Night.
The medicine kettle simmered faintly in the western wing, bitter fumes thick in the air. Wu stared into the charcoal brazier, palms slick with cold sweat.
Her son had burned with fever for two days. The blood he coughed up stained half his robe crimson. The imperial physician had shaken his head: “Without snow lotus ginseng, he won’t last three days.”
She clutched an empty medicine pouch, heart clawed raw.
Two nights ago, she’d heard Li Yi mutter in his sleep: “…Can’t hide it anymore.”
The whisper was thin as spider silk—yet it kept her awake till dawn.
She remembered him clutching her fingers during fever, begging, “Don’t go.”
She remembered the first time he called her “Mother.”
She remembered the night she poisoned his porridge—her hand shaking so badly she nearly dropped the bowl.
She hadn’t reported him.
Was it loyalty? Or hope that her son might yet survive on his own?
But this morning, his breath grew shallow. She could hold out no longer.
Kneeling before Palace Attendant Cui, she repeated only one phrase: “Please… grant medicine. Save my boy’s life.”
Cui stirred her hand-warmer, eyes glacial. “Medicine? Have you learned anything these past nights?”
Wu kept her head bowed, voice trembling: “…I’ll be your beast of burden. Your slave.”
“You useless thing!” Cui snapped. Four days had passed. Pressure from the Empress Dowager was mounting. She needed proof—now—that the Guang Prince was feigning madness.
“Beasts and slaves are cheap.” A pause. Then, with chilling resolve: “I need the Guang Prince to slip. Tomorrow, after the Xiaoxiang memorial rites, you’ll lead him to the temple veranda. I’ll handle the rest.”
Wu jerked her head up. “Your Highness… he is truly witless!”
“True fool or false—we’ll know by tomorrow.” Cui slid forward an empty porcelain vial. “If you succeed, the medicine comes immediately. If not…” She let the words hang. “You won’t even find your son’s ashes.”
Wu stared at the vial. Tears fell, soundless.
She gave no answer—neither yes nor no.
She only wanted medicine. She didn’t want to betray anyone.
But she had no choice.
The fifteenth day. Dawn.
Li Yi saw the shadows beneath Wu’s eyes. Softly, he asked: “Mother… are you unhappy?”
She forced a smile. “Don’t trouble yourself, Your Highness. Hurry—dress for the Xiaoxiang rites. We must enter the palace for incense.”
He nodded, letting her fasten his sash. But as she turned to fetch his cap, he murmured: “…Can’t hide it anymore.”
The jade hairpin slipped from her fingers, shattering on the floor.
Li Yi said nothing more.
But he knew: she’d heard his test that night.
The road from the Sixteen Princes’ Compound to Daming Palace was long. Li Yi shuffled behind the eunuch, swaying like a drunkard. When no one looked, he whispered: “Li Ke—what’s today’s danger?”
Silence.
Unlike previous days, he didn’t wait patiently. Anxiety sharpened his voice: “She’s pushing me to offer incense—there’s a trap!”
Li Ke hadn’t noticed Wu’s shift at first—but since leaving the courtyard, he’d sensed it too. He’d formed a plan. But without Li Yi asking, speaking would be useless.
Ever since their audience with the Empress Dowager, something had changed. The barrier between them had thinned—they could now communicate both ways.
Not that Li Ke wished to play oracle. The limit remained: only two replies per day, and only if Li Yi spoke first. This fractured connection bred illusion—Li Yi thought the silence meant abandonment; Li Ke knew it was constraint.
Feeling Li Yi’s panic, Li Ke sighed inwardly: “The Empress Dowager believes in heavenly signs, not human words. On his deathbed, the late emperor said: ‘Do not contend.’”
Li Yi closed his eyes.
He’d never heard those words himself—but after all Li Ke had revealed, he trusted them.
Now, he would trade his Father’s last command for his own survival.
Chen hour.
The palace temple, thick with incense smoke.
Today marked the Xiaoxiang—the first anniversary rites for Emperor Xianzong—and also a formal court assembly. All imperial clansmen had come to burn incense.
Li Yi was half-dragged, half-guided into the hall, robes barely straight, eyes glazed as ever.
The Empress Dowager lit incense and intoned: “May the late emperor rest in peace. May his sons dwell in harmony.”
When it was Li Yi’s turn to kowtow, he suddenly broke free, lunged at the altar, smeared ash across his face, and wailed:
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“Father’s cold! Father said… Do not contend… Do not contend…”
The hall fell utterly still.
Those two words—“Do not contend”—were Xianzong’s final coherent utterance, heard only by five men: Chancellor Li Fengji, Chief Eunuch Wang Shoucheng, and three others.
How could a “witless child” know them?
The Empress Dowager studied him a long while—then lifted him herself. To her lady-in-waiting, she said:
“The Guang Prince’s filial devotion moves heaven. From now on, let no idle hands disturb his mourning.”
Li Yi leaned against her knee, murmuring: “Granny… crows are warm…”
She stroked his hair, face unreadable—
She didn’t believe in spirits. But she believed in utility.
Back in her quarters, the lady-in-waiting whispered: “Palace Attendant Cui says the Guang Prince’s behavior has grown strange…”
The Empress Dowager idly stirred the incense burner. “The late emperor did say, ‘Let my sons dwell in harmony; do not stir contention.’ A fool repeating those words is Heaven’s will—not human scheming.”
She paused. Her gaze turned wintry:
“The princes of the Sixteen Compounds exist to uphold imperial dignity while alive—and become stains upon it when dead. As long as he does not contend, does not speak, does not reach for power—he may stay mad.”
The lady-in-waiting bowed. “This servant understands.”
At the third quarter of Si hour, behind Baoqing Temple’s rear veranda.
Palace Attendant Cui waited in the shadows, face livid.
She could wait no longer. Though word hadn’t yet reached her, she sensed the Empress Dowager had already placed Li Yi under the shield of “imperial legacy.” If she didn’t act now, the chance would vanish forever.
Her plan: have Wu lure Li Yi here for a staged “madness test.”
But Wu—useless Wu—hadn’t brought him.
“Fool!” Cui hissed through clenched teeth.
Behind the temple veranda, patches of snow still clung to the stones. Wu held Li Yi’s hand, voice soft as a lullaby: “Crows built a nest under the eaves. Father came in a dream… said you must feed them.”
Li Yi looked up, eyes vacant. “Did Granny dream of Father too?”
Wu’s heart twisted. She turned away. “Go quickly. Don’t keep the crows waiting.”
He nodded, skipping toward the corner—each step like walking on blades.
He didn’t understand. The Empress Dowager had accepted his act. Why another trap?
But this “dream from Father” was bait. If he refused, he lost the one shield he had: invoking the late emperor’s memory.
Fine. He’d play the fool once more.
The moment he stopped, a young eunuch leapt from behind the rockery, shouting:
“Prince Guang! Her Majesty seeks you—she wishes to test your recitation of the Classic of Filial Piety!”
Li Yi froze.
—Fail to recite? Proof of idiocy.
—Recite perfectly? Proof of deceit.
—Stay silent? Suspicion.
—Panic? Exposure.
He knew this was Cui’s blade.
In that heartbeat, he threw himself at the eunuch, tearing his robe, shrieking:
“Bugs! Bugs crawling in your mouth! Father said… crows are hungry! They need bugs to stay warm!”
He stuffed snow into his own mouth, knocked over the incense burner—ash billowed like fog.
Then curled in the corner, whispering: “…Not me… bugs wrote it…”
From the shadows, Cui smirked, already reaching for her record scroll—when a lady-in-waiting from the Empress Dowager hurried over.
“Attendant,” the woman murmured, “Her Majesty commands: the Guang Prince’s filial piety is pure. Do not disturb his mourning.”
Cui went pale. She bowed stiffly. “As commanded.”
Her glare shot toward Wu in the distance—even this simple task, you bungle. What use are you?
The sixteenth day. Yin hour.
Wu knelt in the woodshed, cradling her son’s cold body.
Black blood dried at the corners of his lips. The physician had said: “Consumption flared suddenly. Nothing could be done.”
She remembered last night—Cui handing her half a dose: “The rest comes tomorrow.”
But today, her son was dead.
She’d betrayed Li Yi… and still lost everything.
—In this palace, even evil couldn’t save you.
Staggering back to the western wing, she passed the wellhead, whispering: “…I killed him… If only I’d begged for medicine sooner… If only I hadn’t poisoned him…”
A passing eunuch overheard. He reported at once.
That night, her body floated in the well.
Her suicide note bore one crooked line:
“I wronged the Guang Prince.”
The seventeenth day. Dawn.
Li Yi found Wu’s wooden hairpin by the well.
He stared into the water. His reflection wouldn’t form.
Late that night, he whispered: “Li Ke… why do you help me?”
Long silence.
Then, a sigh so faint it might have been wind:
“…Because in the history I’ve read—you lived to the end.”
Li Yi froze.
—His name… existed in the records of the future?
He dropped the hairpin into the well.
Ripples spread—then vanished without trace.
Spring in Chang’an: snow melted, people died, but the palace walls stood unchanged.
And he had to stay mad—
because in this world, almost no one could be trusted.
Translator’s Note on Historical and Cultural Terms
- Xiaoxiang (小祥): The first anniversary of an emperor’s death, marking the end of the initial, most intense phase of mourning. During xiaoxiang, imperial family members performed formal rites at palace temples, often coinciding with court assemblies (wangri chaocan). A prince’s behavior during this ritual was politically legible: excessive grief could signal loyalty—or dangerous emotional attachment to a deposed regime; indifference suggested disloyalty or instability. Li Yi’s outburst—invoking the late emperor’s final words—is thus both a ritual performance and a high-stakes gamble.
Imperial Legitimation Through “Heavenly Signs”
- “Heaven’s will, not human scheming”: The Empress Dowager’s dismissal of suspicion hinges on a core Tang political doctrine: if a seemingly miraculous utterance (e.g., a “fool” quoting the emperor’s deathbed words) aligns with orthodox filial virtue, it is interpreted as tianqi (天启)—a heavenly endorsement. This allowed rulers to absorb anomalies into the moral order rather than treat them as threats. By declaring Li Yi’s speech “Heaven’s will,” the Empress Dowager neutralizes Cui’s plot without confronting it directly—a masterstroke of passive control.
The Politics of Controlled Madness
- “As long as he does not contend, does not speak, does not reach for power—he may stay mad”: This line crystallizes the Tang court’s pragmatic tolerance of “harmless” princes. Madness was not merely accepted—it was preferred for marginal royals, so long as it remained non-performative and non-communicative. The three prohibitions (“do not contend, speak, or seek power”) define the boundary between permissible eccentricity and treasonous agency. To cross any one is to invite erasure.
Medicine as Currency and Coercion
- Snow lotus ginseng (雪莲参): A legendary tonic in Tang materia medica, believed to revive those at death’s door. Its extreme rarity made it effectively unavailable to commoners—and its withholding or granting a tool of elite control. Cui’s promise of this medicine is not therapeutic but transactional: she offers life in exchange for betrayal. The fact that she delivers only half a dose before the boy’s death underscores the hollowness of such bargains in the palace economy.
Suicide, Shame, and Posthumous Erasure
- “I wronged the Guang Prince”: Wu’s suicide note uses the verb dui (对)—to face, to be accountable—to express moral failure. In Confucian ethics, caregivers bore quasi-parental responsibility; to harm one’s charge was a profound breach of ren (benevolence). Her choice of the well—a site of domestic labor, not ritual purity—marks her death as shameful, not heroic. Yet by naming Li Yi specifically, she performs a final act of witness: even in death, she refuses to let his suffering be invisible.
Historical Determinism and Narrative Agency
- “In the history I’ve read—you lived to the end”: Li Ke’s revelation introduces a meta-historical layer unique to this chapter. Unlike earlier hints of prophecy, this statement grounds Li Yi’s survival in written record—not fate, but historiography. The implication is chilling: his value lies not in who he is, but in the fact that future chroniclers deemed him worth remembering. This reframes his entire performance: madness becomes not just survival strategy, but a means of securing his place in the official narrative.
Spatial Symbolism: The Well
- The well as liminal space: Unlike grand halls or temples, the well is a mundane yet deeply resonant site—associated with women’s labor, hidden tears, and silent deaths. Wu’s body appears there; Li Yi finds her hairpin there; he drops it back in. The well absorbs guilt, memory, and evidence without echo. Its still water—refusing to reflect Li Yi’s face—becomes a metaphor for historical erasure: in Chang’an, some lives vanish without even a shadow.
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