It was that she realized she had seen this box before.
She had seen it, dimly, not long before the Thorn-棠 Case—on some ordinary evening, when Lu Heng had come back later than usual on a day he was not on duty. She happened to catch a glimpse of it at his outer residence, thinking at the time it was a gift meant for her—but she never saw it again after that.
Inside the box was a jade pendant carved in the shape of a crabapple blossom.
At the moment the lid of that box was opened, Buyun clearly heard somewhere in the void the sound of a thread of silk, drawn taut to its very limit—and then suddenly snapping.
Something she had not understood at the time flowed out along the edge of the lid, bringing to an absolute end the life she could once have seen through to its end in a single glance.
From the moment she insisted that the Empress open the box, there was no going back.
Buyun was the Empress’s Mistress of the Wardrobe—how could she not recognize the significance of this jade pendant? It was the personal keepsake that the Crown Prince himself had carved and given to his betrothed.
Before the Thorn-棠 Case, Luowei had lost this jade pendant.
Upon discovering this, Luowei had been so distressed that she immediately mobilized all her family servants to go out and find it. Buyun, too, had helped her search every corner of the bustling markets—without success.
But how could it have appeared here—here inside this wooden box?
And how had this wooden box come to be in Lu Heng’s possession?
Luowei said in her ear, word by word, that she had never expected to see this jade pendant again.
—Only to find it in Song Lan’s old box.
Buyun left hastily, her words unclear. Taking advantage of the fact that Lu Heng had not yet returned, she went and searched his quarters within the palace carefully—and found nothing.
Still uneasy, Buyun looked for another opportunity to search his outer residence. This time, at last, she found a thick stack of letters.
To call them letters was not quite accurate—they were sheets of paper on which Lu Heng had painstakingly practiced imitating someone else’s handwriting. He had copied it with great care, as though reluctant to waste even a single sheet—practicing only one character per page.
The handwriting was unmistakably familiar. Buyun’s heart beat with increasing alarm as she turned the pages one by one.
“See—letter—do not—miss…”
This stack of papers had been hidden beneath the mattress of his bed, the most concealed place possible. The corners of a few of the sheets were singed as though by fire—as though he had originally intended to burn them, then been interrupted by something and afterward forgotten.
‘Upon seeing this letter, do not long for me’—’Upon seeing this letter, do not long for me’?
Buyun repeated this to herself over and over in a daze, her hands trembling more and more. Certain old memories pressed in upon her, and she dimly recalled—this seemed to be a phrase from a letter Luowei had once written casually to her.
At the time, she had accompanied the imperial family on a spring tour south of the river, and had written to tell her what new fabrics and embroidery techniques she had seen, and to ask her to sew some garments on her behalf.
Just this one letter—only this one letter.
Why was this letter in Lu Heng’s hands? He had copied Luowei’s handwriting with such painstaking care—what was he scheming?
She slid along the bed and sank to the floor, ice-cold sweat flowing freely.
After winter had passed—on a dull, yellowish evening—Buyun arranged to meet Lu Heng at the Western Garden, the place where the two of them had most often held their secret trysts.
He was not late. He came in through the door at a hurried pace, untying his qilin bracer as he walked: “A’Yun, we only just met yesterday—why do you want to meet here? In just a few more days you will be leaving the palace, and by then…”
Buyun turned to face him. She looked at that all-too-familiar face and asked in a trembling voice: “Why did you betray His Highness the Crown Prince?”
She had endured these past days and thought the matter over again and again, growing more and more alarmed the more she thought. It seemed that long before all of this, she had caught a fleeting glimpse of him once before the Emperor’s palace; at his outer residence one day, the favorite tea of Chief Minister Yu Qiushi—Guzhu Zisun—had been brewing; after the Thorn-棠 Case, he had brought the entire Jintian Guard over to serve the new Emperor; when the Jintian Guard spent three days offering their swords in mourning for their fallen lord, he had not shed a single tear.
Lu Heng had refused to admit it at first, but finding himself unable to answer her many questions, he finally lowered his eyes and out of nowhere asked her: “Whom I am loyal to, whom I serve—what does that have to do with the wealth and glory, the free and easy life, of you and me?”
Buyun took an incredulous step backward.
But Lu Heng pressed relentlessly forward, drawing closer step by step, and finally spoke the words in his heart plainly: “Buyun, I have no father and no mother. I grew up in the Changfeng Hall of the Jintian Guard—do you know what kind of days I lived? The blades were blind, and I was covered in wounds; yet I did not dare slacken even for a moment, for fear of being cast aside, of becoming a nameless soul with not even a name to be remembered by!”
Buyun grabbed his arm and cried with anguish: “His Highness trusted you so deeply and cultivated you with such care—a future of going on military campaigns, being named a general, receiving a marshal’s rank—all of this was within reach. In this world, who does not suffer? Have you ever thought that without His Highness, without Her Highness, you and I might already be nameless souls—where would we find any future to speak of?”
Lu Heng gave a disdainful laugh: “Yes—His Highness’s kindness to me was as weighty as a mountain. But what you do not know—and what His Highness did not know—was that titles of rank and glory, a general’s name, I wanted none of it! I suffered in my youth and grew up aching terribly to live as I pleased, without restraint. Reckless gambling, carousing—lending money at ruinous rates—I have done it all. If the present Emperor had not helped me conceal it, your precious Crown Prince would probably have had my head long ago! Rather than live in constant dread—trembling with fear of the day he would find out—it was better to strike first!”
The evening rain had just begun to fall. Through tear-blurred eyes, Buyun watched the person who in the span of a breath had become someone completely unrecognizable slowly draw the short blade at his side.
After years as his beloved, he had not truly intended to kill her. His voice even softened: “Buyun—you are about to leave the palace. What do the life-and-death struggles of these great personages have to do with the two of us? I have turned over a new leaf. I did not dare speak of what came before—I feared it would frighten you. From now on, just pretend you know nothing. Is that not good?”
She looked at him, and could not help laughing aloud.
He had thought she had come around to his view, and meant to offer her an embrace as he had in the old days—but unexpectedly she gripped his arm tightly, and threw herself against the blade he had not yet withdrawn.
The blade lay slanted across his chest. Lu Heng drew it back with great speed—it was not a fatal wound. He held her by the shoulders and asked through gritted teeth: “Why go to such lengths—and for whose sake!”
Buyun did not speak. Her blood, mixed with the rain, spread across the ground of the Western Garden.
He let go. Wanting to find a physician for her, he started toward the gate of the Western Garden—but before he had gone far, he was jolted awake with a start. This place had been sealed for years, and no one ever came. One more body might not be discovered for many years.
But if he brought a physician—could his resolute beloved, in order to protect his life, keep her silence before the Empress?
Lu Heng made up his mind. He stood alone in the curtain of rain for a long time, and finally turned and walked back, wanting to take one last look.
But when he arrived, the old palace room was already empty. At the edge of the square mouth of the well, there was a long, trailing smear of blood—after he had left, she had, in utter despair, thrown herself into the well of her own accord.
Perhaps this was better—he would not need to do it himself.
The spring rain that night washed all traces of blood completely away.
He relocked that palace room, retrieved all the keys, and it was as though nothing had ever happened.
For several consecutive days, Lu Heng felt himself in a daze.
Zhang Buyun was a palace official about to be released from service. She had no duties to fulfill, no orders to obey, and no one who cared about her. Those few who had been on friendly terms with her would assume she had already left the palace.
The Empress she had thought of so dearly—had she asked a single question about her disappearance?