GAN YUAN XIAO (干援霄)

  Day 16, 4th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Zhouwei Province, Mingyun Prefecture

  I must have done something wrong. I had to have. There’s no other reason Yun Shiqi would refuse to speak to me for a week. Not even a glance, not even in court. I’ve tested it—caught her eye across the hall, waited for a flicker of recognition, a twitch of her lip. But she only ever turns her head, sharp as a knife.

  And every time, it gutted me.

  Maybe she finally figured it out. That I was not the one for her. That I was the weak link in a chain we both pretended was gold. Maybe she was doing the thing I never had the courage to—cutting us loose, ending what was always doomed. She was saving us from ourselves. I should’ve been grateful.

  But I didn’t.

  Instead, I felt like a fraud. Like something rancid was blooming inside me. I wanted to throw it up, tear it out, drown it with whatever poison I could find. I hated that I thought she had left me, when I was the one who never showed up. I hated that she was the braver one. And I hated that I still ached for her in ways I couldn’t even admit to myself.

  But none of that mattered. Not in front of him.

  My master didn’t concern himself with love. Grand Chancellor Deng was above such things. He never understood the secular desires that plagued the lowly. He viewed emotion like others viewed wine: indulgent, cloudy, and dangerous. And most of the time, he was right. Love was an infection. It rotted even the most disciplined soul from the inside out.

  But still, whenever I thought of her... all that bitterness softened. The memory of her smile. The way her eyes scrunched up, how her dimples formed like commas at the corners of her mouth, how her laugh always escaped like it was a secret being broken. It was my favourite sound in the world. And it devastated me to know she would not smile for me anymore.

  There were the other memories too. Ugly, painful ones. Her tears. The bruises she tried to hide under layers of silk. The weight she carried with that brittle grace of hers. I remembered how she’d look at me and smile through the pain, thinking she had to protect me. As if I couldn’t bear the sight of her breaking. As if I hadn’t already broken for her a thousand times.

  She never trusted me to hold her. That was why she always pushed me away whenever I got close.

  We were always going to fail. A relationship built on hiding, lying, and mistrust could not be anything more than a pipe dream.

  I kept her at arm’s length to shield her from court gossip. She closed her doors to preserve an image that was never real. We loved each other from opposite sides of a mirror: close enough to touch the glass, too far to break through.

  But the worst part? I gave up first. She was still trapped in that cursed engagement with Sui Zhuxin, and I—well, I just watched.

  A sharp jab prodded my waist. I jolted, tumbling onto my side from my kneeling posture. My master, ever the ascetic, circled me like a hawk sizing up a particularly pathetic rabbit. I wiped my face and righted myself instantly.

  Now was not the time to think of those other things.

  I chanted a calming mantra over and over in my mind:

  “Born in this world, but not of this world. Worldly things do not concern me. Born in this world, but not of this world. Worldly things do not concern me. Not of this world. I am not of this world. Worldly things do not concern me. They do not concern me!”

  At some point, I realised I had said the last line aloud.

  My master loomed over me, disappointed. He stroked his peppered beard, eyes narrowed.

  “xiānshēng, I apologise. I will try again,” I said, straightened.

  When I first started cultivating, kneeling for the length of a single incense stick had been impossible. My knees would go numb. I’d collapse before the smoke thinned, unable to stand for days. I’d cry at night, twisted in pain and helplessness. But he, my master, would sit beside me, reading strange old tales until I fell asleep. Stories about gods and demons, riddles with no answer. His version of a lullaby.

  He was probably disappointed about how childish I was acting right now.

  As if to answer my thoughts, he shook his head. “It’s no use. Your heart is clouded. Your mind, fogged. How can you cultivate clarity when your soul is drowning?”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  He wasn’t wrong. I overdosed on emotion.

  Then, something shifted in him. He crouched beside me, patting my shoulder as if I was a dog he owned.

  “Come, Xiao Xiao,” he said softly, “What is it that haunts you?”

  I looked away. I couldn’t meet his gaze. How could I tell him that I was foolish enough to fall in love, and weak enough to fail at it?

  He sighed, long and deep. “Then perhaps it is time to give you something to do.”

  Yes. Yes. Please. Give me a task. Let me disappear into duty, where I am useful and empty.

  He continued, “You and I have watched this tension between the Shuishang and Taishan factions simmer for years. I suspect a hand behind it—a shadow that pulls the strings.”

  I blinked. He wanted me to find some shadow, that wasn’t been Zhouwei’s problem by a longshot. I wanted a distraction. A duty. But this was just stupid.

  Clearly, he was more confident in my judgment than I was.

  His eyes scanned me.

  Or perhaps, he was more confident in my looks.

  My smile as sweet as nectar.

  My dark eyes sensual and alluring.

  My voice as silky as honey.

  Right. I was his weapon.

  The warmer tones of his words disappeared, and iron replaced it. This was no longer my master speaking. This was Grand Chancellor Deng: pillar of the court, adviser to Emperor Tai Quan.

  “Gan Yuanxiao,” he said, “Do not forget why you were chosen. You are not meant to be of this world. You serve a higher purpose. Do you remember your oath?”

  I lowered my head to the floor. The ache in my chest dulled beneath his words. My role had always been clear. I was the blade behind my master’s brush.

  The pretty face who served quietly and cut cleanly.

  “Yes, xiānshēng,” I whispered. “I remember.”

  ***

  That person had to be in Zhouwei Province. Or Shuishang. Or Taishan. Or Huoqing. Or Xuanji. Or nowhere. Or everywhere. I jabbed at the map again—hard. The brush spat a fat black splodge that bled across five prefectures.

  Where are you? Who are you? Who benefitted?

  Perhaps they weren’t even a person. Maybe they were a name passed between hands like a talisman. A splinter cell. A faceless cult. A bureaucrat with too much time and too little conscience. Maybe I’d met them before. Smiled at them, even. Or maybe they had just made a big mistake and were fretting about trying to fix the situation.

  Just like me and Ah Qi.

  She’d know what to do, wouldn’t she? She probably already knew who the culprit was. And him, too. The Crown Prince. He would’ve pieced it together days ago. Nothing ever escaped those hawk’s eyes.

  I pushed away from my study table. I need some fresh air.

  The bamboo door rattled on its track as I rolled it open. A dry gust sliced through the room, yanking at my robes like a needy child. The wind screamed like it had a grudge.

  I stood there in the doorway, watching the night ripple like water. My heart pounded in sync with the swaying lanterns outside.

  Duty. Ah Qi.

  The Crown Prince. Ah Qi.

  xiānshēng’s disappointed silence. Ah Qi.

  Her name threaded through every thought of mine like a curse and a balm. Her face, lovely and full of storms. Her fury, her frailty, her flickering smiles that disappeared too quickly. I need to stop thinking about her. It’s just not helping.

  I bit my lip until the iron tang of blood pushed my thoughts back into place.

  That was when the scent hit me.

  Burnt paper.

  Smoke curled through the breeze like a whisper. I stepped into the courtyard and let my nose lead. Past the guest quarters, the pinewood huts, the moonlit halls. The smell thickened. My pace quickened.

  Three blocks later, a flame flicker caught the corner of my vision. Shadows of danced along the brick walls, growing larger and larger still, contrasted against the bright alluring fire. I crept forward, muscles taut, until I heard them:

  Whispers.

  Soft ones. Not conspiratorial, but reverent.

  I turned the corner.

  Jing Cheng sat in silence beside a shallow ceramic burner. His legs were folded neatly beneath him. The fire within the bowl paraded over the paper offerings. Joss money curled in the embers, crackling into ash. Incense smoke drifted upward in thin grey lines. Two sticks burned low, almost gone.

  His eyes were closed. His hands pressed together in prayer.

  Everything snapped into focus. The hushed sneaky whispers were solemnly murmured prayers. The hungry flames were waves gently carrying his wishes to the dead. The monstrous looming shadows were nothing more than my imagination.

  Jing Cheng opened his eyes. They glinted, steel under the firelight. He nodded toward the spot beside him.

  “Come sit, shīxiōng.”

  His voice was calm, stripped of courtly dramatics. Gone was the Jing Cheng who fluttered around officials, collecting approval like gold coins. This version was quieter. Sadder. Older.

  “Did I interrupt?” I asked, suddenly aware of how loud my presence must have felt.

  “Of course not, shīxiōng,” he said softly. “I was just…remembering.”

  Ah. The fourth month.

  His mother.

  “I didn’t mean to ruin your evening. With all this,” he added, looking at me again. Something like guilt lingered behind the firelight in his eyes.

  I smiled faintly. “You didn’t. Your mother is blessed. Not everyone gets a son who remembers.”

  He exhaled, slow and deliberate, then began gathering the ashes and ritual items with careful hands. He snuffed out the remaining embers and closed the incense case. The warmth of the fire retreated, leaving behind the chill of midnight.

  Then he looked up at the sky.

  “I only wish that were true.”