Chapter Text
Chang'an, Capital of the Zhao Dynasty
Imperial City Complex
Eastern Palace, Residence of the Crown Prince
Deep into zishi (Hour of the Rat, 11:00 pm–1:00 am), the air is thick with the cloying scent of chrysanthemum, honeysuckle, and the bitter tang of huangqin root simmered into a fever remedy. Silk drapes embroidered with five-clawed dragons stir listlessly amidst the thick incense. Taizi dianxia Zhao Zexiao lies motionless in his bed, his face flushed with sickness, his once immaculate sleeping robes damp with sweat. The past weeks of sleepless investigation have taken their toll on the teenage heir.
Two eunuchs and an imperial physician attend to him in silence, monitoring his condition from his bedside and clearing away the clutter of scrolls.
Outside, the winter storm howls like the ghosts of slaughtered princes.
Movement by the vermilion lacquered doors makes the attendants freeze mid-motion.
Kang neiguan, a high ranking eunuch and the emperor's shadow, steps inside with no announcement. As he moved aside, the Emperor Zhao Yuejing appeared at the threshold, the golden patterns of his longpao robes glinting in the flickering candlelight. His expression was as unreadable as a sealed edict.
His gaze swept across the room, noting the bowls of half-finished tangyao, the scrolls of evidence scattered on the bed, and his son’s trembling form curled beneath silk blankets.
The attendants saluted deeply, and Feng neiguan spoke up. "Bixia (your majesty), forgive this unworthy one! The physicians say it is only exhaustion and seasonal fever—"
"Leave us." Yuejing’s voice cut colder than the arctic winds slicing through the palace courtyards.
Eunuch Kang gestured towards the corridor, and the room emptied, attendants scattering like autumn leaves before a storm. As the last footsteps faded, he stepped forward.
Zexiao stirred at the sound of the emperor’s voice, and his vision swam. For a moment, he remained trapped in his dream.
Fragments of his nightmares clung to his thoughts, memories weaving with fears of the throne room's golden tiles biting his knees, his brothers' smirks sharp as daggers, and his failings exposed before the court, as the Emperor finally deposes him—
“Tell me, Huang’er. If you cannot manage grain, how will you manage an empire?”
A cool hand grips his wrist, jerking him to reality.
His eyes fly open.
Emperor Zhao Yuejing loomed over him, backlit by the glow of liuli crystal lamps.
The warm light gilding the edges of his silhouette did nothing to soften the Emperor’s expression carved from jade, showing no pity, no warmth, only calculation.
Nightmare. This is a nightmare. Zexiao squeezed his eyes shut, willing the vision away. When he opened them again, the emperor still stood there, unmoved.
"...Bixia?" Zexiao’s voice cracked like thin porcelain.
Yuejing’s cool gaze swept over him, and he summarized Zexiao’s condition in a single thought.
Pathetic.
Not the fever. Not the weakness.
Not the way the court would think.
Pathetic because the boy was still performing, even now, with hollow courtesies and deference.
Pathetic, like the late Crown Prince deposed by Yuejing's predecessor. He was full of hollow pride and desperation in those later years. No amount of perfect manners had saved him from the wolves.
It was pathetic, the way Zexiao still flinches from him, even now. As if Yuejing hadn’t spared him when he could’ve crushed him like a beetle in court.
"Dreaming of your failures, Huang'er?" Yuejing asked, the endearment dripping with poison.
Zexiao’s breath hitches at the condescending, gentle nickname. Huang’er, imperial son. A title for infants, for fools. This was no dream.
Yuejing dragged a chair to the bedside, its legs screeching against hanbaiyu marble. The scrape of wood on stone set Zexiao’s teeth on edge.
He shivers, mind racing as he tries to anticipate what the Emperor would demand from him now, with words like weapons.
With a mild voice, Yuejing calls, "Taiyi."
Kang neiguan quickly ushered in Li taiyi, and the imperial physician cautiously approached, kneeling at Zexiao’s bedside to take his pulse.
"Taizi dianxia’s qi is severely depleted," Physician Li assessed. “Excessive study, lack of sleep, and stagnant qingzhi have caused xuhuo to rise, attacking the heart and lungs—"
"Enough," Yuejing interrupted.
His cool fingers replaced the physician’s on Zexiao’s wrist.
Yuejing makes his own assessment.
Rabbit-quick pulse. Dry heat along the shaoyin meridian. Foolish child. He’d seen this before, in detained officials pushed to the brink in lengthy interrogations. In his third brother, finally poisoned as a part of Yuejing’s machinations, by no means his final victim.
Still feverish, Zexiao held still under the clinical touch. Freezing, like the Emperor's apathy.
"Bring the Heiying decoction," Yuejing said.
Li taiyi paled. "Bixia, that is for battlefield wounds!—"
“Did I ask you for a description?” Yuejing spoke with a curious yet deadly tone.
The imperial physician swallowed his protests and saluted deeply before he fled.
"Erchen (subject-son) doesn’t need—" Zexiao’s frantic protest was cut short as Yuejing pressed a hand to his forehead, ignoring the way he stiffened. The skin was furnace hot.
"Silence."
Zexiao obeys, but his fingers twist in the sheets, knuckles white. His mind scrambles as he tries to formally report, "Erchen has... almost, almost finished reviewing the granary records—"
"You’re in no state to read," Yuejing dismissed him coolly.
"But the month, the deadline—" Zexiao struggled, faintly protesting.
The unspoken fear choked him.
You’ll replace me.
Yuejing exhaled through his nose, a faint sound of irritation. He sat on the bed and leaned forward, his shadow falling over Zexiao.
"Look at me."
Zexiao obeys. His eyes are glassy with fever, pupils blown wide. Rational thoughts swirled in his delirium as he tried to find the right words to appease his father, to prove his worth—
Like a cornered rabbit, Yuejing thought.
"Do you know why I chose you?"
Zexiao’s breath stutters. The question is a trap.
Everyone knows how Zhao Yuejing ascended, the usurper prince who was never crowned by the late emperor. As Zhao Wenchen's paranoia spiraled, he had appointed and deposed four crown princes in rapid succession, but the late emperor never once spared a thought for his polite, scholarly sixth son.
Yet Zhao Yuejing had emerged the final victor in the bloody, treacherous succession struggle that killed all eight other princes of his generation. The emperor's political and martial genius was evident to everyone.
Everyone knows why the Emperor appointed his sixth son, Zhao Zexiao, as heir. The crown prince was chosen on a whim, the title handed over at the unprecedented age of eight.
Everyone knows of Zexiao's luck in the birth lottery. The crown prince was not recognized for his merits. He lacked the love and affection of his emperor-father. The court whispered it, all his half-brothers alluded to it, and even his own consort mother silently acknowledged it.
Lately, his mistakes have led the bold ones to begin saying it within earshot, practically to his face.
Every instinct screams at him to deflect, to grovel, to say whatever will please the emperor—
But when has he ever been able to please his father?
He can't remember.
He surrendered to his despair and began to fold it back into his practiced mask of stoicism.
After a long moment, Zexiao finds the courage to state, "Because... Erchen is sixth."
Just like Yuejing had been.
A beat of silence.
Yuejing smiles faintly, "wrong."
Zexiao tenses, his fever-muddled mind scrambling to provide another answer.
Dispassionately, Yuejing says, "I chose you because you were afraid."
Zexiao flinches as if struck.
"Fear keeps you sharp. Fear means you understand the stakes." Yuejing's voice showed lazy amusement.
"My dear brothers died because they weren’t scared enough."
The confession hangs in the air, heavier than the medicinal smoke. The rain had lightened, emphasizing the words with silence.
Zexiao slowly responds, "Erchen... will endeavor not to disappoint Bixia."
"Then stop groveling."
The sudden sharpness in Yuejing’s voice startles Zexiao, his heart racing once again.
"You think I want a heir who cowers before me like a dog? The throne needs a dragon, not a servant."
Zexiao’s throat works soundlessly. The fever makes everything blur: his father’s face, the sharp rebuke, and the way his chest aches like something inside has cracked open.
"Then what do you want from me?"
The raw plea slips out before Zexiao can stop it.
Yuejing studies his son for a long moment. He expected to see fire and defiance, perhaps even spite and hatred, carefully hidden if he’s smart. Yet his son’s amateur mask only hides despair and desperation.
He softens, resolving to postpone the discussion, while his face remains unreadable, studying Zexiao coolly.
Li taiyi returns with a steaming cup. The liquid inside is black as ink, swirling with opium sediment.
Zexiao recoiled. "No." He knew this brew, a barbarian narcotic blended with sedative herbs.
It meant a day lost to oblivion. A day he can’t afford to lose.
Deep down he questions whether the Emperor intended for him to fail, to lambast him before his brothers, and to use this final excuse to depose him.
Perhaps the emperor never intended for him to be the true heir, only a whetstone for his brothers' ambitions.
And whetstones are discarded once the baojian, treasure sword, is sharpened.
History has shown that deposed crown princes have no path to survival. His brothers would make sure of it.
His father would approve of it.
"Erchen can work, please—"
Yuejing’s cool gaze pins him down more effectively than any squadron of elite jinyiwei guards.
"Drink. Or must I pour it down your throat like a disobedient child?"
The threat hangs between them. Zexiao’s breath comes in shallow gasps.
"Fuhuang, please—"
The rare, intimate title slips out unbidden. Yuejing’s eyes flash, something unreadable flickering in the depths.
"Now."
Yuejing lifts the cup to his lips.
The cup tips.
Bitter liquid floods Zexiao’s mouth. He nearly gags, but the emperor’s cool fingers on his neck force him to swallow.
Tears streak his temples as he surrenders to unconsciousness. He avoids Yuejing’s gaze as the drug quickly takes effect, a taste of something metallic at the back of his throat.
His limbs grow leaden. The room blurs.
The last thing he saw was the Emperor’s face, still unreadable.
"Sleep, Huang’er," Yuejing murmured. "The empire will still be here when you wake."
The words sound almost... gentle?
Zexiao can’t tell.
Darkness swallows him whole.
Long after Zexiao’s breathing evens out, Yuejing remains seated at his bedside, watching the rise and fall of his son’s chest.
Foolish boy.
He’d seen the betrayal in Zexiao’s eyes. The fear.
Did he truly think I’d let him die?
Outside, the storm raged on.