The empire is dying. And so am I.
Mawei Slope.
This is not the first time I have heard this name.
This post station leads from the capital, Chang’an, to Sichuan.
When I was a child, my father said Sichuan was a good place. It hides deep in the heart of the empire, surrounded by mountains and rivers. When war comes, people flee there.
I did not understand then.
Later, in the palace, I heard something different. There was silk, there was porcelain, there was salt brought in by the river, there was fruit that never ran out, all year round. The lychees, my favorites, from Fuzhou in Sichuan, by imperial order, the horses rode day and night, carrying them across the land. A few days, no more. When they arrived, their skins were still red, their flesh still fresh.
The roads of the Tang Empire once stretched in all directions. They ran through the northern grasslands, reached the city-states of the Western Regions. Post stations like Mawei Slope,linked into a chain, beacon towers stood in sight of one another. An imperial decree could travel a thousand miles in a day.
In those peaceful years, this place saw scholars riding to the capital for the examinations, officials who had fallen from favor, chancellors sent into exile, generals retreating from battle. They passed through on imperial horses, took the food handed to them by the couriers, changed for fresh mounts, and rode on.
But this time – No fresh horses. No food. No officials waiting to receive the emperor.
The city gates were shut. The post stations, empty. The emperor’s procession stalled on the road, waiting, starving, silent.
This was the sign of an empire in decline. We did not know where the road ahead would lead.
The emperor gave the order to flee on the night of the twelfth of the sixth month. Before dawn, the carriages were already in motion. No plan. No preparation. Not enough grain. Not enough water. Before the sky had even begun to lighten, the palace attendants fumbled in the dark, searching for valuables, stuffing them hastily into chests. Ministers gathered their robes and ran toward the imperial quarters. The imperial guards assembled in the night, their steps hurried, their armor unfastened, their hands unsteady on their weapons.
The courier horses shrieked. The wheels of the carriages hastily ground over stone. That night, fog was heavy.
They were meant to stand guard in the palace.
Now, they were far from home, forced to go where they did not want to go.
The emperor had chosen Sichuan. Yang Guozhong was the military governor there. They did not want to follow him. They did not trust him. They hated him.
But the emperor was still the emperor. No one dared to disobey.No one dared to say it out loud.They only clenched their teeth and kept moving forward.
At Mawei Slope, the hunger became sharp.I stared at the station gates, at the figures standing at the village entrance.
They were watching us. They were waiting. The county towns, the post stations, those places that once provided supplies as a matter of duty, had all shut their doors.
People did not dare to come near the fleeing procession. They watched from a distance, hiding beneath the eaves, standing beneath the trees at the village gate, whispering among themselves.
The walls of the post station were cracked, ready to crumble.
In the distance, locust trees curled under the sun, their bark splitting like open wounds. The wild grass was boiled to yellow. A lizard darted into the shadows.
In Chang’an, hunger never had the chance to arrive. Food appeared at the right hour, without fail. The soup stayed warm, the fruit chilled, the spices and aromas perfectly balanced. I had never imagined food could be absent.
The sun was high. Shadows shrank at my feet, wind lifting the dust, pressing it against my skin. My lips were dry.A faint bitterness spread across my tongue.
I stood among the palace attendants, watching Yang Guozhong hurry back, his sleeves stained with the dust of the marketplace. He held a bundle of baked cakes in his arms, walking quickly, as if afraid they would be snatched away. His son followed behind, clutching a heavy cloth-wrapped bundle, silver, most likely.
Yang Guozhong stopped at the foot of the steps, lifted the cakes with both hands, and offered them to the emperor. The emperor’s fingers twitched, then slowly took them. He lowered his head, stared at the food in his palm. He looked at it for a long time before taking a bite.
He made every effort to show that he had already grown used to this kind of food. But that was not easy. He chewed. Paused. Swallowed. Slowly…
He lifted his eyes to Yang Guozhong, with a dry voice, “The officials, the troops—how will they eat?” Yang Guozhong lowered his head, as if avoiding his gaze.
“Your Majesty, I have already ordered them to find a way to cook on the spot. We will ask the nearby villagers.” His voice was low, hurried.
The emperor said nothing more. He simply broke the cake in his hands, giving a piece to me, to those around him.
It was warm, slightly damp against my palm. I took a bite. Dry. Tasteless. The bread drank the moisture from my mouth, and when I swallowed, it felt like swallowing dust. No one spoke again.
The princes were hungry too. When the first batch of food was ready, it was given to the officials first, then to the imperial family and the palace attendants.
The attendants stood holding bowls of steaming rice, hesitant, glancing around, until someone whispered, “There are no utensils.”
The princes and grandsons of the emperor had never eaten like this before. They had no choice but to reach out, scooping up rice with their fingertips, devouring it in hurried mouthfuls. Grains stuck to their palms, fell onto their sleeves. Their fingers were covered in rice crumbs. No one cared about decorum anymore. No one handed them fine utensils. No one called them “Your Highness.”
The emperor sat to the side.
His gaze fell on the princes, eating in disgrace.
Fell on his own empty hands.
Fell, finally, to the ground.
But the problem was not over. Some of the imperial guards had brought neither food nor utensils.
Gao Lishi, the emperor’s most trusted eunuch, and Chen Xuanli, commander of the imperial guard, spoke in hushed tones. They dared not divide the rations. Instead, they sent men with silver to buy food from the villages.
The soldiers watched the imperial family eat. They said nothing. Some lowered their heads, lips pressed tight. Some rubbed their hands together, their eyes lingering on the bowls in the palace attendants’ hands, before looking away.
The imperial guards watched them. Watched the emperor. Watched Yang Guozhong. Watched all of us. Hunger on their faces. Exhaustion. Or was it anger? Their hands still gripped their swords.
Then, someone shouted:
“Yang Guozhong has colluded with the enemy. He is executed!”
Then a second voice. A third. More.
The sound of shouting. The sound of blades unsheathing. The sound of bodies hitting the ground.
They called his name. They called his crimes. They called his death.
The blade fell. Blood spattered onto the dust, trampled underfoot, sinking into the earth.
Yang Guozhong. My cousin. The man who once spoke boldly in the golden hall, who once whispered to the emperor behind closed doors. Now he lay in the yellow dust of this post station. He had stood at the heights of power for too long—so long that everyone forgot he was flesh and blood, not a piece to be discarded at will.
Now, he had been discarded.
The wind blew in from outside.
“Yang Guozhong has been executed for treason. The Consort is no longer fit to be served.” It was the voice of General Chen Xuanli. They were not satisfied.
Dust hung in the air, dry and searing, pressing like a weight deep in the throat. I heard the faint clash of armor, metal against metal, brittle, hesitant, then silence. Like a decision no one wanted to speak first.
They were not waiting for the emperor. They were avoiding him.
No one shouted “Long live the emperor” anymore. The emperor stood at the steps, fingers curling slightly inside his sleeve, then loosening again. He said nothing.
No one sought his command. They had walked too far. They had waited too long.
“The Consort is no longer fit to be served”
I listened. They were discussing me.
I wanted to wait, to hear them say more. To explain what any of this had to do with me. But they didn’t.
From behind the station’s curtain, I watched the soldiers. They were scattered around the post station. Someone tapped the hilt of a sword against his boot. Someone kept his head down, thumb grinding against the calluses in his palm. Their armor hung loose, the straps unfastened. Beneath the sun, the marks on their shoulders had turned pale, red. Blades lay across the ground, some here, some there. No one picked them up.
I heard their voices.
“No longer fit?” I was once “fit”， I thought. Fit to dance in silk robes, golden bells at my wrists, my voice lingering in the halls. Fit to watch the snow drift beyond carved screens, warm wine in hand, plum blossoms falling into my cup. Fit to be cherished, praised, and adorned, offered to the empire like a treasured keepsake.
Now, I was “no longer fit”. When had that changed?
The voice rang out again, but from Capital Prefecture Officer Wei E this time, sudden, like a fissure splitting open.
“Your Majesty, I urge you to make this sacrifice.”
“But…”
He cut the emperor off. He knew what the emperor wanted to say, that “it was not supposed to be this way,” that “they had already killed the chancellor,” that “now they wanted the consort dead, and after that, would it be him?”
But Wei E did not let him finish.
They did not need to hear the emperor’s doubts. They only needed his command.
Gao Lishi’s voice followed immediately: “Your Majesty, I implore you to comply with the will of the Four Armies.” His voice was steady, steady like a turtle that had lived for too long.
Gao Lishi understood now. More than anyone, he understood. If the emperor spoke another word, if he wavered even for a moment, this coup would not stop with me.
They were not trying to kill me. They were trying to make an emperor submit. An emperor still useful, still worth taking with them, still capable of holding together what was left of this empire.
But he had to give them something in return. Like to claim an offering in a ritual. A sacrifice for the ruin of the once magnificent Tang. They needed something tangible, something that made sense.
I stood up, trying to see more clearly.
He looked like an emperor who had grown old all at once.
“The Consort has lived in the inner palace, how could she have known of the chancellor’s treason? What does any of this have to do with her?” His hand had clenched into a fist, veins rising beneath the skin, as if he were holding something back. His throat moved slightly. The lines on his face were rigid, heavy.
But everyone knew, this question meant nothing.
What was he asking? Who cared about a woman’s guilt? Who cared whether she knew of the rebellion? If they needed her to be guilty, she was guilty. If they decided she must die, then she would die.
Vice Chancellor Wei Jiansu stepped in, his head wrapped in cloth, the blood already dried. General Chen Xuanli followed. They stood at the pavilion’s entrance，said nothing. But they were already there.
Gao Lishi stopped Wei Jiansu before he could speak again. Calmly, steadily, he turned to the emperor：
“Your Majesty, the Consort is indeed blameless. But the generals have already killed Chancellor Yang. The Consort remains at your side, how can they rest easy, knowing that one day there may be retribution? I believe that only when the generals are at peace can Your Majesty be at peace.”
This was the last thing he could do for the emperor. To spare him from giving the order himself. To make it seem as if there was no other choice.
I took a step forward and looked at the emperor. He lowered his head, shoulders trembling, as if under a weight too heavy to bear.
This was not my death sentence. It was almost his.
He was still hesitating. His lips trembled. A crease deepened between his brows. His fingers shook, just slightly. He wanted to resist, for just one moment longer.
Gao Lishi had already stepped inside. Cold sweat streaked his face, but his voice remained gentle, as if a consolation, or as if a quiet urging. “Your Majesty, the moment flees quickly.”
He paused. Looked at me. “Your Grace, the Emperor is powerless to help. You must see to it yourself…”
I was led into the temple.
The temple at the post station was small, barely six or seven meters wide, eight or nine meters deep. A short fence divided the front hall. In the outer hall, twenty eunuchs stood in silence, facing the door. At the entrance, four more stood on either side, blades in hand. They did not look at me.
They only stood there, silent, waiting for an order that required nothing from them. It was not strange. Many things could be carried out in silence.
Someone let out a long, drawn-out call. In the temple’s main hall, four ceremonial eunuchs knelt in unison, then stepped back, leaving a six-foot-wide path. The Chief Eunuch Luo Chengxiu walked to the temple’s outer gate and announced in a clear voice:
“By order of the Emperor, Consort Yang Commanded to take her own life. By strangulation.”
For a moment, my heart lurched, as if an invisible thread had tightened around it,
pulling taut, leaving my chest hollow. My fingertips curled slightly, but there was nothing to grasp. The voices around me sounded distant, muffled behind thick layers of silk. The maids’ cries stretched away, their sounds thinning, dissolving, like ripples slowly spreading through the air.
The generals, the officers, the soldiers outside the door. They did not weep. Of course they didn’t.
They stood, watching, waiting. They were looking at me. I could feel their gaze, grazing over my skin like the edge of a blade, cold, sharp. What were they waiting to see? Fear? Pleading? Struggle? Were they waiting for me to react?
Yet my body remained standing, as if this shell had already separated from me.
I could hear my own heartbeat, one beat, then another, slower, heavier than before. Numbness crept from my fingertips up my arms, like skin left too long in the wind, like sinking into water. But I only stood there. I did not move.
“Your Grace!” A maid’s voice screamed from outside, then was dragged away. Her cries were smothered, by the curtains, by the soldiers’ armor, by everything that was about to happen.
The Buddha stood before me, carved from wood, gaze lowered, silent. Its lacquer had peeled away, revealing the dull yellow grain beneath, like skin long dead, split open with brittle cracks.
Ash from burnt incense scattered across the floor, trampled under damp boots, pressed into the mud, streaked with blood, dark stains spreading outward. The wind drifted in, carrying the scent of fresh blood, mingled with horse dung, the damp rot of decay, and the metallic tang of rust soaked in dirty water.
A wisp of incense burned, rising delicately, drifting in the light, weaving, then vanishing.
Once, in the Hall of Eternal Life, the fragrance was not like this.
It was the incense of Auspicious Dragon Camphor, brought by tribute ships from the southern seas, its fragrance clear, cool, with a faint sweetness when burned. The smoke was warm, curling around a gilded censer.
Once, I stood beside watching the Emperor play go. The wind lifted my headscarf, carrying it away, letting it fall, gently, onto the official Huaizhi He’s head. He told me, it felt like the first crabapple blossoms of spring.
Now, the wind is dry and harsh, laced with the stench of horses, the bitterness of parched earth, the sour tang of sweat left too long in the heat. Ash from the incense settles on my fingertips, sticky, faintly blackened.
The silk cloth is already prepared.
My fingers brush against the ground, cold stone, rough grooves. Slowly, I close my eyes.
And yet, how has my life come to this?
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