0p0 Chapter 657 Empress Zhaoyi
Chapter 657 Empress Zhaoyi
Emperor Shenwu walked back to Qianzheng Hall step by step in the blizzard. Lan Qingwu in his arms was already dead. He looked at the dark sky and said in despair, "I wish you were like the bright moon in the sky, forever bright and clear... But... my bright moon will never come back..."
"Brother Heng, promise Ruo Ruo that even if one day Ruo Ruo passes away before you, you must live well. Ruo Ruo is like the bright moon, always watching over you from afar!"
Once upon a time, it turned out that they had said similar words.
In front of the gate of Qianzheng Hall, the prince led a group of people kneeling in the wind and snow. He raised his head in the cold wind and snow, and finally saw the figure of his father, covered in snow and desperate, holding his mother in his arms. His mother's hands were limp and he could no longer feel any breath from his mother!
The prince's tears were frozen into ice and snow: "Mother..."
Behind him came the sound of sudden bursts of grief, one after another.
The imperial palace's funeral bells began to ring, one after another. After twenty-seven rings, the entire city was shaken. The bells of the temples and Taoist temples within the city followed suit, one after another, cascading outward. With the imperial city as its center, the bells of temples and Taoist temples throughout the Dasheng Dynasty began to ring. Every temple and temple was required to toll the bell thirty thousand times to mark the Empress' passing.
The sky and the earth were covered in silver, and the entire palace and even the imperial city were covered in white, even before the outer city. The white lanterns and snow-white silk in the palace were hung high, echoing the silver-white sky and earth, as if they were all mourning the death of the Empress.
Lan Qingwu was posthumously named Empress Zhaoyi by Emperor Shenwu. Empress Zhaoyi loved the founding empress Zhaoyan the most during her lifetime, so Emperor Shenwu took one of her characters, Zhao, and used this as Lan Qingwu's title.
Upon Empress Zhaoyi's death, Emperor Shenwu established a mourning hall in the main hall of Qianzheng Hall. He issued an imperial decree to have the icy jade coffin from the Miaoling Underground Palace brought into the palace. He personally placed Lan Qingwu inside the coffin, which was then placed on a warm jade bed. Civil and military officials, royal relatives, concubines, and all the princes and princesses in the palace were required to observe a hundred-day mourning period. During this period, no music, slaughter, or marriage was allowed!
The state mourning period in the Dasheng Imperial City was nominally three years, but in reality it lasted twenty-seven months. Using days instead of months, the mourning period would have been twenty-seven days. Emperor Shenwu stopped attending court for several days, wore plain clothing, and performed three daily sacrifices. Ministers, concubines, and other women of the imperial court gathered, wearing plain cloth and weeping three times each morning and evening. From the first day of mourning until the hundredth day, the emperor personally offered daily sacrifices. Emperor Shenwu also decreed that officials and civilians in the outer cities, in mourning for the Empress, follow the same clothing as those in the imperial city.
In the winter of the thirty-third year of the Shenwu reign, Empress Zhaoyi Lan Qingwu passed away. At the moment the funeral bell rang, Master Buyu, an old acquaintance of Empress Zhaoyi, suddenly stood up while leading his disciples in their homework in the Guoan Temple. Listening to the ringing of the funeral bell, he ran towards the door in a daze, until he reached the top of the tall Samsara Tower. Looking at the magnificent palace, Master Buyu burst into tears.
The young monk following behind him panted, "Master, why are you running so fast? We haven't finished our homework yet! Eh? Master, why are you crying? Didn't you say that monks serve the Buddha and shouldn't have any emotions? Why are you crying?"
Master Buyu gazed at the imperial city, thinking of his past discussions with that noble sister. Finally, his voice cracked, he said, "Monks are also mortals, ordinary people. When they encounter something extremely heartbreaking, how could they truly be free of all emotions and not shed a single tear?"
"Amitabha! Well done! I'm going to see off an old friend. You should stay in the temple and study Buddhism well!"
"Master, where are you going?"
Master Buyu said calmly, "Enter the palace!"
At the beginning, Emperor Shenwu personally guarded Lan Qingwu every step of the way. In the heavy snow, he drove everyone out of the main hall of Qianzheng Palace and left himself inside the palace.
The snowstorm continued to rage, and the sky gradually darkened. The Crown Prince didn't dare to go far, and could only stand not far from the entrance of the Qianzheng Hall, gazing into the hall with worry and sorrow.
Emperor Shenwu looked at Lan Qingwu in the ice jade coffin. After a moment, he stood up again and again, slowly pacing back and forth.
The Crown Prince gazed towards the main hall of Qianzheng Palace. The main door of Qianzheng Palace was open. He looked at his father, numb and in agony, with an expression that made him want to cry but could not. He watched as his father spoke to his mother in the icy jade coffin from time to time, and then paced back and forth non-stop...
Most of the night passed, and the prince, standing outside the hall, practically turned into a snowman, his cheeks and brows covered in a thin layer of frost. He watched his father, alone in the hall, grieving, with grief. Suddenly, the prince's eyes widened, as if the snow had drifted into the hall. His father was within his sight, his temples instantly stained with white frost! His father's black hair had instantly turned white in his grief!
The prince could no longer hold back his tears. His father... the emperor who taught him the art of being an emperor and the emotions of an emperor, himself could not escape the word "emotion".
The word "love" can permeate the soul and bones and mislead all people.
As for the word love, I don’t know where it originates, where it resides, where it ends, where it ends, where it ends, and where it ends.
Love is unknown, but it keeps going forward.
The prince thought, he might never experience a relationship like the one between his father and his mother in his entire life! His father had his mother's company for so many years, and he'd only just begun to experience the deepest loneliness. But what about him? How much longer could he keep his father, his brothers, and his sisters by his side? Wouldn't he share the same despair, emptiness, and loneliness in the decades ahead?