Creak the palace doors were pushed open. Zhao Hanqing looked up to see a figure standing in the doorway. Against the bright glare of the sunlight, he couldn’t make out who it was, until the doors were pulled shut behind them, revealing that the person who had returned was none other than Sima Huayao.
Looking down at Zhao Hanqing, who was curled up on the cold floor with tear tracks staining his face, Sima Huayao couldn’t help letting out a silent sigh in his heart. After all, he was a man of modern times without such a hardened, ruthless core which was why he had turned back.
Crouching down, Sima Huayao gathered the scattered garments from the floor and wrapped them around Zhao Hanqing. “Didn’t you hate me? Didn’t you want to wrest back what rightfully belongs to you from my hands? Why give up so easily?”
Zhao Hanqing stared blankly at Sima Huayao. The embrace he had always despised felt extraordinarily warm at this moment, even sparking a strange, lingering attachment within him. It was clearly this very man who had shoved him into the abyss, subjecting him to endless humiliation and torment. Yet now, it was also this man who was pulling him back out from the desperate darkness.
“Your Highness…” Zhao Hanqing murmured softly.
“I have already grown weary of your flesh and blood. Watching you act so utterly submissive makes me feel immensely bored.”
As if snapping back to his senses, Zhao Hanqing lunged forward, clutching desperately at Sima Huayao’s body as though a single relaxed grip would make him vanish into thin air.
“Your Highness, whatever you wish Your Servant to become, I will become. I only beg Your Highness not to cast me aside.”
“You wanted to kill me, didn’t you? I am giving you a chance. Starting tomorrow, I shall have the memorials sent directly to the Imperial Study first. Once His Majesty has reviewed and marked them in red, I will inspect them. If there are no errors, I will order them executed accordingly.”
“Your Highness…”
Zhao Hanqing stared in stunned disbelief at Sima Huayao, completely failing to understand why he would do such a thing.
“I will recall San Xi and the others to my side; as for your personal attendants, you may choose them yourself. However, Chun Hai and San Xi’s positions will remain unchanged. Your Majesty, let me see just how far your capabilities truly reach.”
“Your Highness, Your Servant does not want any of this. I only wish to stay by Your Highness’s side.” Regaining his wits, Zhao Hanqing suspected that Sima Huayao was merely setting a test to probe his loyalty, which prompted his hasty refusal.
How could Sima Huayao fail to see through his thoughts? “I will give you only one choice between two paths: either you continue selling your flesh to please this Prince, or you follow what I just said and show me your true capability. You have only this single chance to choose.”
Looking straight into Sima Huayao’s eyes, Zhao Hanqing’s pretty phoenix eyes flickered with a complex web of emotions. He couldn’t be certain whether this was another of Sima Huayao’s malicious traps if it were, failure meant nothing less than being entirely replaced. But if it weren’t, he wouldn’t merely gain a foothold in state affairs; he could actually begin cultivating his own faction. Weighing the options back and forth, Zhao Hanqing found himself paralyzed, unable to reach a decision.
“Shedding one’s clothes is easy, but trying to put them back on piece by piece is a formidable task.” Releasing his grip, Sima Huayao stood up and said, “I will give you time to consider. Tomorrow, after the morning court session, you shall give me your answer.”
Having said all that needed to be said, Sima Huayao lingered no longer, turning and walking out of the Qiankun Palace.
Clutching his garments tighter around himself, Zhao Hanqing sat numbly on the floor as Sima Huayao’s words echoed endlessly in his ears. He simply couldn’t fathom Sima Huayao’s motives. Had he not returned, his spirit might very well have fractured completely, leaving him entirely broken and incapable of posing any threat. Why, then, had he come back? And why offer him an opening to cultivate real power?
Inside the carriage, Sima Huayao couldn’t help letting out a long exhale. He was not Sima Nanyao; he could not empathize with the deep-seated national enmity and blood feuds, and instead found himself overflowing with pity for Zhao Hanqing. From his perspective, Zhao Hanqing was merely a newly adult youth who had no business suffering such cruel abuse. The inevitable consequence of his actions, however, was that he had just saddled himself with a massive headache, he would have to navigate this dangerous landscape with extreme caution moving forward.
He drew a long breath. Though troublesome, at least this choice allowed him to keep a clear conscience, proving infinitely better than resorting to any desperate, unprincipled means merely to survive.
During his afternoon nap, Sima Huayao drifted into a bizarre dream. He found himself standing inside a completely barren, empty room enclosed entirely by four blank white walls. To be precise, it was an absolute, enclosed space with no doors, no windows, and not even the faintest crack.
As time dragged on, Sima Huayao’s initial calm shattered, and he shouted at the top of his lungs, “Is anyone out there?! Let me out!”
“Sima Huayao.”
A voice sounded directly behind him, startling him so badly that his instincts made him whirl around. Standing right before him was a man who looked identical to him—no, more accurately, a man who looked identical to Sima Nanyao.
“Who are you? What is this place?”
“I am Sima Nanyao, and this is my consciousness space.”
“Your consciousness space? Why on earth am I here?” Sima Huayao asked with a puzzled frown.
“Because your consciousness is currently residing inside my body.”
This explanation didn’t clear up anything; instead, it buried Sima Huayao in an even deeper mountain of questions. “Why did I appear in this world and end up inside your body?”
“Because the resonance between our souls was the highest. I was the one who summoned you to this world.”
Left utterly speechless by this revelation, Sima Huayao snapped irritably, “By what right did you summon me here? Did you ever ask for my consent?”
“In your world, you were already dead.”
Stunned for a second, Sima Huayao retorted, “How could I possibly be dead? You’re lying to me!”
With a wave of Sima Nanyao’s hand, a screen materialized in the space between them, playing out the exact events leading up to his arrival.
Inside a noisy, crowded bar, young men and women writhed wildly to the pounding music, burning off their excess energy. He himself sat alone at the bar counter, downing glass after glass of hard liquor. Just as he grew heavily intoxicated, a woman dressed in a tight red bodycon dress slid onto the stool beside him.
“Handsome, you look somewhat familiar. Why are you sitting here drinking alone?”
“None of your business. Who the hell are you?”
“Handsome, meeting is fate. How about buying this little sister a drink?”
“If you want to drink, buy it yourself. Why the hell should I, hic, buy it for you?”
Dropping his head onto the counter after those words, Sima Huayao had passed out cold.
On the screen, the woman downed the remainder of his drinks, signaled a man stepping out from the crowd, hoisted the unconscious Sima Huayao between them, and dragged him out of the bar all while the bartender watched unbothered, calmly returning to his work.
They bundled Sima Huayao into a car, rifled through his belongings to find his phone, unlocked it using his fingerprint, logged into his mobile banking app to execute a massive transfer, stripped him bare of his clothes, took countless photographs of him, and finally dumped him by the side of the road.
Amidst the freezing depths of winter, clad in nothing more than a pair of briefs, he had frozen to death on the streets.
Staring blankly at the police officers milling about on the screen, Sima Huayao stood frozen in shock, utterly unable to process the brutal reality that he was truly dead.
Sima Nanyao spoke softly, “In that world, you were already gone, which is why I was able to summon you to mine.”
“I’m dead…” Sima Huayao dropped into a squat, burying his face in his hands as he clawed frantically at his hair. His eye rims reddened as the harsh truth finally anchored in his mind, prompting a self-deprecating scoff. “To think I died like that. What an absolute embarrassment!”
Sima Nanyao allowed him the space to process the shock without interrupting.
After a long silence, Sima Huayao finally regained his composure. Lifting his head to eye Sima Nanyao, he dropped down to sit cross-legged against the wall. “Why did you summon me?”
Sitting down beside him, Sima Nanyao replied, “I am tired. I don’t wish to continue this anymore.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Gazing off into the empty space, Sima Nanyao murmured, “In truth, I have already lived through three lifetimes. In the first life, exactly as the book recorded, I died at Zhao Hanqing’s hands ten years after he ascended the throne. When I opened my eyes again, I discovered I had been reborn with full knowledge of the plot. From then on, I watched everything with cold detachment; the moment Zhao Hanqing thought he had gathered enough strength to eliminate me, I struck back with devastating vengeance, slaughtering his entire faction, watching the light in his eyes extinguish bit by bit, and finally torturing him to death. I lived far longer in my second life than my first, yet every single day was plagued by nightmares, I was utterly miserable.”
Unable to hold back his curiosity, Sima Huayao asked, “And what about the third life?”
“In the third life, refusing to be tormented by nightmares yet unwilling to let Zhao Hanqing harm me, I kept him imprisoned by my side while methodically chopping away at his wings, keeping him under my absolute control until his dying breath. Yet gradually, I realized I had truly fallen in love with him. Even so, my national hatred and blood feuds prevented me from letting go, so I continued to torture him daily driving him to loathe me to the marrow of his bones. Until the very end, when his time was near, I finally bared my heart to him. He told me he hated me, that he wished he could grind my bones to dust, and cursed me with his dying breath never to find peace in any lifetime.
After he died, I suffered agonizing grief day and night, pining for him until I perished not long after.”
“You two…” Hearing this twisted tale, Sima Huayao was entirely at a loss for words.
Taking a deep breath, Sima Nanyao continued, “I am exhausted. I no longer wish to torture him, nor do I wish to torture myself which is why I summoned you to take my place and walk this path forward.”
“Can you not lay down your hatred and reconcile your grievances?”
“That was a debt of a destroyed nation! Over a hundred members of the Sima-Nan imperial family were slaughtered, their heads hung on public display outside the city gates for three days how could I possibly let that go? Vengeance was my mission, and the very meaning of my existence.”
Sima Huayao opened his mouth, yet no words of persuasion came. Having never experienced the destruction of a country or a blood feud, he could not truly empathize, and thus had no right to tell someone else to lay down their sword.
“You are Sima Huayao, not Sima Nanyao. Only without those deep national hatreds can this grievance ever truly be resolved.”
“Is that why you summoned me here?”
Nodding slightly, Sima Nanyao said, “Between him and me, there was never a question of right or wrong. We stood on opposing sides, destined for a mutual kill-or-be-killed outcome.”
“If I am here, what happens to you? Will you remain trapped in this consciousness space?”
Shaking his head, Sima Nanyao answered, “I do not know. Most likely, I will simply vanish.”
“By vanishing, you mean—”
“Soul scattering into nothingness.” Sima Nanyao smiled faintly. “A single physical vessel cannot house two souls.”
Sima Huayao looked at him silently, devoid of words.
“This is my own choice. Rather than enduring this agonizing cycle of reincarnation, death comes as a sweet release.”
“Aren’t you afraid that I, armed with the advantage of knowing the plot just like your second life, might simply strangle Zhao Hanqing in his cradle?”
“If you hadn’t turned back to visit the small study today, you never would have met me.”
Sima Huayao blinked in surprise. “What would have happened if I hadn’t gone back?”