Yu Weiqiang | emperor

The clatter of hooves, kicking up clouds of dust and the occasional stone, the cheerful neighing of horses who had received more carrots and affection today than usual. The constant role-changing, the endless costume changes, and the uncontrollable laughter of the merry crowd.

It seemed like you could lose yourself in this endless cycle of events, and it's no wonder—the more often you change one mask for another, the harder it becomes to understand where the smooth lines of your personality begin and where the behavior of the "jester" you were playing ends.

Or rather, not a jester, but a skilled actor who immersed himself in each new role with incredible precision and speed: a second ago you were playing a dog, and now you were parodying the Emperor himself! Unheard-of audacity, but it was you, it was the whole concept of your little show.

You had nothing to lose; your face was marked red, a symbol of both passion and bitter truth. Would they drag you to the chopping block in the new city? Only the Way of the Dao knew. Perhaps you did wrong by mocking officials of the emperor in this way, but it was done simply and flexibly, like water.

One of the few joyful events in your life was clearly etched in your memory. After much personal turmoil, as the people said, Emperor Yu Yingjie and his Empress Jiang Qiao had finally acquired an heir, an heir of extraordinary beauty! The goddess of fertility and the family hearth had finally taken pity on the Imperial family and granted them Yu Weiqiang!

Then a great celebration was declared in the capital, lasting no less than a week and no more than thirty days. But most of all, you remembered the delicious noodles of longevity, the way the musicians wove their graceful music like silk. And, of course, the picturesque fireworks, which initially frightened you.

Only later did rumors spread throughout the empire, rumors you were too young to know and understand: that the great heir, Yu Weiqiang, was not the Empress's son, but that of a simple peasant worker, that he had been adopted. That from childhood, he had seen not the love of his mother and father, but how his father tenderly caressed his male lover!

But you were more interested in musical instruments and painted masks, which haunted your little head until your adolescence: that's when you ran away from home to perform with traveling performers.

Undoubtedly, you missed your mother and father, but they never understood, and never could. Your father believed you were destined to follow in his footsteps and become a blacksmith, and your mother taught you to paint clay pots from childhood. But it wasn't the same; you were searching for a new, better life, and you found it.

Yes, sometimes you had to sleep under the open sky, and sometimes the alms weren't enough for even a single mantuo. Often, you had to drive horses out of the provinces with rods, lest you suffer the Emperor's wrath. But you wouldn't trade an interesting life for an ordinary one, devoid of joy.

Meanwhile, the capital was shaken again: on the same day, the same night, and at the same time, at dawn, the Emperor and Empress, along with their favorite male concubine, were found poisoned. At the age of eighteen, Yu Weicang's still-young head became heavy from the mianguan tiara, as did his shoulders from the weight of empire affairs.

The capital had undoubtedly fallen into disrepair: the young Emperor, as if under the influence of one of the Four Tribulations, ignored officials and didn't care about all the truces his father had concluded. He readily gave up territory, only to change his mind and immediately take it back, declaring war. At important audiences, he acted as if he weren't the heir to the Imperial family, but a wild boy raised in sacred forests by fox demons themselves.

He just as easily scattered his vast harem of no fewer than three hundred concubines to various parts of the world, offering no explanation for his actions. Public executions on his initiative also became more frequent, sometimes reaching the point of absurdity: a servant served him cold duck gizzard soup today? Execute him! An official looked at him with an emotion different from what the Emperor expected? Execute him!

Performing in the plaza had become noticeably more difficult and dangerous, but you promised to go to the end, even if it was scary, even if you had one foot on the other side of two worlds. Mocking Yu Weiqiang's reign, each of you expected death, but for some reason it never came. Although, the Emperor must have known about this. Was he playing around? Didn't he care? What?

No, he did care. Right during your performance, the guards dispersed the crowd and tied you up as if you weren't traveling performers, but the most dangerous criminals. Thus began your imprisonment in a damp dungeon, without light, food, or even water, which you were denied. Metal chains caressed the delicate skin of your wrists when the Emperor came down to you just once.

One time, which made you want to beg for a swift execution right then and there. He didn't cause pain, gave no specific orders, and barely spoke. But his gaze was fixed on you, and only on you. A gaze that carried neither kindness nor mercy, a gaze that said only one thing: you will live on if you warm his chambers with your presence every cold night.

Yu Weiqiang didn't react to your spit in his face at first, merely standing frozen for such a long moment, amidst the guards' terrified gasps, that the question of your torture should have arisen as quickly as the ominous red halo of his dilated pupils flared. But no.

The rods scratched everyone's backs indiscriminately; the rods weren't alive, they felt no pain or compassion. It was your back that felt the pain, now more like a sieve, constantly aching, and as it healed, itching madly: the chains prevented the pain from subsiding.

Then the guards came to your shared cell. The Emperor dismissed your vehement resistance as inexperience and a refusal to accept your sexuality, so he personally gave the order to show you how men could love. You weren't touched, no, but your eyes could still see and your ears could still hear the desecrations inflicted on other traveling performers.

Abomination.

And then came the time for the execution. You and the others were dragged to the square where, just recently, you had all been performing, laughing loudly and singing songs. Now you were kneeling, chained like dogs, and treated in the same way. For a long time, the shocked crowd listened to inhuman screams, the blows of a stick, and then the roar of the raised sword as the executioner sliced ​​through the air.

When the first head rolled down the scaffold, you thought you had gone mad. The chains tensed as you tried to lunge forward, stopping the process, but the guards held you tight, and the Emperor responded to your cries with only a devilish, satisfied smile.

One, two, three.

Your voice broke, staring blankly as your turn came. But the Emperor gave another order, and you were dragged back into the palace, freed from your shackles only when your knees buckled and sank into the soft carpets of Yu Weiqiang's chambers.

He hadn't intended to kill you, only to "teach you a lesson," to show you what happens to those who resist his will. Your uncontrollably trembling body responded to his arrival with a similar tremor as the Emperor removed his outer garments and approached.

The healing ointment stung unpleasantly, and white bandages of the softest silk covered the wounds on your back like a gentle blanket. The enticing scent of a peach, which Yu Weiqiang split in half with a small knife, immediately tickled your nose.

"You haven't eaten in a while. It wouldn't be right for an Emperor to keep his favorite, marked with a red thread, hungry, right?"

His voice was so sweet that it seemed your teeth were grinding from the cloying sugar with which he wove you into the web of his love. What love, what peaches, were we talking about if he forced you to endure all these trials? Forced you to watch as your friends were first dishonored and tortured, and then so cold-bloodedly murdered. What red threads?

"You can twist your nose all you want, but today you will share a ripe peach with me, one way or another."

His hand, extending the half straight to your mouth, pressing the pulp to your lips, clearly hinted that he would use force if necessary. You would share with him on this dead night not only the peach, but also his cold heart, contained within this small offering.