The Wei River outside Chang'an was still covered with a thin sheet of ice. The glazed tiles on the front hall of Weiyang Palace were dusted with leftover snow, and the cold north wind swept in through the Northern Watchtower Gate, making the palace attendants hunch their shoulders and hurry along the corridors. At the heart of the empire, in this season of fleeting warmth and lingering cold, the pulse beat unusually slowly.
Liu Che sat at the imperial desk in Xuanshi Hall, holding a bamboo scroll in his hand, but his gaze rested on the old locust tree outside. Its bare branches swayed in the wind, like the fingers of a dying man reaching out. He had been sitting there all afternoon, yet not a single character on the scroll had registered.
