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How ridiculous:
Forty-seven people gathered to “purify” me. An imperial priest who won’t even look me in the eyes, ceremonial music performed for an empty sky, and ten officials solely dedicated to keeping the incense flame from going out.
Everyone is here.
As always.
Their robes pressed. Bows measured. Expressions empty. Eyes that don’t seek contact, only confirmation.
Days like this anticipate themselves; The steps were learned before we knew how to question them.
And I just stand there, as expected, between folds of smoke and expectation.
Silent. Impeccable. Unmoving.
As if any of this made sense.
I suppose it’s part of the cost.
This entire performance: just because I have a pretty face and the right surname.
I’ve stood through more ceremonies than I’ve celebrated birthdays.
How much longer will I be a silk-draped silhouette, while others trace paths in blood behind the curtain?
They’ll say they came for me.
But they’re here for the title. For the symbol.
For the weight of the institution I represent.
I suppose it’s only natural that purity would be tied to appearance.
Even if the truth lies elsewhere.
Sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder if anything remains beneath it all.
Beneath the layers. Beneath the fabric.
Beneath the name.
If there’s anything in me that exists beyond the role.
Jinshi, dimmed in the light everyone admires. The Moon Prince no one dares call by name.
Maybe that’s all that’s left… someone who no longer knows if his worth lies in what he hides or in what he pretends.
And still, I wonder:
What if I could be something else?
Something seen.
Chosen.
Called by someone, even if I am nothing.
But the question never lasts.
It doesn’t hurt.
You can’t miss what you’ve never had.
So I let it pass.
There’s no room for longing in a life already decided.
It’s almost laughable, how many envy this seat without knowing how easily it forgets who’s sitting in it.
Power only matters while you still hold it, and it’s as fleeting as beauty and youth.
When I no longer stand here, the ritual will go on, the music won’t stop.
Bows will fall exactly the same, only in front of a different name.
If I closed my eyes now, they’d keep reciting.
No one would notice the difference.
…
“Let me through!”
A voice.
Firm. Rushed. Out of place. Irritated.
"Too late," I think. Another self-important official. Some bureaucrat scandalized because the ceremonial candle wasn’t regulation length.
I don’t look up.
Not even that interests me today.
But the murmuring grows.
Something doesn’t fit.
The priest cuts off mid-verse. The musicians glance at one another. As if something just stepped out of place, but no one dares name it.
Someone’s going to lose their head for this.
“Let me through!”
The sound thundered in my ears.
I don’t know what collapsed—part of the ceiling, a beam, the altar—only that someone was suddenly shielding me.
A body. Light. Shaking. Too warm.
The weight, barely a whisper against my chest, like it might shatter from the slightest movement.
I don’t understand.
I didn’t see where she came from.
I don’t know who it is.
Only her voice, barely audible, like a prayer whispered to no one.
“Lord Jinshi...?”
She didn’t even know it was me.
Would she have done this for anyone?
Does she value her life so little?
No…
She simply values life. Period.
Oh Maomao, the woman you are.
I freeze.
I don’t know if it’s from shock, disbelief, or the shame of not realizing sooner.
Of not stopping it.
Of being so sure that if I ever fell, no one would care.
“Can I get my ox bezoar now?”
Ridiculous.
That’s all she asks.
A bezoar.
As if her life meant less.
She doesn’t ask to be saved.
Doesn’t expect a reaction to the blood, to her fading breath.
She only asks for what I promised her.
As if her own sacrifice weren’t reason enough to demand more.
“This isn’t the time for that.”
“What happened to your face?”
I lift her face. Swollen. Dirty. Streaked in old and new blood.
Her eyelid shut. Skin bruised.
The corner of her mouth split as if she’d landed wrong, as if not even the ground had received her with any respect.
As if she’d fallen not just onto stone, but into a world that never learned how to hold her gently.
And still, she doesn’t complain.
I look at her and think: What did they do to you?
Something burns in my chest, and I don’t know if it’s rage or guilt.
I don’t know where to put my hands.
Every part of her looks hurt.
Still, I brush the back of my hand along her cheek, the absurd need to feel that she’s not yet gone.
My fingers trace the edge of her swollen eye, as if smoothing her skin might undo the moment I failed to stop her.
“What happened to your face?”
I look at her, not to assess the damage, but to understand why it hurts this much to see her like this.
I don’t know how much it cost her to do what the rest of us, all those men, all those ranks, all those untorn silks, dared to do.
“I’m sorry. I need to stitch my wound.”
Maomao lowers her eyes.
Her brow furrows, barely.
With trembling hands, she lifts the hem of her dress.
The fabric, stiff with dried blood, gives way in jerks.
Beneath it: a gash. Jagged. Deep.
The skin torn, the flesh dark at the edges.
Blood still trails down her thigh.
She stares at it. Unblinking. Unshocked.
She reaches for her coat, fumbling for something: gauze, needle, anything.
Her instincts don’t seem conscious. It’s something deeper.
As if she’d learned long ago that in moments like these… no one would come to save her.
Maybe she was never granted the luxury of being helped, only of enduring.
Wordless. Unobtrusive.
Like someone who must have learned too early that pain, when seen, becomes a burden… and chose never to be one.
But her fingers didn’t respond. Her hand curled halfway.
She trembled.
And then she collapsed.
Her body gave out.
Fell among the dust and blood,
So terribly small. Beside the rubble, the fractured columns, the men who didn’t move.
As if the world had already decided it could go on without her.
And she… had decided not to stop it.
“HEY, STAY WITH ME!”
"STAY WITH ME!"
“DON'T CLOSE YOUR EYES!”
“STAY WITH ME!”
“DON’T LEAVE M—”
No response.
The blood has soaked through the hem of my robe.
I gather her into my arms.
Clumsy at first, my body unsure where to begin.
Then with a desperate gentleness, as if that could keep her from unraveling in my hands.
My fingers tremble as they sink into the folds of her clothes.
Her lashes are dusted in ash.
She weighs almost nothing.
By instinct, I press my arm to her throat, to make sure her breathing, though faint, remains steady.
All I feel is the universe shrinking with every shallow breath.
I rock her once, without meaning to.
Just once.
As if holding her right could hold her together.
A hush spreads through the crowd.
I don’t know who gasps.
I don’t care.
Let them look.
Let them whisper.
Every drop that slips from her leg is a second I can’t get back.
Their eyes follow us.
All of them with folded hands.
All of them with untorn robes.
And her…
Her, so willing to give everything for others, even her life, is the one fading in my arms.
And I walk. Steady.
Not out of duty.
But because staying still would be betraying her.
And even knowing what I leave behind,
I’d rather walk toward what she sees in me.