1. Harvest

It is not the way of the world for winter to pass into autumn. The cold, frigid season that coats even the balmy climate of Langya mountain with snow should proceed spring, by all rights. Dormant seeds burst to life as the weather warms; the days lengthen; and flowers grow from the thawing mud. This is how nature, in all her brutal majesty, works.

“Good morning.”
“Please stop poking me.”
“I’m taking your pulse. Be quiet.”
“It’s snowing.”
“Such is winter.”
“...I know.”

Mei Changsu, though, has always run counter to expectations. His shortened days are getting shorter; his chills are getting colder; and the seeds set in the ground so many years ago are the ones he is going to plow up and harvest like a greedy squirrel.

“It’s late, I told you to go to sleep.”
“It’s late, why are you checking on me?”
“Because you are my worst patient. Are those more reports?”
“Hmmm. Yes. More of the same. Corruption, deviancy. Jingyan sent east, again.”
“Sleep, Changsu.”
“Stop pushing—give me that back! What are—mmmph.”
“Ah, finally, a way to quieten you down.”
“Lin Chen—”
“Shhh. Let me do this for you.”

For that is what comes in autumn: the harvest. The culling of the herds and the reaping of the fields, the time when people and animals lay in supplies for the dark nights ahead of them. Autumn is when all the work of spring and summer come to fruition in an orgy of planned destruction.

“Good morning.”
“Mm?”
“Ha! I thought the great Young Marshall Lin would be more of a morning person.”
“Shhh.”
“Don’t you want to rise and greet the spring?”
“Be quiet and warm me up.”

Lin Chen knows that Mei Changsu will cut through the court at Jinling like a farmer with a scythe through a field of wheat. Blood will run in the city like a slaughterhouse. The only ones he will spare are the ones young enough to be needed in later years — even then, Lin Chen suspects, Mei Changsu will be lining them up as future feed for the emperor he puts on the throne. No one is exempt from the harvest.

“That one likes you.”
“Jealous?”
“Hmph. He’s a child*.”
“Jingrui...Jingrui is an excellent man, but you have nothing to be jealous of.”
“...oh, I see. You have plans for him.”*

Like nature herself, Mei Changsu will let the lives of his enemies fall where they may. Lin Chen has called him “a just man” to his face, and it was a very long argument. Mei Changsu feels he is going to be cruel when he cuts down his opponents, but Lin Chen is a doctor and a scientist. He knows antipathy when he sees it and it is not the same as cruelty.

No, his enemies will not know cruelty from him. Mei Changsu is saving his cruelty for those who love him.

“You don’t have to go there. It will ruin your health. That city will destroy you!”
“I cannot do this successfully from a distance! You know that!”
“Don’t pretend you couldn’t take down that petty emperor from here. We both know you can.”
“That’s not the point. I have to be there. For...for Jingyan. For the future of Da Liang!”
“For your damn pride!”
“Lin Chen! How dare you turn your back on me! Get back here!”

However much the man pines and mourns, he is not weighing anyone’s soul for righteousness, other than perhaps his precious Prince Jing. Like a god who does not protect deer from a hunter but also does not bless the hunter’s bow, Mei Changsu lets his enemies damn themselves; and they do, every day, in so many ways. Reports fly in to Langya Hall over the years that document the corruption and depravity in extensive detail, so there is no need for Mei Changsu to set anyone up for a fall. They are all standing on the executioner’s platform already, holding the blades in their own hands, oblivious to the sentencing being handing down over their heads.

But he will send those orders on his own schedule.

“That sounds horrendous.”
“Don’t be naive. You know depravity better than most.”
“Was that an insult?”
“Would I? ...wait, no, no, don’t look at me like that. I know that you would never—”
“Correct! I would never. Sometimes your cynicism impresses even me.”
“Hm.”
“So will you have that brothel shut down? Get those men arrested? Before more girls are killed? Don’t play coy with me, Changsu, we both know your Alliance can do that, even in Jinling.”
“Having it shut down is one thing. The time is not quite ripe for arrests, yet.”
“I take it back. Your cold blooded cynicism is not impressive, it’s terrifying.”

Mei Changsu will ride out his final winters scraping the rot out of Jinling the way Lin Chen once scraped the marrow in his bones. Perhaps it is Lin Chen’s own fault that Mei Changsu equates a righteous harvest with pain, or maybe that lesson traveled with him from Meiling.

“Changsu. Changsu! Answer me!”
“Hmmm?”
“Yes, that’s right, focus on me. Breathe.”
“...No.”
“Yes! Fei Liu, come here and help keep your Su-gege warm.”
“Nooooo. Fei Liu, go play outside—wait, no—”
“That’s it, cuddle right up to cranky old Su-gege.”
“Lin Chen. He should not see me like this.”
“Let the boy comfort you while I clean your face. He’s no doubt seen worse than this.”
“...I’m so tired.”
“I know.”

What he knows is this: Mei Changsu is the most magnificent mind he’s ever met, the most beautiful face he’s ever kissed, the most broken man he’s ever known. He will bask in the chill of Mei Changsu’s resentful affections until this long winter breaks and autumn begins.

It takes him far too long to realize that the only person Mei Changsu never made plans for was Lin Chen himself.

“It is almost time.”
“I saw your men packing, I’m not an idiot.”
“Hmm.”
“Ah! Ah, ah — I won’t go with you, so don’t ask.”
“I haven’t, and I won’t. You skills in the bedroom are not that necessary.”
“Blasphemy! ...oh, yes, there, there—”
“I, oh, at least I will get more sleep in Jinling than I do here.”
“Liar. Ah, damn...Changsu, stop fucking me like this is goodbye.”
“Shhhh.”