Rising Phoenix

Ning Yi slowly lowered his hand and began wiping off Feng Zhiwei’s disguise.

His eyes could not see, but the face still filled his mind as clear as day. She was as she had been in that cold lake, and that familiar tallow mask slowly gave way bit by bit, revealing a spotless white brow and lustrous nose and pinky lips. The dark, elegant feathers of her proud brows arced above her closed, misty eyes… those eyes, always carrying that glistening, glittering veil, that impenetrable guard.

Ning Yi’s hand lingered, and he set down the towel. His gently curled fingers brushed against her forehead, against her familiarly cool and smooth skin… In a daze, he was transported back to that day he had faked drunkenness in the Wei Mansion and thought of that dark room where Shao Ning and Feng Zhiwei had met to discuss his assassination… and then he remembered that abandoned palace room where his mother had been trapped for the last decade of her life. He thought of this very West Yard room where he had been so close to her, to the warmth of her breath, the cool of her skin, her smell… and now, his fingers mapped her features and everything was so familiar that his heart could only tremble.

Would she disappear and never return, leaving him?

So many questions he dared not ask, so many thoughts unthinkable. He had faced so much calamity and pain and never felt fear, never allowed himself fear, but now a terror gripped and tore at him and he could barely think.

His fingers traced her cheek, following the contours of her face up and down and up again. Perhaps, after the torturing illness she had lost all her beauty and luster, but so what? Feng Zhiwei would always be Feng Zhiwei.

He hated his eyes for their blindness, and he thanked his fortunes that he could not see.

If he could see her pale exhaustion, would he be able to cling to his last vestiges of calm?

All his steady calm was but a mirage, a fake mask over the corroded reefs of his heart and mind, ruts and channels and deep chasms carved into him, damage beyond repair.

A kneeling figure entered the room and spoke quietly: “Your Highness… it is time to prepare…” the voice tapered off, unable to finish.

Yan Huaishi.

Ning Yi ignored the young man as he carefully replaced Feng Zhiwei’s mask, his fingers lingering on her neck for a long, long moment.

The pulse weakened more and more, and he understood that very soon that faint heartbeat would dry up like a wilting spring and disappear.

The great cruelty of watching a life fade away bit by bit, unable to help.

But even so, he would rather be here counting each heartbeat, for every beat of her pulse allowed him to relive another one of their memories. The two of them had seemed to work together in close companionship, but the truth was that they had headed south by driving the chariot north. To have even shared part of his life with someone of such similar mind and temperament… there was good in that.

He calmly counted, and in the lingering smoke of the room it was hard to say whose face was more pale.

Up above, Gu Nanyi played his flute.

The rain had never let up, and Gu Nanyi’s drenched robes were a torturing burden against his sensitive skin, but he refused to move, refused to leave to change, refusing to leave the rooftop of her room.

His leaf flute had also been soaked and its melody was no longer as clear and bright, but he kept playing, remembering her gentle words.

“It’s a promise. I will play this leaf flute while I follow the marks to find you.”

She did not even have to play the flute, why was she leaving?

Gu Nanyi could almost feel the heavy weight beneath the tiles on which he lay, the weight of sadness and loss in the room below. When this tragic moment passed and scattered to the winds, there might not be another person who would ever play a flute for him.

He had known this feeling; when his wet nurse had passed, the house had been filled with this same heaviness. He had never like this feeling and had wanted to run.

Was she going to be like his wet nurse?

Would he never get to see her again?

What would he do without her?

Gu Nanyi was tired; he had thought too much recently. He was not used to such contemplation; for all the years of his past, his world had been blank and simple without all this confusion and unease.

He sat dazedly on the rooftop, and that heaviness below seemed to press up more strongly. He frowned and flipped from his supine position, lying down on his belly.

He pressed himself down against the roof tiles, trying to hold down that heaviness, not letting it leave!

In the yard, half the people stared quietly at the bedside Ning Yi while the other half stared dazedly at Gu Nanyi prone over the slippery rooftop.

Everyone was filled with grief, but they all felt that they could do and say nothing in front of those two. Neither of them seemed sad, and though Gu Nanyi was acting somewhat strange, not even Ning Yi’s expression had changed.

But despite the tranquil calm of the pouring rain, the sound of heartbreak was clear.

“Your Highness…” Yan Huaishi began again, kowtowing with tear filled eyes. “It’s… we should prepare…”

“Oh.” Ning Yi replied almost calmly, his voice quivering and sad as he slowly pulled away his trembling hand.

Ning Yi gestured and Ning Cheng soundlessly stepped forward with a basin of water. Ning Yi sent them away, his voice light as he said: “Everyone leave, I will prepare them.”

[In Chinese, Him/her sounds identical and can only be differentiated by context or by the written character]

Yan Huaishi did not think anything of this as he bowed and carefully exited, but Ning Cheng lingered and stared at Ning Yi for a moment before stepping away.

Ning Yi searched for Feng Zhiwei’s buttons and carefully removed them, and though he’d tried so often to get close to her, he held no trace of that romance in his mind.

He dipped the towel in the warm water and carefully washed her. In Tian Sheng, only a husband and wife deeply in love would wash each other after death.

He bit down on his lips and gently traced the lines of her body; he had never seen her body, and after today, he would never get the chance.

My… Zhiwei…

Swish slam.

The paper door flew open and rain splattered into the room. Fury rose, and Ning YI whipped his head around.

“Your Highness!” The brave little widow cried out, her voice bright and clear. “There’s one more person!”