Chapter 16 i am a phoenix

In May of the 23rd year of Zhenguan (649 A.D.), in Cuiwei Palace in Zhongnan Mountain, Emperor Taizong's condition became serious day by day, and the imperial doctors were helpless.Talented Wu Mei saw that the god of death had stretched out its cold white claws to this talented and generous hero, while the prince Li Zhi was still waiting by his dying father's side day and night.Wu Mei saw that he hadn't thought about eating or drinking for several days, hadn't taken a drop of water, and even a few strands of white hair had grown out on his temples. (Volume 199: "The prince never leaves his side day and night, or does not eat for a long time, and his hair turns white.")

In those days, Prince Li Zhi looked haggard, his eyes were dull, and he turned a blind eye to the talented Wu Mei walking beside him.Wu Mei felt a little pain in her heart, but there was nothing she could do.She didn't know how to comfort the prince, nor how to comfort herself.In the Hanfeng Hall of Cuiwei Palace, all the concubines and maids around Taizong's sick bed were already in panic all day long. When they thought of their future fate, they couldn't help but feel sad and cry at each other. Of course Wu Mei was also aware of her situation.She knew that once Taizong died, her tomorrow would become a kite with broken strings.But she still had a little luck in her heart, because she had a passionate love affair with the prince that no one knew about.She secretly prayed that this relationship between her and the prince would help her get rid of the fate of abandoning shoes.

However, the following facts proved that this was just an unrealistic fantasy of Cai Renwu Mei. On May 26th of this year, Tang Taizong Li Shimin died suddenly in Cuiwei Palace in Zhongnan Mountain.When the news of the emperor's death came out in Hanfeng Palace, Wu Mei heard weeping like tears from every corner of Cuiwei Palace.The death of the emperor means bad luck. Wu Mei knew that few people were crying because of Taizong's departure. They were actually crying for themselves - because they were still alive but didn't know how to live. cry! That day Prince Li Zhi also hugged Changsun Wuji's neck and wept unceasingly. His crying sounded heartbreaking and distraught.In fact, the excessive sadness did make the prince almost fainted several times.Listening to the heartbreaking crying of the prince, Wu Mei couldn't help but shed tears.With a woman's intuition, she knew that the relationship between her and the prince had died quietly with the death of Taizong.Because Taizong's death is like the collapse of Mount Tai, it is enough to eclipse any touching love story, and it is also enough to expel Wu Mei, an unknown talent, from the overwhelmed inner world of the prince.

On the third day after Taizong's death, Prince Li Zhi, under the arrangement of Changsun Wuji, returned to Chang'an with his father's coffin.Wu Mei secretly stood on the tower of Cuiwei Palace, and saw the prince chariot gradually drifting away surrounded by a large group of imperial cavalry, and finally completely disappeared from her sight. Wu Mei didn't know whether Prince Li Zhi would just disappear from her life.All she knew was that the sun was scorching hot that day, and the whole Cuiwei Palace was steaming with heat, but she felt as if she had fallen into an ice cave in the middle of winter, feeling a biting cold from head to toe.

Also as the widows of the late Emperor Taizong, the women in the Taiji Palace have their own different destinations.Some concubines who had children could go out of the palace to seek refuge with their own children; others, with a brave and chaste attitude, chose to be buried in a disguised form. She became ill and refused medical treatment and died the next year at the age of twenty-four. She was buried with Zhaoling after her death. As for concubines and court ladies like Cairen Wu Mei who have no heirs and are unwilling to die for love, they must follow the rules to become a monk. He died in a monastery or a Taoist temple.

Cairen Wu Mei was assigned the fate of shaving her hair to become a nun, and her home was the Ganye Temple in the imperial city of Chang'an. Although Ganye Temple and Taiji Palace are close at hand, Wu Mei feels that she has entered another world.When entering the Ganye Temple, Wu Mei and a large group of maids stopped in front of the Maitreya Hall.They turned around with the same bewildered and apprehensive expression, and saw that the majestic mountain gate behind them had been slammed shut.This door has cut off their eyes from looking back at the world of mortals, and also cut off all the fronts of their old dreams whether they are happy or sad, thick or light.

On the day when the shaving ceremony was held, when strands of blue hair fluttered down in front of their eyes like willow leaves, Wu Mei heard someone crying and wailing hysterically.People saw a former court lady who was almost crazy suddenly broke free from the old nun's hand, rushed to the closed temple door and beat and shook desperately, her half-shaved black hair was scattered like weeds on her pale face, making people feel sad. She looked ghostly. Later, this desperate and frenzied woman was dragged out by several old nuns, but the chilling cry echoed for a long time in the empty Daxiong Palace.

It is said that the day when the court ladies shave their heads is also the time for the new emperor to hold his enthronement ceremony. At the moment when the bell of the solemn ceremony rang, Wu Mei already had the appearance of a monk and nun with all her hair down and her face turned to the sky.Standing on the steps in front of the main hall, she saw the sun in June was hanging high in the sky, emitting thousands of golden lights to the world.Wu Mei imagined that Li Zhi's clear and fair face must be coated with a layer of supreme gold at this moment, and thousands of subjects in the Tang Dynasty are prostrate on the ground and shouting long live, expressing their sincerity to the young emperor of admiration.

Will the current emperor Li Zhi still remember the talented Wu Mei in the Chengqing Palace? Would the current emperor, Li Zhi, still care about this little nun in Ganye Temple? Impossible. Of course it's impossible! Because everything seems to have passed away. Because, he and she are being pushed to the opposite poles by the hand of fate - one is taken for granted to reach the pinnacle of power, the other is forced to escape into the empty door of silence; Abandoned and forgotten by the world; one will enjoy the sensuality of the world surrounded by Liugong Fendai and three thousand beauties, and the other can only chew the pain of love and break love alone with the company of Zhong Qing San Chan and Qingdeng Ancient Buddha.

On that day, the female nun Wu Mei stood alone at the highest point of Ganye Temple, looking at the hustle and bustle of the mundane world, the Tai Chi palace that is so far away, the youth that can never go back, the thrilling but fleeting scene The turbulent tears flowed down her washed-out face like this. The year she shaved her hair and became a nun, Wu Mei was twenty-five years old. This was originally the age when a woman's vitality was most vigorous, but a cold black dress completely imprisoned her full life, making her shriveled and withered inextricably in a cage of rules and regulations.

In the Ganye Temple, there is hardly a bronze mirror that can illuminate people, because no one needs to tie a bun, draw eyebrows and make up.Wu Mei saw that the former court ladies who were ordained at the same time as her always wandered around the well with excuses, and she knew that they were looking at the faces in the water and pitying themselves.Wu Mei felt that their behavior was pitiful and ridiculous, so she was still reluctant to stay by the well for a moment longer.Until one time, Wu Mei finally couldn't bear to take a photo by the water. This photo surprised her, because she saw that the face floating on the water was extremely haggard, and it was full of sorrow and sadness. The nuns are exactly the same. From autumn to winter, the evening drum and morning bell of Ganye Temple beat the nuns' eardrums and hearts day after day. Wu Mei knew that many people had learned to accept the arrangement of fate.She found that the former resentment and unwillingness had disappeared from their bodies, replaced by a kind of despair and numbness like walking dead.Of course, in desperation, the nuns also invented many tricks to make fun of the bitterness. These intimate games in the nunnery late at night even brought a long-lost blush to the faces of many people. But all of this made Wu Mei feel sad and absurd. Wu Mei lost weight rapidly in the days that followed, and her face looked as pale as paper. The nuns generally believed that this was the result of her reclusive life and self-importance.Whenever Wu Mei walks through the cold and empty courtyard of Ganye Temple, the strong winter wind will blow up the big black clothes on her body, making her look like a very lonely flying bird. Many nuns secretly said that Wu Mei, who always had a face full of frost, might be dying soon, and her final fate would be to become a lonely ghost that no one cares about. Wu Mei just smiled coldly when she heard the mocking and cursing behind the nuns. I will not become a lonely ghost, Wu Mei said, I will become a bird, a phoenix, flying in my own sky forever. In winter, when the twilight falls, the other nuns of Ganye Temple always hid in their nunneries in pairs, and blew out the lights early on. until dawn.No one saw that Wu Mei always spread out a piece of plain paper in the dead of night, pouring out her love and hurt over and over again with pen and ink.One of the Yuefu songs called "Ruyi Niang" was later included in "Full Tang Poems". No one knows that the object of female nun Wu Mei's sleepless lovesickness is the Supreme Son of Heaven. No one knows that the female nun Wu Mei is using her own way to pursue the sky that once soared. No matter how dark and difficult life in Ganyesi was, Wu Mei never felt hopeless. Because she firmly believes that she is a bird. A phoenix.