I set off with my lovers, sons, nephews, and ministers, on my boats decorated with dragons and phoenixes. We were an elegant gathering, all rustling silks and brocades, as we made our progress down the River of Rocks, passing cliffs where waterfalls languidly stroked the rusts and emeralds of lichens and mosses. The young princes plucked at musical instruments and the princesses danced, fan in hand. Great ministers served as cup bearers while I judged a poetry competition between my lovers, my nephews, and my sons.

The alchemy of Hu Chao’s pills gave me new energy: I undertook my last mission on this lowly earth-pacifying the murderous conflict between Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. My dynasty would recognize these three doctrines as three pillars of Chinese thought. Any quarrels or confrontations between their adherents would be punishable by death. Gods, immortals, Buddhas, spirits, Heaven and Earth would all be considered so many different manifestations of the one God, the source of multiple divinities. In my Imperial Park there were pavilions all along the River Luo, linked by brightly colored galleries. Geese, cranes, and storks flew through the soft red twilight along the reed-lined banks. That was where I set up the Academy of Sacred Cranes, where I asked Simplicity and Prosperity to compile the great encyclopedia The Pearls of the Three Sects. With the help of illustrious scholars, they produced 1,300 volumes in which they gathered every tract on Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. I succeeded in proving-from the way they used the same words to spread different convictions-that the three religions had the same veins through which the one and only source of Wonderment flowed.

IN THE FIRST year of the era of the Foot of Buddha, on the day we celebrated the Feast of the Moon, I hosted a banquet for 3,000 people in the Forbidden City. Lanterns and glasses full of wine floated along the city’s rivers. Lamps of jade and crystal sparkled in the trees. Acrobats vaulted through the starry sky leaving trails of pale flames behind them. Tatar dancing girls with masked faces and bare midriffs undulated between the river banks and the firework displays and snatched improvised poems from my guests’ hands. Sitting there watching those cheery, drunken faces, those dancing eyes, and smiling lips, and lulled by the hubbub of music, I succumbed to the sweetest sleep.

I was suddenly woken by a scuffle at a table in the distance. I sent my eunuchs off hastily for an explanation. My great nephew, the King of Wei, who was married to the Princess of Eternal Plenty, had just argued over a game with his cousin and brother-in-law, the Supreme Grandson. I called the two troublemakers over-one had a torn tunic, the other had blood trickling from his head. My last illusion was now shattered, and my anger soon found loose tongues willing to explain: The King of Wei, Piety’s eldest son, had accused his cousin’s family of assassinating his father. The Supreme Grandson had responded by saying that Piety had been an ungrateful intriguer. With alcohol fueling his hatred, my great nephew-who would have been the Supreme Grandson if his father had been appointed heir-vented his anger on the boy who had robbed him of his future. The two cousins who were brothers-in-law had insulted each other and come to blows. Their indignation unleashed ancient resentments. Great nephews and grandsons from both sides of my family had fought violently.

I trembled with shame and disappointment, but I did not want to spread any scandal. I silenced the servants, sent the two young princes back to their seats, and called for a deafening piece of music from the drums and mouth organs. I did not summon my two families to the Temple of Ten Thousand Elements until half a moon-phase later. I ordered the princes and princesses to kneel and asked for the iron blade, on which their oath of unity was carved, to be taken from his golden casket. There, before the Altar of Heaven, the Altar of the Emperors of the Five Orientations, and the Altar of Ancestors, I decreed that the law must be applied.

The King of Wei and the Supreme Grandson removed their brocade coats and their caps with jade pins. Wearing their simple white tunics and with their hair loose about their shoulders, they prostrated themselves at my feet, bowed to their parents, and went to hang themselves in a wing of the sanctuary. Silence reigned. I stared into space watching motes of dust dancing. Then I heard the sharp sound of two wooden stools being overturned. The first wife of my son and heir let out a gasp; she had just lost her only male child. Behind her, the Princess of Eternal Plenty-sister and wife to the dead men-passed out. Three days later Gentleness told me that this poor granddaughter had lost her child in the seventh month and had died bathed in blood. She was barely eighteen.

The Supreme Grandson and the King of Wei had both dreamed of bearing the crown one day. But the crown had struck them both down.

I gradually broke away from that accursed family and turned toward the soothing smiles of the Zhang brothers. When I listened to Prosperity playing his bamboo flute, I forgot the gaping wound in my entrails.

On my way to the Palace of Solar Breath, I had visited a misty hillside and followed a sinuous path through fields of sorghum. At the end of the path I found a simple, rustic temple dedicated to a prince from the venerable Zhou dynasty, a distant ancestor of mine. He had become immortal by means of purification exercises and had broken away from the honors and cares of the earthly world to join the skies, borne on the back of a white crane. When I was sad, when I lost all hope, I would picture that scene. My serving women would set up lacquered tables, young eunuchs would hold quivering silk parasols, Court ladies would spread out the paper and prepare the ink, Gentleness would hold her calligraphy brush, and with my hands behind my back, I would dictate the hymn of the Celestial Prince.

The wind billows through my long sleeves. The sun strokes my face. The sorghum leaves rustle, creating endless murmuring waves. Not one bird sings, even the grasshoppers are silent. The ephemeral is a reflection of the eternal.

The Celestial Prince blows into his bamboo flute, announcing the End and the Beginning.

THIRTEEN

Why does the body shrivel and dry when the soul, this fathomless voice, still longs to flourish? Why did anyone invent mirrors to glorify and assassinate women? Why should I, Emperor of the Zhou Dynasty, Master of the World, a Divinity on Earth, be obsessed with my ephemeral form? And why should I, who knew celestial beauty, still strive so desperately to look after my earthly face? Why did I choose this torture when I aspired to deliverance?

I asked to be woken when it was still dark. While the Forbidden City slept, my eunuch hairdresser would subject me to his excruciating routine: He positioned a stag’s horn wrapped in hair on the top of my head, then he took my own hair, one strand at a time, and drew it into that gleaming black topknot. The horn was a symbol of virility and was meant to impart its tonic properties to me. My scalp was pulled so tight that it smoothed my forehead, temples and cheeks. Once this impression had been successfully created, my makeup women would apply four layers of unguents and powder to my face before drawing in new features for me. A wide strip of fabric wrapped round my waist supported my back, which ached from the weight of the topknot and the ornamentations on it. I had stiff collars on my tunics to hide my wrinkled neck and my slumped bosom, and long sleeves to cover my liver-spotted hands with their gnarled, reddened joints. The Court marveled at my eternal youth, and I accepted their praise with a bitter smile.