Xie Jing turned over. His eyes felt dry and strained, but he couldn’t fall back asleep.
Lu Lingcong had already left the Prince Tent and must have given instructions to his personal guards, as no one had come in to disturb him. However, his weariness was indeed completely gone.
The Xichuan campaign… the year before last. At that time, Xie Jing hadn’t yet arrived in Yongzhou. He was likely scrounging for a living in some small city while moving covertly with Lu Shuning. He knew little about that campaign. He had only heard scraps of street gossip now and then about how the Shu roads were treacherous and steep, easy to defend yet hard to take; how the Marquis of Jianmen, relying on the natural barrier, had grown rebellious at heart and sought to crown himself; and how it was Prince Zhao who led the Tiger Division in a months-long, bitter battle to quell the unrest.
People only said the battle was tough, but since the Tiger Division won, no matter how much the narrators exaggerated or embellished, listeners would only feel it was nothing special. Only moments ago, the commander of that campaign had been seated at his side, letting him brush his fingers over that scar that might once have been fatal, and yet all he said amounted to no more than five restrained words: “breaking out through the cliff path.”
Lu Lingcong had long understood that this web of scars could never be hidden for good, so he spoke of them openly, but how much he chose to disclose was not something Xie Jing could decide.
Xie Jing could completely understand this mentality; their hearts were the same. There were too many things from the past three years that he would never mention to Lu Lingcong. They were no longer teenagers who relied on feigning a minor illness or pain to gain a little more care and sympathy from a lover. If everything were disclosed without reservation, it would only cause needless distress for both of them.
At that moment, human voices floated in from outside the tent. Xie Jing listened closely; it seemed to be the younger surname Xu boy quarreling with his elder brother over something. He pushed himself upright, slipped into his sleeping robe, and rose from the bed. The fluid Lu Lingcong had left inside him trailed down along his pale thighs. His lower body was still somewhat sore, yet not to an unbearable degree; after all, the other party had shown restraint.
Recalling the faintly cool, slick fluid that had just been cleaned from his body, he suddenly realized that even if it had stayed in his lower belly, it wouldn’t have made any difference. As the years passed, his constitution had only become colder, the condition growing more severe instead of improving. It was highly unlikely; no, more accurately, it was utterly impossible for him to conceive again.
When he stepped out of the tent, the two Xu brothers came forward to salute him. Xu Jia, who knew what had happened in the tent last night, looked a bit shy. While Xu Yi, with the fearlessness of ignorance, only said, “His Highness went to supervise the work. He said the Princess Consort should sleep in, yet you’re already up?”
Xie Jing felt slightly awkward. He had broken the habit of sleeping in long ago, but Lu Lingcong’s two sentences had completely revealed his old ways. He just nodded. Xu Yi then asked, “Princess Consort, please have your meal. I’ll go find someone—”
Xie Jing quickly waved his hand. It wasn’t mealtime, and this was a military camp, not the Prince’s Mansion; there was no custom for preparing special meals for him. He just said, “No need to bother. I’ll just eat lunch with you all. Everything should be simple. I’m not picky.”
Xu Jia seemed troubled: “His Highness specifically instructed us to serve the Princess Consort well and obey your every command.”
Xie Jing smiled and said, “You are his personal guards, not my attendants or servants of the Prince’s Mansion. For example, if there were an enemy attack right now, my utility would be far less than that of you two. I rely on both of you to look after things in the camp, so how can I casually order you around? Whether you choose to stay and accompany me or go to help General Li, please feel free to do so. I will speak to His Highness about it when he returns tonight, and I guarantee he will not take offense or blame you two. How about that?”
The two brothers exchanged a look and then had no choice but to say, “Then we’ll go assist General Li and come back at lunchtime, if you don’t mind—”
Xie Jing nodded and said, “Go on, thank you for your trouble.” After saying this, he turned and went back into the tent.
Xu Yi was still a bit bewildered as he left. Accustomed to the straightforward, businesslike manner of the military, he was clearly overwhelmed by such sudden, gentle treatment. He muttered, “I heard Captain Xue gossiping before that His Highness was deeply devoted, and I wondered what kind of person could make His Highness so utterly dedicated. Only today do I realize that the Princess Consort truly lives up to his title by being genuinely gentle and generous.”
Xu Jia said, “You should have guessed it. Don’t you remember getting lost in the back courtyard of the Prince’s Mansion the year before last in the twelfth month and running into His Highness Shizi. Who showed you the way? He was also humble and polite. I suppose it’s the son taking after the mother; a dragon begets a dragon; a phoenix begets a phoenix.”
Xie Jing hadn’t been in the mood last night and only briefly organized Lu Lingcong’s desk. Today, he began to tidy up the book box and documents behind the desk. Although there weren’t many paper materials in the military camp, they involved a wide range of complex projects. Since Xie Jing wasn’t very familiar with them, they were actually harder to sort out than his own study. Fortunately, he had plenty of time, so he slowly worked through them one by one. He tore off a piece of paper and jotted down a brief note of where everything was placed.
At the very bottom of the book box was a hidden compartment, stuffed with a thick stack of paper. Xie Jing speculated that these were things that shouldn’t be seen by subordinates or known by the military superintendent. Perhaps letters exchanged between Lu Lingcong and the Xuanshi. He decided not to touch them and prepared to put them away. But as he unintentionally glanced down, he caught sight of the corner of a page sticking out, and Xie Jing’s gaze froze, stopping his movement immediately.
If his eyes hadn’t deceived him, that seemed to be… his own handwriting.
Xie Jing could fail to recognize anything else, but he knew his own unique Quixia script, which had matured in his youth. He would recognize it even if it were turned into ash.
He Initially thought these were early letters between him and Lu Lingcong. Although they spent little time together and rarely felt the urge to write love letters to express their affection, perhaps there truly were a couple of them, and it was understandable that Lu Lingcong would carry them with him.
But Xie Jing immediately realized the content of the letter was completely unfamiliar, and the writing style was entirely not his tone. He had left in a hurry that year and indeed left countless manuscripts behind in Prince Zhao’s Mansion. Before he left, he had instructed Uncle Zhou to burn everything clean, destroying all traces. Could it be that they weren’t burned?
Upon closer inspection, Xie Jing gradually realized that although the handwriting was undeniably the Quixia script, the brushstrokes were not as sharp and exposed as they had been in his youth. The intent of the strokes was more moderate and rounded, and it lacked the seasoned openness of an elderly person who had witnessed the world, instead resembling the pristine simplicity of a youth newly venturing out.
He suddenly remembered Lu Lingcong’s words: “I also have a few letters written by Shuqing in my tent.”
A loud bang went off In Xie Jing’s mind. He frantically separated the stack of papers, rapidly flipping through them until he found the signature, where the four elegant characters “Shuqing’s own handwriting” lay quietly waiting for him.
In the past decade or so, from Xie Jun to Lu Lingzhang and then his own children, Xie Jing had taught calligraphy and tracing countless times, but he had never allowed them to learn his own script. This was because the Quixia script was a blend between Xing script and Kai script, a variant he had created for his own use after mastering those two styles. Although pleasing to the eye, it was not suitable for beginners to build a foundation.
As Xie Jing read through Lu Shuqing’s family letters, the earliest ones, dated to the beginning of the year before last, were still in the stable Hanli script. The later ones increasingly showed the shadow of the Quixia script. By last autumn, the writing was virtually indistinguishable from his own handwriting. If Xie Jing hadn’t examined it closely himself, it could have easily been mistaken for his own already.
He didn’t know who had prompted Lu Shuqing to learn the Quixia script, whether it was Lu Lingcong or the child himself. Yet he could readily picture it: the young boy, bearing a striking resemblance to his mother, sitting alone in his study at his desk, so quiet in his breathing that he seemed almost nonexistent, concentrating with full attention as he copied his mother’s old writings stroke by stroke.
Xie Jing violently tightened the fingers grasping the papers. A sudden, dense, overwhelming pang of pain shot through his heart, stinging him until he uncontrollably arched his body while struggling to breathe.
He knelt beside the book box and was stunned for a long time before slowly raising his hand, forcing himself to calm down, and turning the pages. What Lu Shuqing wrote was less like family letters and more like his routine diary entries, written plainly and without embellishment. Besides asking about the cold in winter and the heat in summer and urging Lu Lingcong to “be extremely careful” during battles, there were no unnecessary formalities at all.
The other people appearing in the lines were all relatives and old friends in Jinling whom Xie Jing had not seen for three years.
For instance—
The ninth day of the seventh month: I woke up early and annotated the [Selections of Refined Literature], which was mentally taxing. After noon, I slept until the evening meal.
The thirteenth day of the seventh month: I followed Grand Tutor Zhang in the afternoon to visit the newly ranked top scholar. He has a beautiful beard, like the reincarnated of Guan Yu.
On the fourteenth day of the seventh month: I attended a banquet at the Department of State Affair. Everyone present was an old acquaintance from the Zhengyou era.
The sixteenth day of the seventh month: I woke up early to accompany Grandmother on a visit to Linggu Temple.
On the seventeenth day of the seventh month: I observed studies at the Imperial Academy.
On the nineteenth day of the seventh month: I returned to the mansion once and found a few scrolls of ancient paintings.
The twentieth day of the seventh month: Heavy rain. I lay in bed all day.
The twenty-fourth day of the seventh month: I accompanied Maternal Aunt out of the palace. When the kite-flying failed, we raced horses instead, but unfortunately, I lost.
Next to this last sentence was a line of solemn small text: “My riding skills are poor, it is not Yi Yun’s fault.”
After reading the entire collection, the immense emotional ties he had just felt were completely forgotten, leaving him utterly amused and exasperated. He found the child frustratingly and endearingly honest. This was the first time he had realized that the father and son were so “open about everything” in private.
At least three years ago, when Xie Jing left the capital, Lu Shuqing had still been his usual quiet and reserved self. His name had been chosen by Xie Yi, taken from the line “let one write a clear sky for those who suffer injustice.” Since childhood, he has been close to his maternal relatives. Xie Jing had never asked him about it, but he understood well how deeply the Xie family case had struck Lu Shuqing. His and Lu Lingcong’s absence from their eldest son’s side during that period was a grave neglect of their duties as parents. Xie Jing felt eternal guilt over this, but with the passage of time, he had no way to make amends either.
Li Qi had said that Lu Shuqing was precocious and sensible, knowing to care for his grandmother in his absent parents’ stead for her remaining years. Therefore, it seemed likely that the various serious-but-playful remarks and the subtly humorous lines in the letters were intentional, meant to prevent Lu Lingcong from worrying about him on top of his military duties.
Xie Jing read for a while before the Xu brothers brought him lunch. After eating, he took a token Lu Lingcong had left for him and borrowed a battle robe from Xu Jia—the imperial-bestowed great cloak was far too conspicuous. He then left the Prince Tent before following the two men to inspect the camp, paying attention to food, fodder, and medical supplies, and checking for any errors or anomalies. If anyone asked, he simply said he was sent by Prefect He to see what support could be offered to the army.
As dusk fell, he sat with several officials around a fire for a quick dinner. The soldiers were frank and direct, allowing Xie Jing to extract information from them with just a few words. They lamented how breathtaking the Xichuan campaign had been and how perilous and difficult the Jian’ge battle was, naturally not forgetting to praise how their commander fought a hundred men alone.
When he returned to the prince’s tent, he ran right into Lu Lingcong, who was on his way out. The latter, having neither seen him nor the Xu brothers and receiving no word from Li Qi, had grown anxious and was on the verge of going to look for him. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Xie Jing return. Just as he was about to scold him, Xie Jing said, “Wait a moment. Speak after I finish writing these two lines.”
Lu Lingcong’s anger was completely blocked. He rolled his eyes, folded his arms, and stood aside while watching Xie Jing tear off another piece of paper and write a prescription swiftly. As he wrote, he explained to him thoughtfully, “That junior medical official must be new. This afternoon, I noticed that he couldn’t even properly dispense the anesthetic. The screams from inside and outside the tent were quite unsettling. This is the prescription Yin Chou prescripted back then, I remember it. Both you and Qing’er have used it. The herbs are easy to find, and the most valuable thing is that they work.”
After he finished writing, he called Xu Jia in. Just as he was about to hand the prescription over, Lu Lingcong unexpectedly snatched it away with two fingers before examining it with a frown. Xie Jing snatched it back and gave it to Xu Jia.
Xu Jia stood still as he clutched the prescription. With disagreement between the Prince and the Princess Consort, he hesitated, unsure whom to obey.
Lu Lingcong was clearly unconvinced: “Since when do you understand medicine?”
“I said Yin Chou prescribed it; and I memorized it.” Xie Jing ignored him and only explained to Xu Jia. “Yin Chou was my trusted personal maid in the Prince’s Mansion before, a medical practitioner of origin. Her methods are impeccable. She even cut the umbilical cords of His Highness Shizi and the Princess. This prescription cannot be wrong.”
Xu Jia nodded his head vigorously, indicating he understood.
Lu Lingcong interjected, “Nonsense. I cut them myself.”
“Well, Yin Chou must have handed you the scissors and taught you how to cut, right?” Xie Jing picked up his brush again and wrote a short note, stamped it with the prefect’s seal, and handed it to Xu Jia along with the prescription. “Take this to the apothecary. It will expedite things and get the medicine dispensed quickly.”
Lu Lingcong muttered under his breath, “Then wasn’t it me who cut them anyway?”
Xie Jing suddenly hissed, “I’ve become muddled about the days. What is the date for tomorrow? I wonder if the apothecary will be open.”
Xu Jia hurriedly replied, “To answer the Princess Consort, tomorrow is the seventh day of the month.”
Xie Jing counted on his fingers twice, “The seventh, the seventh—” He suddenly stopped and looked up at Lu Lingcong.
Lu Lingcong was stared at for a moment and then suddenly realized. He stopped his teasing and only held Xie Jing’s gaze with a deep look.
Twelve years ago, on the seventh day of the first month in the eighth year of Zhengyou, was an auspicious day, Prince Zhao and his Princess Consort performed the Hejin ritual[mfn]A ritual of drinking from a shared gourd.[/mfn] and binding their hair to form a bond meant to last a hundred years.
