Title: The Jade Princess

Genre: Romance, Historical Drama

Ratings: All ages

Part: Four/Seven

//

Spring. March 20, 657.

Luhan moves himself out of the royal archives before Jongin’s funeral.

Yoona stands at the entrance to the archives; amidst the cool night air and the glittering stars, she does not know why she is there. She feels like it has been ingrained in her, like a built-in mechanism, to journey to all the way from her side of the palace to the archives as long as she has time at hand. But with Luhan gone, emptiness claws at her and eventually engulfs her whole, dragging her into the forlorn pit of solitude.

She wanders around the archive, and it is then when she realizes how small it is. Small, squalid, decrepit – the royal archives is a storage room, hardly a place for someone to work in. Yoona prides herself for being observant but at that moment she notices that she has been blind to the blatantly deteriorating condition of the archives.

Memories flit in and out of her mind – playing xiangqi with Luhan, having unnecessarily witty banters with Luhan, learning about Chang’an’s history with Luhan, warning Luhan with “you know I will kill you someday”… Luhan, Luhan, Luhan. Her words about contending against a worthy challenger, gaining knowledge and pursuing greatness – they all become insignificant excuses. Excuses that are extemporaneously invented so she can spend time with Luhan.

Excuses that are used to save her pride.

After she sits down, she accidentally lays her head on a worn cloth journal with the words “Xi Luhan” inscribed on it. Initially, she reluctantly dismisses the thought of invading his privacy but her inquisitiveness gets the better of her, and she flips open the cover. A few words are scrawled on the first page and the rest of the journal is empty.

“For you, Your Highness. Vent your anger on the paper instead of people. Unlike people, paper will not bleed in the face of your immense wrath.”

She chuckles bitterly. Her pride is useless. Even with a single journal and a few uncomplicated words, Xi Luhan has smothered her pride and ripped it into many little pieces, leaving her to pick up all those shreds with only unfamiliar, forlorn emptiness to accompany her.

//

Spring. March 21, 657.

The second day of Jongin’s funeral is about to seep to a close. Luhan hostilely accepts the arrival of the third, but inwardly wishes that the first and second didn’t even exist.

He sits at the wooden planks at the back of the house to escape the irritating mourners, the intrusive relatives and the revival of his aching conscience. During the day, the light finds creative methods to take stabs at his conscience, be it by facing Jongin’s family, Jongin’s friends, and even Jongin’s things. Everything is a stark reminder of Jongin; Luhan does not know how many times his own conscience has been brutally murdered and then reincarnated from the dead.

He has yet to face Jinri. He doesn’t want to face her. Xi Luhan can be bold and audacious but not when it comes to facing the love of the best friend he killed. Like how a remorseful murderer is unable to show his face to his victim’s family, Luhan cannot bring himself to blurt the truth to the scarred, innocuous young girl.

In the face of evil, Luhan is a saint. In the face of innocence, Luhan is a devil.

“When will you return to the palace?” Minseok questions, propping himself next to Luhan. “Heard you requested to be moved out of the royal archives immediately – that place finally irritated the eccentricity out of you, huh?” He jokes jocundly, and Luhan responds with a coarse laugh.

“It’s a dangerous place, Minseok. I’ve decided to evade danger for awhile. I don’t ever want my body to be brought back home to my family like Jongin’s was,” Luhan stares at the ground. Memories flood his mind like annoying little wasps, and Luhan forcefully kicks a rock away, imagining it to be those fragments of his memory. His attempt is futile, naturally.

Minseok erupts in peals of laughter; Luhan wonders how much of crude sarcasm his chuckles carry. “Thought you liked danger,” Minseok remarks. “You welcome danger with open arms. You lure danger to you and now danger herself cannot live without you.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“She visits the royal archives daily. She visits it like you’re still there,” Minseok recalls, his words slipping out with much tartness. “I don’t know what’s right for you to do, Luhan. But if you’re going to stay out of the palace, don’t ever return. When you do, she won’t forgive you for leaving her behind.”

Luhan dismisses him with a caustic chortle, “I haven’t even forgiven her yet. I need no forgiveness from her.”

It’s all an excuse, he knows. An excuse to conceal the fear of the fact that he forgave her the moment she made her mistake.

“Will you tell Jinri?” Minseok prompts; and Luhan knows that it’s not a suggestion.

“Wish me luck,” he sighs. He thumps Minseok on the back, then stands up and begins the one deed he has to carry out. A few moments later Minseok hears loud wailing and sees Jinri wrapped tightly in Luhan’s embrace. Luhan ruffles her hair like Jongin would, and for a moment it’s like a part of Jongin is relived.

Minseok stares and he wonders what goes through that fast-paced mind of Luhan’s. Luhan and his excuses, his actions and his thoughts – Minseok has never been able to comprehend him. 

//

Spring. March 25, 657.

They say that when two desolate souls meet, there will be a spark ignited so intensely that even life-wrecking hysterias will not be able to extinguish it.

Jiaheng and Qian meet frequently under the cowl of the night, and present between them are prolonged conversations that last until the break of dawn. It begins with polite pleasantries and sometimes exaggerated accolades; but they read between the lines and take to heart the words in between. They would speak of the most trivial things, about the minor details of life and sometimes about the major. Sometimes their opinions differ and sometimes they match, nothing especially witty and nothing especially intellectual, but they maturely take it in and their conversations never seem to end, with each conversation deeper than the one before.

It is nothing physical, unless you count the accidental skin contact and the “You’ve got dirt in your hair, Qian.” Sometimes they would remark about their lives and they both would acknowledge how superficially delusional they are. But being in the warm cocoon of everything they’ve both ever wanted, they are intrinsically idyllic, idyllically romantic and romantically content. 

“Do you ever wonder what’s on the other side, Your Majesty?” Qian muses, posing a question out of the random. “Have you ever wondered what lies beyond the walls of the imperial palace?”

Mi’s answer is still vivid in her mind – Some people have the world in their hands. They don’t need to see it to know that they have it. And there is a lingering desire in her mind for her to validate this. Qian is innately idyllic, and sometimes she wants to see beyond the tainted notions of their obstinate society.

Jiaheng emits a soft laugh, “Sometimes. When I was little, my mother used to tell me that fire-breathing dragons existed outside. She told me that there were man-eating tigers too. And at that time those threats effectively scared me and I never wanted to step out.” He continues to laugh bitterly at his own words. “Turns out that the palace is even scarier than the world outside.”

“Are you still dwelling over the matter that occurred one week ago, Your Majesty?” Qian observes, and concernedly questions him.

“Does it seem like I am? Is it that obvious?”

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” she mutters apologetically.

Laughter seems like the only way to soothe the bitterness of his soul, and thus he employs it as his smoke-screen once more. “Guilt is unavoidable. I have been trying to evade it, but when I saw Kim Jongin’s dead body being carried out of Her Highness’s residence and after she did not step out of her room for three days, remorse came naturally.” He pauses, and takes in a gulp of air. “I killed my own advisor.”

“Jongin’s death is unrelated to you, Your Majesty,” Qian responds, jumping straight to his defense. “Jongin was one of Her Highness’s men, he-“

“No doubt I did not use him, but I will have to bear responsibility for his death,” Jiaheng stares at the floating water lilies in the pond, eyes trailing over the contours of the laterally inverted moon. “The emperor of a kingdom bears the responsibility of the lives of each and every one of his civilians, no matter who killed them or how they died-” he pauses and inhales, “-even if he did not intend for them to die.”

Qian’s gaze linger over him, that perfectly carved face of his and the despondency laden on it. He has trodden on his virility so brutally that the impact is palpable to Qian, a little too palpable. And she wonders how many a time he has demoralized himself; she wonders whether he had considered it being almost perpetual. But she aims to crush it before that fabricated perpetuity becomes an unalterable reality.

“You don’t have to put it upon your shoulders all the time. You’ll only collapse from the cumbersome burden you have placed on your shoulders.” She then reaches out and touches his hand momentarily, before she retracts it. “There are people who are willing to share that burden, that responsibility with you.”

You’re not alone.

She does not say it aloud, but he hears her. An unfamiliar warmth rises to his heart, and he does not know how long it will take for him to become accustomed to it. Cold regions take time to warm, after all.

“There are. And I do acknowledge them,” he replies gratefully. And he means it.

Qian learns that not everyone in the palace feel like they have the world in their hands.

Jiaheng has never believed in comrades – he cannot believe in something he has yet to acquire. His only companion in life is his empress, but even their relationship seems so artificial that he can barely call it a relationship. Maybe, he thinks to himself, it is that hopeless longing to find someone else with similar ideals, someone who can sincerely listen to his useless ramblings and comprehend him. Someone who will acknowledge that he is a human and not the puppet of an emperor he has become.

Qian has lived a life pursuing nothing. She pursues Luhan yet whether she truly loves him is another question altogether. She pursues honor for her family but that ambition is an ambition that society has placed upon her back. She pursues happiness but she cannot define it, and when she does acquire simple, outward happiness from the emperor deprived of it, she blithely clings on it.

At least for both of them, life only becomes worthwhile when you have something to pursue; even if it just means pursuing trivial conversations, trivial emotions and trivial friendship.  

//

Spring. March 27, 657.

“Where have you been?” Mi barks at the entering Qian, and she brushes past him without sparing him a glance. Infuriated by her blatant ignorance, he encircles his hand around her wrists and pulls her back. “You’ve been in the palace again, haven’t you? What have I told you about going there-“

“Damn, Mi-ge! How long are you going to keep this up?” She forcefully wrenches his arm off hers but he entraps her with his grip, leaving her attempts to become futile ones. “Get your hands off me, leave me alone-“

“I told you not to go to the palace! I told you not to continue speaking to the emperor! Do you know how harsh and cruel the palace can be? Do you think they will allow you to live in this idyllic little dream of yours forever? Do you think that Her Highness will shut an eye and you both will magically escape scot-free every time? Not in your dreams!”

Mi shakes Qian furiously, admonishing her as if he is reprimanding a young, mischievous miscreant. But it is only too difficult for him to alter what he is accustomed to, for the brotherly nature he has is ingrained in him, wedged so deep in his heart that it will not slip out easily. Qian defies it all; being the headstrong person she is, she defies him without mercy, without regard of the feelings she doesn’t know hides within that cramped heart of his.

“Leave me alone,” Qian warns, and she shoves him away. “I am under His Majesty’s orders and stopping me from going to the palace would indirectly mean that you’re rebelling against His Majesty.”

Mi grits his teeth and responds staunchly, “It doesn’t matter. Your life means more to me than-“

“His Majesty cares for the lives of the people. How terrible of you to insult him in such a way!” Her statement nearly causes his jaw to fall to the ground.

“Qian,” he grasps her arm. “Please, Qian.”

“Leave me alone,” she repeats. “Just leave me alone.”

It hurts. The day has come when his innocent, sweet little sister chooses the lying, cowardly scum of an emperor rather than the responsible brother who has conscientiously watched over her every step from the moment she could walk. It just hurts.

From behind, Sunyoung watches with concerned eyes. Because she’s the only one who can feel the hurt that overwhelms him, and she’s the only one other than himself who painstakingly prays that his misery will end soon.

But the world is screwed like that – care is always reciprocated, just not always in the form you want it to be in, often not from the person you want it to be from.

//

Spring. March 30, 657.

Sooyoung constantly finds life a bore. A repetitive, sullen bore. Each day is merely filled with the same activities and routines as the day before – walks, embroideries, satin robes, painting, calligraphy and mingling, mingling with the other concubines. Her life is full of monotony, and much is her desire for a fracture in it.

Her moods hardly fluctuate. It switches between boredom and despondency. The once enormous palace seems squalid in her eyes, the silk curtains begin to seem more like rusty metal bars and her room seems like an enclosure, or a jeweled cage where the prized myna bird is kept. Sometimes Sooyoung doesn’t even consider herself to be a prized possession. A commodity, she keeps in mind, just a mere commodity.

Sooyoung is not adventurous. She does not desire to venture over the vast heartlands or the rough terrain of the South. She enjoys simple company, giggly conversations and hopeful musings; and ironically, none of which she can acquire from the others. She remembers her times with Qian, Luhan, Mi, even Minseok and Jongin, well before everything had changed so drastically-

“Lady Choi, someone has come to see you.”

She lethargically tilts her head to the side. Her new servant is seemingly spiteful and her shrill voice is like poison to the ears, and thus Sooyoung is forced to bottle up her irritation and respond politely though she feels like having a go at the girl’s vocal cords. Her brutal thoughts are instantly swept off her mind when her eyes meet a pair of hazy, dark orbs.

“Luhan!” She squeals like a little child, blatantly forgets her position as one of the emperor’s concubines and bounds towards him with her arms outstretched. She comes to a halt barely a meter in front of him, and then retracts her arms. She suppresses her exuberance, smoothens her hair, clears - But it promptly backfires on her.

“Madam Choi,” Luhan bows politely. “I am Xi Luhan from the Internal Affairs Bureau. I hope you do not mind my abrupt visit. I-“

“Oh cut the formalities, Luhan!” She gushes, and then she motions for the servants to leave the room. “Finally, you’ve come to visit me! It’s been ages!” She stifles little giggles as she gestures him to a chair and he readily takes a seat. “How have you been? Have the people of the palace been treating you well? Do you still meet with Qian? Do you eat regularly? I suppose you don’t – you still look like a stick! What do you eat, really?”

He chuckles lightheartedly at her rapid release of questions, “I presume that your mannerisms would have become more refined, Madam Choi, but it seems quite the opposite, doesn’t it?” He teases her jocundly, and she responds him with a playful nudge. “You haven’t changed at all, Sooyoung.”

“Didn’t I become prettier? With the nice new hairstyle, pretty makeup and more expensive clothes?” She purposefully returns him with similar teases. He erupts in peals of boisterous laughter, and she cheerfully joins him. “You’re such a joker, Luhan, as usual. You haven’t changed either.”

“Don’t really intend to,” he shrugs his shoulders. “It won’t make much of a difference to me anyway. Attitude change only has big impacts for you people, since you’re all important and-“

“Don’t fool around, Luhan. You’re faking, as usual,” Sooyoung interjects, with a smile of elation still plastered on her face. But she reads him very accurately, and he is rather amused that she still remembers the details that the others have overlooked for years. “I’ve heard you’ve become rather popular in the palace, despite the fact that you’ve only been here for a few months.”

He emits a soft chortle, “Looks like I’ve been caught,” he sniggers; Sooyoung can’t help but inwardly swoon at the way he still seems like a dashing teenager at the peak of his adolescence rather than the grown man he is supposed to be. “I’m not popular, Sooyoung. People just talk - they spread gossip about some people they look down upon and afterwards they have a good laugh.”

“It’s not your fault,” Sooyoung says thoughtfully, “they just judge you too harshly. I mean, you’re not a laughing stock at all, Luhan. Just a bit unique when it comes to your morals and ideals. You manage to keep your dignity even when you do things that most people wouldn’t, and I think they’re just envious of that. The people of the palace practically don’t have dignities.”

Luhan laughs a little to drain the bitterness, “Not everyone discarded their dignities.”

“What do you mean?”

“Some people conceal it, some people expose it and let it be shattered by others; and there are some who simply can’t find it, no matter how much they try and make an assumption that they have already thrown it away,” he mutters, his focus trailing away from their conversation. “And the ironic thing is, they’ve still got their dignity strapped to their sides. They just need help finding it and realizing that they’ve been holding on to it all along.”

“Who do-“

“But you still have your dignity, don’t you, Sooyoung? Of course you do,” he speaks, maneuvering them back to their original conversation. He answers his own rhetorical question, and Sooyoung stiffens. “You won’t let it go, no matter what you do and no matter what others do to you.”

Sooyoung’s eyes linger over Luhan’s enigmatic smile and her heart trembles the same way it did when she spent that forlorn night in the emperor’s chamber. It quivers from the core, sending tremors to other parts of her body. It does not take long for her to realize that Luhan had said all his words for someone else.

And for the first time, Sooyoung realizes the possibility of losing him completely.

//

Spring. April 4, 657.

It is indubitably amusing how people presume that she has decided to forfeit her position just because fresh blood has not splashed on the executioner’s halberd and none of the concubines have become white-robed prisoners.

The emperor, dear Jiaheng, seems to think he and his little friend have escaped scot-free. Yoona watches them from the corner of her eye. She may not be able to conjure distinct perceptions of the girl enough to torment her, but she does know of her existence. Yoona is not blind, yet the court mocks her as if she is so.

The young, indomitable empress has eyes on her back. Hushed, sibilant voices ghost over her ears and the moment she whips her head round, she only sees the pretentious smiles that mark the faces of their equally pretentious owners. She knows what they say, what they surmise about her yet she knows they dare not say it aloud. Amidst their fabricated imperviousness she ponders to herself – Have I been like that? She wonders she has ever been impenetrable at all.

They mock her, she knows. They mock her for taking ten steps forward and suddenly one step back. They, with their innocent faces and outwardly innocuous words, truthfully find pleasure in the macabre bloodbath that is construed by her wrath. She does know that, and therefore has been employing this morally repugnant trait of theirs to her advantage. But it’s pretty humorous how tables turn and she becomes their next target, especially since she had been their employer earlier on.

Attention favors the wretched. When she stands upon the pedestal that everyone places her upon, she is the one to create damage and people will gawk at her in awe. But when she steps off the pedestal, she becomes their target of mockery. The concept is simple, simple but ghastly – when you are marked as a murderer you will never be marked as an innocent victim, no matter who you truly are.

And it is then when Yoona realizes that Luhan cared. Though he displayed it only subtly, he was and still is the only person in the palace who gives a damn for the quivering girl behind the fake sapphires.

//

Spring. April 10, 657.

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