I want to take her hand and touch the brick on the imperial desk that was sent from the West—the three characters "Xie Zhaoning" are crookedly engraved on the brick.
The edges still bear the lingering warmth of the kiln fire; it was fired by an eighty-year-old elder from the tribe, his hands trembling as he kneaded the clay.
The fingerprints were deeply embedded in the brick surface, as if a lifetime of gratitude had been etched into his very bones.
Let her see Haoyue curled up in the corner of the table. Now she is a plump, round snowball. When she sees her, she will jump up from the brocade cushion and rub her head against the back of her hand.
I want to tell her all of this, down to the smallest detail.
The granary was full of freshly milled rice, the grains shining like broken gold. When the Minister of Revenue submitted his memorial last month, his beard was sticking up to his eyebrows.
Holding the ledger close to me, he pointed at it with his fingertips and said, "Your Majesty, look, this is rice from Yunzhou and wheat from Liangzhou. The granaries are overflowing, enough to supply the army for ten years."
"If we can provide disaster relief for another three years, even in years of famine, the people will not go hungry."
The trade routes in western Xinjiang extended all the way to the end of the Amu Darya River, and even Persians from further afield rode camels to exchange for tea.
The envoy held up a tightly packed tea brick and spoke in broken Central Plains dialect.
"Zhaoning's tea is sweeter than Persian honey. Our king drinks it every day and says he wants to be friends with Zhaoning forever."
The students who advocated literature were already able to argue with the old ministers until their faces turned red with fervor. There was a poor scholar named Zhou Jin who, when discussing "selecting officials from poor families,"
He slammed his scepter and loudly proclaimed, "Powerful families occupy official positions like fertile fields; their roots must be uprooted so that the poor scholars of the world may have a chance to rise."
His words were even more incisive than those of Zhang Yan, the censor who impeached the Lü family for corruption back then. Even Pei Yanci nodded, holding his teacup, and said, "This child has the courage of the regent back then, daring to speak the truth."
The general in charge of Xuanwu was strategizing in front of the sand table, tracing the marching route in the fine sand with his finger, thus avoiding the enemy's supply lines.
Even the old general who had guarded the border for thirty years stroked his gray beard and nodded.
He said, "This spirit of 'using the unorthodox to defeat the orthodox' is exactly like how the Regent King repelled the enemy in the Northern Di."
At that time, she also circled around to the enemy's rear and cut off their supply lines.
But things didn't go as planned.
After the morning court session that day, a eunuch entered carrying an ivory plaque carved with lotus scrolls. He was bowing so low that his back almost touched the ground, and he said in a low voice, "Your Majesty, former Left Chancellor Su Jinyun requests an audience."
My fingers tightened around the cards, the cool ivory seeping into my skin through my fingers, even the calluses on my palms from years of holding a pen couldn't withstand the chill.
Su Jinyun is a veteran official who served three dynasties and is also the regent's wife.
After the regent left, she resigned from her position as prime minister and secluded herself from visitors, planting the double-petaled crabapple trees that Qianluo had loved to cultivate in her residence.
When the flowers bloomed in spring, they covered the courtyard like a layer of powdery snow, but no one ever picked a single branch to take to the palace.
Even the servants in the mansion dared not mention the words "Regent," for fear of touching a sore spot. This was the first time she had taken the initiative to step into the palace.
Before long, the sound of a jade staff tapping the ground came from outside the hall, one sound after another, slow and deep.
It was like a dull hammer striking the string of my heart that had been taut for years, each strike making my chest feel tight and my breathing heavy.
When I looked up, I saw her walking in, leaning on a jade cane. Her head was covered in frost, and there wasn't a single black hair to be found at her temples.
It was as if time had turned his hair white overnight. The plain-colored brocade robe he wore had faded a bit from washing, but the collar was still crisp and without a single wrinkle.
His back was as straight as a pine tree when he was in the imperial court, slapping his tablet and cursing the scions of noble families for "corrupting the country," showing no sign of losing his momentum.
She walked into the hall, and without waiting for the eunuchs to help her, she slowly sat down, leaning on her jade cane, the brocade stool creaking softly under her weight.
My gaze first fell on the memorial on my desk regarding "five thousand shi of wheat from the Western Frontier," and then slowly moved to Haoyue, who was dozing in the corner of the desk.
The melancholy in his eyes was like thick, unyielding ink, making it hard to breathe, and even the flickering candlelight in the hall seemed to dim.
"Your Majesty." When she spoke, her voice was hoarse from years of hardship, yet it was still clear enough to pierce the silence of the hall.
Each word was like a jade staff falling on a bluestone, carrying an unavoidable weight: "Qianluo has been gone for so many years, it's time for her to find a place to return to."
My hand holding the vermilion brush suddenly stopped, and a drop of ink from the tip of the brush smeared into a small black blot next to the words "five thousand shi of wheat from the Western Frontier" in the memorial.
Like an indelible scar, it covered half of the character "麦" (wheat).
The bright moon on the table seemed to sense the somber atmosphere, and it climbed up from the brocade cushion next to the stove and crawled up my sleeve.
The little paws scratched at my wrist, the pads of its paws rubbing against my cold skin, and it made a faint "meow" sound, but I unconsciously held it down.
I'm afraid it will make a fuss at this moment, interrupting this long-cherished thought, and I'm even more afraid that I won't be able to hold back.
This is the man who watched me learn to speak and cry while clutching my father's robes.
Before the old ministers who had grown up to hold absolute power and dared to reduce the fiefdoms of powerful families, the emperor revealed his vulnerability and shed tears he shouldn't have.
Su Jinyun looked at me, her eyes filled with sorrow but also with a hint of understanding.
It's as if it saw through all my self-deception over the past few years; it even knew about my little habit of looking back at the door of the Imperial Study when I was reviewing documents at night.
"This old minister knows Your Majesty's thoughts. I always feel that if no tomb is built, she will still be here, still be able to push open the door to this Imperial Study, and still be able to accompany Your Majesty to review memorials until late at night."
The tea on the stove would get cold and then hot again; if you were sleepy, she would even take a piece of milk shortbread from her sleeve and hand it to you.
She raised her hand and wiped the corner of her eye with a handkerchief. The bright yellow tassels hanging from the top of her jade staff swayed gently, making one's eyes dizzy.
"But the living must look forward. His Majesty holds this vast land in his hands and the livelihoods of countless people in his hands. He cannot be trapped in his thoughts forever."
The deceased deserve a proper resting place; we can't let her drift through this world like a gust of wind, year after year.
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