Title: The Jade Princess

Genre: Romance, Historical Drama

Ratings: All ages

Part: Six/Seven

//

Spring. May 15, 657.

The drummers slam their hands against their newly crafted paper drums, beats reverberating through the vast, open air hall; the adolescent dancers sashay over the rough tiles and force out pretentiously naïve smiles to display their worth; the rambunctious laughter of the sitting officials, accompanied by the harsh clinking of rice-wine glasses signal the beginning of a new night of lust, avarice and infidelity. The supposedly jubilant festival instead moves in tandem with the emotions, the thoughts, the culpable deeds of the emperor; but it all slips past the fingers of the usually vigilant empress.

She sits next to her husband, draped in lush silks and brocaded in priceless pieces of jade. Her mind is a whirring ruckus of insuppressible conjectures, reusable tactics and probable consequences. Time is not a friend but her crafty admirer, for it gives her options – to retaliate, to restrain, or to forget, and funnily the magnitude of pain each option would have as a consequence is comparable. And time will still pass.

Her eyes linger on the officials, the ‘honored’ guests who she hardly has respect for, and her searching eyes land themselves on a particular bronze haired boy. They rest there comfortably, much to her discomfort. He is a handsome man who has handsome features, a handsome smile and a handsome heart – all of which she is so familiar with but they become magnified at that moment.

Her heart palpitates, a lump rises to and beads of perspiration magically appear on her palms. The booming of the drums is replaced by the pulsating of her heart, resonating through her ears and pounding against her head. Warmth sears from the pit of her stomach, billowing upwards and enveloping her heart, reducing her into an incoherent mess of trembling fingers and non-committal breaths.

She shuts her eyes and she smells sea salt, wet sand and dried seaweed; she feels the cool breeze brush past her fingertips and the little bits of sand dancing around her skin; she hears the sloshing of waves against the shore and the crush-crush of her soles kicking the sand. When her eyes open, she still sees a handsome man with a seemingly cherubic face who’s taller, older and sharper than she is, and has now got his eyes fixated on her.

He smiles, and she doesn’t know how to smile back.

Qian transfixes her eyes on the platform where the emperor and the empress are seated, where her lover and his faux partner-in-greatness are seated. Her eyes trail over the gold-encrusted seat, with majestic dragons inscribed upon it. The grandeur is supposed to hike her senses, but it is the dashing face of her lover that makes her heart skip a beat. A few days ago she had been dwelling over the prospect of sitting on that gold throne, but at that moment her utmost desire is to be the one next to him.

No doubt ambition has paved its way to her heart, but ambition itself has to have a particular goal linked to it. And it can’t just be power. It can’t just be a glittering crown and a glistening, embroidered robe. Ambition needs to be coupled with happiness as well. She desires both. She desires power and him.

They don’t have to burn in hell. They can smile, laugh and love together in heaven. They can be like that.

Jiaheng looks at Yoona from the corner of his eyes. The hall is laden with pulchritudinous dancers but she’s the apple of his eyes, like she always has been. Her, with her milk-white skin and doe-like eyes, with her glossy ringlets trailing over color-suffused cheeks, with tinted rouge barely concealing the inner child within… Yoona is a painting of grace, poise and elegance; and she is a woman of intellect, capability and strength. He adores her.

But when he follows her gaze, his heart crashes down. He doesn’t adore what he sees.

Yoona doesn’t need to look at Jiaheng to break him.

//

Spring. May 20, 657.

The sun sets, fading into the horizon and the moon looms over the deadened city of Chang’an in replacement. Jiaheng sweeps his gaze over the dark sky and wonders why the night only brings little rays of hope, why life itself has little despondent glimmers that are almost non-existent. He wonders why the world is lit up by virtual lights instead of the real ones. And he wonders why he’s conformed to being one of those virtual lights. He wonders why he can’t be real.

But Yoona is real. Indubitably real. Idyllically real. Perfectly real. Beauty is her friend, friendship is her utility, and utilizing her talents is her forte. What she begins, she will end. She will not yield and nothing will sway her. She lives in reality and will never stray from reality. She is the mother of the kingdom and he knows she will slog away her life as the kingdom’s pillar of support, even if it means putting forth her own contentment as a sacrifice.

Maybe she’s acquiring that strength from someone else. Someone else who’s not him. Because Jiaheng doesn’t possess such indomitable strength. He relies on her for strength, and the world doesn’t exactly have an abundant supply of strength either. That bright-eyed man with resemblance to a child; with that one gaze, Jiaheng remembers, he could tell that that man and Yoona are real. They’re real together. They’re shining together. They’re perfect together.

And they’re leaving no space for Jiaheng to continue the strength out of her.

He clambers up the steps to his residence, and when he passes through the curtained doorway to discover a lady awaits him, a lady who has been waiting for quite a while. Her name is Song Qian, she’s a bit older than him and she may be a worthy companion. She’s subconsciously morphing into another one of the women who he has utilized then discarded. He’s the executioner who’s putting her life on the line, and his halberd is hovering dangerously close to her neck.

She sinks to a bow, “Your Majesty.” As much vigor as her greeting contains, it seems morosely insipid to his ears. “Have you eaten? Would you like something to-“

He slips his arms around her waist, laying his head on her shoulder. “What do you think of me, Qian?” His murmur is tender, yet unbeknownst to her, that tenderness isn’t meant for her.

“You are a great man, Your Majesty,” she responds soothingly, resting her hands over his.

“Great? A useless smudging the throne, I am. What the late emperor would say of me, oh lord; I know he would be ashamed, repulsed to have such a son. He raised me to expand the kingdom that he has painstakingly acquired and I readily hand it over to someone else. I am a leech, Qian. A shameless leech the blood of the people, the officials, and…”

The empress.

Piercing words hover in the air, impatiently waiting to be blurted out. But out of all the nonsense that’s spurted out of his lips for the past twenty years, the worst nonsense would be for him to acknowledge that he’s nothing compared to a supposedly insignificant love rival. Like a loser who’s given up trying to win. A pathetic wimp who achieves nothing and desires to achieve nothing. 

But Qian hears it all. She hears everything that’s unsaid too. “I love you, Your Majesty,” she whispers. And she means it.

“I-“

“Do you love me, Your Majesty?”

I do, he wants to admit to her. But Jiaheng knows that love isn’t formed by amorous rendezvous, by delusional conversations and insubstantial promises. To him, love consists of shy glances, puerile laughter, intertwining hands, palpitating hearts- And shared children, shared duties, shared lives… Yoona is my reality, Yoona is my hope, Yoona is my love. But he crashes his lips against hers before those words slip out.

He wants to break her. He wants to break her because he can’t break Yoona. And as much as he wants to break Yoona, he doesn’t want to break Yoona either because he’s already broken her too many times to break her again.

Qian’s soul seems to crumble down before her eyes. He rips out a part of her heart and then she chides herself, knowing he isn’t supposed to have the liberty to rip it out. He’s supposed to be a damned ladder to hoist her up to achieve a more prominent status, for her to become an affluent and powerful lady in court. He’s not supposed to make her heart tremble so; he’s not supposed to let her choke back sobs. He’s not supposed to let her fall for him.  

It’s all spiraled into more than a mere power struggle. It isn’t just an unruly quest to reach the throne, depose of the empress and require some unjustified justice that she thinks she should attain. It’s now about love, about going back to that little girl who stepped into the palace because she wanted to admire its beauty.

Qian doesn’t know who the puppeteer is, but she knows her strings are now unbreakably bound to Li Jiaheng.

Living life in a delusion is beautiful, definitely. One can experience simple happiness without having to strive to acquire it. It’s a world where no such thing as perseverance exists. It’s just about moonlight floating on lily ponds, pleasure crinkling on satin sheets and poignant perfumes wafting through nostrils. But at the end of the day pain is multiplied, for one has to remind oneself that delusions and reality will never co-exist.

//

Spring. May 21, 657.

Yoona wakes up in cold sweat. Her nightmares whirl around her like they’re parts of her reality. Prevalent in her nightmares is the ghost of the most recent death – Jongin’s. In her sleep, he dies not once, not twice, but over and over again, a constant repetition and reminder of the wounded past. And then a probable future is carved, one where Wenrui doesn’t need her and Luhan betrays her, and they both leave her behind the same way her father and mother did.

But during the day, it is inevitable to feel her heart throbbing its way out of her chest. In front of that bronze-haired douche, she becomes an irrational wreck; she mocks herself openly and she quivers like a pig about to be roasted over the spit. It’s comical to think about it in a literal sense, but when she’s the person experiencing it, she feels fear. Fear to think that she’s no longer indestructible.

The sudden transition doesn’t seem plausible either. She warps from a formidable, all-kill empress to a weak-kneed, giggling little girl. She becomes the laughing stock of the servants, really. And it used to be controllable, those feelings used to be repressible. She could bite them back, run away when she felt them and call it a day. She never once needed to suffer under the torment of knowing that she’s overwhelmed by a feeling she’s never experienced and never properly understood.

It’s torture. Adrenaline pumping itself through her veins, her knees becoming jelly and her heart sickeningly contorted into all sorts of indistinguishable shapes; the constant reminder of her to keep composed because she’s got a reputation to uphold, a position to continue conforming to; and then there’s the barefaced fact that he can roam but she can’t. Her feelings are at his mercy and she’s never been manipulated like this before.

But it all boils down to this – she is and will always be the Empress of Tang. No one can manipulate her, no one can utilize her and no one can turn her into a fool; likewise she cannot succumb to insignificant emotions, convoluted manipulations and that stupid bronze-haired douche. And even if she does, she has to stop herself. She is the mother of the nation, the emblem of all that’s right and she can damn everything else that’s wrong.

“Minseok!”

Her scream echoes through the corridor and within seconds, the blotchy-eyed general has scampered his way into her room.

“Your Highness, what may I-“

“I order you to keep Xi Luhan away from me.”

His pupils dilate. “What?”

“I order you- No, I give you the power to command me, Minseok. If I ever make my way to Xi Luhan’s workplace, if I ever have the intention to send him gifts and if I ever even speak about Xi Luhan, you have the right to admonish me. Admonish me and remind me that I cannot even think about him.”

“But Your Highness-“

“Write an edict! Write a damned edict and then show it to me every time I mention his name! Ban him from my life!” She looks at him with bloodshot eyes, grasps him with both her hands. “Make sure that we never ever even think about each other again.”

She collapses back on her bed and buries her face in the sheets.

No more witty banters or childish quibbles. No more Luhan. No more visits to the dingy Internal Affairs Bureau. No more sitting at pavilions and watching Luhan complete his work. No more Luhan. No more sea salt, wet sand and dried seaweed; no more cool breeze and sand dancing around her skin; no more sloshing waves and crush-crush of soles kicking sand. No more handsome, cherubic man in front of her eyes. No more Luhan. No more hand-holding, no more piggybacking, no more humanity. No more Luhan. No more Luhan. No more Luhan.

There cannot be any more.

Tears brim her eyes but she forces them back, because she isn’t allowed to shed tears. Im Yoona does not shed tears for anyone.  

It always saves pain to prevent possible betrayal than to silence a betrayer. It saves even more pain to stop a man from entering your heart instead of having to cut him out.

//

Spring. May 22, 657.

The first sign of summer whirls in with weathering leaves and starkly sultry mornings. It’s come a little too early and spring contends with it to be prolonged for a few more days. Yoona awakes with a throbbing headache and as she purposefully treads on grass patches and newly sprouted flower buds, she prays for spring to dissipate along with her memories of it.

Spring is very defensive, however; every part of the groomed greenery and blossomed flowers seem to chant to her. They chant at her to crumble, to wither, to lose. What’s more, only after one day since she’s made her not-quite-but-supposed-to-be staunch promise. Nothing is defeated without proper contest, even when she’s contending against herself. And Yoona realizes that she’s learning it the hard way when she finds stones in and her heart on her sleeve.

“Yoona?”

A familiar voice hurtles through her ears and Yoona recognizes it almost immediately. Oh god oh god, she just had to encounter him in her most vulnerable state.

She whips her head around and tugs on her habitual veneer – a fabricated smile that kicks the heaven and hell out of all living creatures that surround her. She sees red-gold robes and glimmering tassels; she bows and avoids his eyes for her own eyes are being unnecessarily truthful at that moment. Honesty isn’t a very favorable weapon.

“You rise early, my lord,” she greets.

“I suppose it’s your usual hour of awakening, Yoona.” She shivers at the emphasis of her name. It sounds out-of-place, unfamiliar amidst the stringent normalcy that she tries to sustain. She holds herself from retching and lets him continue. “Your health has always been enviable; your early mornings must contribute to it.”

Jiaheng makes futile attempts to compliment her and she suppresses snaps. Her usual routines of avoiding the daylight and facing the darkness have been disrupted, and his comments seem like direct insults to her pride. “I advise you to watch over your own health, Your Majesty,” she rebuts. “My health is hardly something for you to be concerned about.” She strides away but doesn’t forget her initial source of frustration.

His heart’s already in pieces; the glass shards of her words cannot pierce him any further. “I have not paid attention to your health for seven years, Yoona. It is time that I do.” He uses a gentle approach, and she freezes at the sincerity. He takes a few steps forward, places a hand on her shoulder and turns her around. Her unblinking eyes stare into his for awhile, and for the first time there isn’t any hate in her orbs.

She shoves his hand away, albeit softer than her usual shoves. She opens but emits no sound; for a moment she thinks she’s lost her voice, but no, a few incoherent croaks are produced. She realizes that it’s her heart that has lost its voice.

“Admonish me, Yoona,” he requests. Her silence frightens him. “Berate me.” He gazes deeply into her eyes, his grip on her tightening. “Please.” And this time it comes out more like a pleading beg rather than a formal requisition.

Yoona doesn’t know if this is the world she belongs in. A world where she spends her life toiling for a distant kingdom, a distant court, a distant husband; the product is her becoming distant to herself. A world where everyone pretentiously bows at her feet and worships the ground she walks on, where the earth moves at her command; the world that she is supposed to belong in, yet the world that does not belong to her.

But maybe she can exist there, just with a few alterations. Maybe she can just continue being that formidable empress, just that from now onwards she can have a formidable emperor aiding her fully. Maybe she can be a good mother, just that from now onwards there’ll be a good father giving her support. Maybe she can be a scrupulous wife, just that from now onwards there’ll be a scrupulous husband standing next to her. Maybe she can be in love, just that from now onwards she’ll have to avert love to the right path.

Then again, it’s all a bunch of worthless ‘maybes’.

When he moves forward and their faces are inches away, she realizes what’s about to happen. “Jiaheng, the servants can-“ She wants to invent an excuse. She wants to run away. She becomes so unnerved that her formalities perish.

“It doesn’t matter.”

For a fleeting moment she hears another voice and sees another pair of doe-like eyes reflected in Jiaheng’s orbs. His sharp features vanish, to be replaced by a cherubic smile. He surges forward and presses his lips against hers, and the familiarly handsome face disappears. It dissolves into an old scene of the past, one of her being pressed against unfamiliar satin sheets and lying next to someone she didn’t know-

Yoona pushes Jiaheng away and runs. Her heart burns.

And not too far away, that pair of doe-like eyes watches her. Automatically, Luhan’s heart begins to burn.

//

Spring. May 24, 657.

“She doesn’t want to see you,” Minseok barks, lunging forward and grasping Luhan by the collar. He prevents him from taking a step further, but only barely. Luhan obstinately shoves Minseok away and Minseok grasps him again. “Didn’t you hear me? Her Highness doesn’t want to see you!”

His attempted hinder is to no avail. “I’m the one who decides whether we both should see each other or not,” Luhan mutters brutally. “She doesn’t decide everything.”

“Luhan, this will-“

“I don’t care what implication will befall-“

Minseok’s fist collides with Luhan’s jaw and Minseok half-hopes he dislocates it so that dimwit won’t be able to act like some bloody smart-alec any longer. “Don’t,” Minseok warns, his chest rising. “It’s for your own good.”

Luhan rubs his sore jaw, shooting Minseok a pointed glare. “I’ll decide what’s good for me on my own, thanks. Just go polish your bloody sword so when the time comes, you can have the honor of slicing my head off.”

Minseok watches him trudge up the steps and hopes that he’ll walk out with his limbs still attached to his body.

Yoona paces back and forth about the room, attempting to retain the little sanity she has left. She winces when she hears boisterous yells resonating from the entrance and a sickening crunch – she knows Minseok has remained faithful to his tasks. The one unfaithful is her, her who juggles unstable emotions and covers it with a transient veneer. The loud thumping of footsteps and the wild palpitating of her heart follows next, and Yoona considers stuffing her fist in to suppress it all.

The doors burst open, pushed with so much force that Yoona can feel her eardrums vibrate. She inhales slowly before whirling around, holding up her chin and putting on the façade of indignation. “How dare you enter without my permission,” she starts. “I have ordered no one to enter and the consequences will be-“

“Dire?”

Bright eyes taunting her with their inscrutable fury, he mocks her with one word – the finish to her sentence. His wrath is undoubtedly incurred; she does remember the last time she incurred his wrath and she remembers how she never wants to incur his wrath again. She freezes when she realizes she’s weighing the options – why does she need to weigh the options? Why should she cower away in fear? For lord’s sake, she is the Empress of Tang!

“Get out, Luhan,” she cautions. “Get out now, and I will spare your-“

“Spare my life? I don’t need you to spare my life, Your Highness,” he laughs, but she knows he’s not being humorous. “I’d rather you killed me instead of holding that dagger on top of my head and leaving it lingering there.”

Yoona draws her breath, “I hold no dagger.”

“Your Highness, you know much better than I do how tightly you grip the hilt,” he says through gritted teeth, dangerously stepping forward and causing her heart to pound harder. “It’s either you stab me or you don’t stab me. Don’t leave the damn thing hanging there!”

He’s less than a meter away from her, and she feels like her heart is in . She clears , calms her nerves and evades his sharp gaze before she falls deeper into the pit of inebriation. “You act like a child, Luhan,” she admonishes, and that’s the only way to veil her own incoherency, her own childishness. “You are letting your imaginations run wild. What dagger? Why would I stab you? Ridiculous. You are becoming ridiculous.”

Nothing slips from Luhan’s fingers; he’s perfectly capable of catching her smoke. “So, your evasion of me is a way to ridicule me? Ridiculous are your methods, Your Highness, not mine.”

“The nerve of you!” She exclaims, and then lowers her voice before she unintentionally reveals everything she’s been clinging onto. “I suggest you leave, Luhan. It is the respect I have for you and what you have done for me that I let you keep your life.” She keeps her composure but her patience, her rationality and her calmness is wearing thin.

“Respect?” He erupts in caustic laughter. “I haven’t done for you, Your Highness, and you’re letting me keep my life? How about those who did all that for you, huh? You killed them, and I bloody forgave your for every damn-“

That does it. “Forgive me? What right do you have