Xie Zhengming, the Mighty General of Weiyuan and the only peerless prince of a different surname ennobled by the new Emperor, had unexpectedly vomited blood and died on this snowy, wind-swept night.
According to the servants of the Prince’s Estate, when the Prince passed away, he was still clutching a pair of weathered dragon-and-phoenix candles in his arms.
Meanwhile, over at the Chancellor’s Estate, it was a scene of dazzling gold and silver silk banners, with red candles burning high. Today was the joyous wedding day of the current Chancellor.
The reigning Chancellor was surnamed Qin, given name Duan, courtesy name Muqing. Despite his youth, he was already the head of all officials and enjoyed the deep favor of the Emperor.
For the Chancellor’s wedding, Prince Ding Xie Zhengming had also been invited to attend the banquet, yet he had risen and left before staying even a moment. As the virtuous Chancellor celebrated his nuptials, many commoners had gathered outside the estate to watch the festivities and catch a glimpse of the joyous occasion to share in the good fortune. At that time, many onlookers had seen the battle-hardened Mighty General, Prince Ding, walking out of the Chancellor’s Estate with an unsteady gait and a face as pale as paper, appearing frail and sickly. In an unprecedented move, he had abandoned his horse for a carriage, rushing back toward his own estate in frantic haste.
What the commoners failed to see was that inside the carriage, Xie Zhengming had coughed up two large mouthfuls of blood, the heart-wrenching pain nearly causing him to ruin Qin Duan’s wedding right then and there.
God knew how much self-restraint he had exercised just now to keep himself from recklessly dragging Qin Duan away by force. He knew he could not do such a thing; if he did, Qin Duan would hate him for the rest of his life. Besides, that man had always preferred shattering as jade to remaining intact as a tile…
Staggering back into his estate, Xie Zhengming knew he was suffering from an influx of pent-up rage and needed to regulate his breath. Yet whenever he closed his eyes, he was haunted by the image of Qin Duan’s expression brimming with springtime warmth, and the gentle, tender way he smiled as he held and guided the silk ribbon with his bride. How breathtakingly handsome he had looked in those scarlet wedding robes…
Qin Duan… that appearance of his was meant to be seen by him alone. Qin Duan was his sworn pact-brother; had he not grown muddle-headed later on, losing his sense of right and wrong, and turning cold and heartless… Qin Duan should have lived in perfect harmony with him, accompanying him for a lifetime. If that were the case, the pair standing proud and bright in the wedding hall today should have been none other than himself and Qin Duan.
The internal Qi within his body rampaged haphazardly through his viscera, meridians, and collateral channels.
“Ugh… Pfft!”
A mouthful of blood spewed forth, and his heart vessels snapped completely.
Over the years, Xie Zhengming had fought campaigns across the land, his body already a patchwork of old injuries overlaid with new ones. Watching Qin Duan marry with his own eyes today had finally exhausted his last ounce of strength. On the battlefield, even seas of blades and roaring flames could not faze him, but facing the reality of losing Qin Duan, he simply had no way to endure it.
From the moment he heard the news of the Chancellor’s betrothal to today’s grand banquet and wedding ceremony at the Chancellor’s Estate, where he had watched with his own eyes as Qin Duan bowed to heaven and earth with his bride, he had finally been forced to accept that he had truly lost Qin Duan.
Dragging his dying body, Xie Zhengming had fished out the pair of red candles from a chest—the very ones lit when he and Qin Duan had consummated their union years ago. Back when they first became sworn pact-brothers, he had been mired in hardship and had never exchanged any tokens of affection with Qin Duan. That pair of red candles remained the sole witness to the time he and Qin Duan had spent together.
In those early days, he had been impoverished and struggling with unfulfilled ambitions. It was only later, as he followed the rebel army to achieve great merits and helped the new Emperor ascend the throne, that he finally attained fame and fortune. He had thought that once the Emperor ennobled him as Prince Ding, riding the crest of unprecedented glory, he could finally fulfill his past promise to Qin Duan and proudly take him as his legitimate wife with grand fanfare. Yet, a decree of imperial marriage had crushed down upon him like a mountain.
Both he and Qin Duan understood that the imperial decree served as a temporary life-saving talisman once accepted. To dare resist the decree would have simply handed the newly ascended Emperor who was already plotting to slaughter the hunting dogs once the hares were caught and execute the loyal ministers the perfect excuse to strip away his military power and eradicate him root and branch.
Qin Duan had personally received that decree on his behalf, and Xie Zhengming knew that at that moment, Qin Duan’s heart was bleeding. Yet Qin Duan also understood him well enough to know that he could not bear to give up everything he had fought so desperately in the military to earn.
Yes… if he had been willing back then to voluntarily lay down his military command and return to civilian life to till the fields, perhaps the Emperor would not have pushed things to a bloody end. Regrettably, he had failed to do so at the time. A man’s innate craving for power had made him deeply relish the glory of being kowtowed to by thousands and respectfully addressed as “Your Highness, Prince Ding.” Yet, for that very reason, he had paid a price he could never bear.
He had lost Qin Duan.
Clutching the pair of red candles, his pupils scattering, Xie Zhengming thought to himself how utterly foolish he had been to believe that marrying the Princess Regent’s relative, Princess Yanning, would not affect his relationship with Qin Duan. At the time, he had naively thought he would treat Qin Duan wonderfully—that whatever a primary wife possessed, Qin Duan would have as well, making no difference to them at all.
Whenever he looked into Qin Duan’s lusterless eyes back then, he could never understand why Qin Duan was unhappy when he had finally reached the pinnacle of officialdom and could provide him with a life of wealth and luxury. He had never truly understood what Qin Duan desired in his heart.
In the past, he had even been foolish enough to believe the act put on by that venomous woman Yanning, genuinely believing that during his deployment to the northern frontiers, she had taken good care of Qin Duan. Even when he learned that the child in Yanning’s womb had miscarried, blinded by grief, he had believed Yanning’s collusion with the servants to frame Qin Duan. On a heavy snowy day, he had ordered people to mercilessly snap Qin Duan’s leg bones…
“Ha, ha, ha, ha… So foolish… How utterly foolish!”
“A’duan, if everything could start over again, I would never crave power and authority ever again, placing you above all else. Would we… have a different ending?”
Lying in a daze upon his bedroom floor, Xie Zhengming stared up at the ceiling and murmured, as though standing right before him was the person he dreamed of day and night, the one he could never attain, and the one who refused to ever look back.
Xie Zhengming felt as though he had drifted through a long, protracted dream, one that carried him back to the very day he first met Qin Duan.
A little beggar starved to the brink of death had been brought home by his mother, who handed him a bowl of corn gruel. He had watched the little beggar’s ravenous eating habits and frowned…
Back then, Qin Duan, who had fainted from hunger by the roadside, was picked up by his mother. As it turned out, Qin Duan’s hometown had been overrun by rebel forces committing pillage and slaughter, forcing him and his elderly grandfather to flee and become refugees. The grandfather who had taken him in had fallen ill and died along the flight. When his mother brought him home, sixteen-year-old Qin Duan was so emaciated and frail that he looked like a child of twelve or thirteen.
At the time, their household was utterly destitute. Their ancestors had been stripped of their noble titles by the imperial decree, which explicitly mandated that the descendants of the Xie family were forever barred from entering official service. Furthermore, before his grandmother passed away, she had left behind a mountain of debts. Consequently, despite his striking good looks and formidable martial arts skills, he was nearing thirty and still unable to take a wife.
Seeing that the little beggar looked refined and pretty once scrubbed clean, his mother decided to keep Qin Duan and make him Xie Zhengming’s sworn pact-brother.
In his dream, Xie Zhengming once again beheld that year under the red candlelit canopy, where a youthful Qin Duan lay shyly in his embrace.
Back then, he had been proud and arrogant, yet constrained by his status as the descendant of a criminal family, frustrated and unable to fulfill his ambitions. For someone in his family standing, being forced by his mother to take a sworn pact-brother which amounted to marrying a male wife was something he simply could not accept in his heart. Yet no matter how much fuss or rebellion he raised, he failed to change his mother’s mind. His father had passed away early, and by then his mother’s health was already failing; he knew his mother was simply terrified that he would end up old and companionless.
Thus, on that day, his mother forced Qin Duan to come to his chambers of his own accord. Enduring his inner reluctance, he nonetheless consummated the marriage rites with Qin Duan. They wore no wedding robes, and the room was entirely unadorned, save for that pair of dragon-and-phoenix candles which his mother had specifically instructed must burn through the entire night. Red candles burning until dawn symbolized the newlyweds growing old together. However, full of youthful arrogance and finding the candlelight’s glare harsh on his eyes, he had extinguished it long before dawn broke.
Was it because he had extinguished those red candles far too early back then that he and Qin Duan ultimately failed to grow old together…?