Cui Xun respectfully said, “Yes.”
He took Li Ying’s hand and handed it to Cui Xun: “Cui Xun, I entrust my daughter to you. Go and be reincarnated together.”
But Li Ying looked at Cui Xun with attachment, biting her lip, her eyes misty with tears: “Father, I don’t want to be reincarnated. After reincarnation, I won’t be me anymore.”
And Cui Xun wouldn’t be Cui Xun anymore.
The Taichang Emperor smiled slightly: “What if you could still be you, and Cui Xun could still be Cui Xun?”
Li Ying was stunned; she didn’t understand. Neither did Cui Xun.
The Taichang Emperor sighed: “Your mother has made it possible for you to still be yourself.”
On the day Li Ying’s soul dissipated at Cui Xun’s grave, the eternal lamps in forty thousand Buddhist temples across the Great Zhou were extinguished forever, and the Empress Dowager knew that her daughter was gone from this point on.
She recalled three years earlier in Penglai Hall, when a eunuch reported that the Tianwei Army’s son of the Cui clan of Boling was in the Dali Temple, refusing to confess to surrendering to the Turks, and was about to die from torture. She was impatient—she had never liked the Cui clan of Boling, and this man had surrendered to the Turks, making him even more detestable. She said, “Wasn’t it said that this person’s affairs should not be reported to me?”
The eunuch complied: “It was this slave’s loose tongue.”
But the eunuch had previously received favors from Cui Songqing, so he still wanted to help Cui Songqing’s nephew. He carefully probed: “Empress Dowager, that Cui Xun, perhaps…”
Before he could finish, the Empress Dowager suddenly stood up: “What did you say that person is called?”
“Cui… Cui Xun…”
“What is his courtesy name?”
“I believe it’s… Wangshu…”
Cui Xun… Cui Wangshu… The Empress Dowager remembered the words her beloved daughter had spoken to her, lying on her lap on the day of her death.
But how would Mingyue Pearl know about Cui Xun?
She was full of doubts, and these doubts were only resolved when Li Ying appeared before her.
So the person she had seen thirty years ago was Mingyue Pearl, who had returned from the future. She hadn’t been killed by the Taichang Emperor but had drowned herself in the Lotus Pond.
She was deeply grieved. She knew that her current position and the Great Zhou’s current prosperity had all been triggered by her beloved daughter’s death. Mingyue Pearl had sacrificed her life for all of this. How could she continue to shield her son?
She killed Emperor Longxing, but then Cui Xun came to ask her permission to lead the northern expedition. She knew he wouldn’t return, but Cui Xun had experienced the war six years earlier. He was familiar with the six provinces and the Turks. No one was more suitable to lead the campaign than he.
She finally granted his request, and because of this, she lost Mingyue Pearl again.
Tears streamed down her face. She didn’t know where Li Ying’s soul had gone, nor where Cui Xun’s soul had gone. She could only make a wish before Buddha. She had governed for many years, with achievements worthy of historical record. After death, she could have ascended to immortality, but she was willing to use her lifetime’s achievements to enter the cycle of rebirth like common people after death, in exchange for Cui Xun and Li Ying continuing their bond life after life.
Li Ying’s eyes moistened. She murmured, “Mother…”
Cui Xun also hadn’t expected the Empress Dowager would do this. His emotions were very complex at that moment. The Empress Dowager had once disliked him, but in the end, she had unexpectedly paid such a great price to bring him and Li Ying together.
Holding Li Ying’s hand, both of them had gone from the darkest moment to seeing light at the end of the tunnel. At this moment, they felt as if they had been through different worlds.
The Taichang Emperor said to Li Ying, “If you continue your bond life after life, you need not drink Meng Po’s soup of forgetfulness. In the future, you will still be you, and Cui Xun will still be Cui Xun.”
He said, “Go now. I’ll send you across the Nai River.”
Li Ying nodded with tears. She asked the Taichang Emperor, “Father, aren’t you coming with us?”
She no longer had to be trapped in an endless cycle, and the Taichang Emperor no longer had to be a ferryman.
The Taichang Emperor shook his head: “Your father still needs to wait for your mother.”
Li Ying bit her lip. In a daze, she held Cui Xun’s hand as they boarded the small boat. The Taichang Emperor pushed the pole, and the boat drifted gently towards the middle of the Nai River.
The white mist on the other side of the Nai River gradually dispersed. She and Cui Xun held hands tightly. From now on, they would hold hands until old age, never to part again.