Li Yi curled beneath the thin quilt, his insides steeped in icy water: cold, heavy, leaden. His tongue, bitten raw last night, throbbed at the slightest touch against his teeth—but he dared not spit out the blood, lest it leave a trace.
“Your liver and kidneys are damaged! If you don’t purge the toxin now, the harm will be permanent!”
Li Ke’s voice rasped from the depths of consciousness, hoarse with desperation.
But the warning struck an invisible wall and shattered into silent dust.
The door hinge creaked softly. Wu entered with a bowl of porridge, her steps quieter than falling snow. She wouldn’t look at him—only set the bowl on the low table, her fingers twisting white-knuckled inside her sleeves.
“Ayi… eat while it’s warm.”
He grinned, letting drool spill onto his robe as usual. “Sweet! Mother’s the best!”
Yet deep inside, the thorn dug deeper.
—Why?
Why would the one who loved him most destroy him with her own hands?
He’d barely slept last night. His gut twisted between cramps and burning heat; cold sweat soaked his underrobe, dried, then soaked again. Before dawn, he’d heard Wu pace outside his door three times—the wooden basin tapped lightly against the frame, then retreated in silence. In those footsteps, he sensed guilt, fear… and even a sliver of something like tenderness.
Now she stood by his bedside, eyes lingering on the shadows beneath his eyes. Her lips parted, then closed, before she finally whispered, “Ayi… didn’t sleep well again? Is your stomach hurting?” Her voice was so soft it seemed afraid to disturb something sacred.
Li Yi’s heart clenched. That tone—that was the Mother who used to sing him to sleep before he turned eight. And yet it was this same Mother who had stirred poison into his soup.
He rolled over deliberately, yawned, and mumbled, “Dreamt of Father… He said he was cold.”
It was his old talisman. Mention the late emperor, and no one dared press further.
Wu’s eyes reddened. She turned quickly to straighten his quilt. When her fingers brushed his icy hand, she jerked back as if burned. “Charcoal…” she murmured. “They gave half a basket extra this morning. Palace Attendant Cui approved it.”
Li Yi said nothing.
He knew what that half-basket had cost her. Perhaps a plea on her knees. Perhaps a silent bargain.
He no longer trusted her kindness—but neither could he hate her wholly. The tears in her eyes were as real as those Lady Zheng shed the night she left the palace.
Both were mothers driven to the edge.
At the third quarter of Chen hour, the Eastern Lecture Hall.
The imperial sons filed in one by one. Li Yi walked unsteadily, his nails cracked from clawing the bedboard last night, his fists trembling faintly when clenched.
Zhao Yan was already waiting in the adjacent seat—a son of a minor capital clerk, too poor to afford ink, surviving by copying texts. His elegant calligraphy had earned him a place as a study companion.
Outwardly respectful, inwardly he seethed with shame: a full-grown man reduced to grinding ink and laying paper for a witless bastard born of a maid! A servant’s son could carry the imperial bloodline, while he—ten years of study, not even a provincial recommendation to show for it. Old classmates mocked him: “Zhao Yan, are you the Guang Prince’s ‘Mother’ now?”
“The Thirteenth Son is late,” Zhao Yan said, handing him a purple-tipped brush. “I’ve ground your ink—just the right consistency.”
Thirteenth Son… that title should have changed.
Emperor Muzong had ascended weeks ago. Li Yi had been enfeoffed as Prince of Guang ten days prior.
Yet they refused to use it. They preferred to remind him: you’re just a number, not a prince.
Li Yi accepted the brush with a foolish grin. The handle was cold. Zhao Yan flipped open his practice book—and there, tucked between pages, was the drawing: The Crow Treads Upon the Dragon, slipped in yesterday under the guise of delivering new copy sheets.
The moment the page turned, Li Ke sucked in a sharp breath.
—The Crow Treads Upon the Dragon!
Though only a middle-schooler, Li Ke’s grandfather had been a Tang historian. Their house overflowed with books. He’d seen this image once in a volume on “Tang-era omens”:
During Daizong’s reign, the “Black Crow Pecking the Sun” led to three hundred executions; under Dezong, the “Dog Barking in Zichen Hall” case ended with a chancellor’s forced suicide…
But this omen was worse. Ink-black crow, claws gripping the dragon’s horns, beak stabbing its eyes—beneath its wings, faint but clear, the character Li: the imperial surname itself. This was yaochen—a prophetic curse declaring the dynasty’s fall.
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He couldn’t recall which reign had purged over this exact image.
But he knew this much: once reported, such a diagram meant house arrest at best, death by imperial order at worst.
“Today we practice the character chun,” Zhao Yan murmured. “The late emperor’s personal name—must be written with reverence. Stretch the final stroke long, like a dragon’s tail trailing through clouds.”
Li Yi nodded, dipped his brush, and wrote. The first stroke wobbled; the second shook; the third—he deliberately snapped the final stroke mid-air, like a severed snake’s tail.
Zhao Yan’s eyes flickered with sharp light. He snapped the book shut. “No matter. A child’s first attempts—take your time.”
Just then, a voice cleaved through the haze like a blade:
“Don’t touch that page! It’s a cursed omen!”
This time, the voice pierced the barrier—because the image carried a death sentence.
Li Yi’s hand jerked; ink splattered his sleeve. He clapped and laughed like a startled child: “Black bug! Black bug crawled on my hand!”
Laughter rippled through the hall. Zhao Yan smiled too—but his eyes stayed cold.
He knew Li Yi was simple, yes—but this? This was surely feigned.
And now, two acts of impiety stacked together: let’s see how long you can keep playing the fool.
At noon, Li Yi slipped away under the pretense of fetching medicine, heading to the alley behind the Laundry Bureau.
Cold wind laced with soaproot stung his face. Hiding behind a woodpile, he heard Wu’s voice, choked with suppressed sobs: “…Got the medicine money, but my boy’s coughing blood worse. Palace Attendant Cui said—if I fail again, I’ll lose even this post…”
Another woman sighed. “Why torment yourself? That child treats you like his mother.”
“Do you think I don’t know?” Wu sobbed. “But he’s a prince, and I’m a slave. If he lives, my son dies. If he stays a fool, my son lives… Heaven above, tell me—which choice do you want me to make?”
Li Yi held his breath, fingernails digging into old wounds on his palm.
So that was it.
Not hatred. Just her life wagered against another’s.
“Expose her!” Li Ke urged, urgent. “Cui will sacrifice her to save herself!”
But the voice hit an iron wall—shattering into silence once more.
Li Yi turned and walked away, his steps heavier than when he’d come.
In this palace, even betrayal had its logic.
At Shen hour, lecture dismissed.
Zhao Yan “kindly” helped pack Li Yi’s brushes—then carefully checked the sketch again. His own ancestor had been ruined by a “seditious prophecy” case; he knew a single drawing could wipe out a clan. Now, he would wield the same blade against the lowborn prince who’d never known hardship.
“In two days—third of the second month—is the Princes’ Grand Examination,” he said with practiced concern. “Don’t lose your workbook.”
Li Yi beamed and nodded.
Back in his room, he plunged the entire practice book into the ink-washing basin. The characters bled; crow and dragon melted into a storm-cloud of black. He tore out the page, folded it into a crooked kite, and tied it with coarse hemp string.
“What are you doing?” Li Ke’s voice cut in, sharper than ever. “Burn it! That image can’t stay!”
Li Yi’s hand trembled—this time, he’d heard him.
But he pretended not to. He climbed the dead tree in the courtyard and launched the ink-crow kite into the north wind. Its black wings flapped, wobbling, then rose—actually flew.
“Father! I’m sending you crow soldiers to guard your tomb!”
Higher it soared, clearing the wall, drifting toward the Baoqing Temple’s scripture hall.
He’d gambled right. Empress Dowager Guo revered the Buddha; monks wouldn’t dare tamper with an imperial prince’s belongings. If found, the drawing would be dismissed as childish play.
Sure enough, at evening drumbeat, an old monk picked up the kite and chuckled, shaking his head: “The Thirteenth Son’s mad—but what filial devotion!”
Soon after, Palace Attendant Cui fixed Zhao Yan with a cold smirk: “A fool’s nonsense—nothing to act upon.”
Zhao Yan clenched his fists in the corridor.
His plan to trap Li Yi with a prophetic curse had dissolved into farce. Worse, his secret report claiming “Li Yi is faking madness” had also been ignored.
This idiot was harder to break than he’d thought.
Late that night, in the western wing.
Abdominal pain returned. Li Yi curled in the corner of his bed, counting roof tiles. Wu slipped in, set down a bowl of ginger soup, and quietly added charcoal to the brazier.
“…Drink some,” she whispered, voice barely audible. “This time… nothing else was added.”
Li Yi stared at her. After a long moment, he grinned. “Mother’s the best!”
Tears spilled from Wu’s eyes. She turned and fled.
Li Ke scoffed inwardly. “Crocodile tears!”
Li Yi closed his eyes. He knew now: there was no one left in this room he could call his own. Even the betrayals of those closest came wrapped in sugar.
Outside, a shadow flickered past the window. Zhao Yan paused at the courtyard gate, looked up at Li Yi’s room, and smiled—a thin, cold curve of triumph.
The third of the second month: the monthly examination.
And he had just been personally appointed by Palace Attendant Cui as jianbi—the ink monitor.
The real strike was only beginning.
In the dark, Li Yi asked silently, “What comes next?”
Silence answered.
Even the wind in Chang’an dared not breathe too loud.
Translator’s Note on Historical and Cultural Terms (Chapter 2 Additions)
Time and Ritual
- Chen hour (third quarter) and Shen hour: Traditional Chinese double-hours. Chen spans 7–9 a.m.; its third quarter is ~8:30 a.m. Shen is 3–5 p.m. These markers reflect the rigid daily rhythm of palace life.
- Third of the second month: The date of the Princes’ Grand Examination—a monthly assessment for imperial sons, used as much for surveillance as for education.
Titles and Roles
- Jianbi (監筆) →“ink monitor”: A student appointed to oversee proper brushwork and ink use during examinations. In practice, the role often doubled as an informant, reporting “improper conduct” or “suspicious writings.”
- Study companion: Non-imperial youths (often from impoverished scholar families) assigned to assist princes with calligraphy and texts. Though technically attendants, they occupied a precarious social limbo—neither servants nor peers.
Symbols and Omens
- “The Crow Treads Upon the Dragon”: A seditious omen (yaochen) depicting a crow—a symbol of ill omen and rebellion—attacking the dragon, emblem of the emperor. The inclusion of the character Li (李), the imperial surname, makes it an explicit prophecy of dynastic collapse. Such images were treated as capital offenses under Tang law.
- Avoidance of the late emperor’s personal name (chun / 惇): In Confucian ritual, writing or speaking a deceased emperor’s given name required special reverence—often by elongating strokes or omitting characters entirely. Violations were seen as sacrilege.
Places
- Eastern Lecture Hall: Where imperial sons received classical instruction within the Sixteen Princes’ Though modest, it was a stage for political performance—and entrapment.
- Baoqing Temple: A real Buddhist monastery in Chang’an, frequently patronized by Empress Dowager Guo. Monks there enjoyed imperial protection, making the temple a “safe” place for discarded objects to be found without suspicion.
Social Dynamics
- Prince of Guang: Li Yi’s formal title after his enfeoffment. Despite this elevation, rivals and officials continue calling him “Thirteenth Son” to deny his princely status—a subtle act of erasure common in Tang court politics.
“Black bug!”: Li Yi’s childish deflection mimics how the mentally vulnerable were expected to interpret omens—as meaningless curiosities. His performance exploits this expectation to survive.