They will tell you that the Emperor is immortal. They will murmur it between bent backs and withered mouths, wrinkled with jaundice and eyes milky with cataracts. The Emperor’s black palanquin will pass through the streets and the elderly, the sick, the desperate will crowd the edges and risk beatings from his black-robed guards just to catch a glimpse of him behind his dark, velvet and gossamer curtains. They hope that even a brief look at his shining timeless face will grace them, make them young and healthy again. They hope that he sheds a single blood red strand of hair for them to keep as a talisman.