Chapter 50: Father and Son Recognize Each Other, Then Part in Death
The gates of the Zhang Residence were wide open.
All the servants in the manor stood neatly in the courtyard, hands clasped at their sides.
Silence reigned.
A guard announced: Director Feng has arrived—
The sharp voice echoed, drifting over the eaves, the golden tiles, and the imperial decree plaque that read “Prime Minister and Virtuous Official.”
Director Feng, holding an imperial silk scroll and a bottle of Crane’s Crest Red in his embrace, walked unimpeded to Minister Zhang’s study in the backyard.
The door was ajar.
A gentle push opened it.
Minister Zhang sat leisurely in his Grand Tutor’s Chair, drinking wine and eating crabs. Hearing the sound, he slightly raised his head and said, “The autumn wind rises, and crab legs itch. Chrysanthemums bloom, and crabs arrive. Crabs at this time of year are the most delicious.”
Feng Gao chuckled softly and stood before him, “Prime Minister, you have such refined taste.”
Minister Zhang broke off a crab leg and offered it to him, “Director Feng, would you like to have some?”
Feng Gao did not take it, but instead shook the imperial silk scroll in his hand, “Prime Minister, you probably won’t be in the mood to eat crabs once you know what’s on this.”
Minister Zhang continued to chew the crab leg in his mouth, “I have received imperial decrees my entire life, no rush, no rush. Just leave it there. Let me finish my crab.”
Feng Gao moved a stool and sat opposite him, observing the old man with great interest.
Minister Zhang took a sip of wine and smiled faintly at Feng Gao, “You are twenty-one this year. The Eastern Depot’s duties are very busy, and His Majesty is unpredictable. Power and wealth are indeed good, but they cannot last. I have thought for a long time that after you complete this important task for His Majesty, it would be best to retire with merit. Whether it’s Jingzhou, or Dongchang Prefecture, or Yangzhou, find any place and live a peaceful life. Adopt a few children, and when you are old, you will have someone by your bedside. As for a wife, if a woman is willing, marrying one would also be good. She must be willing, and you cannot entice her with wealth or force her with power. If you can find one, it is fate… A virtuous woman is important; her appearance is secondary.”
These words were very much like a parent’s admonitions to a child.
However, Feng Gao had never experienced such warmth since he was young, so he felt very awkward.
He waved his hand, “My affairs are not for the Prime Minister to concern himself with.”
There was a bowl of glutinous rice cake on the table.
Minister Zhang carefully peeled it open and continued, “When I was young, I grew up in Jingzhou. Jingzhou is a good place, a land of fish and rice. You should go and see it. Travelers by the river at dusk, leisurely and long, Jingzhou is still not visible on the mountain tops… A daughter stops guests in a new thatched hut, opens the door and sweeps away the phoenix trees…”
He squinted his eyes, as if seeing the rivers of his homeland, the red rice, the white fish, the phoenix flowers, the mist from the streams, and the girl sweeping phoenix flowers by the door.
Feng Gao’s hand reached into his embrace.
Minister Zhang said, “Don’t take it out. I know it’s Crane’s Crest Red. His Majesty and I, we were teacher and student, it didn’t have to come to this. His Majesty is still too young.”
Feng Gao was stunned.
When His Majesty gave him the secret edict, there was no one else present. How did Zhang Taiyue know it was Crane’s Crest Red? Could it be that among the close attendants in the Imperial Palace, he had planted his own people?
Minister Zhang seemed to read his thoughts and smiled, “I entered officialdom during the Jiajing reign, served three monarchs, and sparred with countless ruthless individuals like Yan Song and Gao Gong. I taught His Majesty the art of kingship, but unfortunately, there is one point His Majesty did not grasp. He is too impatient. I should have died of illness, not been poisoned. If I were to take this Crane’s Crest Red, and in the future, my corpse bled from all seven orifices, my hair turning black and purple, how would His Majesty explain it to the world? He would probably have to kill a large group of people to silence them. Why, why? His Majesty cares about his eternal reputation, he should not act like this.”
Feng Gao’s palm trembled slightly.
He did not know what Zhang Taiyue intended to do next.
His Majesty’s secret edict stated that Zhang Taiyue must die today.
Zhang Taiyue said His Majesty should not have poisoned him, did he intend to defy the imperial decree?
While he hesitated, Minister Zhang tilted his head back, drank a few more cups of wine, and said, “Don’t rush, don’t rush, sit down properly and talk with me for a while.”
Feng Gao suppressed his thoughts and calmly observed the person opposite him.
The walls were adorned with pearls and jade, the hall filled with brocade.
Sunlight outside the window passed in a flash, and flower shadows on the table moved before him.
Minister Zhang’s chest suddenly heaved. He patted it with his hand, trying his best to calm himself. He said to Feng Gao, “When I saw you before, I only thought you were unusually beautiful, but I didn’t think deeply about it. Ripples shimmer, distant mountains lie across. A smile, and a city falls. Have you… have you never thought about who your birth parents are?”
Feng Gao grabbed his collar, “Why did you kill the troupe leader? Do you have some leverage over me to threaten me today and let you off? I tell you, it’s impossible. Even if my birth parents are in your hands, I won’t let you go! They abandoned me and didn’t care about my life, so why should I care about theirs?”
Minister Zhang did not resist, and tears streamed down his face.
“Child, your birth parents did not abandon you. They had their difficulties. They do not ask for your forgiveness, they only wish for your safety.”
Feng Gao angrily said, “Speak! Where are they?”
Minister Zhang held up a glutinous rice cake and said, “Eat this, and I will tell you.”
Feng Gao slapped his hand away.
The glutinous rice cake fell to the ground.
“Don’t think you can play tricks on me! I’ve interrogated countless people in the Eastern Depot, what kind of tricks haven’t I seen?”
Minister Zhang stared intently at Feng Gao and said word by word, “On your chest, there is a red, palm-shaped birthmark. You were born in the winter of the Jiajing thirty-ninth year, in the Qin family of Yangzhou Prefecture. Your birth mother, Cai Qingyao of Jingzhou, your birth father…”
He choked, unable to speak.
“Your birth father’s native place is Huguang Jingzhou. He was a Jinshi during the Jiajing reign and served as Vice Minister of Personnel in the first year of the Longqing reign. In the sixth year of the Longqing reign, he was promoted to Grand Scholar of the Grand Hall, and in June of the same year, he was appointed Grand Secretary. His courtesy name was Shuda, and his sobriquet was Taiyue…” Minister Zhang wept uncontrollably.
Feng Gao’s grip loosened.
Minister Zhang slumped back into the Grand Tutor’s Chair.
“Your father and mother were distant relatives from the same hometown. In the early spring of the Jiajing thirty-ninth year, they fell in love in the back garden. Due to a sudden disagreement between their elders, a month later, the Cai family married your mother far away to the Qin family in Yangzhou. Your father went to the capital to seek office. From then on, they missed each other their entire lives. Old haunts can be found everywhere. Nowhere to be found, only a youthful heart.”
Feng Gao let out a cold laugh.
He clapped his hands, “A well-spun story. As expected of the Prime Minister.”
Minister Zhang’s face grew paler, his breathing more rapid, “His Majesty sent you to execute me. If I die, His Majesty will not suspect you. I… I am sorry to you. His Majesty is determined to execute me, and I cannot escape death, nor can I implicate you. However, patricide is a grave sin, the foremost of the ten evils, leading to the Avici hell. I… I cannot let you bear this lifelong burden. Child…”
Feng Gao stared blankly at Minister Zhang.
He tried to find a trace of a lie in those old eyes.
But there was none.
He only saw desolation, only saw sincerity, only saw infinite regret and paternal love.
Minister Zhang smiled, “I have worked for the country my entire life. In recent years, I have never slept until dawn, nor have I gone to bed before the third watch. Now it’s better, I am free. Free… Child. I can finally rest. Go find your mother, she is with Sang Yu. Don’t frighten her, and you don’t need to tell her the truth. She is a weak woman, and we father and son should protect her…”
In an instant.
The face of the beautiful woman flashed in Feng Gao’s mind.
Ripples shimmer, distant mountains lie across. A smile, and a city falls.
No.
This is not real.
Feng Gao closed his eyes. This was just a storybook from a storyteller.
“I am an orphan with no parents! I have no father! I have no mother!”
He roared, as if trying to convince Zhang Taiyue, and also as if trying to convince himself.
Minister Zhang trembled like a sieve.
“This morning, I used the withered medicine for hemorrhoids, which I haven’t used for a long time. It is very harmful to the body. My last attack was due to this. Also, I ate three persimmons. Persimmons and crabs are incompatible. This old life of mine, I am not afraid of it ending. After I die, tell His Majesty to send an Imperial Physician to examine me. And, send my corpse to Dali Temple, let the coroner examine it in court. I died of illness. Truly died of illness. No official in the world will say anything. His Majesty doesn’t need to silence anyone. We were teacher and student, I will teach His Majesty one last thing: benevolence and righteousness must not be lost, only then can one receive the mandate of heaven. He will understand this…”
“His Majesty cannot bear the name of slaughtering his teacher. You cannot bear the sin of patricide. I will bear it alone, which is best. Child, I regret so much that I could not personally teach you to read and write, did not care for you, and did not see you grow into adulthood with my own eyes. It is my fault…”
Minister Zhang’s eyes widened, and a sentence burst from his throat: “May heaven inflict its punishment upon me alone, and not harm my son!”
Feng Gao walked forward in a panic, was suddenly tripped by the stool, and fell to the ground. He crawled on the ground, fumbling, picked up the glutinous rice cake he had knocked down, held it in both hands, and brought it before Minister Zhang.
He desperately stuffed the rice cake into his mouth, “Old man, don’t die, look, I’m eating the rice cake, I’m eating it.”
He awkwardly, rashly, did not know how to face this immense truth, this immense paternal love—something he had never perceived. Something utterly unfamiliar. Something that had never existed in his world.
A smile appeared on Minister Zhang’s lips.
It was as if he had never been so happy in his life.
“Child, this is all I can do as your father. The rest of the road, you must walk yourself.”
Feng Gao turned his head, losing his calculation, losing his ruthlessness, and said tremblingly, “Old man, you can’t die, you want to get away with what you owe me? You’re dreaming! Impossible! I don’t agree!”
The old man before him closed his eyes.
He closed his eyes forever.
Historical records state: Taiyue was a man of tall stature with fine eyebrows and eyes, his beard reaching his abdomen. He was brave and capable, considering himself a hero. However, he was deep and calculating, impossible to fathom. Throughout the Wanli era, no one dared to speak ill of Taiyue. Upon his death, the Emperor suspended court, ordered nine sacrificial rites, and treated him as a Duke and tutor of the state.
Feng Gao reached out and felt for his breath, recoiling as if touched by fire.
“Old man, old man, old man…” Feng Gao murmured, and stood up.
He walked to the door, then suddenly turned back, facing the corpse on the ground, opened his mouth, but the word “Dad” could not be uttered, it was stuck in his chest, twisting and turning.
In the time it takes for a cup of tea to brew, he walked out in a daze, constantly repeating, “Dead, dead…”
All the servants in the courtyard knelt down in unison, covering their faces and weeping.
The Zhang Residence, as if prepared, was draped in white silk.
Feng Gao walked out from the sea of white.
“Dead, dead…”
He mounted his horse and, without conscious thought, galloped towards the Cheng Residence.
“I have no relatives, no relatives. Elder Sister and Dou Ya are my relatives… I don’t, I don’t… I am an orphan, I always have been…”
The Cheng Residence.
The autumn wind rustled.
The sky was high and the clouds were thin.
“Elder Sister, Elder Sister—”
He called out.
My face was pale and sickly, and I was half-lying on the couch. After the miscarriage, my body had been weak. It felt as if the most precious thing in my body had been ripped away from me. My soul, my spirit, was gone.
He rushed to my bedside, holding my hands, “Elder Sister, it’s all over. I’ll take you and Dou Ya and we’ll leave. Let’s go.”
Xiao Yin half-lifted the brocade quilt. He saw my now-flat abdomen.
His eyes were like a lamp extinguished by the midnight wind, dark and empty.
After a long while.
He smiled.
The smile was ethereal, fleeting. Like the autumn day in Dongchang Prefecture, the thick fog that permeated the city.
“Dou Ya is playing hide-and-seek with me. He is closest to me. I was the first to know Elder Sister was pregnant. I gave him his name. He’s mischievous. I have to go find him. He can’t see Elder Sister, and he can’t see me, he’ll be lonely,” he said with certainty.
I shed tears and reached out, pulling him, “Dou Ya—”
He raised his eyebrows innocently, “Why is Elder Sister pulling me? I finally have relatives, doesn’t Elder Sister want me to have them?”
“Dou Ya, Dou Ya is gone. In the future, Elder Sister will have other children. Elder Sister’s children will all be your children…” I pressed my face against his hand. His hand was like ice.
“Elder Sister is coaxing me again. You all coax me.”
He pursed his lips, suddenly pulled his hand back, and hugged his head.
“I killed Dou Ya. I killed the old man. It was all me. It was all me.”
I got off the bed and hugged him tightly.
His gaze fell upon my abdomen, and as if pierced by a thousand arrows, he cried out and retreated.
“I killed Dou Ya. I killed Dou Ya. I killed my relatives. I deserve to be alone forever. I deserve it. I have earned my punishment. I have earned my punishment…”
Madam Qin in the west wing heard the commotion and came in.
Feng Gao lunged at her like a madman.
Madam Qin looked at him gently. After a while, she touched his face, her tears preceding her words.
She understood.
Everyone had kept it from her, but she understood. She was never foolish, just indifferent to worldly affairs. When the things she most wanted to contend for were gone, what was there to contend for? Now, she understood that for twenty years, she had lived in the Qin family’s deception. She traced Feng Gao’s eyebrows, eyes, and lips inch by inch. Eyebrows, eyes, and lips that resembled hers.
She could not utter a single word.
Feng Gao threw his head back and laughed a few times.
Suddenly, he spat out blood and fell to the ground.
Outside the courtyard, the amber twilight carried a faint haze, and specks of sunlight danced on the gauze window through the gaps in the leaves.
A leaf detached from its branch, fumbling, testing, and finally, swaying unsteadily, it drifted away with the wind.
Endless tenderness.
Unspeakable late autumn.
