Jade of Another World

Nangong Jin's Vermilion Brush Notes

In the spring of the seventh year of the Yuanhe era, on the day I returned to the capital after retiring from military service, the peach blossoms on Zhuque Street were falling in full force.

When I left the capital at the age of twelve, the young lady of the Lin family was hiding behind a pillar in the corridor, clutching a handkerchief as she secretly watched me practice my spear technique. Now, at seventeen, she stands under a peach tree, her pale yellow skirt lifted halfway by the spring breeze, the silver bells in her hair jingling against the petals, making my hand holding the reins tremble.

"Cousin Jin hasn't come for quite some time." She tilted her head and smiled, her eyes slightly upturned. She was no longer the little crybaby who would scare herself with butterflies. I looked at the newly inserted weeping crabapple blossom in her hair and suddenly remembered that during the Western Expedition, every night in the military tent, I would sketch her oval face when she was eight years old.

The Crown Prince's spies were hidden in a teahouse on a street corner. I gripped the black iron sword at my waist, forcibly changing "Ning'er has grown taller" to "Miss Lin is polite." The moment the light in her eyes dimmed, as I turned, my spur caught on her skirt sash—that piece of apricot-colored skirt was later hidden inside my close-fitting armor, until it was stained red with blood.

I sneaked over the wall into the Lin residence at night, hoping to see her newly learned needlework. But instead, I found her embroidering a purse by candlelight, the stitches crooked and uneven, resembling the beacon fires I'd seen during the western expedition. "For Brother Jin." She smiled, waving her handkerchief, while my hand gripping the hilt of my sword sweated—she didn't know that three months ago, I had nearly lost my life fighting for Xuan Yuanche; otherwise, perhaps my unsheathed soul would be standing before her now.

The most agonizing time was the Lantern Festival. She was invited by the Crown Prince to admire the lanterns, and I disguised myself as a guard and followed behind. When the Crown Prince touched her sleeve, I dug my nails into my palms, and beads of blood seeped into the dragon pattern on my black iron wrist guard. On the way back to the palace, she suddenly turned back and looked into my eyes, whispering, "This brother's eyes look a lot like someone's."

That night, I chopped down ten old locust trees in the Imperial Garden. My father's secret decree was still on my desk: "Che'er is dead. If your twin identity is exposed, the entire Lin family will be executed." I overheard this while holding the crookedly embroidered mandarin duck handkerchief she had made. I finally understood that some loves are like a deadly poison.

Later, she became increasingly clever, treating the Crown Princess at banquets and slipping sleeping pills into the Crown Prince's tea. I could only watch her as she did these things, searching for an opportunity to help her. The jasmine scent from her hair seeped into her armor, making me itch with a pang of heartache.

The last time I saw her before the southern expedition, I wanted to hold her and tell her I would return to ask for her hand in marriage. "I heard there are no peach blossoms in Nanzhao." As she spoke, she stared at my waist, where the amulet she had given me when I was eight years old hung. The moment I mounted my horse, she suddenly cried out: "Jin, come back alive!"

The sound of horses' hooves crushed the second half of my sentence. I didn't tell her that in Xuan Yuanche's coffin lay the body of my personal guard who died in my place. Nor did I tell her that I had hidden the marriage certificate I had prepared for seven years—until the day she faked her death, when the certificate was blurred by my tears, I finally dared to admit that from the moment she shared her candied hawthorns with me when I was eight, I could never bear to let her lose.

(Note: This letter was hidden in a secret compartment in the Hall of Mental Cultivation. There were repeated tear stains on the silk. The two characters "Ning'er" were traced in cinnabar seventeen times. The last stroke of the brush tore through the silk, revealing the three characters "I admit defeat" underneath.)

In the winter of the thirteenth year of the Yuanhe era, plague demons roamed the prefectures and counties.

I mingled among the refugees in a black cloak, watching her feed medicine to an old man in the makeshift clinic. The December wind swirled snowflakes, freezing the stray hairs at her temples, yet she still smiled: "Grandpa Zhang, drink this medicine, and I'll take you to see the peach blossoms in spring."

The guards outside the tent grabbed my trembling hand—I had sealed the news of her contracting the plague three days ago with thirty secret decrees. At this moment, she coughed and bent over, the bloodstains on her handkerchief stinging my eyes, but I could only hide in a corner and watch as Xuan Yuanche's double draped a cloak over her.

"Ah Che, do you think the epidemic will pass?" She leaned on the stand-in's shoulder, her voice hoarse like a broken gong. I crushed the amulet in my sleeve—it was embroidered when she was eight, the stitches so crooked they could trip an ant. The stand-in, mimicking Xuan Yuan Che's tone, coaxed her: "Yes, when the flowers bloom..."

I suddenly remembered three years ago, when she leaned on my shoulder like this, watching the first snow in the Imperial Garden. At that time, I had just taken an assassin's knife for Xuan Yuanche, and the wound was still bleeding, but I lied and said it was from practicing shooting. She cried as she bandaged me, saying, "Ah Jin, don't fight anymore, I'll plant a peach orchard for you."

On the night the plague was at its worst, I slaughtered all the assassins the Crown Prince had sent to burn down the clinic. Blood dripped down the spine of my sword before her bed. She was delirious with fever, but she grabbed my hand and cried out, "A-Che, don't be afraid..." I trembled all over, letting her tie Xuan Yuanche's jade pendant to my wrist. On the inside of that pendant was engraved the words she had written last year: "Peace."

Later, she regained consciousness and cried, hugging her double: "I thought I'd never see you again." I stood outside the tent, listening to the double say, "I won't let anything happen to you." Suddenly, I remembered during the southern expedition, how I crawled through piles of corpses for three days and three nights, clutching her marriage certificate, just to fulfill my promise to "come back alive." But Rosa's path ultimately separated my heart from hers, leading her to Xuan Yuanche's double.

On the spring equinox, the peach blossoms in the clinic bloomed. She skipped over to pick a flower, when suddenly the substitute vomited black blood—that was the medicine I had the Imperial Hospital change, meant to make Xuan Yuanche "ill," so the Crown Prince would lower his guard. She cried as she wiped the blood from the substitute's wounds. Deep in the peach grove, I carved a tombstone: "The Tomb of Nangong Jin." Buried at the base of the tombstone was the mandarin duck handkerchief she embroidered; the bloodstains on it could finally be openly said to have been shed for her.

The cruelest moment was the victory celebration. Her hands were so gentle as she served food to the stand-in, yet I remembered how she woke up coughing last night, clutching my clothes and crying, "Ah Jin, don't go!" It turns out that in her heart, Xuan Yuanche represents peace and stability, while I will forever be the shadow that sneaks up at night, a fleeting glimpse she dares not touch.

(Note: This letter was tucked inside the "Records of Epidemics in the Great Yu Region." There was a bloody fingerprint on the corner of a certain page, with the annotation "So she was never looking at me, but at the moon that I dared not let her see." Another imperial physician secretly reported: "Your Majesty forcibly took the epidemic virus to test the medicine, I fear..." The second half of the sentence was covered up with cinnabar, leaving only the two words "Ning'er.")