Being confined in a narrow space for too long can make a person's thoughts increasingly bizarre and obsessive, their actions more twisted and irrational.
When Li Yuangui realized his father—Li Yuan, the founding Supreme Emperor of the Great Tang—had passed away, he was utterly stunned in the prison cell atop the Black Tortoise Gate. The passage of time afterward and what he himself had done during that period left no impression in his memory.
The thought that "I caused my father's death" haunted him relentlessly, like a vengeful ghost that refused to leave.
In truth, it was almost laughable. Back when he had decided to lead foreign assassins into the palace at night, he had already anticipated such an outcome—one even a hundred times more brutal and severe. In that scenario, if things had gone slightly awry or coordination had failed, assassins like Sang Sai might have indeed slain the Supreme Emperor in his own bedchamber, leaving all participants, including himself, to be captured and executed.
At the time, his mind had been consumed by the abduction of his younger half-sister and the tragic fates of women like Chai and Wei. He had been deeply resentful of the way the Supreme Emperor, the Emperor, and the Crown Prince—three generations of authoritarian rulers—handled affairs. He had steeled himself, determined not to regret his actions even if the worst came to pass. And yet...
And yet, the Supreme Emperor had truly passed away.
Strictly speaking, he could absolve himself: the chaos at Great Peace Palace that night had no direct connection to the old man's death, given the considerable time that had elapsed between the two events.
But such self-justification was meaningless. Though he hadn’t laid eyes on his father that night, he had later heard detailed accounts from Chai Yingluo and Wei Shufen. He knew the gravely ill old man had suffered terribly in the depths of that late winter night. It hadn’t been severe enough to kill him on the spot, but the ordeal certainly hadn’t helped his already failing health.
Li Yuangui even suspected that much of his elder brother, the Son of Heaven Li Shimin’s anger and imprisonment of him stemmed from fury over his worsening the Supreme Emperor’s condition—no, he wasn’t naive enough to believe his second brother genuinely revered or cared for their father. But he did believe the Emperor sincerely wished for the Supreme Emperor to linger longer, at least until... the war against Tuyuhun was won, before passing away, so the court could attend to "official business" before holding a state funeral.
Had the war against Tuyuhun ended? He didn’t know. He guessed not, for the desolate world outside his window bore no celebratory air—only the mournful solemnity of white mourning banners.
When Cheng Yaojin personally pushed open the door of his cell and handed him a set of mourning garments, Li Yuangui was kneeling slumped against the floor beside his bed, his mind and vision too clouded to distinguish day from night. It took two attendants to help him remove his old clothes and don the rough, hempen sackcloth and straw rope of penitence.
"An unfilial son, burdened with grievous sins, failed to perish himself, instead bringing calamity upon his late father. No lamentation can atone..." The conventional phrases from ancient mourning texts flowed through his mind, fitting with eerie precision. As General Cheng murmured words of condolence and comfort, he lacked the strength to respond or even weep and wail. All vitality seemed drained from his body; he could barely stand without collapsing.
But Cheng Yaojin had come under imperial decree to escort him to the Supreme Polarity Hall for the mourning rites.For the first time in months, he stepped out of the prison cell in the city tower. The blinding white sunlight poured down from above, and before he could even reach the steps, dizziness overtook him, his body weak and on the verge of collapse. Cheng Yaojin’s large hand swiftly caught him, half-forcing attendants to support him on both sides as they descended the stairs. Then, half-carrying and half-dragging him, they made a long detour from the northernmost to the southernmost part of the palace, all the way to the Supreme Polarity Hall.
Along the way, everything he saw—palace gates, walls, towers, pavilions—wherever people had arranged them—was draped in endless white mourning banners and hemp streamers. This was the first state funeral the Tang dynasty had experienced since its founding, with no established precedent. The awkwardness between the Supreme Emperor and the Emperor, father and son, left the officials in charge visibly flustered and uncertain.
As they neared the Supreme Polarity Hall, intermittent wails could be heard. The grandest, most imposing double-eaved hall in the imperial palace had been transformed into a mourning chamber. The dragon-pulled hearse carrying the imperial coffin, draped with funeral ropes, stood at the western steps of the hall. Officials from the Palace Service Department, the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, and the Ministry of Rites were busy setting out eight baskets of sacrificial millet, while others erected a wooden frame in the southwest courtyard, suspending eight cauldrons of rice porridge as offerings.
Li Yuangui lifted the hem of his hemp robe and staggered up the high stone steps of the Supreme Polarity Hall. Everyone they passed cast sidelong glances at him.
Under the piercing, dizzying sunlight, the moving figures and voices receded beyond his sight, dissolving into lifeless corridors, pillars, railings, and banners. Beneath the vast sky, upon the yellow earth, along the stone steps and dragon-tail pathways, he alone dragged his feet, trudging forward in solitude.
His soul seemed to detach from his body, soaring into the sky and abruptly opening its eyes, gazing down upon everything with eerie calm, even able to think with detached clarity: The Supreme Emperor had closed his eyes in the Great Peace Palace in the northwest of the forbidden garden, and his remains had been reverently transported to the main palace’s Supreme Polarity Hall. The princes, consorts, and princesses from the Great Peace Palace must have followed in a grand procession to mourn and keep vigil. Naturally, they would move together as one. Only he had been imprisoned alone for so long, arriving solitary—no wonder he drew so many eyes…
As he stepped beneath the corridor eaves of the Supreme Polarity Hall, the world before him suddenly darkened. He wondered if he had gone blind. After what felt like an eternity, he faintly discerned the figures in mourning robes standing northward in the eastern chamber—his brothers from the Great Peace Palace—while the imperial princes stood facing south. Behind the curtains in the western chamber, shadows and cries suggested the presence of the Supreme Emperor’s consorts and princesses. On the raised platform of the hall, where the imperial throne usually stood, it had been replaced with an imperial bed for lying in state.
Amidst the surrounding curtains and sacrificial tables, a heavy, quilt-covered figure lay supine on the imperial bed.
Li Yuangui stumbled forward a few steps before his knees gave way, unable to bear his own weight any longer. He collapsed to the ground. No one stepped forward to help him. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself up and crawled on his hands and knees, dragging himself toward his "birth father."
Still, he could not weep. Not even tears welled in his eyes. The overwhelming incense, candles, white drapes, mourning robes, and lamentations around him only left him exhausted, numb, and utterly desolate. When he finally reached the imperial bed, panting, he saw the deceased elder’s snow-white beard and hair neatly combed, his face covered with a black silk veil lined in red. Below the neck, layers of burial clothes and winding shrouds concealed the body—the initial funeral rites of placing silk over the mouth, summoning the soul, cleansing, and filling the mouth had already been performed, though the final encoffining had yet to take place… This was also the last chance for all the Supreme Emperor’s descendants in the capital to see the deceased "one final time."Li Yuangui propped himself up, his gaze fixed solely on the death veil covering his father's face. The black silk had openings for the eyes and mouth, faintly revealing the reddish-brown lining beneath, yet it wasn't tied or fastened to the head. He thought he could reach out and lift the veil—to look upon the old man's deeply wrinkled and spotted face one last time. None of the imperial relatives or ritual officials present would stop him, but... never mind.
He couldn't lift his arm, nor did he want to bother with such a troublesome act. What difference would another glance make? This aged face, with its white beard and hair, had never brought him much warmth or comfort in life. He couldn't even recall ever addressing his father as "Aye" to his face...
He must have called him that at some point, and perhaps even been held by him, just as he had seen his father cradle and play with his younger siblings. But he didn't remember.
From childhood, Li Yuangui had never been one to act spoiled or vie for affection. While siblings close in age would play and bicker together, he preferred to quietly practice calligraphy or martial arts by himself. His mother had scolded him for this many times, yet after each lecture, she would still drape an extra layer over his shoulders, bring him warm soup, or trim the lamp wick and candle flame.
He remembered the earth-shattering grief that had consumed him after his mother's death—how he had clung to her stiff, cold body in a side hall of the Great Peace Palace, weeping until he fainted, and how long it had taken for him to regain his senses and return to reality. He also remembered the heartache, fury, and helplessness he had felt when his younger sister from the same mother was forcibly taken away. Yet now, faced with his father's remains, he felt... nothing at all.
All he could feel was exhaustion—exhaustion so deep it numbed him, exhaustion so profound it bordered on despair.
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