Night had deepened.
Only one lamp burned in the sleeping palace. The dim candlelight stretched the shadows of the people into long, distorted shapes.
Li Shimin leaned against the couch, staring motionlessly at the canopy above.
Empress Zhangsun sat beside him, holding a comb, slowly running it through her hair again and again. The sound of the comb passing through strands was unusually clear in the quiet night.
After a long while, Li Shimin finally spoke.
His voice was muffled.
“Guanyinbi.”
Empress Zhangsun paused.
“Yes?”
Li Shimin said, “Help me analyze something.”
She blinked slightly.
“Analyze what?”
“What happened tonight,” he said.
He turned his head to look at her.
“What do you think of Zhou Xiong’s condition?”
Empress Zhangsun fell silent for a moment.
She set the comb down and turned to face him.
“Do Your Majesty want the truth?”
Li Shimin nodded.
She thought for a moment.
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Li Shimin waited for her to continue.
Empress Zhangsun went on, “If you say he’s mad, he can still speak normally, think clearly, remember what happened with Cheng Yaojin, and still worry about that batch of weapons. But if you say he’s not mad—his eyes—”
She paused.
“They make one feel cold inside.”
Li Shimin said nothing.
She continued, “A normal person wouldn’t look like that. Even someone pretending to be mad couldn’t imitate that kind of gaze. Beneath it… it’s completely chaotic. Nothing is clear anymore.”
Li Shimin nodded slightly.
“I saw it too.”
He sat up, leaning against the headboard.
“Tell me, do you think I truly want to harm him?”
Empress Zhangsun looked at him.
Li Shimin continued, “Seeing him like that… I feel awful too. I want to help him, but everything I do feels wrong. Granting him a title is wrong. Giving him the iron forge is wrong. Advising him is wrong. Not advising him is also wrong. And now he came on his own, wearing court robes, sitting there eating as if nothing happened—”
He paused.
“I don’t even know what to do with him anymore.”
Empress Zhangsun said nothing.
She looked at Li Shimin’s face. The candlelight revealed dark circles under his eyes and deep exhaustion.
She suddenly spoke.
“Your Majesty, I think Zhou Xiong tonight… wasn’t acting for himself.”
Li Shimin froze slightly.
“What do you mean?”
She said, “Those things he said—about weapons, Cheng Yaojin, asking Zhou Yi to come eat—they sound like nonsense. But if you think carefully, they all share something in common.”
Li Shimin waited.
“They are all things he cannot let go of,” she said.
Li Shimin’s eyes shifted slightly.
She continued, “He worries about his weapons being destroyed. He worries about his conflict with Cheng Yaojin and wants to apologize. He worries about Zhou Yi and wants him to come eat.”
She looked at Li Shimin.
“Your Majesty, I think he is not in a state of madness. He is—”
She paused, searching for the right word.
“He is protecting.”
Li Shimin froze.
“Protecting?”
Empress Zhangsun nodded.
“Protecting the things he still cares about. Weapons, comrades, his son. He may not even know what he is doing, but he is still doing it.”
Li Shimin sat still.
He looked at her, something turning over in his mind.
Protecting.
Was Zhou Xiong… in that state… protecting?
He recalled what Zhou Xiong had said that night.
“Those are my teaching tools. Don’t let them be destroyed.”
“I smashed Cheng Yaojin’s head last time. I should go apologize another day.”
“Why are you sitting so far away? Come eat.”
Each sentence sounded like nonsense.
But not quite.
It was as if he were confirming—whether those things he cared about were still there.
A faint chill rose in Li Shimin’s back.
What had he been carrying all this time?
And now that he couldn’t carry it anymore—had he broken, yet still used the last shred of clarity to protect what mattered to him?
Li Shimin sat in silence for a long time.
Empress Zhangsun watched him without speaking.
The candle flickered.
After a long while, Li Shimin finally spoke again.
Softly.
“I think I understand something now.”
Empress Zhangsun waited for him to continue.
But he said nothing more.
He lay back down and closed his eyes.
“Sleep,” he said.
Empress Zhangsun looked at him for a moment.
Then she blew out the lamp.
And lay down beside him.
In the darkness, only their breathing remained.
After a long while, Li Shimin spoke again.
“Guanyinbi.”
“Mm?”
“I need to think,” he said.
She did not ask what about.
She simply gave a soft response.
“Mm.”
In the darkness, Li Shimin kept his eyes open, staring into the void above.
What was Zhou Xiong protecting?
And what should he protect?
He thought for a long time.
Outside the window, the snow had stopped at some point.
Moonlight seeped through the paper window, falling onto the floor in a thin, pale layer.
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