Desperate Straits and Rebirth

Winter in the twenty-fourth year of Hongzheng's reign seemed colder than in years past. Snow had fallen several times in succession, and only today had it finally let up a little.

On a narrow road thirty li outside the capital, a black horse galloped past with two riders on its back. Snow flew up beneath its hooves, settling slowly only after the pair had disappeared into the distance.

"My Prince, the horse cannot carry two people much farther... Let your subject down..." The man seated behind him sounded weak, but his voice was as gentle as ever.

"No! You're so badly wounded. If I leave you in the snow, you'll be dead in no time!" Jing Shao wiped the ice from his face, clamped his legs against the horse's flanks, and urged it on. The moment he emerged from prison, he had realized something was wrong with the men who had come to release him. If they were escorting him to the Shu region, they should at least have seen to his gravely wounded Prince's Consort. Instead, they had hustled the two of them away without a word. Had he not killed an officer and seized a horse, he would probably have lost his head as soon as they left the capital.

"My body is beyond saving. I'll die sooner or later. Hurry and let me down!" The man behind him was growing anxious. This was no exceptional steed. After galloping so long with two people on its back, it had begun to pant heavily. At this rate, neither of them would survive.

"No! If we die, we die together!" Jing Shao shouted into the freezing wind. This man was his Prince's Consort, his lawfully wedded wife, yet for more than a decade Jing Shao had neglected him, favoring his concubines at his wife's expense. In the end, the only one who had shared his imprisonment and taken a blade for him was the male wife he had resented all those years!

Jing Shao was the First Empress's second son. He had gone to war at fourteen, been made a prince while still a youth, and won illustrious military honors. Men of the Chen dynasty were permitted to take male wives, and an unwritten rule held that sons born to concubines should do so to preserve peace within the household. But he was a son of the principal wife. Yet the Successor Empress had used the existence of his elder full brother as a pretext to force him to marry a man, cutting him off from succession to the throne. He had resented it, refused to accept it. He had never shown his lawful wife a kind face, nor had he been willing to help his brother win that position with all his heart...

"Heh. What virtue or ability do I, Mu Hanzhang, possess to deserve having you die with me, my Prince?" The man behind him gave a bitter laugh.

"I've wronged you. If we survive this, I'll do whatever you say." Jing Shao tried to soothe him. Holding the reins in one hand, he used the other to tighten the knot in the rope binding them together. Another five li would bring them to Wangyue Slope. There was a trail there that he often took when hunting, one that led straight to Fengyue Mountain. Once they were in the mountains, hiding would be easier.

"Cough, cough, cough..." Speaking into the wind had forced cold air down Mu Hanzhang's throat. He slumped against Jing Shao's back, racked by a sudden fit of coughing, and a thread of fresh blood trickled from the corner of his pale lips. He had taken a blade for Jing Shao in prison, suffering injuries to his internal organs. Every jolt had brought another stab of pain. Now the bitter cold had numbed the wound, but since he was already coughing blood... With a rueful smile, he simply rested against Jing Shao's back.

After so many years of neglect, even the concubines dared flaunt their power over him. How could he not resent it? If Jing Shao insisted on dying with him, then let him. Mu Hanzhang thought bitterly that he might as well give up trying.

A concubine-born son of a marquis, he had spent ten years studying diligently. He had never hoped that his father would pass the title on to him; all he wanted was to earn distinction through the examinations and leave that household as soon as possible. Yet the year before he was to sit the metropolitan examination, his father and his father's principal wife had ordered him to marry Prince Cheng as his male wife! He was a man, yet they had ruthlessly clipped his wings and confined him to the cramped world of the inner household, leaving him no chance to realize his ambitions. After all these years, he no longer knew whom to blame: his heartless legal mother or this irresponsible husband.

"They're up ahead!" Hoofbeats sounded behind them, mingled with the clatter of armor and weapons and a jumble of shouts. Every sound was a summons to death.

Jing Shao lashed the horse's rump hard and raced headlong toward Wangyue Slope.

Whoosh! An iron arrow sliced through the air behind him. Jing Shao leaned aside with perfect timing, pulling the man behind him sideways as well.

"Hold on tight to me!" Jing Shao shouted.

Mu Hanzhang wrapped both arms around Jing Shao's waist and pressed himself to his back, moving with him.

Beyond Wangyue Slope lay a forest trail where they could more easily evade arrows. Jing Shao deftly guided the horse between the trees, gradually leaving their pursuers farther behind.

"Does your wound hurt?" Jing Shao hauled on the reins to help the horse clear a large rock, then glanced back to ask once they had landed.

"No... it doesn't..." The answering voice was growing fainter.

"Hanzhang, don't fall asleep!" Jing Shao's brows drew together as he called to him anxiously. "Beyond Fengyue Mountain is Yan Commandery. Some of my former soldiers are there. They'll surely be able to help us escape our pursuers!" He was encouraging himself as much as comforting the other man. After so long in prison, dressed in such thin clothes, he had made it this far on willpower alone.

The horse beneath them suddenly neighed and went wild. Jing Shao kicked hard against its belly, seized Mu Hanzhang, and twisted as he leaped clear. Looking closely, he saw that someone had set an animal trap here. It had caught the horse's hoof.

"Just leave me here," Mu Hanzhang said, clinging to his last shred of lucidity.

"We're already halfway up Fengyue Mountain. It's all downhill from here. I'll carry you!" Jing Shao glanced around. A sheer rock face rose on one side, and on the other lay a steep slope overgrown with tangled weeds. This was the only mountain trail; they would be in trouble if their pursuers caught up. Without another word, he hoisted Mu Hanzhang onto his back and plunged into the woods on the steep slope.

"I see them! Get them!"

"A thousand taels of silver for Prince Cheng's head!"

Whoosh! Whoosh! Arrows kept flying through the trees, leaving Jing Shao scrambling desperately to escape.

"Ngh!" A stray arrow struck his right leg. Jing Shao stumbled, and Mu Hanzhang fell from his back.

"My Prince!" Struggling to his feet, Mu Hanzhang hurried over to support him.

Jing Shao glanced at him and saw that color had actually returned to his handsome, pallid face. He seemed far more alert than before, too. Having witnessed death so often, Jing Shao knew this was the final rally before the end. Pain clenched his heart. He wrenched out the arrow, caught the man beside him by the hand, and ran.

"Hahaha! Let's see where you can run now!" The officer in command approached with a vicious grin, a broadsword in his hand.

In their panic, the two men had run into a dead end. A cliff lay ahead, their pursuers behind. Even wings could not have saved them now.

Jing Shao set the man in his arms down beside the cliff, turned, and swept out a leg. Caught off guard, the officer fell flat. Before he could recover, Jing Shao kicked him squarely in the chest, leaving him foaming at the mouth. He snatched the broadsword from the man's hand and hacked down one of their pursuers' horses. Its body blocked the narrow mountain path, tripping two more horses in succession and sending their riders tumbling off the cliff.

Whoosh! Seeing the path blocked by a horse's carcass and Prince Cheng wielding a broadsword in a killing frenzy, the men behind dared not approach. Instead, they drew their bows and fired at him.

"Ngh..." Parrying with the blade was no use. Jing Shao tore the arrow from his shoulder and flung it backhanded at them. Screams rang out. Then he leaped over the horse's carcass and hacked his way through them, killing the last of the men who had been shooting from cover. But his own body was riddled with wounds. Standing where he was, he looked into the distance. A second wave of pursuers was almost upon them. He looked down at the steel blade in his hand. He could kill ten men, but not hundreds or thousands.

Carrying the blood-drenched broadsword, he returned to the cliff's edge. Blood from the blade mingled with his own, leaving a long crimson trail. He gathered the man leaning against a rock into his arms. Mu Hanzhang's breathing was barely perceptible now, his handsome face ashen.

"Junqing, have you ever resented me?" Jing Shao reached out to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth. For the first time in his life, he looked closely at this man, his lawfully wedded wife, and discovered that his beauty surpassed that of every concubine in Prince Cheng's residence. It was not a woman's seductive charm, but a refined handsomeness touched with a scholar's proud integrity. Now those beautiful eyes reflected his own stubble-covered face. How ironic. Only through idle conversations in prison had he discovered in this man the kindred spirit one might search a lifetime to find. How much happiness had he missed over all these years?

"How could I not? If not for you, I would long since have passed the examinations and taken my place at court." Junqing was his courtesy name. This man had never called him that before. Mu Hanzhang smiled and slowly raised a hand to wipe the blood from Jing Shao's face. "But I can't blame you for it. You're a capable man. It was because of me that you couldn't inherit the throne... Cough, cough..."

"Hahaha! Capable? How am I capable? I've muddled through my whole life, never knowing a single day's peace. Looking back now, I see I've been wrong all along—terribly wrong... Hahahaha..." Jing Shao held the man in his arms tightly and threw back his head in laughter. He had spent his life fighting for his country, only to be cast aside once his usefulness was gone. He had favored his concubines and mistreated his wife, yet the one who had stayed by his side to the very end was the male wife he had ignored for more than a decade. He had envied his elder brother and refused to give his wholehearted support to his bid for the throne, yet after his downfall, that same full brother had been the only one to run himself ragged on his behalf... How lamentable. How tragic. In the end, it had all been nothing but a joke!

"Hasn't my life... been... a joke too..." Mu Hanzhang sighed softly. "If there is... another life..." Before he could finish, his last breath failed him. His beautiful eyes slowly closed, and his slender hand fell lifeless onto the blue-black stone. Snow had begun to fall again without their noticing. Flakes settled on his long eyelashes, melted beneath Jing Shao's breath, and rolled down in beads of water.

"If there is another life, I'll treat you well. I'll spend my whole life making it up to you..." Jing Shao rested the man in his arms against his chest and spoke softly. He raised his head to gaze at the vast sweep of mountains and rivers in the distance. Soon, all of it would fall into the hands of the Successor Empress and that cruel, violent son of hers... Hearing hoofbeats behind him, he slowly stood. Prince Cheng had never lost a battle in his life. Even in death, he would never fall at the hands of such petty villains.

He leaped from the cliff. Mountain winds roared past his ears as Jing Shao held the lifeless man tightly in his arms. "I won't let you go. Then I'll still be able to hold on to the hem of your robe on the Naihe Bridge..."

He opened his eyes out of darkness. What greeted him was neither a mist-wreathed immortal realm nor green-faced, fanged spirits come to claim his soul. Red gauze bed curtains filled his vision, and the dim light of a guttering candle flickered. Jing Shao was dazed. His whole body felt weak, and his head threatened to split. He raised a hand to rub his aching temple and slowly sat up. Only as sensation returned did he suddenly realize that someone was lying beside him. Scarlet robes had been torn apart, black hair lay tangled over an exposed chest, and skin as lustrous as jade was covered in livid bruises.

He reached out and brushed aside the hair veiling the man's face, revealing refined, handsome features... Junqing!