On the 17th year of Yuli (the era name of the emperor), the wise Emperor Huanyu turned forty. 

Every region and city were celebrating it. The folks voluntarily built a nine-story pagoda for the celebration.  

During the 17 years of reign under Emperor Huanyu, he had abolished obsolete policies and introduced new ones, cracked down riots on both southern and northern borders, and created a generation of peace and prosperity.

He was praised by all the folks and respected as a wise and rightful emperor!

On the fifth day of May, it was the celebration banquet.

The Emperor feasted his ministers and officials under the nine-story pagoda.

During the banquet, the Emperor and his subordinates proposed one toast after another and drank shot after shot, amidst beautiful dancers wearing feather dress and dancing on luxurious carpets while singers singing out the flourish and magnificent country.

The Emperor, just turning forty, the age of no-doubt, gently shook his luminous oxhorn wine cup in which the good wine, scarlet like blood, swirled slowly around his fingers.

Some of the ministers secretly stole a glance at the Emperor—the black imperial dragon robe embroidered with gold threads was neatly clung to him and made him prominently thin and tall. The jade-like face was decorated with a sculpted nose and a pair of lightning eyes which daunted people from looking right into them.

The long blade-shaped eyebrows ended slant into the temples, looking both noble and stately! The official couldn't help sighing: Such a good-looking man must have made many beautiful ladies crazy for him in his youth…

All the ministers and officials made a toast together, "We wish your majesty an endless longevity!"

Emperor Huanyu sat languidly in his nine-dragon throne, raising his cup at a distance to the officials and drank the wine up unreservedly!

"Great!" the officials applauded.

At the climax of the banquet, as requested by his officials, Emperor Huanyu stood up and stepped into the nine-story pagoda. The bitter piercing wind at the top of the pagoda made the imperial dragon robe rustle loudly.

The wind was strong and the moon unusually bright, the light of which paved on the pagoda like a thin coat of ice.

Emperor Huanyu stood at the railings, quiet, silent, as if having suffered a life-long loneliness and desolation.

Fireworks bounced and burst into the sky and bloomed golden and silver flowers to light up the sky like daylight.

"Qingyu…" He murmured, his lips trembling.

Yet, even this subtle sound was drowned into the fireworks all over the sky!

Emperor Huanyu suddenly recalled his young and careless years and unconsciously cracked a smile. In the dim moonlight, that elegant man seemed to be standing by his side—cheerless, graceful, noble, with a dot of dropping redness between his eyebrows. He smiled at him softly, his face pretty like a painting…

"Qingyu, look at the firework—!!" The excitement stuck in his throat… There wasn't him by his side…!! The chilly air seemed to be laughing at him. No. That man who had watched the world side by side with him wasn't here. There wasn't his temperature, his voice, or his gaze.

He…won the world, but lost him!

The sky was full of fireworks.

The pagoda was occupied by him alone.

Emperor Huanyu stood lonely, his back revealing a touch of desolation and bitterness that had never displayed to any others… He still remembered the quiet man sitting in the wheelchair and smiled at him, "In the bustling world, how lonely will I become without you?" Back then, although he was smiling, the sadness had made him tear up.

The icy wind seemed to soften a little bit to quietly flow in the night sky, carrying a deep emotion traversing time and space.

Happy time fleeted. Things remained the same yet people changed. The wind was sad and the person was sorrowful too—

In retrospect, he seemed to see that dignified man sitting in the wheelchair and gazing at him with the clear dark eyes. In the movement of his eyes, the redness leaped up and down lively.

All of a sudden, Emperor Huanyu found himself in tears!

Nobody saw that on the pagoda, the tough, resolute, decisive, and invincible man, at that moment, cried out loud like a child!