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Looking back on it, some would say her life before she ascended was quite pitiable. Being born of the lowliest of concubines of the emperor, being the youngest and lowest ranking princess of the long eradicated kingdom of Yushi, she was destined to be someone not even worth remembering. Her status could even be considered a joke. Although she had been born royalty, in that enormous palace filled to the brim with other children of the emperor, she couldn’t have been more forlorn and desolate.
It’s what others say anyway.
Of course, Yushi Huang herself felt it was much simpler than that. She had led a comfortable life back then, given the most basic respect of a royal and carefully tended to by the palace maids and servants. She was never outright hated, per se, but there had been many who looked down upon her, their gazes arrogant and full of mockery. Yet, never did they do more than whisper scornfully behind her back, pointing fingers and sneering when her face had turned, upset and seething and using her as an outlet for their own woes. That was enough. That was all she could ask for.
Her mother had been a quiet, demure woman who caught the eye of the emperor years ago, eventually ending up as simply another face in the emperor’s extensive collection of wives. No doubt, she had been looked down upon just as her daughter was. The emperor himself most likely did not even remember Yushi Huang existed. Early on, she’d learned to accept it as it was. She’d never known anything else of how parents should treat their children; she had forgotten how many days had passed since she last felt the warmth of somebody’s arms around her.
But one thing Yushi Huang could not forget—how could anyone forget—the day her kingdom was brought down to its knees.
So, when Pei Ming asks her if she remembers, she pauses in her step and glances over at him with an unreadable expression. She nods once.
Across from her is the General Ming Guang himself, leaning against the doorframe and seeming somewhat restless. He had looked like that when she offered him her sword at Tonglu Mountain, too.
“Tell me… just—were you ever afraid?” The words fall from his lips gracelessly, sounding as if they were hard to get out, sounding as if he wanted to say more but not sure if he should. “Were you afraid,” he repeats, eyes not quite meeting hers.
Yushi Huang’s breath escapes her slowly. She heaves a small sigh, pondering this herself as she tries to recall exactly how she’d felt at that time. A sense of vague nostalgia wells up inside her, disorienting and warm like the lingering heat of a touch long gone, nondescript images blurred together at the edges with age.
Hundreds and hundreds of years had flown by in a blink, the people she had known disappearing into dust, never to return again.
And then there’s Pei Ming, someone who had initially wanted her country to fall and someone who is standing in front of her right now. Should she be angry? Should she resent him? The scar over her neck throbs faintly despite being healed for centuries, and she unknowingly reaches for it. Pei Ming tracks her movements with his eyes, this going unnoticed by Yushi Huang as well.
She remembers feeling numb all over. From the tips of her fingers to her feet, she felt cold, conflicted, committed. Her limbs moved on their own as if they were suspended on strings, as if she were a puppet being pulled along to perform the wretched scenes of a play. Asking for the throne meant asking for death.
She had not felt much different during her pathetic excuse of a coronation ceremony, either. It was haphazardly thrown together last minute, somewhat fitting for a princess never destined to reign. Maybe her father had finally looked her way, maybe there had been a scrap of gratitude in her siblings’ eyes as she took the crown and throne. Her hands trembled slightly the moment they officially declared her Queen Yushi.
There, just outside the palace gate, she had trembled again, too, with the blade pressed deftly against her throat, its silver edges sharp and glinting underneath the glaring sun, ready to go in for the kill. She could feel the icy chill of the metal rush deep into her bones, burrowing viciously into the marrow and permeating throughout her whole body. Donned in the finest of silk brocade, lips lined red as blood, she faced Pei Ming and the Xuli army.
The crown weighed heavily on her head.
With frost settled in her bones and mind dead set on protecting the very ones who wronged her, she had grit her teeth and sliced with all her might.
The cut was met with no resistance, easily tearing through tender flesh and viscera. All at once, an excruciating, sudden white-hot pain had burst forth, dyeing everything crimson and shocking a choked gasp from Yushi Huang. It hurt more than she’d expected. She instantly tasted the overwhelming flavor of iron and heard a distant ringing in her ear. Blood splashed onto the concrete, her robes, her sword—it was all she could see before her vision dimmed and everything else faded to black. Then, she felt nothing.
The sword had clattered to the ground beside her lifeless body, the noise deafening in the ears of onlookers. Not a single person moved or made noise for a moment, staring on in a combination of bewilderment and sheer horror as it dawned upon them that the newly crowned monarch ended her own life. To save them.
Someone in the crowd started to weep. Then another, and another, and soon a cacophony of anguished cries rang out. She heard the broken wails of her mother, the sorrowful sobs of the commoners below. There were even some outraged shouts of soldiers mixed in.
She heard them all, yet they could not hear her. Yushi Huang wanted to tell them that they were safe and she didn’t mind dying if it meant her insignificant life could be traded for her theirs.
Later, however, Yushi Huang would ask herself, if not her then who?
Whether she had done it for herself or for the Kingdom of Yushi, what’s done is done. In the end, it hadn’t really mattered. Times erases all, and no one could escape fate.
Yushi Huang already understands. A small part of her hoped deep down in her heart that somebody would stop her, that somebody would object to her coronation and argue to preserve her life instead. She’d hoped that person would have been her father who never looked at her with anything but indifferent responsibility, or perhaps her mother who more or less shared the same fate as her in the palace. She had wanted to believe, even as she gripped the sword with sweating palms and as blood gushed down her body in a scarlet waterfall.
Without her noticing, Pei Ming has actually drawn closer, and she finds herself eye-level with his armored chest. He doesn’t say a word. Neither does Yushi Huang. They simply observe each other in silence, and Yushi Huang had not realized until this moment how striking Pei Ming’s eyes were. She catches traces of uncertainty in them, still, but Pei Ming is not looking at her face. She follows his line of sight to her own hands and discovers they have begun to shake slightly.
Yushi Huang thinks about the general’s question again, though it feels as if an hour had passed since he last asked. Were you afraid? Perhaps, but not of death.
No, Yushi Huang’s fears stemmed from the idea that no one had cared enough to stop her, that no one had cared enough to even try to dissuade her. Not her father, not her mother, not a single person.
By now Yushi Huang is fully aware of the way her hands are trembling, just as they did all those years ago. She feels the phantom of a sword hilt nestled in her right hand, her old injury tingling as if triggered by the memories. Her throat suddenly feels dry and scratchy, and an inexplicable, overwhelming emotion thrashes inside her chest like a trapped beast, desperate to break free from its confines.
Before it can, something warm envelops her hands and coaxes the uncontrollable tremors to cease. Pei Ming’s palms have gingerly settled over her own without her realizing. She looks up with a sharp jerk of her head, surprise coloring her features as she stares at Pei Ming, completely dumbfounded.
For the first time since she has met him, Pei Ming appears the complete opposite of his typically proud and confident self. At this moment, he looks unsure of himself. But Yushi Huang makes neither any move to pull away nor reprimand him, so his hands stay where they are.
He’s warm.
“You don’t have to say anything.”
Yushi Huang shakes her head, tremors gone and the feeling in her chest lifted. She confirms, “I was afraid,” and the uneasiness that had been gradually dissipating from Pei Ming rushes back full force. Yushi Huang continues unhurriedly, “But not of the pain, not of dying. I was afraid to come to terms with the fact that there was not a single person who was against me giving up my own life.”
There’s not a trace of bitterness in her voice, only wistfulness and acceptance. “Back then, I was naive and ignorant to just how deep the selfishness of mankind runs. A part of me had done it for my kingdom, but in the end, it was merely to confirm my own convoluted insecurities.”
Pei Ming grips her hands tight, her palms petite and delicate in his hold. She squeezes back lightly, shaking her head with a sigh. “It’s all in the past, now,” Yushi Huang finishes.
“No,” Pei Ming cuts in, eyes blazing, “This whole time, you were enough. Only you had been strong enough to step forward and take charge.”
Yushi Huang is shocked yet again, taken aback by Pei Ming’s straightforwardness. A warm feeling bubbles up inside her, and she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She’s been praised before by her followers and by other heavenly officials alike, but very few if any had been this earnest with her. The words touch her heart, and for a moment, Yushi Huang is rendered speechless.
“I’m sorry, even if it was in the past,” Pei Ming says, tone unwavering. He swallows, fingers twitching, “and thank you for your help at Tonglu.”
Briefly, she wonders if this is all a dream. She wasn’t oblivious; Pei Ming had never wanted anything to do with her. Of all those times they encountered one another by chance after Yushi Huang’s ascension, the air between them was nothing short of tense and awkward. She isn’t sure when that had changed.
The Pei Ming standing before her now is warm to the touch and real, and he isn’t finding the quickest excuse to avoid her. Instead, every inch of him is radiating sincerity despite the unsureness that clouds his eyes. A smile tugs at her lips, and she pulls her hands free from Pei Ming’s grasp. Before he has the chance to react, Yushi Huang puts her arms around him in a hug.
For a second, Pei Ming remains stock still as if his brain hasn’t caught up to what’s happening. Once the initial surprise passes, he returns the embrace, a soft, shaky sigh escaping his lips.
“I don’t think I’ve blamed you then, and I won’t now,” Yushi Huang murmurs. She sneaks a glance up at Pei Ming, whose ears have begun to subtly redden. “As for Tonglu Mountain… no need to thank me. Anyone would have done the same.”
Pei Ming releases a small, humorless laugh, unable to find the right words to speak. “Lady Rain Master, you really are something else,” he settles on.
“I could say the same for you, General Ming Guang.”
Pei Ming doesn’t say more, only tightening his arms around her.
Yushi Huang finds it a bit ironic. Back in her life as the sixteenth princess of Yushi, no one had been there to comfort her so wholeheartedly. Whether as a small child or up until the very moment she drove the Yulong sword into her own neck, there had never been an instant where someone had told her “you’ve done well.” Not once had someone been there to offer consolation, to share with her the secure warmth of an embrace. And now, hundreds of years later, she experiences it with a former enemy.
Instead of feeling suffocated or repulsed, Yushi Huang feels like she’s finally found home.