Jade of Another World

On the day of Jingzhe in the fifteenth year of Yuanhe, I smashed Xuanyuan Che's jade seal at Chengtian Gate.

The double knelt trembling before His Majesty. His features were so similar—so similar that every time I saw him, I was reminded of when I was eight years old, Ning'er broke a candied hawthorn in half, saying, "Ah Jin and Ah Che both want candied hawthorns, they're sweet." But now, the hem of his robe was stained with the twin lotus flowers embroidered by Ning'er, a pattern I had longed for for seven years without success. How dare a mere double do that?

"Send him to the northern desert." I fiddled with the amulet Ning'er had given the substitute last night; the character "Che" on the inside of the amulet still bore tear stains. As the guards dragged the substitute away, a peach blossom sachet Ning'er had given him slipped from his neck—the very one she had hung by her bedside last year; the patch on the corner of the sachet was something I had burned when I was drunk.

That night, I searched the entire Jiaofang Palace and found seventeen unmailed letters at the very bottom of the dressing box. Each letter was addressed to "To A-Jin," but they all seemed to have been changed to "A-Che." The last letter, the ink still wet, read: "I saw you practicing your spear in the Imperial Garden today; your back looked just like A-Jin's..." I clutched the letter and knocked over the candlestick. Flames licked at the mandarin duck quilt I had embroidered for her last year. In the acrid smell of burning, I finally dared to admit that I was insanely jealous. It was only because I was insanely jealous that I was like this.

On the day of her coronation, she wore the phoenix hairpin I had commissioned to be embroidered three years prior, yet her eyes reflected the peach blossoms outside the palace gates. "Why me?" she asked, clutching her veil, her fingertips still bearing the traces of the makeup her substitute had applied to her eyebrows. I placed the hair ornament on her head, the jeweled beads shattering her reflection: "Because all I've ever wanted has always been you."

But she always gazed at the west palace wall. There grew the poplar trees her substitute had taught her to cultivate, and in the cracks of the floor tiles were the characters "Che" she had secretly carved. I had the entire wall demolished and rebuilt, and she cried, clutching the broken bricks: "Ah Jin, you won't even leave me any memories?" I held her trembling shoulders, smelling the Western Region incense her substitute had given her in her hair—it was supposed to be something I brought back for her from my western expedition. Why could someone who no longer existed outshine me?

The most absurd moment was Mid-Autumn Festival night. She collapsed into my arms, murmuring, "Ah Jin's eyes are like stars," but just as I was about to kiss her, she suddenly sobered up: "You're not Ah Che." I clutched the jade pendant at her waist, the one I had given her years ago, now adorned with a tassel given to me by a substitute. Moonlight shone on the hickeys on her neck, and I suddenly remembered the Western Expedition, how I crawled through piles of corpses clutching her marriage certificate, silently chanting with each step, "Ning'er, wait for me."

Later, I had peach blossoms hung all over her palace, even in winter, the buds were kept warm with jade. She strung the petals into a curtain, saying, "A-Che would probably like this." I spent the whole night cutting branches under the peach tree, my blood mingling with the flower sap soaking my dragon robe. I finally understood: what I had taken was never Ning'er, but the boy in her heart who would accompany her to see the peach blossoms. And I was merely an executioner wielding a knife. But how could I tell her that Xuan Yuanche was long gone, that the real Xuan Yuanche never appeared after her coming-of-age ceremony, that a substitute was found to prevent her from being too heartbroken? But in the end, I was wrong. My answer remained the same: she could choose me… Why didn't she choose me?

(Note: This letter was hidden in the inner wall of the Jiaofang Palace, along with seventeen letters announcing the change of address. Each letter had the characters "A-Che" covered with the character "A-Jin" in vermilion. The last letter read, "I regret it. Ning'er's tears are hotter than the throne." Another record from the Imperial Household Department states: "His Majesty ordered nine hundred and ninety-nine peach blossoms to be secretly carved on the wall of the Cuiyu Pavilion, each blossom's stamen containing the character "Ning." Seventeen of the craftsmen were blind.)