Chapter Seventeen: The Grand Alliance of Five Kingdoms – A Beauty’s Fate Is Not So Cruel

In the imperial palace of Xize, the red water lotuses were in full bloom. Changsun Luoxue stood by the pond, draped in a gown adorned with hibiscus, clouds, and myriad blossoms. Her hair was pinned with a drifting cloud hairpin. Book in hand, she lingered in tranquil stillness—a vision of ethereal grace, as though she had stepped from a painting.

After a while, a gentle melody rose, the notes of a zither winding softly through the air, distant and exquisite, as if a divine song, or the faint call of a vermilion bird.

Guided by the music, she walked toward a pavilion, where a tall figure stood with his back to her. His robes were pure white, spotless, his posture upright.

She called softly, “Seventh Brother, is that you?”

At her words, Cheng Min’s playing ceased abruptly. He turned, smiling. “Sister.”

“Why have you not departed for Baixi yet, Seventh Brother? If you miss the appointed time, tongues will wag.”

“I set out tomorrow. I expect I’ll arrive in time.”

Noticing the chess pieces on the stone table, she sat down.

“Oh. Seventh Brother, do you remember the fortune-teller we met when you snuck me out of the palace when I was ten?” Changsun Luoxue’s thoughts wandered as she asked, absent-minded.

“Hm?”

“He said my time in this world would last but twenty years. I’ll be seventeen in a few days. By that reckoning, I have only three years left to discuss war and strategy with you.” She propped her chin on her palm, gazing at a white piece she had just picked up.

At her words, his hand on the jade ring trembled imperceptibly, but he replied at once, “Fortune-tellers speak nothing but nonsense. If you believe them, isn’t it absurd?”

Changsun Luoxue lowered her eyes, her tone self-mocking. “But you know, Brother, I’ve been frail and sickly since childhood. That I’ve lived to this day is Heaven’s mercy.”

“Don’t speak such nonsense!” Cheng Min’s voice grew stern.

“I was only idly talking. Will you play a game with me, Brother?” She pushed the jar of black stones toward him and flashed a playful smile.

“Very well.” Cheng Min tapped her forehead with a finger, his eyes full of indulgence.

Born of Consort De, Changsun Luoxue’s fragile health meant she frequently required the imperial physician; more than once, she barely survived. From childhood, Cheng Min had always cherished this little sister.

As she placed a white piece on the board, she laughed softly. “Seventh Brother, you’ve lost this round.”

Looking at the board, among the interlocking black and white, his black pieces advanced recklessly, every move a flaw—yet he had failed to notice.

“Enough. You should go back and take your medicine.”

Changsun Luoxue shook her head, reluctant. “The weather is better today than usual. I’d like to stay a while longer.”

“Very well.” Seeing no attendant by her side, Cheng Min grew annoyed. “Why have you no maidservant with you?”

“They follow me everywhere, but it makes me uneasy.”

He sighed and could only help her up with gentle resignation. “All right, all right, you—you’re always so willful. Since I have time today, let me walk with you in the imperial gardens.”

She agreed with a radiant smile. “Yes, please.”

…

After escorting Changsun Luoxue back, Cheng Min sat alone in the pavilion, old memories surfacing in his mind.

That year, he had taken Luoxue outside the palace, where they happened to meet a fortune-telling Taoist. The old priest was peculiar—insisting on reading Luoxue’s fortune and refusing any payment.

So many years had passed, and though Cheng Min had never spoken of it since, the priest’s prophecy had haunted his nights.

He had said of Changsun Luoxue, “Though born to glory, she is plagued by a hundred ailments. At the bloom of twenty, her soul will scatter.”

Most troubling was that, since then, Luoxue’s health had indeed grown ever weaker, as if to fulfill the priest’s words.

When she was eleven, Consort De was banished to the Cold Palace for an error. Seeing Luoxue’s days consumed by medicine, Cheng Min could not bear it and often kept her by his side, caring for her himself.

Later, as he studied warfare and strategy, she shared her own insights with him. He came to regard this outwardly delicate, yet brilliant sister with newfound respect.

They often sipped tea, composed poetry, or matched wits at chess.

He had thought such days would last forever. Who could have foreseen her health declining year by year? Cheng Min was forced to seek out doctors in secret.

In the fifty-eighth year of the Zhaoyue era, when Gu Qiuci was sacrificed alive, Cheng Min was far away in another land, not yet Crown Prince.

No one knew how helpless he felt then. His confidant died a terrible death in his absence; his sister was gravely ill, and he was powerless even when present.

That same year, a grave appeared on Songshan in Xize. There was no stone marker, no incense burned, but a grass hut was built atop it, shielding it from wind, sun, and winter’s cold.

There was no door before the hut, but a threshold had been laid.

In the fifty-ninth year of Zhaoyue, one day, Changsun Luoxue, convalescing outside the palace, followed Cheng Min to this grave.

He sat before it with practiced ease, poured a jug of wine upon the earth, then seized another to drink deeply himself.

“Brother? Who is buried here?” Luoxue could not help but ask.

Cheng Min set down the wine, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and did not turn.

“An old friend,” he replied quietly, his tone weary.

She stepped inside the hut, standing behind him, puzzled. “If he was a friend, why no grave marker, why no incense, why no door?”

He answered, “I dare not raise a stone, nor burn incense, nor build a door.”

“Why?”

Why indeed? Because he could not bear to believe Gu Qiuci was truly gone, yet feared, too, that it was so—for all the world had witnessed his grisly end.

This old friend—dead or alive? Though he had seen the corpse, did not all bones look alike? He hadn’t seen the living face; what if he had only hidden away?

If he raised a stone, burned incense, or built a door, what then if his friend returned? If there was no hut, no threshold, and the friend truly had passed on, how could he find peace?

He even considered becoming a Buddhist monk—heart empty, desires gone, free from the world. Yet he feared he would never truly reach enlightenment, nor fully return to secular life.

In those desolate years, he could not save others, but in his heart, he wondered, who would save him? Who could save him?

At the dawn of the sixty-second year of Zhaoyue, the appearance of the Man with the Ghost Mask brought him a ray of long-lost hope.

The Ghost Masked Man told him: Gu Qiuci still had a chance at life, and Changsun Luoxue was not doomed to a short, ill-fated life.

A year later, Cheng Min was named Crown Prince of the Five Kingdoms.

All of this, in just a single year.

In the sixty-third year of Zhaoyue, the famed Pavilion of Infinite Void reappeared in the world. Its master was his old friend...

In the past two years, Changsun Luoxue’s health had improved, and the grave hut on Songshan was leveled to the ground.

Thinking of all this, Cheng Min returned to his zither and played another tune.

But within the music, there lay a hidden edge.

“The stench of blood rises, the storm approaches. That day is nearly upon us.”