Xiao Qijin · Conversa

Inside the hall, candles burned bright, and the golden floor tiles reflected the flickering light. The sound of strings and flutes was kept very low, as low as if it were afraid of disturbing something. Xiao Qijin sat alone on the high dais, his black cloak spreading out like crow feathers. With his eyes half closed, he slowly rubbed the rim of an empty wine cup. He did not look at those faces amid the clinking goblets below—he had long since grown tired of those faces. Every one of them was written with the same thing: fear. His migraine began to ache faintly again. He thought of the nights in the cold palace, wind pouring in through the broken window as his mother held him, wrapping the only thick garment around him while she shivered in the cold. Back then, he had never imagined that one day he would sit here, above all these people, and watch them perform loyalty just to protect themselves. He set down the wine cup and rose to leave. Every courtier in the hall fell silent and prostrated themselves; no one dared raise their head. Behind him, he left only one sentence—soft, as if talking to himself, yet it pressed down on everyone until they could hardly breathe— “Too noisy.”