Mourning for Who

I felt a sharp pain in my chest as everything before me turned into a field of white. For a moment I felt a warmth that did not belong to the cold hard cobblestones that I laid upon.

Was this the kind death that had embraced me in its arms to free me from the misery from where I came.

If this was the death that the storytellers spoke of when they referred to death. The feeling of being in a warm embrace that felt like clouds, I would not mind it. After all, I am in no position to complain. 

I felt as though I was floating in midair. It was a feeling by which a body imbued with inner energy could not compare. This was a feeling that I knew my cold corpse would no longer have the pleasure of feeling once again.

But since the pain that was racking through my four limbs gone, I saw no reason to go back to an empty and broken shell.

I was in such a state that was hovering in that soft cloud for what seemed to be moments, yet I do not know, perhaps the time passed could have been months or years, there was really no way of knowing for certain.

I woke up in the embrace of something that was warm, like the human touch. This feeling was foreign to me as I had not felt something like this in a long time.

I tried to distance myself from the warmth, pushing away with hands that were too weak. For a moment I could not grasp what seemed to be going on. My movements were weak and my body had no strength, so I fell down onto the soft floor.

"Your highness!" A voice called, the female voice was slightly hoarse.

I looked in the direction. I had no idea why she called me that, but I was certain I was no longer floating in limbo anymore. Met with the face of a gentle young woman with pale pink lips and black hair that was fixed into a bun atop her head, decorated with a bronze hairpin that had been cast into the shape of flowers. Her attire was a dark blue robe with a white sash tied at her waist. Her eyes were slightly swollen, and she had tear stains that ran down her pale cheeks. If one word could be used to describe her, I would say that she is a pitiful and helpless beauty that all men would want to comfort, yet I did not sense anything pitiful about her.

I struggled to get off the ground with my small hands, to find that I myself was also dressed in white robes. I stared at her as she was the reason I had fallen to the ground. Dusting myself up, I stared at her. She was perhaps half a body taller than me and had the advantage point. With her eyes full of tears, I could no longer bear to watch and moved my line of sight to the ground there was a slight smile that was forming at my lips so I bit onto my lips to prevent that smirk from showing, I knew that now was not the time to show such a smile.

I never knew what to do when people cried, I never understood why they cried, I sometimes felt happiness when I saw them in the most horrible emotional disturbance, I knew that it was not normal, but I could not refrain myself.  

"Palace lady Lian!" The raised voice of a young child came. I could detect the voice that belonged to a child who had not yet reached puberty. Who was he to be yelling so loud at this young woman?

I looked at the direction of his voice and saw a young boy, he was slightly older than me, with proud eyes and pink lips. His robes were the same as mine, white.

Looking at this boy, I felt as though we were in some kind of ritual. Mourning a deceased family member. When I looked at the jade tablet that stood erect in front, I realized that we were. Her name was filled in with gold atop jade in fanciful characters. I could see that the words enlaced in gold were 'Imperial Concubine Xian' Imperial Concubine?

Did that mean that she was a woman of the emperor?

Just what that entailed, I do not know, but I did feel life itself becoming more excitement.

I was so mesmerized looking up at the jade tablet that I had not caught the lady kneeling before the young boy with a thud. By the time I heard it, I retracted my gaze from the tablet, and looked at the boy.

I must have looked quite pitiful biting my lip because the boy rushed over to me immediately to examine me. I could see his harsh gaze softened up as he inspected to see if I had a bruise from my earlier fall. No one had ever looked at me with such a compassionate gaze before, and my mind immediately went blank in response.

After seeing that I was all right, he turned back to the young woman, putting back his mask of anger. I watched her kowtow to the hard ground until the skin on her forehead cracked, yet despite that she still continued, ignoring the pain as though her life depended on it.

"Your highness, please spare my life!" Were the desperate cries that she repeated again and again.

The boy ordered me to be carried off by an elderly servant, so I was unable to see her fate, it was not like I cared anyway.

This elderly servant was also dressed similarly to the young woman with a white sash tied at her waist, only her hair was in a much more mature style. Perhaps this was the difference in rank that I had heard about.

This woman was much more careful while handling me. Perhaps this was because she had seen what happened to the woman who dropped me.

She brought me to the quarters that I supposedly lived in. It was a grand place that was tiled with floors of marble, and pillars encased with gold. In the center was a large bed, much larger than I would ever need. I had never seen such a grandiose room dedicated to such a small child, and with so many servants as well. How many people were needed to take care of a single child?

For a moment, I felt a slight sense of sympathy for this child whose body I inhabited. It was large, but the room felt so cold and empty

He was born into such luxury. But the price was such solitude and loneliness. The inability to ever share true thoughts with a friend who is not a subordinate, but an equal. Perhaps this was how the distrusting rulers were made I silently thought. 

The woman who had been tasked to carry me away had not yet put me down, so I laid for a moment in her arms feeling the warmth that emanated from her body. She was my supposed caretaker who was to treat me like a child, but that heat was the only thing I felt.

She placed me down on my golden bed very gently, preparing to coax me off to sleep. Just as she was about, I sat up and looked at her. Her face was that of a middle-aged woman, with a few wrinkles around her mouth, and a head with graying strands.

Did all the people who live here age so distastefully? I wondered.

"Your highness, what's wrong?" The woman's hoarse voice sounded to my ears. 

As predicted, she too had been crying.

"Where's mother?" I asked innocently, hoping that she would answer me with some sort of useful information.

She fell to the ground with a thud and started wailing tragically, along with the sounds of the servants of the hall wailing as well, as though I had just reminded them of the death of a person close to them. I stared at the woman and the other servants speechlessly.

I did not believe that my mother was so glorious as to touch the lives of so many people.

Just who were they mourning for?