I Will Help You Cross The River - Part 1

Li Ji wrapped over her under-garments a plain linen shenyi, the robe long enough not to expose her legs, but short enough not to drag on the floor and her ankles to peekabo. She had refilled the lamp with oil, and the steps of her golden embroidered shoes shimmered under the soft light as they now followed the prince to his bedchambers.

Kiyomi walked weightlessly across the courtyard, clothed with white under-robes below which showed fir-tree-green trousers embroidered with a subtle flora pattern. It gladdened Li Ji to see him wearing green, any shades of green for that matter.

Truth be told, she pleaded with him to wear green—the colour of good health, hope and harmony.

So he wore a touch of green, always. Green—the colour he disliked.

Kiyomi sank back gently on his pillow. She sat down on a plaited bamboo stool maintaining her usual respectful posture. The moonlight filtering through the screen curtains reflected the frightening paleness of his face.

"Since taking the new medicinal decoction have you experienced any side-effects?"

He shook his head for no.

"Is the pain under control? Is the efficacy of the medicine enough?"

"Do not fret. Your healing hands and daily practice of Neidan meditation techniques are keeping my bouts of illness at bay." He closed his eyes. "Please, calm my wandering mind and read for me."

With a curt nod she opened his favourite book, "The Watery Moon." It was a collection of elegiac poems. She returned to where the previous reading session had ended and languidly intoned each piece of poetry, reading till two third of the incense stick had turned to ash.

…"Under the eternal moon there is no more time,

"Only the ceaseless rise and fall of changing moods.

"Can I ever forget the springtime of our childhood?"*(1)

He turned slightly on his side, supporting his head with one hand, and he spoke with his signature voice which had a slowness as if time had stopped and no other person mattered the most but you alone: "As always, the little rise and fall of your pitch are both melodious, and sorrowful like the strings of the erhu. The experience exists as you read and so I too experience it."

She shyly lowered her head at the compliment, smiling. "I have a great teacher." Then she continued reading, and with each turn of the pages she was very much aware of his every toss and turn.

The tumult of thoughts, the eddy and eddy. Kiyomi's head still spinning, spinning into darkness. If only Chuángshén, the sleep deity, were to visit him he could forget those oppressive thoughts crushing his bones.

Finally, he sat upright on his bed, sighing wearily and heavily. Li Ji closed the book of poems and put it down on the bedside table. She leaned in to inquire about his restlessness.

"Are you gloomy because we couldn't acquire the black powder?"

He shifted on the edge of the bed and stayed quiet for several minutes as if he had a lot of rumination inside his head. His eyes were as stationary as the silhouette of his feet, which was where they rested.

"Li Ji, am I longing for the unattainable?"

He lifted his face and she met with the bloodshot state of his eyes. Those most sincere pair of eyes habitually showed the hidden emotions within his soul even if he didn't want to show it. However, in that precise moment those eyes shared nothing. No longer they flickered all the hundred human feelings. His lifeless expression remaining as unchangeable as marble had drown Li Ji in total disorientation.

"Your Highness…?"

He was staring blankly at the dull flickering light from the oil lamp. His thin lips moved like they were heavy, like it required an effort to move.

"Just now I recall a letter that my stepmother had sent me. After the death of my mother, father emperor had never visited once to comfort me. I felt alone and abandoned. There used to be times the naive child I was thought that the empress and I could get along, that maybe she would adopt me. After all, half the blood coursing through her son's veins is the same blood as mine.

"How happy I was that day when I received words from my brother's mother. It was the first time she had shown sincere interest toward me, and during that moment I held her handwritten letter in my hands I thought her heart had softened. As a mother herself, how could she not relate to my suffering? I still vividly recall every words she wrote. But her ink offered no comfort, only her resolution to alienate me, a guarantee that I could never contemplate the throne. Well, in retrospective, her letter was a self-congratulatory letter of victory. And so, she gradually and totally isolated me."

"What did she write?"

"Even after reading her letter, I could not help but feel a wisp of warmth because her words showed that she had gotten to know me a little bit. How pathetic was I to hang onto this thin thread of hope that her interest in me proved she could learn to like me! She knew that this eleven years-old boy was bright enough to understand her threats written into the shape of what I love the most reading; poems.

"Across the river an Ingot of gold,

The river is deep, its water wide;

That prize your hands will never hold

Because you are on the opposite side!" *(2)

His tone of voice revealing a trace of fragility and boundless despair battered Li Ji's soul. She looked away, she couldn't bear it. There was no limit to this woman's cruelty!

"I do not know what I have done that I deserved so much hate, I never coveted the throne naturally belonging to my brother. Too many people have died because of me and this crown, and for what purpose? What have I done…?"

"Your Highness, we did what we had to do to survive, hoping to avenge our loved ones and to punish those who committed evil deeds."

"Am I on the opposite side of the river?"

"The throne is rightly yours! The river might be deep and the waters wide, but I trust that you will rise as the emperor for yourself as well as for those innocent souls who have died. You are not alone. And I know you will succeed because you always keep your promises."

She gave a small, hopefully encouraging smile.

"I am afraid that every decision I made so far have sent all of us on the wrong path."

"My prince, that fear will keep you going on the right path. Never let go of it."

"I promised to be your saviour, but how can I be this man if I lead you all to your death?"

"If you hesitate crossing this river, then it is better for you not be our saviour!"

"What should I then be?"

"Be a wicked man. Because a wicked man lives forever. And so do his people. And a wicked man wouldn't torment himself about us."

"A wicked man instead of a saviour? Live forever… you are asking me to be a monster."

His face darkened and those remarkable eyes alighted with a strange fire.

"Oh, Li Ji… I am already that monster! I feel a sickness crawling within me… the colour of the blood on my hands is burned into my mind along with all the faces of the souls I have killed… and some were my friends..." A small sob worked his way out of his throat and he crumpled at her feet into his knees, not taking his eyes of his shaking hands. "I tried to wash off this sticky blood between my fingers but I cannot… with every passing day I recall their faces… they visit me at night and rip my heart out… over and over… I feel a strange sickness creeping within my mind… Li Ji…"

His dark eyes seemed to be searching for something in hers, something out of his sight; and his hands reached out in the air also wanted to grasp onto something.

His voice was that wrenching, with a desolate sense of being lost, and that hopeless and that helpless; it choked her. Her throat tightened so much that she could hardly breathe.