He waves his jade scepter to a hall full of clocks as if he were their emperor. With a wave to the left, all the pendulums of the clocks swing to the end of the sky, and the whole world seems to be in a permanent state of unity. As he blows the clarion to call for a rightward movement, the pendulums, with enough momentum to launch themselves out of orbit, swing to the right, stirring vigorous waves in the whirls of time.

It has been his routine to conduct the orchestra of clocks since the Reform failed. His mother, the Empress Dowager Tzu-Hsi, scolded him for his preposterous attempt to introduce an exotic western system in a nation that has been feudalistic for millennia, so she reclaimed her rule and effortlessly imprisoned the 'unenlightened' emperor. Now he wakes up every morning at four, dresses up in his elegant dragon robe, and ensconces himself in the throne as his mechanical courtiers patiently await for the audience with their emperor, their pendulums swinging in perfect sync with his allegedly consistent sense of time.

‘Your Majesty, the Morning Audience has been dismissed. The Empress Dowager will be here at any minute.’ A eunuch came in.

‘What?’

The emperor’s scepter drops on the floor and shatters into pieces, but the pendulums of the clocks are still swinging rhythmically.

He is suddenly overwhelmed by a deluge of confusion and imbalance. The Empress Dowager. He has not seen her since he was locked up here six years ago.

He walked outside the hall, looking at the palace due east below the sky. He thinks of how he, who had been the sole decision-maker in the royal hall for ten years, was deprived of an emperor’s power and dignity in the exact same place when the Reform failed. Six years have passed, and now he is almost an entire stranger to the palace. Outside the audience hall, throngs of courtiers are hurriedly trotting down the huge staircases, while eunuchs carrying an extravagant palanquin are rushing upstairs for Tzu-Hsi, but no one is coming to him. He cannot stop but wonder how she addressed the courtiers just now. Did she, like what he has witnessed since three-years-old, sit behind his dragon throne, and discuss politics as if she were the true emperor?

At the end of the horizon, a faint ray of sunlight penetrates the thick clouds and falls on the scarlet walls and jade tiles of the Forbidden City, while shades of decadence lurk under the grotesque roofs.

‘Kwang-Hsu, good morning. I hope everything has been fine these days?’ Tzu-Hsi walked straight into the hall and talked in an indifferently solicitous tone, without casting a glance at the kneeling emperor.

‘Aye, your majesty.’

‘I heard you have been reading a lot recently. I came across this phrase Constitutional Monarchy yesterday, and I can’t figure out what it means. Can you help me?’

Still on his knees, Kwang-Hsu made a slight attempt to lift his head.

So she comes here after all these six years only to ask him what Constitutional Monarchy means? Surely, she means something else – there is an ineffable sense of encouragement in her tone.

He starts to think about how familiar he is with the phrase, how he has stamped the imperial seal on every governmental edict, and how he has spent every afternoon reading his courtiers’ memorials. Tzu-Hsi must have understood that she is too feeble to rule the country, and that six years of imprisonment has made the young emperor competent and resilient. Tomorrow, he will once again, become a true emperor, discussing with his men events that would shape the universe, replacing Tzu-Hsi as naturally as how dawn replaces the night.

So he says, ‘Const–’

But it is at seven o’clock. All the clocks suddenly begin to chime. Some of them sound like birds, while some, bells. Kwang-Hsu has not managed to finish his word – the cacophonous and discordant noise pours incessantly into his and Tzu-Hsi’s ears.

Kwang-Hsu frowns, reproachfully looks around at his clocks, and says, ‘I beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty.’

But Tzu-Hsi does not hear him – she seems to have realized something profoundly incredulous and upsetting. It might be the fact that her son did not immediately reply 'I know not', and that is unbearable for her, or it might be the sound of the clocks that has reminded her of her old age and the ceaseless passage of time.

She bends slightly down in front of the young man, glares at his curious eyes, and says, ‘Kwang-Hsu, my reform is starting. I’m going to transform Manchuria into a Constitutional Monarchy.’

She abruptly turns around and starts walking outside, leaving the emperor perplexed in the vacant room with his still chiming clocks.

Kwang-Hsu is suddenly unable to think.

He feels shame rushing towards his head: while he has been reaching out to the nebula for his share of the universe, what he sees is the mere mirage, a well built especially for him, the frog. So Tzu-Hsi could, after his long planning for the Reform, after his men’s wretched sacrifices, transform the country at the flick of a finger. Now, he no longer aches to think about how he, a miserable emperor, has never had any control over himself and the country. Perhaps time does have the ability to turn the powerful into ashes, the grand into dross – that is why he is so obsessed with clocks – but perhaps there is something that outweighs time, something that would haunt him for eternity and suppress all his attempts to transcend…

He walks out of the hall. It has begun to snow. Thousands of snowflakes fall on Peking, coinciding with the mechanical ticks and tocks. His vision begins to dissolve and dwindle, his impalpable soul being torn apart. The Forbidden City is now totally white and pure. Footprints in the snow are covered in the next second, leaving no vestiges.

And the clocks will not chime again.