, presented the sword, and vanished again.

“I appoint the King of Huaian as the Grand Preceptor to the Crown Prince, to assist and teach him. He shall act as Regent until the Crown Prince reaches adulthood. Once the Crown Prince comes of age, if he proves capable, power shall be returned to the monarch. If he is unfit, a worthy successor may be chosen. One must not be blindly loyal to a single person; the world does not belong to one family. Only those who hold the people in their hearts are fit to rule…”

His vision grew increasingly misty and blurred. The cries of the Crown Prince and the ministers gradually drifted away.

If only there were a next life.

At least… let him make amends for his mistakes.