The tomb of the saint (5)

Chapter Summary: Jun Hahara's Infiltration and Final Farewell.

Caesar had always wanted to get rid of the pendant engraved with Gratian's name. But he never truly did.

Did you know that marble looks hard, but it's actually soft?

I woke up again on my large bed in the palace. I don't know how many times I've woken up here. My body is always in a half-awake, half-floating state. Later I learned that a dispute had broken out among the imperial high command, or more precisely, a coup d'état against Emperor Gratian. The subjects mourned the death of the crown prince (the child of Gratian and Yang Luo), saying that His Majesty was a hero of his time, yet his life was so full of misfortune; his child died shortly after birth, and the empress had mysteriously left. But the imperial generals seemed to have information that other commoners couldn't access; they accused the emperor of cruelty and immorality, unfit to be emperor. Then, many nobles and ministers also submitted impeachments, mainly on the grounds that "His Majesty's morning court sessions are too long, exhausting everyone," and so on. The core of the coup was the imperial generals and their troops. Gratian retained his throne and power. I don't know how he did it. During that period, entire families of imperial nobles were repeatedly executed or exiled, and many were forcibly relocated to remote star systems for development.

Jun Yeyuan found me; I was still lying in bed, unable to move. I truly couldn't move. My left leg, due to prolonged blood loss, was in a state of semi-paralysis. I still had sensation to external stimuli, but it wouldn't obey my brain. She said she would take me away; the rest of the 14th Fleet didn't support her actions, but she hadn't given up; she wanted to rescue me.

"Okay... what about the rest of the fleet? Is everyone alright?"

They escaped from prison while the emperor and imperial generals were fighting amongst themselves, and are still lingering within the empire, planning a final desperate attempt by infiltrating the palace.

“Everyone was calling me a crazy woman, saying that rescuing the general was hopeless and that I was just asking for death.” She laughed and then cried. “But I said I wanted to come, I wanted to save you. If you die, I won’t live either. I told them to go first and not to worry about me, but no one left. Tell me, General, aren’t these people stupid? It was my own decision, but they insisted on coming.”

“Yuan Chun, I can’t walk anymore. I really can’t walk anymore.” I said gently. “My legs are useless, and I’m quite ill. Even if I go out with you, I won’t live for more than a few years… Don’t cry, don’t cry, you should leave before the emperor finds out.”

"Leave? What's the point of me leaving alone if I don't take you with me?"

“You should at least think about the rest of the 14th Fleet. They are still in danger.”

I noticed that the Imperial soldiers on duty outside the mansion had changed shifts, but it didn't seem to be their usual time to change shifts. I didn't know if Gratian had already noticed something amiss. He was busy purging the nobles and ministers in court, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be paying attention to what was happening here.

I urged her to run away again. She refused no matter what I said.

“If you don’t leave, I’ll call Imperial soldiers to arrest you and the rest of the fleet. It’s better than being riddled with bullets on your escape route.”

I placed my hand next to the bell. "I'll count to ten. You'd better disappear from my sight by then. Ten, nine, eight, seven..."

“Caesar!” her cry was urgent and tearful. Suddenly, Ye Yuanjun grabbed my hand and pulled me towards her. She pressed down on my shoulders and forced me onto the hospital bed. My face remained calm; I had guessed she was going to do this the moment she entered my bedroom. But back then, she still harbored a sliver of unrealistic fantasy—like taking me away, like living with me. Living in the house the old alliance had bought for me under a false name; we would be an ordinary couple, retired from the military.

I felt myself coming, almost painfully. Beneath her palms. She was crying; she was well-prepared. I encountered no resistance as I entered; the only problem was that I couldn't move. She braced herself against me with both hands, and I gasped for breath. Her tears flowed more freely, becoming even wetter. I was enveloped by an overwhelming sensation. She forced herself on me many times, and the last time, a feeling of impending death overwhelmed me. She contracted, taking in everything that had left my body. She lay against my chest, her long hair brushing against my neck.

"Caesar, Caesar, I truly love you... Why, why will you never even look at me?"

That was the first and last time I gave it to her. She didn't use any contraception, deliberately letting me stay inside her. I don't remember when it ended; by the end, I was delirious, only vaguely remembering a bright green glimpse in my vision. Right, the pothos. That pothos. I planted it when I first came to the Empire. Its leaves are no longer as tender as a baby's fist. The sunlight on the windowsill is bright, golden light dancing in the air, and the pothos's outstretched leaves resemble a young boy's open palm.

When the Imperial soldiers arrived, Jun Hahara and the 14th Fleet had already fled. The soldiers carried me, half-dead and filthy, to find a doctor.

The Emperor came to see me, but he was always asleep when I was awake. He looked quite exhausted. During that time, the Empire was plagued by problems; some Imperial generals had defected and started civil wars in other star systems. Caligula proposed combining the power of the Tree of Zeus and the Intelligence Bureau to create a super-monitoring network spanning the entire galaxy, nipping any potential rebellions and wars in the bud. The Emperor agreed. Soon, those rebellious generals were killed one by one. The army underwent a major reorganization, with all armies belonging to local warlords or former central generals now under the Emperor's command. Glatian finally secured his throne. The Tree of Zeus, initially a wartime emergency force, did not disappear with the end of the war; on the contrary, the information network built by the Intelligence Bureau and the Tree of Zeus began to routinely monitor the thoughts and lives of all his subjects. Caligula's personal power reached a new level. But he was very humble, attributing all the glory to the Emperor himself.

A few more years passed. A few years? My sense of time became blurred long ago; now I've completely forgotten how many years older I've gotten. I only feel that my health is deteriorating year by year, and I'm feeling unwell more and more often. I really don't have many years left to live, perhaps even shorter than Gratian, who was prone to fevers for years.

In recent years, the vegetation around the palace has become much more lush. I can stroll on the lawn and by the lake, or sit for hours in the shade of a tree, dappling the ground and my body with warm sunlight filtering through the leaves. Sometimes I drift off to sleep and dream of many things from the past.

One evening I woke up and returned to the house feeling incredibly tired. Even though I had just woken up, I still wanted to lie back down on the bed and go back to sleep. The lights in the living room were on.

"Caesar, have you had dinner?"

"No." I took off my coat and hung it on the coat rack by the door. I bent down and opened the shoe cabinet, where I saw the emperor's boots.

"I'd like to eat with you today. Is that alright?"

"Yes, that's fine," I said.

Gratian got up from the sofa and ran into the kitchen, the sound of running water filling the air. I went in and found him staring blankly at something on the top of the refrigerator, his hand submerged in the running water. I glanced at it; it was the marble pendant he had given me a long, long time ago. I reached out, discreetly took the pendant, and stuffed it into my coat pocket, saying, "Your Majesty, it's getting late. Don't you have a meeting tomorrow to amend the inheritance law? What would you like to make for dinner?"

His name was engraved on the marble: "Gratianus." My fingertips traced the patterns on the front of the pendant; even without seeing it, I could feel the indentation of every cut, every corner of every letter. Some parts had been smoothed out by me.

"It's best not to put the pendant in places like the kitchen. Places where blood is frequently seen and things aren't very clean."

"There's such a thing?"

“Yes,” he said seriously. “Marble is very white and gets dirty very easily.”

"I just put it on the refrigerator. No, not near the knife or cutting board. It wasn't near the oven or the stove or anything."

"But there's a piece of glass on top of your refrigerator."

"so what?"

He lowered his head. His fair earlobes were a delicate pink. "This pendant is a pair, do you remember? I've always kept the one with your name engraved on it carefully," the emperor said, pulling a pendant strung on an exquisite metal chain from his collar; the pendant was crudely made, a spur-of-the-moment creation he'd made years ago from a random stone he'd picked up from the ground. I imagine the pendant still carries his warmth. "Glass is too hard; blood will contaminate it. In short, it's not suitable for places with glass or knives. Artists like to carve images in marble and preserve them permanently. But that's impossible. Marble sounds hard, but it's actually soft."

When I don't want to see this pendant and the name on it, I just toss it anywhere. If I just leave it lying around, even I won't be able to find it for a while. That feeling of losing and forgetting it brings me a sense of peace. Gratian, however, found it easily.

The departure of Empress Yang Luo remains an unsolved mystery.

Imperial rumors circulated that the Empress had fallen in love with a handsome and talented young man of humble origins, became pregnant with his child, and eloped with him (evidence being that the Empress was carrying an infant when she left). As for why the Emperor wasn't in a hurry to bring the Empress back, it was because the young man had been deeply favored by the Emperor, and the Emperor didn't want him to be executed under imperial law for this. A man who has lost his wife is tragic, because after the incident, the Emperor smiled less and less in public. After the political situation stabilized, the intelligence agency proposed investigating what happened that year. The Emperor neither confirmed nor opposed it. Yang Luo was finally found after seven years on the run. She had raised a seven-year-old boy, whom she doted on. People said she was undoubtedly the child's biological mother. Caligula informed the Emperor of this after gathering some information. What truly enraged the Emperor was a photograph. The boy's black hair, gentle features, and lips—Glatian immediately thought of me. He questioned me, "How can this child look so much like you? Caesar, what have you done? You and Yang Luo had this child?"

"This child has half my blood."

“He is not Yang Luo’s child,” I said.

The emperor didn't believe it. "Since that's the case, and you are the child's father, then go and bring him back. I want to see him properly."

I saw the child's icy blue eyes. Stars, the vast ocean, the eternal ice plains—he looked at me, and I felt as if I were gazing up at the cold, dark, endless sky. In that instant, I immediately thought of his other father.

"Your Highness, the woman resisted too fiercely. We were afraid of hurting your child, so we didn't dare to rush in directly just now." The imperial soldiers were soaked and disheveled in the heavy rain.

Give me the gun.

"Your Highness?" the soldier asked, but without much hesitation, "If you intend to kill that madwoman, we can cooperate with your operation. Please order the entrances and exits of the villa sealed off, and the snipers on higher ground can also assist you..."

He looks just like Gratian. My Gratian.

Gratian wanted me to take him back.

I won't do that; I have to kill him.

——tbc——