Extras (8): Entering The Dream

Su Huaijing had always known he was no gentleman.

He excelled at reading others, at plotting, at turning every disadvantage into opportunity.

He was… a clever man, hardly blessed with charity.

If someone was lusting after power or wealth, he’d bait them with both; if someone was rash or dull, he’d disarm them with sincerity; if someone brimmed with ambition, he’d guide them with lofty ideals.

But before Rong Tang, all those schemes melted away. As long as he was Su Huaijing, and the other was Rong Tang, he could effortlessly draw every ounce of favour he desired.

Once, by means not wholly honourable, he extracted three wishes from Rong Tang. Then, on a winter night beneath the first snowfall, clutching his hand, he pressed him for a nearly impossible longing:

He wanted entry to Rong Tang’s dreams, a glimpse of those interwoven past lives he had never known, to rescue the weary, calculating Tang Tang and bring him back under his protection. To let him simply be his carefree little Buddha.

So when he opened his eyes in a room unfamiliar to him, Su Huaijing’s instinct was to take in every detail. Gradually, he noticed the bedhead’s motif. It was one he recognised.

Years ago… or years to come… in a wing room at Song Garden.

He frowned, draped himself in a robe hung from the screen, and caught sight of the Deputy Censor’s court dress.

Stepping outside, he saw Song Garden’s distinctive grounds, blooming spring flowers…

But this made no sense. Last night before sleep, he had been in a heated fracas with Tangtang, the heated-hued land dragon burners of the Palace of Mental Cultivation, snowy night through to New Year’s Eve.

He had granted court officials a holiday and spent the night with his lover, guarding in celebration the coming year.

There was no way he’d slept through three months, nor left a court gown draped across a screen like some absent-minded minister.

He closed his eyes, hearing hushed voices just beyond the courtyard’s screen. His spirit sank. He called: “Xingfeng.”

Silent footsteps followed, then a voice: “Master.”

He turned. It was Liuyun.

“Xingfeng remains in the capital. Does Master wish to send any message?”

He asked, “What date is it now?”

Liuyun answered without hesitation: “The first day of the fourth lunar month in the eleventh year of Qingzheng.”

Su Huaijing recalled the flower-picking festival hosted by Sheng Chengxing immediately. He nodded: “Very well. You may go.”

He had attended once before. He’d been partially distracted by court affairs, so he wasn’t always at Rong Tang’s side. It was only after Tangtang and Ke Hongxue returned from some play that he learned Sheng Chengli had summoned Rong Tang then.

He lifted his gaze to the ascending dawn. Was this chance meant to mend his regrets… or to grant his obsession?

Could these unseen pasts finally be unveiled?

He stood still for a long moment, then bowed his head and allowed a soft, secret smile.

At the festival, he had schemes to hatch and connections to make, earning countless conversations merely by appearing. Nothing differed from his experience in that other world. But even as he played the social game, his eyes constantly scanned for Tangtang.

“Excellency Su, what do you think of His Royal Highness the Fifth Prince, now emerging so notably?”

A familiar courtier asked. Su Huaijing offered a sideways smile and replied: “What His Majesty thinks lies beyond our speculation. Best to choose your words wisely.”

He turned to leave, but his glance caught two figures in the corner. He paused.

A colleague noticing him exclaimed, “Ah! The Fifth Prince is quarrelling with the Shizi again.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

The man looked startled but pressed on: “Excellency Su, you didn’t know? The Fifth Prince, once banished to the cold palace, now commands such imperial favour thanks entirely to Prince Rong.”

Since the festival was organised by Sheng Chengxing, many officials present had ties to him. Their remarks carried unmistakable disdain.

“Granted, it’s not spoken openly. But who doesn’t know? Over recent years, Duke Ningxuan and Wang Fei’s influence, what the Shizi could mobilise, all were poured into the Fifth Prince. Otherwise, how would he have so smoothly stepped out of exile looking so polished?”

He’d been a neglected child in the palace. Forever to live in silence. If luck went his way, a benevolent brother-turned-emperor might grant him a fief. That would have been the best-case ending.

“The Shizi practically raised him to his present position. But alas, once one grows wings, one stops obeying. After all… His Highness isn’t some lapdog of the court,” the courtier sneered.

Su Huaijing understood the contempt in those words. But he remained fixated on the two in the distance. Lips barely parted, he murmured to himself, “Is that so?”

Did he really accept Rong Tang’s favour… only to betray him in the end?

A dark, surging current passed through his gaze, unnoticed against the dimming spring sky.

The official, still steeped in disdain for Sheng Chengli, added: “Tonight at the Lanyue Pavilion there’s a new play. Excellency Su, will you not join us?”

He returned to himself, offering a perfect sidelong smile: “I left something behind at my lodging. Notify the others to proceed. I’ll meet you there.”

His hosts sensed the excuse but dared not insist. They indulged him a nod and moved on to chat elsewhere.

Su Huaijing stood on the cobbled path, fixed upon the “companions” at the far corner. Master and servant in frozen tableaux across lifetimes.

Time stretched on. At last, before he lost all patience, Sheng Chengli vacated Rong Tang’s side.

Oddly, Su Huaijing expected himself to hurry forward. But when Chengli departed, he remained rooted, watching from afar.

Rong Tang’s head bowed; perhaps in reverie, perhaps just lost in gazing at a peony in full bloom. The evening’s golden glow cast across his face as if even heaven pitied his melancholy.

Around them the crowd ebbed and flowed. When a glimmer of impatience crossed Tangtang’s features, Su Huaijing finally moved.

Suppressing his impulse to embrace or kiss him, he simply asked, in a calm, steady voice: “Does Shizi like this peony?”

Rong Tang paused mid-step and turned to look back at him.

Su Huaijing met his gaze unflinchingly.

He had grown thin—alarmingly so. His complexion was pallid, his bones sharp beneath the skin, and there wasn’t the faintest trace of health about him. Even beneath his eyes, bruised shadows lingered.

Su Huaijing felt a flicker of absurd laughter rise in his throat, born of some obscure frustration. But he wasn’t sure at whom the anger was directed.

Was it Tangtang, for not looking after himself? Or himself, for not having taken him away and protected him properly in this life?

Emotion churned beneath his gaze, a tide threatening to break loose. At the final moment before he lost control, he looked away… his eyes falling lightly upon a pale pink peony, as if his earlier stare had never lingered at all.

Rong Tang pivoted slowly back, hesitant perhaps, but still responded: “I wouldn’t say I like it.”

It wasn’t a particularly revealing answer, yet the moment Su Huaijing heard his voice, joy bloomed inexplicably within him.

As though, after lifetimes spent reaching through dreams, he had finally touched the hem of one.

He smiled, gently teasing: “Only because it happens to be blooming here?”

A flicker of surprise crossed Rong Tang’s face. But it passed swiftly, and after a moment’s pause, he nodded.

The world was wide; the flower-picking festival teemed with people. Su Huaijing simply stood beside him, watching a peony bloom. Neither spoke.

In the end, though, he said softly: “If anyone gives you trouble, Shizi, you may come to me.”

Rong Tang looked faintly puzzled. He didn’t seem to think himself bullied, nor did he understand why Su Huaijing was extending kindness. Still, he returned the gesture with polite words, befitting his rank.

Eventually, the sun set, and the crowd dispersed. Su Huaijing remained a moment, watching the peony, the long shadow of Rong Tang’s departure stretching across the fading light.

He didn’t know whether this was some fleeting dream or a reality that might endure. At the banquet, he kept to the decorum expected of him, but left early nonetheless.

He’d said Rong Tang could seek him out if wronged. But in the end, he was the one who made the first move.

He summoned Liuyun and gave a quiet instruction. Though puzzled, Liuyun never disobeyed. And so, Su Huaijing made his way alone to Rong Tang’s small courtyard.

Shuang Fu and Shuang Shou had already gone to bed. He slipped quietly into the room and waited.

The tea on the table had long gone cold. Su Huaijing reached out a hand, found it chilly to the touch, and, with uncharacteristic care, lit a kettle and brewed a fresh pot. There was no sign now of the aloof, sought-after Deputy Censor-in-Chief from the flower-picking festival.

When Rong Tang returned, a little drunk, he opened the door to find someone waiting quietly beneath the lamp. A soft scent of tea lingered in the air. For a moment, he stood dazed.

Su Huaijing was seated in a chair, looking up at him. His eyes glistened with a tenderness that might well have been water. The candlelight softened him, casting a gentle glow like moonlight. He looked almost otherworldly.

“Shizi, you’re back. Would you like some tea? It’ll help with the drink.”

It was a beautiful night. The moonlight was gentle, the spring air warm. Outside, crickets chirped with quiet vitality.

Perhaps it was the wine, or perhaps it was the tea’s subtle aroma. Rong Tang drifted forward, eyes fixed on Su Huaijing’s face, lingering from brow to lips.

Then, he asked, dazedly: “Have I met you before?”

This wasn’t politics. It wasn’t strategy. It wasn’t yet another game of chess where they had no choice but to oppose one another. It was simply that he had seen this version of Su Huaijing before… gentle, obedient, wholly fixated on him.

Su Huaijing met his gaze, the smile tugging at his lips growing harder to suppress. After a long pause, he leaned into the hand Rong Tang had raised to trace the lines of his face.

“Rong Tang,” he said softly, “I’ve brought you a gift.”

If this was only a dream, and if he knew that Sheng Chengli was not a good man, that his existence would only hurt Rong Tang, then why not kill him?

The world behind them began to disintegrate, inch by inch. The flowers, trees, even the insects vanished into silence. Only the moonlight remained, high and cold and brilliant.

As if the world had collapsed. As if it were being rebuilt anew. A pale, blinding white covered everything, save for the two of them, facing each other in the candlelit dark.

Su Huaijing looked at him, and answered the question: “Of course we’ve met. I’m your wife.”

“Tangtang, it’s time you married me and took me home.”

The world dissolved entirely into nothingness. Su Huaijing saw the astonishment in Rong Tang’s eyes… but not whether he nodded.

—

“Tsk.”

The moment Rong Tang opened his eyes, he heard someone beside him let out a soft click of the tongue. A sound full of regret and wistful lament, utterly outrageous.

Rong Tang turned sharply, almost tempted to kick Su Huaijing off the bed.

He’d been tossing and turning all night… and this man still had the nerve to sound regretful?

But before he could react, Su Huaijing had already wrapped him in his arms. His eyes sparkled, completely devoid of the usual morning grogginess.

“Tangtang,” he said brightly, “shall we get married again?”

Rong Tang: “…”

Rong Tang: “???”