A Taste of Rose and Lychee Sushan - Chapter 1

That year, I had barely joined the Court of Judicial Review when I solved a case that had lain cold for years.

His Majesty was very pleased with his nephew. He summoned me to the rear hall and asked what reward I wanted.

The first half of my life had been smooth sailing.

I had been raised at the Empress Dowager’s side alongside the imperial princes. My mother was Lady Rongde, a commandery lady honored for saving the emperor’s life. My father was His Majesty’s youngest brother, whom the emperor had raised himself.

I had never known what it meant to want something I could not have.

In the end, I had asked for nothing more than a bowl of lychee paste from the imperial kitchens, to take home and make Mother happy.

This time, I stood where I was.

The emperor, still in his prime, asked kindly, “Jingheng, what would you like?”

I heard my own voice answer.

“Your Majesty, I have heard that this year’s autumn provincial examinations in Jiangnan produced a young man of extraordinary talent. Despite his youth, he carried off first place.”

“I have read his policy essays and am rather curious about him.”

“Might Your Majesty arrange an introduction?”

The Empress covered her mouth and laughed softly.

“Your Majesty, this is the first time I have ever heard Jingheng express curiosity about someone.”

“He has been cleverer than the other children since he was little. I wonder whose young son has caught the eye of our Gentleman of Jade.”

The emperor grew interested too.

“Very well. I shall send an imperial commissioner with the Embroidered Uniform Guard to summon him to the capital ahead of time.”

I knelt and thanked him.

The Empress spoke again with a smile. “My kitchen has just made rose-and-lychee sushan. It is hardly the season for a frozen milk dessert, but it is wonderfully refreshing. Take some home for your mother.”

So I still left the palace carrying a food box.

Zhou Shu stood by the carriage and took it from me.

“Home, my lord?”

I adjusted my cloak.

“No. The Southern Breeze House in Brocade Lane.”

“Right you are. Brocade La—”

Zhou Shu sounded as though someone had seized him by the throat.

I caught the food box as it slipped halfway out of his hands, pushed it back at him, and swung onto a horse.

“You take the carriage. I’ll ride.”

Far behind me, Zhou Shu came running in frantic pursuit.

“My lord, you never gallop through the capital! Is there an urgent case?”

“The Southern Breeze House is choosing its finest beauty today! At least put on a mask before you go!”

The wind of early winter struck my face.

I could hear the pounding of my heart, louder than the sharp clatter of hooves.

This was not my first time galloping through the capital.

In my last life, on the day I cleared Chongdie’s family of their false charges, he collapsed on the way back to the residence.

I held him in my arms and rode as fast as I could.

He was so light. Afraid he would fall from the horse, I could only hold him close and call his name over and over.

Then it struck me that I did not even know his childhood name.

He made everyone call him Chongdie, the name he had used in the brothel, as though that could sever him completely from the young man who had once topped the provincial examinations.

His fever would not break. Sometimes he murmured for his father, his mother, his little sister.

But I could not bring them to him.

His parents had already died of illness in prison.

My brother had kept his little sister under his control, using her to force Chongdie to remain his plaything in bed.

Later, she learned that her brother was enduring all that humiliation for her sake. That very night, she set her room on fire and hanged herself. She would not even leave my brother an intact corpse.

The head of the Imperial Medical Academy came to examine him.

He said that even with rare medicines to sustain him, Chongdie could only linger a few more days, as good as dead.

His will was gone. He would not wake again.

I sat beside his bed until dawn.

My head felt like a stone, a dull, heavy weight pressing down on my neck.

Mother urged me to rest.

“As an official, you have restored his family’s good name and punished those villains and lechers.”

“As a friend, you have found his sister’s and parents’ remains in the paupers’ burial ground, placed them in coffins, and sent them home to Jiangnan.”

“Jingheng, you have always been unusually clever. Life, death, and parting never seemed to weigh on your heart. You know this is not your fault.”

I knew.

I had always been able to see such distinctions clearly in my work.

Yet I still could not sleep.

Those slightly upturned, foxlike eyes seemed to float before me: tearful, stubborn, lifeless. And after his vengeance was won, nothing remained in them but exhaustion.

“But I don’t want him to die,” I told Mother quietly.

“Mother, he is different.”

She looked at the bewilderment and determination on my face and suddenly began to cry.

“Foolish child. I would truly rather you had never learned what love was.”

“Why did you have to lose your heart here?”

I bowed my head, held his icy fingers, and pressed them to my forehead.

If there truly were gods in this world…

I had spent the first half of my life doing good and upholding justice. After the floods in Hedong, the people had presented me with an umbrella bearing their names in gratitude. After the snow disaster in Mobei, they had erected a stele honoring my service.

Could they give the two of us a little more time?

I had only just begun to understand my own heart.

On the third day of his coma, perhaps good and evil really did receive their due.

During that snow disaster, I had risked my life to save a family of reclusive physicians.

The silver-haired old man traveled overnight from Mobei and used his needles to keep Chongdie alive.

I waited outside the door.

As snow began to drift from the sky, someone cried out, “He’s awake!”