Change the Fate of the Cannon Fodder

*Extra: Song Huang

Every night I see your face. Your dusty childish face emerging from the bushes like when I first saw you. I see you silently standing beside me, your face obviously filled with the love that I missed but when I reach out to touch you your eyes turn glassy, your face covered in blood and only a cold corpse is left. Even in my dreams I am no longer allowed to touch you. Is it because you hate me?

Every waking moment is a torture I can't bear to face. Whenever I turn to find you beside me I am met with an empty space. The palace, the gardens, my courtyard, there is no place without traces of you. Every time I think back to why I was so prejudiced against homosexual love I just can't remember. Was it because I saw a love that I thought I could never have? I was so blind to what was right beside me and now I have lost it all.

The day I returned to see my mother's face filled with disgust and hate because I didn't succeed I felt nothing at all. I had been a puppet for so long and your death has now cut all of my strings. I don't know how I used to live because I can't get used to a life without you. Everyday I go to my study where I lose myself in my paintings. There I can surround myself with your smiles, your face, and the love that I killed with my own hands.

Did you know that I go to your grave everyday? I kneel there because I hope you can see how much I've changed. This is my repentance. You told me to be happy but how can I be happy without you? Are you punishing me? Is this your revenge? If it is then I can tell you that it is working.

The years are passing and I am afraid that time might blur your face from my memories so I spend more time with my paintings. But maybe it's my foolish fear because you still visit me everyday in my dreams. Did you know people now call me the crazy prince. They believe I have lost my mind and the servants no longer respect me. My food is stale and my baths are cold. But maybe it's true that I have become crazy without you. Overtime I try to think back to why image and power were so important to me I just can't remember, those times have blurred.

Though it has been years since you have left me I still cannot bear to let you think badly of me. So I am afraid. Afraid to remember the past. I am afraid that I keep kneeling to fool myself into thinking that you'll forgive me. I don't deserve your forgiveness but I still take advantage of the fact that I know you'll forgive me anyways.

Wu-er, I am afraid that if you had confessed to me before I would have taken longer to accept it, but why is it that with your death it is so easy to admit my own feelings? Wu-er can I hope that when I die you will still be waiting for me?

I wished that death would claim me sooner, but 50 years later I am still here. Living is so much harder than dying. It is keeping me apart from you for so much longer. Is this too a punishment?

I promise that I have learned my lesson so please take me with you...

In the Song Dynasty at the age of 76 Prince Song Huang passed away.