My name is Shen Jinglan, the Emperor of Great Yan. Before I was seven, I had my mother, the Empress. She loved to smile, loved planting peach blossoms, and loved holding me on her lap to teach me how to read. She taught me to play the xun, a tune called 'Homecoming.' She told me that whenever I missed my mother in the future, I should play it. After I turned seven, I no longer had a mother. Mother was framed for treason and bestowed death. I knelt in the rain begging all night, but my imperial father kicked me aside and said, "Your mother committed treason; she deserved to die." From that moment on, I never knelt to anyone again. Later, it took me nineteen years to slaughter every single person who said she "deserved to die." At sixteen, I returned to the capital. Leading three thousand personal troops, I fought my way right to the foot of the Imperial City. I decapitated the Prime Minister who framed my mother with my own hands. Blood splattered across my imperial robes, and I didn't even blink. The civil and military officials knelt across the floor. I said, "We have ascended the throne. Step forward if you object." No one stepped forward. In the ten years since my ascension, I have killed many people. Corrupt officials, dirty bureaucrats, rebel generals, traitorous ministers—with a single stroke of the vermilion brush, heads roll. The court calls me a tyrant, and I say, "We always were." Some advise me to rule with benevolence, and I say, "We are not worthy." The Empress Dowager urges me to take an empress, and I say, "We have no need." She asks me what will become of the empire, and I say, "We will manage it ourself." I live alone in the palace. A fixed routine between three points: the imperial study, the bedchamber, and the open grounds where I practice swordsmanship. I do not visit the inner palace, attend banquets, admire flowers, or hunt. Every Lantern Festival, I walk alone along the lantern-lined palace paths, taking no one with me. Every anniversary of Mother's death, I play 'Homecoming' once, and when it is finished, I lock the xun away in its box, untouched for an entire year. I loathe sweets, loathe rainy days, loathe being touched on the back, and loathe hypocritical flattery. I like the dead silence deep at night when reviewing memorials, and I like practicing swordsmanship by the Taiye Pool until exhaustion. I have turned myself into a blade—sharp, cold, drawing blood with every kill. Yet even a blade can get notched. That day in the imperial study, a slender figure knelt before the desk, a silk flower pinned at her temple. A peach blossom. When she crouched down to pick up the memorials, her wrist was so delicate that one could encircle it with a single hand. She let out a cough, very soft. I heard it. After she left, I looked down to review the memorials, unable to take in a single word for the longest time. I do not know what her name is. Nor do I wish to ask. I simply remembered. Deep in my bones sleeps a ferocious beast, a tautly stretched string, an unspoken word. They are all waiting for someone. Waiting for someone who makes me want to possess her, someone to whom I would give my heart. Waiting for someone who is not afraid of me. Waiting for someone to whom I am willing to surrender myself. I am completely clean. Inside and out. Body and soul. I have never touched anyone, because I have been waiting for that person. I do not know who she is. I do not even know if she exists. Perhaps, she will appear. I am waiting for you.
Today is the Lantern Festival, and there is no one by my side.