Jiafu's time to accompany the emperor in death came in late autumn. She remembered clearly—the hibiscus flowers in the Golden Jade Palace were in full bloom, looking from afar like a floating rainbow in the sky.
She also remembered vividly the scene that afternoon.
She hadn't seen the emperor for days. The palace maids said Empress Zhang had been attending to him day and night without rest.
Upon entering, she saw Empress Zhang with swollen eyelids and a weary expression. Before leaving, the empress told her the emperor had summoned her and instructed her to serve him well.
The empress was as gentle and kind as ever.
Between layers of bright yellow curtains hung a bitter, foul odor of incense mixed with medicine. The palace windows were tightly shut, and the dim, oppressive light inside the hall enveloped her like a shadow.
Kneeling beside the Dragon Bed, Jiafu had been there for half the time it takes an incense stick to burn, gazing at the man named Xiao Yintang.
In just ten short years, the imperial power of Great Wei had changed hands four times. The era names shifted from Tianxi, Chengning, and Yongxi to Shizong's Manifest Peace during the late emperor's reign. There had even been wars—a period of undeniable turbulence. But since the late emperor's reign, Great Wei had finally ended its internal strife, growing stronger by the day, and the people's lives had stabilized. After Xiao Yintang inherited the throne from his father Shizong, turmoil arose again at the northern frontier. Ambitious, the new emperor disregarded his ministers' fervent protests and led the entire nation's forces to personally campaign against the Turks the following year. Though the battle was hard-won, he was accidentally injured. After returning to court, his condition worsened, and the imperial physicians were at a loss. Now, unsettling rumors had begun to circulate in secret.
Xiao Yintang had been unconscious, but suddenly, his hands lifted, flailing wildly in the air as if fighting off something unseen.
His eyes remained shut, but his brows were tightly knit, his expression pained and terrified. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead as if he were trapped in a horrifying nightmare.
Jiafu quickly rose and approached, grasping his cold, damp hands.
"Your Majesty, wake up—"
The next moment, the emperor shoved her away forcefully. She fell to the ground but scrambled back up despite the pain, only to hear him mutter incoherently.
"You'an! You'an! Is this the retribution you've brought upon me? Spare me! Don't blame me! Blame my father! It was all his sin—"
Xiao Yintang's throat rattled as if invisible hands were choking him, making it hard to breathe.
Jiafu's heart pounded wildly. Still trapped in his nightmare, Xiao Yintang continued muttering, but his tone shifted.
"I am the emperor! I am the emperor of Great Wei! Pei You'an, I am not afraid of you! You should never have lived in this world! Even if you've become a ghost, what can you do to me?"
His teeth clenched, his face twisted, and his flailing hand happened to seize Jiafu's wrist, tightening instantly. His jaw clenched audibly, as though all the strength left in his dreaming body had concentrated into that grip.
Jiafu felt as though her wrist might shatter, but she endured the pain and called out to him again.
Finally, Xiao Yintang awoke, his eyes snapping open, drenched in cold sweat, and fixed on Jiafu beside him.
Her face slightly pale, Jiafu met his gaze for a moment before offering a faint smile. "Your Majesty, it's me..."
Xiao Yintang released her wrist, his arm dropping limply.
Jiafu wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.His face was pale. After closing his eyes for a moment, he asked in a weak voice, "A'fu, did you hear what I said in my dream just now?"
Jiafu's hand holding the handkerchief paused slightly.
Pei You'an, the eldest son of Duke Wei's Mansion, had been frail and sickly since childhood due to congenital deficiencies. Yet he possessed extraordinary talent, memorizing texts at a glance. He passed the imperial examination at the age of fourteen. The then Tianxi Emperor was exceedingly fond of him, exceptionally appointing him to serve in the Hongwen Pavilion, earning him the reputation of "a commoner minister, a youthful chancellor." The late Emperor Shizong also held him in high regard. Three years ago, he died while serving as the Military Commissioner of Anxi, having never married, not yet thirty years old.
It was said that on the night before his death in Suyeh City, his old illness flared up, and he vomited blood until it overflowed the basin. Holding a candle, he received his subordinates who came to visit him. Everyone wept, but he remained composed, still chatting and laughing freely. He claimed that since childhood, he had lived with medicine, having been told he wouldn't live past ten. Lingering until now, he had already borrowed twenty extra years from heaven and had no regrets about death.
When the tragic news of Pei's death in the remote frontier city reached the capital, it was said that the late Emperor Shizong was so overcome with grief that he fainted on the spot.
After his death, he was not buried in the Pei family ancestral tomb but, in accordance with his own wishes, was interred outside Suyeh City. Soldiers and civilians wailed to the heavens, unwilling to disperse for half a month. Shizong posthumously honored him as the Prince of Anxi, an exceptional honor, and his funeral rites were conducted with the utmost grandeur.
In terms of relations, Pei You'an and Jiafu were also cousins, but aside from that one accidental encounter years ago, they had never interacted.
"I did not hear anything," she replied, continuing to wipe his sweat.
Xiao Yintang slowly exhaled, closed his eyes again for a moment, and gradually calmed. He gently grasped Jiafu's hand and said, "A'fu, I love you as my life. From the moment I first saw you, I placed you at the tip of my heart. Over these years, aside from not being able to give you a formal title, I have lavished you with the utmost favor. I am about to depart. All posthumous arrangements are in order, and I have also made arrangements for your maternal family. The only thing I cannot bear to part with is you..."
"After I am gone, will you accompany me?"
He slowly opened his eyes and turned his head to look at her.
His face was ashen, a bluish tinge emanating from between his brows. This once-handsome countenance was now shrouded in the faint aura of impending death.
Jiafu knelt half-seated, gazing into the emperor's eyes fixed upon her.
"What, you no longer wish to accompany me?" he asked, with a faint, ambiguous smile.
"Your Majesty, I am willing."
She withdrew her hand, then turned toward the dragon bed and kowtowed, pressing her forehead to the ground, remaining prostrate without rising.
"Come closer to me." He reached out to her again, using his last strength to embrace her tightly, then let out a long sigh—a sigh filled with endless regret and unwillingness.
"I fear the Underground Palace will be lonely. After I am gone, no one will understand me as you do, to ease my worries. I fear even more that after I am gone, you will be left alone in this world, with no one to rely on. It would be better for you to accompany me now, so I may rest in peace."
"A'fu, do not blame me. If there is a next life, I will surely make you my empress..."
His lips brushed her ear as he murmured, his voice filled with tenderness.
...
In the autumn of the second year of Shenguang, Xiao Yintang, the emperor of Great Wei who had been on the throne for less than two years, passed away in his prime. His posthumous title was Dunzong.
"Dun" signifies closeness to kin and harmony with family. "Dun" also represents virtue and steadfastness.
As this posthumous title reflected the emperor's virtues, Xiao Yintang left behind a widely praised final edict before his death.
He said, "Using people as burial companions is something I cannot bear. Therefore, after my passing, all consorts are exempt from burial sacrifice and are to live out their years in peace."Since the previous dynasty, there had been a palace rule that when an emperor died, childless women from the harem would be buried alive with him, ranging from a few to over a hundred. The Great Wei dynasty followed this old tradition. Xiao Yintang, not yet thirty, had died suddenly, which struck the women of the harem like a bolt from the blue. They had resigned themselves to weeping day and night, waiting only for the moment to hang themselves and be buried alive in the Underground Palace. Yet, to their surprise, the emperor had pardoned their deaths. Though their fate remained a lonely existence in the cold palace, it was still a blessing compared to being forced to follow him in death. Grateful and reverent, their tears before his spirit were especially sincere.
But all this had nothing to do with Jiafu anymore.
She had already accepted her fate, devoid of sorrow or joy.
In this life, she had been like rootless duckweed. After submitting to Xiao Yintang, she had no name, no status, and lived in the shadows. An ending like this was not unexpected.
Yet what awaited her was not the customary white silk rope for hanging.
The newly elevated Empress Dowager Zhang ordered her to be nailed into the precious Golden Phoebe Coffin specially prepared for her, to be buried alive in the Underground Palace as a sacrifice to the late emperor.
"The late emperor entrusted me to take good care of your Zhen family. Rest assured and follow him. I will not fail his trust," Empress Dowager Zhang said, her voice dripping with undisguised hatred as she stared at Jiafu, enunciating each word with venom.
The heavy coffin lid pressed down, squeezing out the last sliver of light before her eyes.
Jiafu's final world turned pitch black as she was forever sealed within the narrow confines of the Underground Palace, never to emerge again.
There was no struggle, no cry for help. She knew it would all be in vain.
This was her destined end.
She had no say in her birth, no say in her marriage, and no say in her death.
The air grew thinner, and her chest ached from the lack of breath. In the prolonged agony between life and death, her nails began to claw uncontrollably at the coffin, leaving deep scratches in the unyielding golden wood.
Only then did she realize how much she feared death—and the unimaginable, suffocating darkness of the underground that came with it.
She understood now that she wanted to live, to keep living, no matter how hard it was.
But it was too late. This life had reached its end. Her story was over.
What would her life have been like if she hadn't married her second cousin? What if she had never met Xiao Yintang?
She began to weep, tears streaming, but crying only consumed more air, intensifying her suffering.
Strange, kaleidoscopic visions flickered before her eyes. At the edge of the light, she faintly saw a man breaking through the endless darkness of the Underground Palace, smiling as he walked toward her.
She recognized him—it was her father.
Many years ago, when she was just thirteen, her father had set sail. She had seen him off at the harbor. Before boarding, he had promised her that this voyage would bring back a necklace made of Purple Shark Pearls for her.
Purple Shark Pearls came from distant, exotic lands. Not only did they glow in the dark, but legend said they brought good fortune. For sailors, finding one was a stroke of luck.
"Wear it, and my A'fu will have a smooth, fortunate life, free from illness and disaster."My father's voice and smile at that time remain vivid in my memory to this day.
But after that voyage, he never returned.
"A'fu, Daddy's back. I brought you a necklace. Do you like it?"
Father's gaze held boundless tenderness as he looked at her.
"Daddy—"
Jiafu smiled through her tears, reaching out toward him, calling for her father—the man who had once loved her most in this world.
The last precious breath escaped from her lungs. Her hands, with nails already broken and bleeding, slowly fell powerless from midair to rest upon her soft, warm chest, a smile lingering at the corners of her lips.
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