SEHE Extra 4

“It’s New Year’s!”

Wushu excitedly lit the firecrackers, then quickly stepped back — and unexpectedly stumbled into a broad chest.

With a startled cry, a steady arm wrapped firmly around her.

“You are…”

Bang! The firecracker’s blast was deafening.

Wushu instinctively buried her head in that person’s embrace.

After the noise faded, the crowd grew lively again.

A hand reached out from the side, yanking Wushu away from the stranger’s arms.

“Qin Wushu, have you no sense of propriety as a young lady?! You’d throw yourself into the arms of a complete stranger without a second thought.”

Wushu immediately widened her eyes. “Xu Du, mind your own business— ah, why didn’t you tell me you brought me candied hawthorns?!”

“Can I or can I not mind your business?” Xu Du held the candied hawthorns up high, smirking with satisfaction.

“You can, you can — seeing how thoughtful you are…” Wushu jumped up and down trying to grab them, but couldn’t quite reach. “Xu Du, careful — I’ll impeach you at court tomorrow morning.”

“On what grounds? For not giving you — the reincarnated glutton of the Hanlin Academy — candied hawthorns? Or for mocking the newly crowned top scholar as a little shorty?”

“You’re the shorty!” She really couldn’t stand hearing that.

“As my little brother, you need to have the self-awareness of a little brother. Your big brother here helped you just this once — do you have any idea how strict the palace guards are?” Xu Du said smugly, crossing his arms and deliberately holding the hawthorns just slightly out of reach, leaving them easy enough for someone to snatch.

“Wushu, little sister — how could you forget about me?”

Wushu’s attention was already drawn elsewhere. Beside her, a hand held out a bag of freshly made mung bean cakes.

“Gu Yisui?!” The name slipped out in astonishment before she caught herself — she quickly crossed her hands and bowed. “This subject pays her respects to Prince An.”

“So you do still remember this prince,” Gu Yisui said, his features warm and easygoing.

No sooner had he finished speaking than someone pressed close to Wushu’s side.

Xu Du pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, sizing Gu Yisui up from head to toe with an expression that made clear nothing about him met approval. “And here I wondered who it was — so it’s Prince An. Had your fill of fine mountains and rivers, and finally thought to come back and seize power?”

Three years apart had left Gu Yisui considerably more tanned and considerably more composed. “Young General Xu speaks in jest. This is now Great Tao. With the realm at peace, the people prosperous, and ten thousand kingdoms paying tribute — who still remembers the old Great Yu and Great Xi?”

****

Two years prior, Pei Yanci had made sweeping, bold reforms to both state academies and private ones throughout the country. Private academies fell into decline for a time, while the official state schools became the primary channel for cultivating talent. Those with exceptional ability in fields such as mechanics and agriculture could, through a personal examination presided over by Pei Yanci and the court officials, be awarded the rank of Chancellor of the Imperial Academy — a true embodiment of the saying: a peasant at dawn, standing in the emperor’s hall by dusk.

The result was that a year prior, Dengzhou — used as a pilot region — had seen its per-mu grain yield rise from one shi to three. The following year, the new grain varieties and farming methods spread to half the prefectures across Great Tao, and this year the total grain yield of the entire realm had doubled compared to three years ago.

When granaries are full, propriety flourishes; when food and clothing are sufficient, honor and shame are understood.

Pei Yanci was already planning to issue a new edict on education after the New Year — aiming for one in ten children in every village to be able to afford schooling within three years, two in ten within five years, and half within ten.

It was a long and arduous road. Mingyou Theater had already spread to every county in Great Tao, and even if it meant drawing from the imperial treasury, Pei Yanci was determined to keep the theaters running.

They were the people’s leisure after meals and tea, the place where they learned of the great shifts in the world, and the channel through which they came to understand shame and wisdom. Through these, they were no longer a mass of ignorant common folk easily incited and manipulated by local landlords and officials. They knew that the few short years of prosperity they now enjoyed had been given to them by the Son of Heaven, Pei Yanci, ruling from Anjing City.

Pei Yanci wanted a name — he wanted to leave his mark in history for all ages. That had been his ambition from the very beginning. One could say he was making use of the people of the realm, but had not the people of the realm likewise been sheltered and graced by him?

****

And it was on this beautiful evening that he dreamed again of his younger self — his good brother pressing him down hard beneath icy winter water, eyes gone fierce and bloodshot as they stared at him.

He had said he could take his place — this sickly wretch destined to die young — and become the future Son of Heaven.

With every last ounce of his strength, he had dragged him down into the water and held him there, pinning him beneath the surface.

That was the first life he had taken with his own hands.

Illness could not break him. The bone-piercing cold of winter’s frozen river could not break him. No one — not even his dearest brother — could.

He was born to stand above others. It was his destiny.

Ambition and conviction were the pillars that had kept him alive through that life-or-death struggle.

In the end, his good brother had released his grip, and looked at him — then sank into the cold, dark, silent depths of the river.

Only this time, those eyes, slowly dimming and growing vacant, no longer burned with resentment and envy, no longer clung to him like a vengeful wraith.

He looked at Pei Yanci with a smile of quiet contentment.

You tell me — why are some people born to stand above others, while others are lowly as mud?

You tell me — why would someone raise a blade against their own kind?

You tell me — why would someone grow numb and unfeeling, and when their food is stolen, stretch out their neck and let others cut them down without a word?

Even now, Pei Yanci had yet to give him a perfect answer.

But he was working toward finding one.

…..

The Pei Yanci above the water met the eyes of the man below the surface — and in the end, both of them smiled.

The figure on the dragon bed slowly opened his eyes. For a moment, his gaze was hollow and distant.

Tangxi Zhui, at his side, noticed his waking at once. He let out a yawn, and from behind, wrapped his arms around him.

Pei Yanci turned over, rubbing his cheek against that firm chest.

Tangxi Zhui’s body was different from before — it was warm.

Before Pei Yanci could even speak, he had already channeled his internal energy to warm him.

Everything was understood without a word.

When it came to reading expressions and sensing moods, no one could ever surpass him.

The underfloor heating and braziers in the room burned hot, and combined with the warmth of that body, it was not long before fine beads of sweat gathered on his brow.

Tangxi Zhui’s fingers parted the dark hair, and he pressed his lips to the small drops of sweat on his forehead.

Moonlight illuminated the window screen, veiled in a pale, misty radiance.

Further in the distance came one or two cries of a cat.

Pei Yanci returned the embrace around his waist, his head resting on Tangxi Zhui’s arm and shoulder. He tilted his face upward, and suddenly smiled.

This is enough.

From the moment he had set foot on this path, he had never imagined there would come a day when he’d be bound by love.

But then — who asked the world to contain one lovesick fool, always making trouble, quietly scheming little gestures day after day, asking again and again whether there was still a place for him in his heart — and finding a place was not enough, still fearing at any moment he might change his mind.

“What are you smiling at?” Tangxi Zhui asked, puzzled.

“I had a bad dream.”

“Your Majesty, you don’t look like it.”

“Is that so?” Pei Yanci smiled even more freely, his hand mischievously wandering toward his stomach.

“I dreamed of someone. Come, let Zhen feel those abdominal muscles, otherwise Zhen’s mind will be full of that person.”

“……”

Tangxi Zhui shifted slightly. “Could he compare to me?”

“Not even close.”

Who, after all, could resist those abdominal muscles arranged like chess pieces, rippling beneath pale cold skin?

Tangxi Zhui laughed despite himself.

“Tangxi Zhui — have I ever said — you are more beautiful than every person I have ever seen, put together. One glance, and a city falls; a second glance, and a kingdom falls.”

Tangxi Zhui raised his eyes.

“I like you — more than you think I do.”

It was the first time Pei Yanci had ever said such a thing, and he found, to his surprise, that he felt a touch of shyness.

“Out of nowhere — why say this all of a sudden?” Tangxi Zhui was at a loss, and turned his face away, breathing unsteady — then within a breath or two, looked back again. “Do you mean it?”

“Am I so unworthy of your trust?… And what is that hesitant expression supposed to mean?” Pei Yanci ground his teeth.

“I hadn’t fully woken up yet. I thought I was dreaming.”

“Even if you can’t trust me, you ought to trust your own face, your chest, your abdominal muscles, your long legs.”

“Fair enough.” Tangxi Zhui laughed helplessly, putting on an air of affected coyness as he leaned close. “Your Majesty — it seems this lord’s role as a beauty who throws the court into chaos is one this lord will never escape for the rest of this lord’s life.”

“There’s still a little chance — for instance, there’s Qi Lan, Gu Wanchong, and this year’s third-ranked examination scholar, who Zhen also finds rather pleasing to the eye…”

“Don’t even think about it!”

Pei Yanci laughed and fell into his arms, gazing up at him — his crescent-moon eyes reflecting ten thousand stars.

“This is Zhen’s first time liking someone. There may be much that is lacking — please be patient with Zhen.”

Tangxi Zhui smiled softly. “You don’t only like me — you have poured the feeling of love into the tens of millions of people of this realm.”

Pei Yanci loved Tangxi Zhui, and he loved every subject of Great Tao.

****

“Oh — during the day, Zhang Dongjin brought up that the harem has been without consorts for three years, and now that you’re already past twenty, it’s time to select imperial consorts and continue the imperial line.” What Tangxi Zhui had feared most had finally come to pass.

As a ruler, one enjoyed supreme power — but was inevitably bound by it in equal measure.

“I knew that old fox was scheming to put Zhen in a difficult position.” Pei Yanci muttered.

“The man’s motives are truly difficult to read.”

“After Emperor Xiaoming passed, he found me in secret and told me that both he and my birth father had embezzled funds back then — only that when it was discovered, he feared for his life and shifted all the blame onto my birth father. All these years, he said, he had felt guilty, and wanted to make it up to me, to treat me well.” Pei Yanci let out a cold laugh.

“If he hadn’t seen that you were someone worth cultivating, he would never have said those words to you.”

“Who in this court isn’t that kind of person? Even now, Zhen still doesn’t know how much of what he said was true, and how much was a test.”

“It’s all in the past now.” Tangxi Zhui stroked the soft, tousled hair at the back of his head. “But — what is his purpose in raising the matter of filling the harem?”

“Whatever his purpose, the harem already has you, this jealous old tigress, doesn’t it?” Pei Yanci propped his chin on that chest and pinched his cheek. “Or — could you perhaps bear Zhen one?”

He recalled Wang Lingche’s rambling words from earlier in the day — saying that the many edicts he had issued placed great restrictions on officials and common people alike, and the greatest restriction of all was on imperial power itself.

“The restrictions aren’t on Zhen. Zhen finds it quite good — these policies actually help Zhen govern this realm without having to expend too much effort.”

“By sacrificing part of your own authority?” Wang Lingche had not understood.

“You must give to receive. As long as imperial power still stands completely above the law, then the law is nothing but empty words on paper.” Though even now, the emperor’s will remained supreme.

“Future emperors will have a hard time of it. Your Majesty, could you at least spare a thought for the crown prince who is yet to come?”

“The future crown prince won’t be Zhen’s child anyway — why should Zhen bother thinking so much for a stranger?” he said, coldly indifferent.

“Hm?”

“How would Zhen and Tangxi produce one?” Pei Yanci laughed.

Never mind that they were both men — Tangxi Zhui couldn’t even pass things through in the usual way.

Wang Lingche fell silent.

He had always regarded Pei Yanci as a younger brother, though perhaps his feelings had once wavered for a heartbeat — only to halt abruptly at the death of his younger sister.

His own little brother producing no children — this truly pained him.

****

“So — add one more provision. Henceforth in Great Tao, the throne may be inherited by man or woman alike — let the most capable one take it.”

The moonlight was just right.

Fireworks on the horizon lit up half the night sky.

Upon the dragon bed, Pei Yanci pressed a kiss to Tangxi Zhui’s lips.

“Who knows — perhaps we really could have one.”

Tangxi Zhui licked his lips, and pressed him down, pulling the covers over them both.