Inside the study, the smoke of aloeswood incense curled slowly upward, yet it could not suppress the tension filling the room.
His trusted aide kept his head lowered as he reported each piece of information he had just uncovered.
“The midwife in the southern part of the city died suddenly last night.”
Xia Zhongqian listened, his expression calm and showing little reaction.
“The old maidservant who left the residence back then was discovered missing this morning.”
Xia Zhongqian’s brows drew together slightly.
“The old accountant who once managed another branch household sent word just now. He suddenly fell ill and died.”
The fingers Xia Zhongqian held behind his back tightened slightly.
“And… that old residence on the outskirts of the city, the one in such a remote location—it suddenly caught fire last night and was burned completely to the ground.”
At this, Xia Zhongqian finally slowly closed his eyes.
He coldly pieced everything together in his mind:
The midwife knew “who had actually given birth to the child.”
The old maidservant knew “where the child had been hidden back then.”
The accountant knew “where all that extra silver had gone during those years.”
And that old residence that had burned down… contained the old registers and servant rosters from the inner courtyard of the Xia family’s branch household.
This was not simply silencing witnesses.
Sheng Yuanli was making the “proof that the truth had ever existed” disappear.
The other side was using an extremely ruthless and precise method to erase an entire chain of evidence piece by piece.
He was making everything that had happened back then completely evaporate from this world.
Xia Zhongqian walked to the window with his hands behind his back and gazed into the deep darkness outside. He gave a weary laugh.
“Sheng Yuanli, you old fox. In the end, you’ve finally started moving.”
He had never imagined such a day would come.
He had once thought that Sheng Yuanli, with his power over the entire court, feared nothing—not even the person sitting upon the Dragon Throne.
But now it seemed that Sheng Yuanli had actually been forced into a corner and was being driven forward against his will.
He did not know how the person behind the scenes had discovered the truth.
He only knew that this might be the only opportunity he would ever have in his life.
Even if… in this game of chess, he was merely a doomed piece destined to die.
Yet compared with Sheng Yuanli’s impatience, Grand Tutor Xia’s side was eerily still. He had yet to make a move.
Xia Zhongqian had already received word that several days ago, Xia Zhiheng had received an urgent letter from Linbei City delivered by an eight-hundred-li courier relay.
In theory, that letter should have been enough to stir up enormous waves.
Yet now, the entire capital was frighteningly quiet.
Afterward, Xia Zhiheng continued his daily routine as usual:
Attend court.
Leave court.
Return home.
Read.
Teach his students.
Play chess.
Occasionally visit several retired senior officials.
He had even personally presided over a gathering to lecture on the classics, engaging several Hanlin scholars in a lofty discussion of the subtle meanings of the Spring and Autumn Annals in the main hall.
It was as though the urgent eight-hundred-li letter from Linbei had never existed.
Xia Zhiheng simply never came to the Xia family’s branch residence.
Xia Zhongqian had originally thought he would.
If he did not act soon, those witnesses and physical evidence would be completely buried in darkness.
He suddenly remembered something Xia Zhiheng had taught him many years ago.
“In a game of chess, the person who loses his composure first is always the first to lose.”
Yet now, with the flames already almost reaching him, he had ultimately become the one who could no longer remain calm.
He was not afraid of dying himself.
What he feared was that, in the end, the entire Xia family branch household would be buried with him.
What he truly feared was that once Sheng Yuanli erased every trace and pushed everything onto the Xia family branch, the people of the world would believe that all the filthy and sordid deeds had been committed by the Xia family.
Meanwhile, the true player behind the chessboard would continue standing spotless in the light, looking on with pity as the Xia family was destroyed.
If he continued remaining silent, they would inevitably reach that irreversible dead end.
He had to leave himself a contingency.
Just as his thoughts raced, there was a soft knock on the study door.
A servant respectfully reported from outside, “Master, the main household just sent someone to inform us that the annual date for the branch households to submit their clan accounts has arrived. This year, according to the rules, we must inspect the sacrificial properties, repair the ancestral shrine, and update the clan register.”
After a pause, the servant added, “The Grand Tutor specifically instructed that this year, he wants to personally examine the old deeds for the sacrificial fields.”
Xia Zhongqian’s fingertips paused slightly.
The date for submitting the clan accounts had indeed arrived.
Every year at this time, each branch household had to bring its account books, lists of sacrificial properties, and records of repair expenses to the main household for verification. No one was permitted to be absent. In previous years, he had never paid much attention to such routine formalities.
But it just happened to be now.
Just as Sheng Yuanli had begun frantically eliminating the old people.
Just as Grand Tutor Xia had received the eight-hundred-li urgent letter from Linbei City.
Xia Zhongqian stared at the teacup on the table as it gradually grew cold, remaining silent for a long time.
Was this a coincidence?
Or was… Xia Zhiheng using this clan order to silently tell him:
—I will not save you.
—If there is something you still want to preserve, bring it to me yourself.
He could not be certain.
Xia Zhiheng’s thoughts ran too deep. No one could see through them.
But now, he no longer had the luxury of waiting for another coincidence.
His mind rapidly ran through the procedure for submitting the clan accounts.
In addition to the public accounts, each branch household had to attach another document: the “Comparative Register of Old Sacrificial Field Deeds.”
Because that register involved the origins of ancestral property and secrets concerning its revisions over the years, the rules stipulated that even the elders of the main household were forbidden from opening it.
It could only be sealed and sent directly to the Grand Tutor’s study, where the head of the main household—Grand Tutor Xia Zhiheng himself—would personally verify it.
No one else was permitted to read it.
This meant that even if Sheng Yuanli had spies planted throughout the Xia family watching him closely, even if they followed him all the way to the main household, they would have no way of discovering the secrets contained within that register.
Everything he submitted, including the public accounts, would be secretly examined by countless pairs of eyes.
Therefore, he could only use a code that the Grand Tutor alone would understand to pass the message along.
“Understood. Go make the preparations,” Xia Zhongqian instructed the servant outside.
As long as the message could be successfully delivered, perhaps the Xia family branch still had a sliver of hope.
He did not expect the Grand Tutor—or Xia Lanshi, far away in Linbei City—to take pity on him and let him off.
In this game, he was already a chess piece destined to be sacrificed.
But even if he died, he had to make sure that everything he had stood by all these years held at least the slightest meaning.
He absolutely would not allow Sheng Yuanli to wash his hands completely clean.
If he was destined to die,
then at the very least, he would make Sheng Yuanli understand—
Some people, even in death, would drag the living down with them.
Some blood would eventually seep out from beneath the grave.
The dead might be unable to speak, but the truth was not so easily washed clean.
Xia Zhongqian took a deep breath, and in an instant, his gaze became cold and utterly resolute.
He turned toward his trusted aide, who had been standing quietly in the shadows, and said in a low voice,
“Go make the preparations. That wooden box… it is time to use it.”
The trusted aide’s entire body trembled.
He immediately lowered his head deeply.
“Yes, sir.”
“Wait.”
Just as the aide was about to leave, Xia Zhongqian suddenly called him back.
The deathly silence of the study was abruptly broken by those two words.
Xia Zhongqian turned around and looked deeply at his aide.
“Bring Uncle Gui here. Avoid everyone.”
The aide was startled, then immediately understood.
He quietly withdrew.
Xia Zhongqian stood alone in the dim study, rapidly calculating in his mind.
He knew very well that he could not protect everyone.
Sheng Yuanli’s blade had come too quickly and too viciously.
Over the past few days, the midwife, steward, and old maidservant had fallen one after another.
The “purge list” in Sheng Yuanli’s hands probably had only its final few names remaining.
And Uncle Gui was the most dangerous one of all.
Back then, it had been Uncle Gui himself who drove the carriage and secretly transported several of those “secret children” out through the rear gate.
Although Uncle Gui did not know that they were the secret children, he knew the locations to which they had been sent.
And he had also seen Xia Lanshi when he was young.
As long as Uncle Gui died, this chain of evidence would be severed completely.
Not even ashes would remain.
Before long, extremely light footsteps sounded outside the door.
An old man with a hunched body and a face full of deep wrinkles was quietly brought inside.
He had worked for the Xia family his entire life.
Even now, despite being summoned secretly in the middle of the night, there was no panic whatsoever in his cloudy eyes.
Only a resigned, deathly stillness.
“Master.”
Uncle Gui knelt down.
He did not know what had happened, but he faintly sensed that something was wrong.
Xia Zhongqian did not tell him to rise.
He simply looked at him calmly.
“Uncle Gui, Sheng Yuanli’s people will have their eyes on you by tomorrow at the latest.”
Uncle Gui kowtowed.
His voice was hoarse.
“This old servant’s life belongs to the Xia family. Whenever Master orders this old servant to die, I will have no complaints.”
“I don’t want you to die.”
Xia Zhongqian interrupted him.
Uncle Gui looked up in astonishment.
Xia Zhongqian walked over, crouched down, and looked directly into the eyes of this loyal old servant.
“But I cannot hide you at one of my estates, nor can I send you to a rural residence. Sheng Yuanli’s people will search every piece of Xia family property. No matter where I hide you, they will dig you out and flay you alive.”
Xia Zhongqian took a deep breath and explained every detail.
“Tomorrow morning, you will leave the city as usual to collect rent. When you reach the mountain road at Canyun Ridge, the carriage will fall off the cliff. Then a fire will break out.”
“There will be a recently deceased corpse inside the carriage, burned beyond recognition, with a build similar to yours. The robe you are wearing, the wooden identity token, and the iron thumb ring you have worn for twenty years will all be placed on the corpse.”
The people Sheng Yuanli had planted to examine corpses were extremely professional.
Only if they found these indisputable objects on the charred corpse would Sheng Yuanli possibly believe that the final living person on his list had finally died.
“This old servant… understands.”
Uncle Gui’s voice trembled.
“Then where should this old servant go?”
“Go north.”
Xia Zhongqian stood and took a heavy money pouch from his sleeve, handing it to Uncle Gui.
“The Northern Border is in turmoil now, and tens of thousands of refugees are heading north. You must let your hair down, smear mud over your face, change into the most ragged clothes you can find, and blend into the refugees. Do not go to Taoist temples or Buddhist temples. Those places are too easy to investigate.”
Xia Zhongqian looked at the old face before him and gave instructions that were almost cruel in their severity.
“Starting tomorrow, pretend to be a senile old man who has been frightened out of his wits and has nowhere to go. Deaf, mute, and insane. Everyone who sees you should think you are merely an old beggar who could die by the roadside at any moment. No one will spare you a second glance.”
Only by becoming mud that even wild dogs would disdain could he survive beneath Sheng Yuanli’s all-encompassing net.
Uncle Gui clutched the money pouch tightly, his eyes reddening.
“There is one more thing.”
Xia Zhongqian’s voice turned solemn as he looked toward his trusted aide.
“You will arrange everything. Hand him over to a snakehead outside the city and have him travel north with the refugees. Remember, do not ask which route the snakehead takes him on, and do not inquire where he ultimately settles in the Northern Border.”
The aide was startled.
“Master, but… if Uncle Gui needs to come forward as a witness someday, we won’t even know where he is!”
“That is exactly what I want.”
Xia Zhongqian gave a bitter laugh, endless sorrow and resolve visible in his eyes.
“Sheng Yuanli is a madman. If I fall into his hands, he has countless ways to make me talk. As long as I don’t know, then even if he skins me alive, he will never be able to extract Uncle Gui’s whereabouts from me!”
The study once again fell into deathly silence.
This was a desperate gamble.
Xia Zhongqian had not even left himself a way out.
Finally, Xia Zhongqian walked to the desk and picked up a clan jade pendant that could only be worn during ancestral worship at the clan shrine.
He exerted force with both hands.
With a crisp crack, the jade pendant was forcibly snapped in two.
He handed one half to Uncle Gui.
“Uncle Gui, listen carefully. Once you reach the Northern Border, if no one comes looking for you, remain insane forever and take this secret into your grave.”
“But if one day someone stands before you holding the other half of this jade pendant, or holding ‘Grand Tutor Xia’s private seal’…”
Xia Zhongqian paused, a ruthless chill flashing through his eyes.
“Tell them everything you know, exactly as it is.”
Uncle Gui received the half of the broken jade in both hands and heavily kowtowed three times, pressing his forehead against the cold green bricks as he made a solemn oath in a hoarse voice.
“Master, rest assured. Unless I see the token, even if wild dogs tear this old servant apart, I will never utter a single word.”
Xia Zhongqian lowered his head and looked at the remaining half of the jade in his hand.
Then he took the nanmu wooden box his aide had been ordered to prepare, touched the hidden mechanisms in sequence, and placed the remaining half of the jade inside.
Then he closed it again.
“Put the wooden box in the place I told you about. Go.”
Xia Zhongqian turned around and once again looked out at the night.
His trusted aide helped Uncle Gui to his feet. Carrying the wooden box, the two quietly left the study and disappeared into the heavy darkness.
Only Xia Zhongqian remained inside the branch residence.
Tomorrow, the “message” he was leaving for the Grand Tutor would travel openly with the caravan carrying the clan accounts, entering the main household and arriving in Xia Zhiheng’s study.
Sheng Yuanli believed he had cleared the entire chessboard.
But he would never know that the abandoned chess piece driven into a dead end had, before his death, personally buried the final spark capable of setting the whole wilderness ablaze deep beneath the earth.
◇◆◇◆◇
The Grand Tutor’s Residence, the study deep within.
Sandalwood quietly burned inside the Boshan incense burner, sending its calming fragrance into the night.
The spacious huanghuali desk was piled high with the clan registers from all the various branch households that the main household had collected that afternoon: thick registers of sacrificial properties, records of repairs to the ancestral shrine, clan registers recording newly added family members…
Every book represented one part of the Xia family’s enormous and complicated roots.
Xia Zhiheng sat behind the desk in plain everyday robes.
He did not even look at the public account books.
His withered fingers moved directly past the pile of registers and precisely pulled out the one sent by Xia Zhongqian’s branch:
Comparative Register of Old Sacrificial Field Deeds.
The surroundings were so quiet that the only sound was the faint rustling of turning pages.
Xia Zhiheng read extremely slowly, examining each page one by one.
The divisions of farmland and changes to the old deeds at the beginning showed little difference from previous years.
It was not until he turned to the page recording the expenses for repairing the “ancestral shrine” that his gaze suddenly stopped.
At the edge of the densely packed, tiny characters written in ink, there was an additional line of inconspicuous annotation.
Yet the brushstrokes carried an unmistakable sense of desperate finality:
“Roots remain; half the jade survives. When spring comes, the northern wind will rise again.”
Xia Zhiheng stared at those words.
A subtle ripple appeared in the depths of his eyes.
He remembered many years ago.
Back then, Xia Zhongqian had only been a younger clansman who followed behind him and was always too quick to act.
He had once pointed toward the tree in the courtyard and admonished Xia Zhongqian with these words:
“He whose roots run deep does not fear the wind. As long as the roots remain unbroken, there will always be a day when spring returns.”
Now, Xia Zhongqian had returned those words to him.
Xia Zhiheng slowly closed the register and looked toward the study’s exterior.
In the center of the Xia ancestral shrine’s courtyard stood a three-hundred-year-old locust tree belonging to the Xia family.
Every year, whenever the Xia descendants came to pay their respects to their ancestors, they first worshiped beneath this ancient tree that sheltered the family.
Beneath the tree, which was so large that three people could wrap their arms around its trunk, there was a green stone used for pouring sacrificial wine.
That sacrificial wine stone could be lifted.
Beneath it was a hidden compartment containing a ritual vessel left behind when the ancestral shrine had originally been constructed.
It was a secret passed down orally through successive heads of the main household.
But back then, Xia Zhiheng had watched the young Xia Zhongqian repeatedly hide his treasures beneath his bed only to be caught easily, so he had casually told him about this place.
Later, it became the place where, in their youth, they most often made secret agreements and hid things from one another.
Xia Zhiheng knew that Xia Zhongqian had left something there waiting for him.
But he did not immediately get up to retrieve it.
He knew that inside and outside the Grand Tutor’s Residence, and even around the Xia ancestral shrine, countless spies from various factions must already be lying in wait.
Perhaps they belonged to the Emperor.
Perhaps they belonged to someone else.
Any unusual movement would be reported.
Xia Zhiheng casually pressed the register beneath a pile of official documents and extinguished the oil lamp.
He waited without moving.
One day.
Two days.
Three days.
Until the morning of the fourth day, which happened to coincide with the Xia clan’s monthly minor ancestral rite.
As usual, Xia Zhiheng changed into solemn ceremonial robes and led the senior elders of the clan to the ancestral shrine to burn incense.
As he slowly poured a vessel of clear wine onto the sacrificial wine stone beneath the ancient locust tree, his broad sleeve swept through the air in one smooth motion.
No one saw what he had done.
When he turned and left, his expression remained compassionate and tranquil, as though he were truly nothing more than a devout elder who had come to report to his ancestors.
That night, in the study of the Grand Tutor’s Residence.
Beneath the faint candlelight, Xia Zhiheng examined the nanmu wooden box that had appeared on the desk.
It was a special mechanism box made by the Xia family.
Its exterior was seamless, with no visible opening or keyhole.
If it fell into the hands of an outsider and they attempted to force it open incorrectly, they would trigger the flint mechanism inside, instantly burning everything within the box to ashes.
But such a mechanism naturally posed no difficulty for Xia Zhiheng, the head of the main household.
His fingers lightly tapped and pressed several specific points on the box in a particular sequence.
With a soft click, the lid of the wooden box sprang open in all directions like a blooming lotus.
Xia Zhiheng lowered his eyes.
Four objects lay neatly inside.
He picked them up one by one to confirm what they were, and his expression immediately became somewhat complicated.
He placed them all back.
Those were not things he should touch.
Finally, Xia Zhiheng’s gaze locked onto the half of the clan jade pendant.
Xia Zhongqian was someone who valued clan rules more dearly than his own life.
He would never casually destroy a clan token.
This jade pendant had not broken accidentally, because the break was far too clean.
Someone had forcibly snapped it in two.
Xia Zhiheng’s mind instantly flashed back to the words in the register—
“Half the jade survives.”
His unfathomably deep eyes narrowed slightly.
Since it had deliberately been broken in half and only one half placed inside the box, that meant…
The other half still had a purpose.
Xia Zhongqian was using this half of the broken jade to tell him:
—The other half of the jade pendant is in someone’s possession.
And furthermore, “half the jade survives.”
That person was currently carrying the other half of the jade pendant, waiting for them to find him.
As for where that person was, that remained unknown for the time being.
At that moment, Xia Zhiheng’s heart, which had remained calm for several days, finally moved.
If there was still a survivor, then he had to protect him.
Without the slightest hesitation, he immediately picked up his brush.
The tip of the ink brush touched the paper.
There were no unnecessary pleasantries or emotions, only a few terse words forming a secret order as sharp as a blade.
Once the ink had dried, he folded the note and placed it together with the four objects back inside the nanmu box, then locked the mechanism.
“Qingyan.”
Xia Zhiheng called softly.
A shadow-like hidden guard silently pushed open the study door and entered from the darkness outside, respectfully lowering his head.
Xia Zhiheng pushed the nanmu box toward the edge of the desk.
His tone carried a cold severity that allowed no room for failure.
“Take this and leave the residence through the secret passage. Go to the capital branch of Tingxue Pavilion on West Street and find a shopkeeper named Old Chu.”
He stared at Qingyan, his cloudy eyes still unable to conceal their sharp brilliance, filled with unquestionable resolve.
“Give this to him. Tell him to activate Tingxue Pavilion’s highest-level covert network and send it to the Northern Border without stopping, day and night. It must be personally delivered into Xia Lanshi’s hands.”
“Remember, even if it costs your life, not the slightest trace of the route may be revealed. If you encounter an assassination attempt and cannot protect the box, destroy the box along with yourself. Under no circumstances may it fall into the hands of a second person.”
Qingyan’s eyes narrowed slightly, his expression grim.
Without hesitation, he accepted the wooden box.
“Rest assured, my lord. While the box lives, I live. If the box is destroyed, I die.”
The moment he finished speaking, Qingyan’s figure silently melted into the thick darkness outside the study.
Silence returned to the room.
Xia Zhiheng stood alone before the desk with his hands behind his back, gazing up at the night sky outside the window.
It was like thick ink that could not be diluted, with not even a trace of stars or moon visible.
The night wind stirred his graying temples.
He slowly closed his eyes and let out an aged sigh.
He knew that he truly was old.
In this vast and treacherous game of the world, the people who could genuinely hold the black and white pieces in their hands and fight their way into the heart of the game were no longer old men like them with decaying bodies and worn-out bones.
They were the young people in the Northern Border, whose sharpness had fully emerged.
The last thing he could do for the greater game was to place this wooden box, containing the bloody truth, into the hands of the people who most deserved to know it.
Let them carve open a path toward the future themselves.
As for the eight-hundred-li urgent secret letter, he had never intended to reply.
In the capital, he did not know how many pairs of eyes were watching his residence intently, holding their breath as they waited.
They were all watching.
Watching this veteran court official, this “balance” that symbolized the equilibrium of the imperial court, to see which way he would tilt when faced with the life-and-death struggle between the Emperor and Prince Su.
At this thought, the corners of Xia Zhiheng’s aged lips curled into a deeply mocking, cold smile.
He could not help but find it somewhat ridiculous.
Did those people truly think that the scales of Dasheng were still balanced?
The capital…
It was truly too peaceful.
So peaceful that it had made people forget where the real danger lay.
The person who could truly keep the scales balanced had never been him.