HCAW 137

Chapter 137: Faint Light on the Imperial Path

Seventy-six years ago, beyond the Ming Sea.

As far as the eye could see, the ice wall stretched endlessly—a towering cage barring all who approached. Cold winds howled from within, ceaseless all year round.

The young Son of Heaven stood at the prow of the Soaring Chi¹ 螭 (chī) a mythical hornless dragon boat, his heart heavy with sorrow. Several years had passed since the expedition began. In the bitter cold, the soldiers’ skin cracked and their fingers broke; each day, a hundred or more perished in this place. The troops secretly called it “Guixi,” for there was no return from here—it was as cruel as hell itself.

As the starving and frozen increased, Emperor Bai toured the fleet and found that many attendants were too weak to rise—some had died where they lay, transformed into ice sculptures. After repeated assaults on the ice wall, their ships urgently needed repair, but supplies never came. They had run out of food and support, and were forced to dismantle their ships for firewood. Emperor Bai roared at the quartermaster:

“Have Penglai’s provisions still not arrived?”

The quartermaster knelt, trembling. “Y-Your Majesty, Penglai too suffers from the cold. Not a grain can be scraped from the granaries! And with the sea iced over, supply ships can no longer pass. They can’t reach us…”

“Enough. Leave.” Emperor Bai buried his face in his hands, silent at the prow. When he looked up, he saw his reflection in the waves—a face twisted and gaunt, the skin shriveled by frost and wind. He was startled. Was this still the bright-eyed youth who had once departed with such resolve?

At first, they fired iron shots and ignited black powder to blast the ice. Later, they splintered warship beams into giant stakes and rammed the wall with manpower. When the beams broke, the emperor sent soldiers to chip away with hooked spears. They shaved down fragments of ice—but no one knew how long it would take to tunnel through.

Resupply ships that once came monthly had grown increasingly scarce; manpower dwindled. Ji Zhi suddenly realized how long they had been stranded here.

How many years had passed since they arrived? Crossing the Ming Sea had taken effort; carving the wall, even more. He had set out before coming of age, but now had been ground into a weary young man.

“Y-Your Majesty…” A soldier rushed forward and knelt.

“What is it?” Emperor Bai asked, voice drained. The reply struck him like a thunderclap.

“Bai Huan Guard… his condition is dire. He asks to see Your Majesty, saying… he won’t last much longer.”

Over the past years, the soldiers had tried embedding stakes into the ice wall—first wood, later ice spires—to climb it. But the wall was slick and hard; despite years of effort, none reached the top. Thousands had died trying. Bai Huan Guard was to be the next.

He had once saved a girl from a fishing boat and treated her like a daughter. Though she rarely spoke, she was nimble and helped anchor the ice stakes. One day, she slipped from the wall. Bai Huan Guard leapt to catch her, but though he cushioned her fall, the impact shattered his limbs.

Worse, he had fallen into the Ming Sea during the rescue. He was pulled out half an hour later, barely alive. They realized then: even bodies tempered by “Immortal Elixir” could not endure Guixi’s cold.

Emperor Bai entered the tent heavy with grief. Otter pelts lined the icy floor. Bai Huan Guard lay wrapped in thick marine hides, the rescued girl beside him, silently worried. Without medicine, she gently stroked his frozen brow again and again, as if casting a futile healing charm.

“Your Majesty… you’ve come.” Bai Huan Guard’s dull eyes lit up.

“You’re so frail—just a chill and you end up bedridden like an old man?” the emperor teased gently.

Bai Huan Guard smiled. “I’ve followed Your Majesty in this campaign for more than a few days. Five years of wind and waves… my old bones can bear no more.”

“…Five years.” Emperor Bai murmured.

“Yes. Since we left Penglai, it’s been five years. Of my four fellow Xian Mountain Guards: one died from wounds fighting an ao turtle, one vanished in a storm, one deserted, and one was crushed by falling ice. Compared to them, I’ve been lucky to last this long.”

“You Xian Mountain Guards—always scattering. Never united, but each with your own glory.” The emperor’s words ended in a bitter smile.

“Your Majesty… sometimes I wonder—does ‘man triumph over heaven’ truly hold? We Xian Mountain Guards are famed and proud, but in the end, we’re just mortals fed Immortal Elixir. This ice wall—perhaps it is Heaven’s trial for us. No matter what we do, we cannot escape its grip.” Yu Huan Guard’s voice weakened. “What I fear most is not dying here, but reaching the top of that wall… only to see nothing but endless ice beyond. That all we’ve done… was but ants shaking a tree.”

“Penglai’s image… I can hardly recall it now.”

The emperor gazed into his eyes—searching aimlessly, as if seeking a distant dream. He took his hand. “Do you have any final wish? Tell me.”

Bai Huan Guard smiled, like so many frozen soldiers did in their final moments. He lifted himself, turned his face toward the direction they came from:

“I wish… to see Penglai once more.”

Terns cried above, the only life in Guixi. When the emperor stepped out the tent, he looked around in despair. The heavens loomed vast; they were no more than insects within. Cold pierced to the bone. Behind him, the girl sobbed, soldiers rushed about—a Xian Mountain Guard had passed. Amid the noise, familiar footsteps drew near.

“Let’s return, Tianfu Guard.” Emperor Bai didn’t need to turn to know who it was. Wearied, he said:

“It’s time I returned home.”

The sails unfurled like a wounded bird’s wing. The warship departed, now with barely a tenth of its original crew. As they set sail, the emperor looked back at the ice wall—floating sheets stacked high, forming the land they called “Guixi.” Shadowed forms covered it—silent bones that would speak no more.

His eyes burned, but his heart stayed cold. His knees gave out, and he collapsed beside the rail—only for a figure to catch him.

The warmth was rare in this land of ice. The Tianfu Guard, now tall, whispered in his ear:

“Don’t cry, Your Majesty. No matter what happens, I will always stay by your side.”

Ji Zhi clutched his sleeve, heart surging. By courtly decorum, he should have shoved the guard aside—but instead, he reached out and held him tightly. Eyes closed, he murmured:

“I won’t cry. In a place like Guixi… tears are wasted. They fall, freeze, and cease to be tears.”

The voyage home lasted months. They battled waves and currents, lost their way, and finally set foot on Penglai. But the moment the emperor saw it, his tongue froze: was this still the land he knew?

Rivers choked dry, snow blanketed the land. All was white. Not a soul in sight. The former bustle had vanished. Only Bi Bao Guard and a few officials came to meet him—drawn in a cart pulled by a long-eared mule, as all palace horses had died from the cold. Bi Bao Guard, once radiant, was now weathered and frostbitten.

Seated in the cart, Emperor Bai looked out through the curtain. Hail smashed rooftops; starved citizens huddled in ruins. A few moved in the streets, but the snow was too deep—they crawled on hands and knees. Fall once, and without strength to rise, they’d freeze to death.

“What misery,” the emperor sighed.

Bi Bao Guard said, “Since Your Majesty departed, Penglai has only grown colder. We’ve done everything to supply you.” She looked around and asked, “The Xian Mountain Guards who accompanied you—where are they?”

Emperor Bai fell silent. That silence was answer enough. So she, too, fell silent.

He looked at her, wanting to speak, but couldn’t. Her face was serene as a bodhisattva, eyes half-lidded, every word gentle—yet something in them quietly reproached him: How could a Son of Heaven abandon his people, leave Penglai behind? Suddenly, he felt—he had been away too long.

Just then, a disturbance erupted outside the cart.

“That emblem!….It’s the emperor’s carriage!”

The cart shook violently. Bi Bao Guard shouted, “Fear not, Your Majesty—I’ll go see what’s happened!” Then to the guards outside: “What are you standing there for? Protect His Majesty!”

But Emperor Bai said, “It’s fine. Let me go out.”

He lifted the curtain—and saw fierce winds blowing snow, the long-eared mule braying wildly, and a crowd of commoners clinging tightly to the cart wheels, refusing to let the imperial carriage move. The attendants flailed in panic, swinging bronze rods to drive them away. Blood streamed from many heads, and those who collapsed on the ground lay motionless. Emperor Bai shouted:

“Stop!”

Both attendants and commoners froze in place, looking up to see the emperor, draped in a now-worn white cloak, leaning out from within the carriage. Statues of the emperor stood throughout the Xian Mountain, so the common folk recognized his face.

Masses of people stared at him, seemingly about to kneel. Emperor Bai, seeing their bony frames, was reminded of festivals past, when they once gathered around him with joy. He bent down, wanting to speak—to say that though he had once returned in defeat, he would walk forward hand in hand with his people. But at that moment, he saw pairs of hateful eyes, sharp as nails, piercing through his flesh.

“Dog emperor!”

Suddenly, someone shouted.

“You left Penglai for five years—five whole years! While Penglai froze over, you, brat, didn’t even look back once! Do you know? Now even unborn children are counted for taxes—thirty coins per head each year! Who can afford that? Might as well beat the child to death with a stick while it’s still in the womb! Babies strangled at birth lie frozen in the rivers, littering the land!”

Emperor Bai was stunned. Then someone else yelled, “Human lives are worth nothing! There’s nothing left in the fields—trees cut down, even graves dug up, bones burned for fuel! And even so, the emperor still demands heavy taxes, while he himself flees to the warm seas to escape the cold—how can such a coward call himself emperor?”

A peasant woman wept ice-tears down her cheeks, crying out weakly, “There’s fewer and fewer people now. To supply the emperor with grain and goods, who knows how many have been worked to death! First, it was my dead husband they dragged away. Then my son. Even my old father with one foot in the grave. Now the dead outnumber the living in our lands!”

“Tyrant!” a shrill voice broke out. Emperor Bai looked up in shock to see a small child standing in the crowd, clutching a snowball, pointing and screaming at him. The word was like a spark—igniting the crowd. In an instant, fury erupted.

“Dog emperor!”

“Tyrant! Tyrant!”

Snowballs packed with stones flew toward him, but before one could strike Ji Zhi, it was shot down by a sleeve-dart from the shadows—Tianfu Guard protecting him. Emperor Bai’s face turned grim as he stood in the snow. Though the crowd surged around him, he stood alone.

Just five years ago, he was embraced by the people on this very street, the path strewn with incense and flowers. Now, everything was reversed. He had become the reviled, despised ruler.

Suddenly, a shriek rang out. The first child who had thrown the snowball had leapt onto a soldier’s leg to bite him and was pierced by a long sword. Rage turned to panic as fear swept through the crowd. The emperor’s guards were unleashing slaughter. “Protect His Majesty! Don’t let them harm him!” they shouted.

Blood splattered. The people scattered like birds and beasts. Those who couldn’t escape were run through with blades. In the white snow, a massacre unfolded.

Emperor Bai stood in silence, eyes hollow. At last, he turned back to the carriage, lips trembling. But what he uttered was not “Stop,” but:

“Depart.”

______

“They say beyond the Ming Sea lies a paradise called ‘Peach Source,’ free from snow and hunger, cold and fear. But now Emperor Bai has become a tyrant—waging endless war, plunging the realm into misery, bleeding the people dry, forsaking Heaven’s will, chilling the hearts of the land! People, it’s time we rise together and go to Peach Source—it’s time we raise torches and burn the Immortal Palace to the ground!”

In the darkness, the voice stirred unrest. A figure clad in robes with peach blossom patterns shouted to the crowd. Faces emerged under the moonlight, gaunt and filled with wrath. Stone plows, iron hoes, kitchen knives were lifted, gleaming on the shoulders of the commoners.

Fanatics howled around the peach-robed figure like wild beasts. This was a new sect rising in Penglai, called Da Yuan Dao. With its appearance, the people ceased crying of hunger and cold—they had found hope.

The faithful cursed Emperor Bai and spread the tale that the emperor had already found Peach Source during his expedition, but out of greed, chose to live there alone, abandoning Penglai.

At that moment, moonlight hung over the forlorn Immortal Palace. Emperor Bai stood alone in the corridor, deep in thought.

Suddenly, he saw a few eunuchs carrying a small bench covered with white cloth. He walked over and asked, “What is this?”

The eunuchs, startled, tried to kneel, but he waved them off. They stammered:

“This… is a body. Another one. The cold is too much, and each day some in the palace freeze to death…”

Emperor Bai’s gaze flickered, but his face stayed calm. He raised his hand. “Go on.”

The eunuchs hurried away.

Once the corridor emptied, he sighed and said, “Tianfu Guard, do you think I was wrong?”

From the shadows came the soft reply, “Your Majesty set out to find salvation. The heart that guided you was noble.”

The emperor shook his head. “Yet half the disasters in this world come from good intentions. As emperor, even a small act of mine can flood the land in blood. People die everywhere. I cannot even protect the palace eunuchs and it’s all because of me.”

Tianfu Guard said nothing. Emperor Bai sighed again. “Sometimes I wonder—if I had stayed in Penglai and suffered with my people, would they not hate me as they do now?”

Just as Tianfu Guard opened his mouth, a thunderous boom rang out from afar. The palace erupted in chaos. After some time, a panicked eunuch came running, knelt, and cried:

“Report! Rioters have gathered outside—the southeast gates have been breached!”

“Absurd!” Emperor Bai snapped. “How many? Do they have firearms?”

“N-No idea—just blades and swords. But they had insiders. Defenses crumbled quickly…”

“Insiders?” he murmured. He looked toward the commotion. Snow dust filled the air. Roars echoed like tidal waves. In the corridor, rebels ran—led by eunuchs in palace robes, shouting orders.

So even the palace had turned on him.

In that moment, Emperor Bai felt as if his heart had shattered.

______

The chronicles record that on the tenth day of the eleventh lunar month in the year of Wuwu, the people of Penglai rose with sticks and axes and stormed the Immortal Palace. Emperor Bai fled—and was never seen again.

After his expedition, the state was leaderless, disaster unrelenting, and his infamy endured. He became a byword for cruelty and failure.

But none except two knew where he truly went. That night, a black stallion and a dappled gray-blue horse burst from the palace, fleeing the rebel horde. Emperor Bai and the Tianfu Guard rode side by side. Looking back at the palace, Ji Zhi’s heart pounded—though the world was vast, he felt he had no place left.

Pursuers closed in. Mules and steeds from the stables had been seized. The rebels chased relentlessly. Wind howled. Arrows flew like rain. Tianfu Guard turned, struck down a volley, but still took several hits. Emperor Bai cried out:

“Tianfu Guard!”

“I’m fine—don’t worry about me, Your Majesty!” he shouted through clenched teeth.

They rode for Zhenhai Pass. It stood half-collapsed now, abandoned. A traitor leapt forward, blade raised to strike—but in that instant, the Tianfu Guard spurred his horse, deflecting the blow. A sharp arrow flew straight at the emperor’s face. The Tianfu Guard leapt, shielding him.

Blood bloomed on his body.

Emperor Bai felt his heart skip. He had wanted to flee—to escape the people’s hatred. He longed to return—to a time when all was whole and hope remained.

In a flash, the two tumbled into Zhenhai Pass’s gate. The blades and arrows vanished. The cold dissipated.

They were drenched by a sudden downpour.

Emperor Bai scrambled up—only to find the rebels gone, their horses vanished. He and the Tianfu Guard now lay atop a tung-oil boat, gasping for breath. The sky was black. Rain poured down.

“What’s going on?” Emperor Bai looked around. “Where are the people? What happened to the weather?”

Strangely, once they crossed Zhenhai Pass, it was as if they had entered another world. The icefields were gone. In their place surged the sea, waves roaring. In the distance, countless boats were chained in circles, surrounding a tall mountain like stars circling the moon. Every ship blazed with lanterns, weaving a sea of light.

A barge passed by. The Tianfu Guard leapt aboard, seized a fisherman by the collar, and barked, “What’s going on? Is this your doing?”

The man trembled, baffled. “Little brother, what are you talking about?”

The Tianfu Guard glared. He suspected sorcery—was this the work of the rebels? “Where are we? Isn’t this Zhenhai Pass?”

The fisherman looked confused. “What Zhenhai Pass? Oh! You mean the gate atop Qingyu Gao Mountain?”

Now the guard was lost. “What Qingyu Gao Mountain?”

The fisherman pointed. “That mountain in the center. Here in Yingzhou, we’ve only got the one.”

“Ying… Yingzhou?” The two were stunned, heads spinning. Rain pelted down harder.

After a moment, Emperor Bai asked, “Where are we? Where is Penglai?”

“Penglai?” the fisherman laughed, as if hearing a joke. “You two hit your heads, eh? Penglai—that’s ancient history. Thirty-some years ago, there was a great calamity. The sky spat fire. Snow melted, floods washed everything away. Penglai was drowned—emperors, guards, all of them. Dead.”

He added:

“‘Penglai’ was the name used in the former dynasty. Our current dynasty is called—‘Yingzhou’.”

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  螭 (chī) a mythical hornless dragon