Chapter Text
The first year and final month of Taishi.
Gu Yun is no longer a man who bothers with medicine, his eyes, his ears, because the borders are quiet, the kingdom quiet, the scrabbling ratpit of court decently silenced.
As loath as he is to admit, Chang Geng’s meticulous when it comes to Gu Yun’s care. There’s rarely an occasion he has to do anything for himself, unless he fights for it. There's no point in suffering a headache just to see—what? The imperial city he’s spent his life tethered to?
But peacetime has infected Gu Yun. Months out of a war has softened his watch, has lowered his guard. So it takes them all by surprise, when the fever comes.
And it comes on fast.
Gu Yun, in a stroke of cosmic embarrassment, is the last to realize the severity of his illness. He only wakes when Chen Qingxu sticks two clinical fingers down his throat, then turns him over—with what feels like Chang Geng’s help—so he can spit up the mess of blood and phlegm into a waiting bowl. Just his luck he ends up vomiting everything else up after it too.
Though Gu Yun can barely see, he can feel well enough the edge of the mattress, of the three blankets that he’s been imprisoned in, and how his arms shake where he’s bracing himself dubiously upright. Chang Geng’s arm is a vise around his waist, unyielding even as Gu Yun pushes at him, trying to sit up, to turn his head, to tell his undoubtedly paranoid imperial Majesty that there’s nothing for him to worry about.
What comes out of Gu Yun’s throat is instead another mouthful of dark blood. He can feel it spill down his cheek following his slanted head, which is too heavy for his neck. But never say Gu Yun bows once at adversary. He rights himself best he can, his vision being what it is, except Chang Geng has to lift him the rest of the way.
He keeps Gu Yun in the crook of one arm, then uses the other to wipe at the blood using—
“Is that your sleeve?” Gu Yun says, horrified. Finally, the voice comes out of him. “Chang Geng, those are your imperial robes. ”
“So they are,” Chang Geng of the imperial robes replies flatly.
Only by virtue of Chang Geng’s mouth being close enough to Gu Yun’s ear that it’s nearly brushing it, can he hear him speak, can discern that Chang Geng’s doing that stiff, iron-doll act he retreats into when he’s furious, quiet temper trained into him from his years suffering the wu’ergu, and the rest, lest the Emperor shatter his carefully dignified etiquette.
So Gu Yun has fucked up, to what appears to be a—not inconsiderable degree.
He flaps a boneless wrist his way, for lack of better things to do. “Ah, but for you to have dirted them on me,” he says. “Did no one offer you a handkerchief?”
Chang Geng grabs his hand. “Do you think this Emperor,” he says, low and dangerous. “Does not do what he wants, with his things? These robes are his to dirty. To clean. To burn. To remake.”
Fuck, Gu Yun thinks dismally.
“Mn,” Gu Yun says cheerfully.
Chang Geng’s moods are infinitely harder to navigate than any battlefield he’s commanded. He takes another shot in the dark. How tragic, forcing an invalid to guess and grab in the dark to soothe a tantrum he can’t see.
“This subject apologizes for the inconvenience, and shall endeavor—” He stops to cough several times in a row. “To repay His Majesty’s benevolence.”
Chang Geng’s arm tightens around him. Gu Yun couldn’t twist aside if he wanted. He speaks again, but Gu Yun’s hearing really is going. He reaches for Chang Geng’s mouth—he’s familiar enough with some of his words to read them from his lips—fingers cold, a little fumbling. For all his upset, Chang Geng helps him the rest of the way, lowering his head for Gu Yun to reach.
He doesn’t say much. Of course, he knows he can’t communicate anything complicated. What Gu Yun can parse, before the exhaustion comes, again, to drag him under is Chang Geng saying, with just a hint of fear—
“Zixi, don't go.”
Gu Yun recalls, one of the second times he’s awake, in the hours which could either be dusk or either be dawn, that it really was his own fault this time.
It’d been half a day of coughing, at first. Shen Yi had dragged Chen Qingxu to look at Gu Yun. The latter two agreed he was verging on paranoia, to which Shen Yi had spit back— if he dies, it’s my head the Emperor’s going to cut off! Chen Qingxu had given him a consoling hum, then prescribed something for Gu Yun to take in the meantime.
The next day, it took Gu Yun half an hour to rise from bed. Just his luck that Liao Ran was holding service at the monastery, and Chang Geng had left to attend it at daybreak. Gu Yun felt for a fever, found nothing, but went for a heavier cloak, thinking the palace was colder than usual.
Up and down the halls he went, looking for something to do. He ended up at his requisite spot in the garden—the little pavilion where servants mysteriously appeared as soon as he settled at the stone table, with trays of tea and fresh braziers and in one particularly baffling occasion, a fox-pelt blanket. This day was not one such baffling occasion, so Gu Yun merely suffered the attention of hot tea and a plate of roasted peanuts.
The trouble came when Gu Yun had to rise, and found his legs had gone light and numb. He groped a bit for support, knocking the tray, the tea, and the teacup over. The tea went spilling across the table. The cup was a bright shatter against the ground, loud enough that even Gu Yun could hear it. The attendants came rushing in. Gu Yun waved them off and wandered back, only slightly unsteadily, to his courtyard, and barred the doors with an iron puppet.
A chill took him later that night. Unyielding, absolute, shaking him from within. It forced Gu Yun to sleep in his cloak and all but fry the skin off his face in a crowd of braziers he’d dragged towards the bed, so cold he had to dig his fingers into his arms to stem the trembling. Nothing seemed to work. Gu Yun dug his fingers harder into his flesh, bit his cheek to keep the delirium at bay, and slept.
His fever came and went in the days following. Chang Geng returned the evening after the fifth, to host a banquet in honor of—something related to the Lingshu Institute. Gu Yun was never quite sure who, or what was being celebrated. The point being that he’d gotten no better, though also no worse, than before, and suffered through a bowl of Chen Qingxu’s medicine to recover his eyesight for the night.
The headache was excruciating.
It also didn’t go away. Gu Yun spent the night avoiding wine by choice, avoiding the meal by choice, avoiding Chang Geng by choice too. It was a shame he couldn’t enjoy his rare gift of sight; Chang Geng always looked so beautiful in his gold robes, his red-beaded crown, with a little wine kissing his cheeks.
At his table, Gu Yun leaned away from the nearest candle and kept his head down when he could, feeling the weight of Chang Geng’s eyes on him. As always, it felt like he was looking straight through Gu Yun, peeling him apart layer by layer, not always hungry for sex, but hungry for him, the person, over all else.
It was a sign of what Chang Geng was hoping for, letting the kitchens bring Gu Yun hot wine. If he’d been more himself, he would’ve taken that gaze and thrown it back in Chang Geng’s face. Two could play this game, and play it very well. Instead, it was all Gu Yun could do to sit there with his cloak on, head pounding so badly it made everything in front of his eyes blur, with the fingers of his left hand clenching again and again into a fist on his thigh.
When Ge Chen and his artificers dragged in what promised to be a particularly explosive exhibition, Gu Yun quietly excused himself from the hall, shaking off the guards assigned to him by the Black Iron Battalion. He told them to ease up on the anxiety, and walked himself back to his courtyard alone, back as stiff as he could make it.
It was the sixth night. Gu Yun’s fever had receded early in the morning. He had slept, exhaustively, through the week. It would only be an hour or two, to rid himself of the headache. He hung up his cloak. He put aside his shoes. He’d unclipped his monocle. He slid sideways under the blankets and willed himself warm.
He woke up with Chen Qingxu’s fingers in his throat.
Gu Yun was never blessed with an iron constitution. Even as a child, his health leaned more towards his mother’s. After he’d been poisoned, his condition had fallen even further, and he'd lost the rest of that. It was Shen Yi on the side who poured the mold of Gu Yun back into his body, but over the years of coughing his fevers into Shen Yi’s face, the latter never caught so much as a sneeze.
It wasn't that Gu Yun has ever been invincible. It’s just that he did his work ill, and he did his work well.
No matter how many times Gu Yun explains this to Chang Geng, the little bastard still strikes him from his duties for the week, and all but bars the gates to the Marquis estate behind him. Gu Yun languishes for a bit, bemoaning his cruel and miserly affairs, before shivering his way back to bed and drawing the covers up around himself. Eventually, even he must admit defeat. Gu Yun's headache doesn’t fade no matter how long he sleeps. It spikes a few times over the course of the day, and remains an active enemy force attempting to hammer its way into his skull. He doubts he could stand even if he wanted to. Chang Geng has outmaneuvered him again.
In his bed, Gu Yun presses the heel of his palm to the space between his brows, where it hurts the worst. Having driven his attendants away, Gu Yun finds himself with no one to fix the braziers once the heat dies. He doesn’t have the energy, and the cold he can withstand. It’s only that he looks rather pathetic while doing so.
The pain drains from his forehead, then his temples, and sparks sharp over the shell of his ears, like a needle wrongly placed. He can’t breathe properly, and feels a bit like an overworked animal. As such, it’s a labor to push the air from his lungs. What a mess.
By the time the young emperor climbs the walls to the Marquis estate and pushes open the bedroom door, Gu Yun hasn't moved in several hours. Chang Geng has to search, for a moment, before he finally picks out where he is—lying beneath a stack of winter blankets, digging the sharper turn of his fist into his forehead, and his forehead into the pillow.
Gu Yun’s breaths are dashed with little noises of pain, too quiet to hear, unless one is looking for them, and Chang Geng is always looking for them. It’s indicative enough of how ill Gu Yun is, that he can’t hold himself back.
Chang Geng lowers himself carefully to Gu Yun's bedside. This close, he can see the fine cracks in Gu Yun’s exterior: how his hair sticks to his cheek with sweat, how his brows are drawn so tight the skin between them has gone bloodless. There’s a line of tears under his closed lashes. The air whistles from his throat. Chang Geng is struck by a sudden fear— can he breathe?
Chang Geng slips a hand under Gu Yun’s side and yanks him upright before he can stop himself. The whistling gets worse. It turns into a cough, then a wheeze, then Gu Yun coming awake all the way. Two half-focused eyes landing on Chang Geng’s face.
Delirious or not, blind or not, the first thing Gu Yun does is smile.
“Hello,” Gu Yun murmurs. “Long time no see.”
Like always, Gu Yun knocks the words from Chang Geng’s mouth in an instant. Unmatched strategist he is. “Long time no see,” Chang Geng says, though he means it less. “Zixi, why did you send everyone away? The heat’s gone out. I know you’ve been working too.”
Gu Yun’s cheek is unseasonably warm where it’s pressed to Chang Geng’s shoulder. “I don’t like spies in my home,” he says, as if he’s in any condition to make demands. “Who knows when they’ll take an order from you and drug my food.”
Chang Geng sighs. He wipes at the bit of wet from under Gu Yun’s eye. His skin is hot to the touch, and his lashes flutter weakly against Chang Geng’s thumb. “I just want you to rest,” he says. “An impossible wish, I know, but I’d like to wish it anyway.”
Gu Yun doesn’t reply. Chang Geng holds back on his terror, for in the meantime, he's found a way to slip his hand into Chang Geng’s. Gu Yun's fingers are listless, cold as they always are, but his mouth quirks with a smile when Chang Geng twists a startled gaze to look at him.
As for Gu Yun, it’s the words in his mouth, slipping away at the slightest touch, that keeps him from speaking. His thoughts are each half-formed. It’s hard to say how long it’s been between each of his blinks, or any of his tedious breaths. Stripped to the bone of survival, he's only aware of the important things—Chang Geng’s smell, his touch, his voice.
The rest, Gu Yun feels, doesn’t matter very much at all.
Gu Yun experiences little improvement over the next—however long it is. Time has little meaning to him. He hears doors creak open, then shuts. Feels footsteps come and go. The fever rises. Recedes. Whenever he coughs, someone has to wipe the blood off his chin afterwards.
In his fitful hours of sleep, he dreams of falling from the sky, of his armored wings being torn, of Li Feng pushing him down all the stairs of the Altar of Prosperity, or what used to be the dizzying height of the Kite’s Flight Pavilion. Gu Yun wakes from each nightmare with his heart in his throat. He digs his hands into the sheets, his teeth in his arm, his fingers against his chest. Every time the world staggers beneath him, Gu Yun has to muffle his voice in the blankets. He shakes. He hates.
Had he the choice, Gu Yun would’ve kept himself awake, but the little asshole Chang Geng had pacifying incense running without pause. Nearly a year out of a war, and what he had himself considered overly-rested, Gu Yun was still no match for Chen Qingxu’s medicine. It pulled him under again and again. He couldn’t lift his head if he tried.
Gu Yun doesn’t think Chang Geng ever leaves him. He wishes he had the strength to give him a proper lashing—what, does the Emperor think he can pause the proceedings of court and all his nation without consequence?
But it’s impossible to speak. It’s annoying enough that Gu Yun has to be fed with small spoons only. Chang Geng sits him up like some invalid, bracing Gu Yun against his chest from behind, and feeds him until he chokes.
Bitter medicine goes down. Salted broth. A little porridge.
Shame that most of it comes back up with the blood in his lungs, to which Chang Geng wipes away each time, thankfully not with the sleeves of his royal attire, as exalted as they are.
Every time the word goes spinning again, Gu Yun finds himself beyond indignity. He struggles for whatever’s close enough to get his hands on. Mostly, that seems to be Chang Geng, who eventually keeps his arms around Gu Yun, fairly crushing him against his chest, and refuses to let go.
Gu Yun shoves at Chang Geng with a fist or an elbow, uncaring that it shakes, that it’ll make Chang Geng furious, and he’ll come to settle his debts with Gu Yun later. But—
I’ll make you ill, Gu Yun thinks. I have time to take a fever. The Emperor does not.
Though his mouth doesn’t move, nor do the words fall out of it, Chang Geng seems to know what he’s desperate to say regardless. His hand strokes again and again through Gu Yun’s hair.
Another wave of vertigo sweeps him through. The protests die in Gu Yun’s throat as he takes in a breath so fast he chokes. He braces himself against Chang Geng’s front, digs his face into his shoulder. Anything to make the lurching stop.
It doesn’t. Something like a tear wets Gu Yun’s eyelashes, his cheek. Chang Geng wipes it away.
Gu Yun’s forced to admit, now, that he really is—very weak.
Ah. How he hates that.
The tenth day of the first year of the last month of Taishi, Gu Yun doesn’t wake.
Chen Qingxu moves Gu Yun to the imperial residence the next morning.
For ease, she says. When Chang Geng explains the Marquis estate lacks nothing, and that, yes, these are the official emperor’s rooms, but Chang Geng has hardly ever set foot in them, much less spent the night there. Chen Qingxu adds— not his. Yours. You will want to be close.
She is right. Chang Geng doesn't have time to go running back and forth between the palace and the Marquis estate any longer. His sojourn from his throne has been long enough, and the consequences of such are dogging his heels now. Matters of state can no longer be put off, and Chang Geng isn't the kind of emperor to leave his people behind.
The only thing Chang Geng has to suffer here is the proximity of his late brother’s harem and the Empress dowager. He can take an audience in the sitting room. Can lay his head beside Gu Yun’s at night, then lift it again when the sun rises, and the palace comes to life.
Gu Yun, for his part, sleeps like one of those exhausted days he spent after the war came to a close. When the fever grows heavy, Chang Geng changes the cold cloth on Gu Yun’s forehead, wipes away the sweat on his brow. How can he rest, when Gu Yun has gone back to that habit of slipping away from the world again?
The mid-month opens with a grand assembly. On the day, Chang Geng leaves Gu Yun’s side with reluctance having slept, again, very little during the night.
Chang Geng sets Gu Yun's hand on top of the covers, and rises. "I'll be going now," he says. For if he doesn't, he knows he never will.
Chen Qingxu, who is warming her medicine bowls by the furnace, gives Chang Geng a passing smile as he levers himself to his feet. "Your Majesty."
Shen Yi appears in the doorway, dressed in nearly the same brand of worn as his wardrobe in Yanhui, none-the-wiser. Seeing Chang Geng, he says, “Ah, court, is it?”
"Yes," Chang Geng says. He brushes the wrinkles from his robes. They don’t loosen. His head keeps turning, glancing over his shoulder. "But I'll be back soon."
Shen Yi clasps Chang Geng’s shoulder. "Go. If you let him hold up the country any longer," he says. "His head will grow big enough to pop off."
"If only," Chang Geng murmurs.
Shen Yi's quiet for a moment, looking for the right words. There are very few things to say that might be of comfort for the two of them, who’ve fought against the world. Fate sails. The stars churn. Often, all that can be done is to survive.
Shen Yi settles on, “We’ll see you afterwards.”
He means Chang Geng. He means himself, and Chen Qingxu. Liao Ran, even, who had been fished from some odd corner of the kingdom where he was on one of his wanderings, with his apprentice—the two of them appeared in the capital seemingly overnight—to lead their scriptures, and to aid in the medicine.
“We,” Chang Geng repeats. His voice is thin and uncertain. The look on his face must be worse, hardly befitting that of an emperor. Shen Yi squeezes Chang Geng’s shoulder once more, before letting him go.
Shen Yi means Gu Yun.
Several of Gu Yun’s soldiers come to collect Chang Geng when he steps out into the hall. Their visors are down, and their posture solemn. Around the halls they turn. Up to his throne Chang Geng goes.
When the court goes to their knees to greet him, Chang Geng waves away their winding ceremony before they begin. He has places to be, besides here. As far as he’s concerned, his imperial brother Li Feng had seen one thing correctly, and that was that court was a waste of everyone’s time and good for only one thing—drilling a headache into him.
“Let us begin,” the Taishi emperor says, before the drilling can get any worse. The rest of the formalities come to him without having to think about them. Chang Geng is so practiced at such labor of his station that he can speak every word in his sleep. He just hopes he doesn’t sound as tired as he feels.
The assembly wears on. From below, those in attendance can see the emperor’s mind is fixed on something else. As thorough as his decrees are, his eyes drift again and again to the soldiers beside his throne, to the doorway to the inner palace.
The young boy who slips from that doorway, halfway through an argument between pundits from the Chamber of Commerce and that of Agriculture, brings them an answer. His head is shaved clean, and he wears the robes, beads, and soft sandals of a monk. He walks in one peaceful line right up to the Taishi emperor’s feet; the arguments behind him come to a grinding halt. He performs the necessary obeisance, then rises when told.
Not a breath passes through the entire court.
When the boy speaks, his voice is so soft it fails to carry, but the court can see the blood drain from Chang Geng's face. Then, the virtuous and upright Taishi emperor, who has been, always, the pillar of the nation, even during his early years as the young Prince Yan, dismisses the session early, without explanation, and is on his feet before his subjects rise from their bows.
Only the clacking of the armor of the Black Iron Battalion’s infamous guards echo around the hall. Nobody dares to speak, and file out one after the other, faces gone as drawn and bloodless as well. They’re all thinking of the same rumors, which are this—the Marquis of Anding has fallen ill, and refuses to wake.
The little monk remains unmoved. He bows to the assembly, as if in the emperor’s place, then turns to follow Chang Geng and his retinue, leaving as softly as he came, like a curl of wind through an open window, all the while with an expression as placid and unwavering as a still lake at dawn.
For Chang Geng’s part, he strips off his cloak as soon as he steps foot into the inner palace, and breaks into a run.
The boy’s words echo in his ear. If it is his time, he said evenly. Would you like to be with him?
He didn’t say anything else. He likely didn’t feel the need to.
The halls to Chang Geng’s rooms bend like leagues of an endless ocean. Have the corridors ever stretched so long? It’s as if he’s trapped in one of those dreams where no matter how fast he moves, he can never close the distance.
Shen Yi is standing guard by the door when Chang Geng arrives. He bows, and says, in greeting: “Your Majesty.”
Deep in the room, he sees Liao Ran kneeling by Gu Yun’s bed. The light wicks his skin like bronze, turns the blood on his hands into ink, or dirt from a riverbed. Liao Ran wrings out a washcloth. He’s been at work, plowing. There's so much blood.
Chang Geng’s heart leaps into his throat. "What happened?" he says.
There's no answer.
He looks from Chen Qingxu, to Liao Ran, then back to Shen Yi. “I can help," he says. He doesn’t know which one of them is listening, but how is he supposed to stand aside and let all this happen around him? His face is hot, his voice shakes. "Instruct me, please.”
Chen Qingxu’s eyes slip his way, neutral. “I won’t, Your Majesty,” she says. “Stand aside, and we will resolve the matter.”
Chang Geng can't. His body moves without his permission, but Shen Yi's doesn't.
He catches Chang Geng by the shoulders.
“This subject begs for your forgiveness,” he says.
By the bed, Liao Ran strikes, in quick succession, the acupoints on the inside of Gu Yun’s forearm, his wrist, the lower border of his collarbones, in the space above his first ribs, to open the throat and lungs. A moment later, Liao Ran turns Gu Yun on his side to clear what comes out of it. Chen Qingxu turns Gu Yun back over.
Chang Geng tries to shake Shen Yi off. “Let me through,” he says helplessly.
Shen Yi lets out a breath. There’s a fine fold between his brows, but Chang Geng can’t read his expression otherwise. A reminder that he did, after all, serve three wars on the frontlines, with the last two in high command. His expression is complicated, but his eyes are kind, and his touch is soft. “Your forgiveness,” he repeats softly. “Your Majesty.”
Without waking, Gu Yun coughs, and then doesn’t stop. Chen Qingxu presses her ear to Gu Yun’s chest. She shakes her head. Liao Ran strikes Gu Yun’s acupoints again, in a different series.
Gu Yun takes in a breath. It doesn’t come back out.
There’s a moment of absolute silence. Chen Qingxu is a woman who expresses her emotions slightly sideways from others in the world. Chang Geng has been chasing her tutelage since the unruly years of his teenaged self, so when he sees her hands—the slender and capable fingers that never wasted movement, even to tremble—still completely, Chang Geng stills too, so suddenly Shen Yi nearly drops him.
Chang Geng breaks the silence without intending to. “Zixi,” he breathes. His voice cracks right down the middle.
Shen Yi doesn’t let him go. He doesn’t look over his shoulder either. He seems to know what has happened, already. Did Chen Qingxu warn him it was a possibility, before all this? Did she know, and chose to tell everyone but Chang Geng?
From where Chang Geng’s standing, he can only see Chen Qingxu from behind, and half of Liao Ran’s face, whose expression is as tranquil as ever, though his eyes are lowered. He’s doing something with his hands again, but it’s hard to tell what, with him kneeling beside the bed, a little beneath the lamplight. The worn and wooden beads around his neck clatter as his hands move in a rhythm—up and down, or side to side, or in and out.
Chen Qingxu starts back into motion a moment later. Her voice comes out hoarse; she has been working too quickly, with no time to drink. “Great Master,” she says. “You can stop.”
Liao Ran pulls his hand away. There’s blood up to his wrist.
Chen Qingxu pushes hair from her face, from where it’d fallen from her braids. “He’s not breathing anymore.”
The ground drops out from under Chang Geng’s feet.
Someone makes a terrible cry.
Everyone in the room looks to him.
Then Chang Geng realizes that it's him that's making it. It's his throat. It's his mouth.
He wants to look back, to put on his mantle of state, to command them to speak, to move, to let him through, but Chang Geng's eyes won’t leave the bed, no matter how hard he tries. All he feels is young. He looks at Gu Yun’s pale and quiet face and attempts to convince himself that it is his little godfather lying prone there, that it might not be him, soon, that the person would be gone, and all that would be left was a body which would be nothing but an empty house Chang Geng would be forced to touch and hold and bury.
But it isn't possible. There's nothing here he can understand.
Perhaps they hadn’t found the cure after all, and a wu’ergu couldn’t be unmade, that it was the spoiled water Chang Geng was born of. Because this must be one of those nightmares, he tells himself, that he used to have, another of those wicked dreams that he could mistake for reality, for if they truly—
Chang Geng is in so much agony he thinks he might sprout those two arms and two legs, head, and dark heart to rend the world asunder after all.
The name comes tumbling out of his mouth. "Zixi," he rasps, as if Gu Yun could hear. "Zixi, wake up. Wake up."
It's only Shen Yi's arms, tight around him, that keep him above water. When Chang Geng bites down on his shoulder without restraint, Shen Yi stiffens once, but otherwise doesn’t react. Chang Geng clutches at the robes on Shen Yi’s back so hard he nearly tears them in two.
Shen Yi simply presses a hand to the back of his head, and hushes him, like a child. It reminds Chang Geng of when Shen Yi was merely of the many faces in their little town, of which none dreamed of greatness, but merely to wander from one day to the next, to look in the sky when the Great Kites came, and were satisfied with everything at hand. When Shen Yi was the odd mister who lived at the edge of town with Chang Geng’s odd godfather, and not some great general, who lived in a great capital, wore great armor, and fought in great battles for a great kingdom.
The world had been so simple then.
Why couldn't they go back?
Chen Qingxu turns to Chang Geng. Her face is white, but her eyes are steady.
“Your Majesty,” Chen Qingxu says. Her movements are swift, tying her sleeves higher on her arms, “I need your help.”
Help? Chang Geng thinks, but can’t open his mouth and say it. It's too late.
Chen Qingxu switches tactics. “Jiping,” she says, instead. “Come here, both of you.”
When Chang Geng still doesn’t move, Liao Ran rises to do so. They don't touch—the latter's hands are too bloody—but what he does is take Chang Geng to Chen Qingxu’s side. Liao Ran smiles, then makes his leave.
Chen Qingxu has one knee on the bed. “Hold his arm,” she instructs, then climbs up all the way. Chang Geng, confused, rests his hands atop Gu Yun’s shoulder. Chen Qingxu shakes her head. She moves his petrified arms for him. “Hold him,” she says, firmer this time. “He will fight it.”
Chang Geng opens his mouth to speak. He looks up and finds Shen Yi opposite him, fingers digging into Gu Yun’s arm, the veins protruding, his knuckles white. He looks like a man being sent to the gallows. Chang Geng closes his mouth.
Chen Qingxu kneels just above Gu Yun. Her braid swings over one shoulder. She sets her hands one atop the other, and—
Drives her hands down into the center of Gu Yun's chest so violently his body bows off the bed.
Chang Geng snatches his hands back as if burnt. Without stopping, Chen Qingxu glances at him out of the corner of her eye. Her jaw is set, expression hard.
“Hold him, Your Majesty!” she demands.
Were Chang Geng more like his late imperial brother, he would’ve protested—how ridiculous, a subject commanding her emperor? But Chang Geng is not Li Feng, nor is he, truly, Li Min. When it comes to Gu Yun, there is no pride too strong to throw aside. Knowing nothing, trusting blindly, the tears rising unbidden from his strained eyes, he does.
He watches as Chen Qingxu beats Gu Yun's heart for him.
She counts under her breath in groups of tens. On the last, she tips Gu Yun’s head back and slots her lips against his blue ones, eyes open, expression clinical. There’s no movement. Chen Qingxu rises on her knees and keeps going.
Her pace flags by ninety. Chang Geng reaches for her sleeve to stop her. She doesn’t stop moving, but does raise an eyebrow at him. A fine bead of sweat rolls from her hairline down her cheek. She’s as unmade as Chang Geng’s ever seen.
But he’s always been a good student. “Let me,” he says.
Chen Qingxu doesn't pause. “One is enough,” she says. It's the worst lesson she's ever taught him. “Even if you have to break his ribs to find it.”
Chang Geng can’t swallow down his tears. Break his ribs, he thinks. For just one heartbeat.
"Can you do it?" she asks.
What choice does he have?
"Yes."
Chen Qingxu swings her legs off the bed. "Quickly, then," she says.
Chang Geng rushes to take her place. The view is worse from here, gazing down at Gu Yun’s slack face—not slack with the quiet shelter of sleep, but already so much like the dead, a wolf with its belly up, its blood dashed against the ground.
Chang Geng must be still for too long.
“Your Majesty!” Chen Qingxu snaps. “Move!”
Chang Geng makes a raw noise, young and terrified, and then drives his hands down like Chen Qingxu, again and again, until his arms burn and his breath—the luxury Gu Yun no longer has—tears jaggedly from the base of his throat. When he leans down to press his lips to Gu Yun’s, all he can think is— I was too late.
When Chang Geng thinks he can no longer go on, sudden scripture fills the room.
Liao Ran, having washed the blood from his skin, has returned to the bedroom, sits cross-legged on the floor, perfectly situated in Chang Geng’s line of sight. His disciple sits beside him.
The boy recites the sutras with his eyes closed, voice like a plucked string through the air. Liao Ran taps a mallet against a wooden fish, catching the rhythm of Chang Geng’s movements, carrying him forward, wave after wave, that constant and little smile curving both corners of his lips.
In the honeycomb world of the imperial bedroom, Chang Geng cracks three of his godfather’s ribs, drinks the old blood from his chapped mouth, and hears Gu Yun, like when an infant is newly born and first sees the light, take in a violent breath and crawl his way, for the countless time, back to life.