Xiao Jue, the fourth prince of the Great Yong, captured a khan alive during the northern campaign at fourteen. At seventeen, he was ordered to pray for blessings at Huguo Temple, where he met the renowned Master Xuanjing.
Beneath that snow-white kasaya, his eyes were as still as an ancient pool. From gazing at him before the Buddha to reading sutras together, a forbidden love took root and grew wildly amid the incense. Xuanjing once sighed, “I can save all sentient beings… but Your Highness alone is beyond their reach.”
The Eastern Palace was the first to notice. The Crown Prince knelt and pleaded all night, only to incur the emperor's wrath.
Xiao Jue was imprisoned deep within the palace. The emperor laid down his terms: “Behave yourself, and he will live.”
For three years in captivity, Xiao Jue concealed his ambition until his father finally believed he had repented. The day his restrictions were lifted, he rode straight to Huguo Temple
only to find a lone grave in the hills behind it. The name “Xuanjing” pierced his eyes.
His personal eunuch wept as he revealed the truth: “Back then, His Majesty bestowed poisoned wine… To protect Your Highness, the master took all the blame upon himself.”
Beneath a blood-red dusk, Xiao Jue leaned against the cold gravestone and drank the poisoned wine hidden in his sleeve.
When the empress heard the news, she rushed into the great hall and stared straight at the emperor. “You drove our son to his death.”
The emperor and empress never saw each other again in life. The emperor's chronic illness worsened, and he died a year and a half later. The Crown Prince ascended the throne and posthumously honored Xiao Jue as Prince Ningwu Zhao. When the tomb was complete, the new emperor moved Xuanjing's remains into a side chamber of Prince Zhao's mausoleum.
Only the new emperor, alone with the burial plans late at night, whispered, “Elder Brother has returned him to you.”
The Bodhi tree burned to ash, and the Buddhist bells fell silent forever. A delusion that began before the Buddha ended with them sharing a grave in life and death.
Woohoo, why do you feel so uncomfortable?
The story is not cliché, each character has his or her own characteristics
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