With Jiang Fuli and Murong Lian gone, there was no one else in Chonghua whose prestige surpassed hers.
Yet almost all the soldiers refused to give up hope. They felt that their Marshal Mo was far too extraordinary—how could he possibly have died just like that? Yue Chenqing led cultivators from the Northern Frontier Army in searching the great river again and again, but they never found the bodies of Mo Xi and Gu Mang.
The fact that their bodies were nowhere to be found most likely meant they had been reduced to nothingness. Yet the soldiers could not bring themselves to think that way. They would rather believe that Marshal Mo and Marshal Gu of the Northern Frontier Army had survived, keeping that last sliver of hope alive in their hearts.
Three days ago, someone finally dredged up an object from the river. It was a jade slip formed from the Ransui whip.
There were no words written on the slip, yet it was enough to send the entire Northern Frontier Army into an uproar.
They became even more convinced that Mo Xi must still be alive. Otherwise, how could Ransui still be glowing with light?
At the time, Murong Mengze was in the palace reviewing documents. The maid Yue Niang was still by her side, only now there was a trace of hesitation and fear in Yue Niang’s eyes whenever she looked at her.
No one else knew, but she knew very well that not long ago, Murong Mengze had invited her friend Zhou He to a tavern for a drink. Zhou He had once served the Emperor, but he had secretly admired Mengze for a long time. Now that Mo Xi was dead, he felt that he finally had a chance. Inviting the Princess to drink with him at night was less a date than a test.
Yue Niang had never expected Murong Mengze to readily agree.
But even more unexpected was what she accidentally witnessed: during the banquet, Mengze had expressionlessly and without the slightest hesitation slipped a dark-red pill into Zhou He’s cup.
It was a deadly poison. It would remain dormant for two months, after which the person who had taken it would inevitably die.
Ever since witnessing what Mengze had done, Yue Niang had been utterly distraught. She could not understand it. Zhou He and Mengze had been such close friends, and he had done so much for her. Even if Mengze did not like him, why would she secretly poison him to death? Was this still the Princess she knew?
“Yue Niang.”
In the midst of her unease, she suddenly heard Mengze call her name. Yue Niang came to herself as if waking from a dream and hurriedly said, “Your Highness.”
Mengze looked at her thoughtfully, staring until Yue Niang’s legs began to tremble slightly. Only then did Mengze smile.
“Why have you seemed so distracted lately? Is something troubling you?”
“No, no…”
“Good. If you’re feeling unwell, make sure you tell me right away. Don’t make me worry.”
“Yes…”
“Also, there’s something I’d like to trouble you with.” Mengze removed her command token and handed it to her. “Take this to Yue Chenqing. Tell him I’d like to borrow the jade slip left behind by Lord Xihe and have a look at it.”
Yue Niang agreed, and Mengze smiled as she watched her leave.
Only when Yue Niang’s figure disappeared into the daylight did her expression slowly darken. She sighed softly and murmured, “Yue’er, I never thought that in the end, I wouldn’t even be able to keep you…”
The palace chamber was left with only her.
Mengze raised a hand and took a bundle of exquisitely crafted historical-record jade slips from her Qiankun pouch. Jiang Yexue had made these for Murong Chen while he was alive. He had been a supreme master of artifact forging, and his craftsmanship was so skillful that even the greatest sorcerer would not have been able to tell at a glance that these jade slips were forgeries.
Mengze ran her neatly trimmed, unpainted fingernail over the golden clasp on the side of the jade slips.
She knew exactly what sort of dark conspiracy was hidden within this bundle of counterfeit records.
Murong Chen had fabricated numerous scandals concerning Mo Xi, piecing them together from genuine documents so that it was almost impossible to distinguish truth from falsehood.
She had already prepared herself.
She knew that Mo Xi had used the Reversal Stone to return to the past, and there was a very good chance that he had learned about all the dirty political schemes she had once carried out.
No.
Not “a very good chance.”
He must have learned everything.
That was why, even in death, he had used his divine weapon Ransui to leave behind a jade slip. It was probably meant to publicly expose her, Murong Mengze, as someone who was not at all pure or innocent.
He must have hated her for exploiting his gratitude. Hated her for manipulating him. So even after death, he had to tell everyone…
And then—
Murong Mengze suddenly had an even more terrifying thought.
She could not stop her teeth from chattering, nor the faint trembling that ran through her body.
What if Mo Xi wasn’t dead?
The thought soaked her back in cold sweat. She even felt as though the man’s shadow were lingering within the darkness of the palace, ready at any moment to step out into the light, look down at her, and say:
“Mengze, I have another debt to settle with you.”
She shuddered violently and abruptly rose, knocking over the table before her.
“No… no…”
She hurried out of the hall, leaving that chilling room behind. It was strange, really. When she had schemed against Murong Chen, Murong Lian, or Zhou He, she had never felt such fear.
But only in the game involving Mo Xi and Gu Mang—
Within that heart of hers, which had long since grown cold, there was still self-loathing.
And self-loathing had eventually bred fear.
She knew that among all the pieces on her chessboard, only these two were true, unquestionable pillars of the nation.
And she had stained her hands with blood that clean.
It was her blemish.
She could see it herself whenever she bowed her head and searched her conscience.
It was something she would never be able to wash away.
“Y-Your Highness.”
Someone suddenly called softly to her.
Mengze looked up sharply and saw Yue Niang had returned. She stood at the foot of the steps, looking at her in alarm. Her own face was deathly pale, and when she met Yue Niang’s frightened expression, it only frightened Yue Niang even more.
Trembling, Yue Niang climbed the last few steps and presented the brocade box in her hands.
“This is the j-jade slip you asked for…”
Mengze composed herself, suppressing her fear, anger, and guilt completely.
“Oh… You brought it back so quickly?”
“Yes…”
“Give it to me. Wait outside the hall.”
She took the jade slip Mo Xi had left behind, closed her eyes for a moment, then returned alone to the palace chamber.
The enormous palace was silent and cold, with only her inside. She shut herself in, then faced that blank scroll with an eagerness she could not suppress and a reluctance she could not overcome.
She had an almost unmistakable premonition.
This jade slip was definitely something he had left specifically for her.
And sure enough, when she opened it herself, faint golden characters began to appear upon the scroll that had originally been completely blank.
They were unmistakably Mo Xi’s elegant, upright handwriting.
She trembled with hatred.
Of course.
Of course!
She knew Mo Xi would repay every debt down to the last penny. He would never let her off. He—
But in the next instant, she suddenly froze.
The words on the jade slip gradually became clearer. In that familiar, handsome handwriting, there were only two sentences:
“Your remaining stains, I shall cleanse with the rest of my life. I hope you will not become Murong Chen.”
Murong Mengze felt as though she had been struck head-on. Her ears rang.
He… what was he saying?
Was he saying that he knew all of her schemes, yet after everything they had gone through, he had already come to understand that very few people who sat upon that throne could remain completely untainted?
This road had been stained with blood. Brothers slaughtered brothers. Some might have betrayed the closest friends and family around them, yet after ascending the throne, they could still bring prosperity to the realm and govern with benevolence.
Was that what he meant?
She had once ranked among the Three Gentlemen of Jie, Ding, and Hui, though she had never truly deserved the name. Yet Mo Xi did not speak to her with hatred.
Her way of being a gentleman might have been false to the people around her, but for Chonghua, perhaps it had not necessarily been false.
I hope you will not become Murong Chen.
Mengze stared at those final words for a long time before slowly lowering her eyes.
Do not become Murong Chen…
After a moment, she reached out and picked up the forged historical scroll from the desk.
She examined it several times.
Finally, spiritual power gathered at her fingertips, and silently, she shattered it into dust and fragments.
Mengze collapsed back into the throne as though all her strength had left her. She tilted her head back, feeling the sweat on her back slowly turn cold.
The life-or-death battle she had thought was about to begin had already ended before it even started.
Her eyes were wide open, reflecting the carved dragons and crouching tigers upon the palace beams. Her fingers gripped the armrest of the throne, slowly rubbing its surface.
I hope you will not become Murong Chen.
She slowly closed her eyes, the faintest bitter, self-mocking smile appearing at the corners of her lips.
Mo Xi… you truly are…
She did not think any further.
She sat alone in this brand-new grand hall whose construction she herself had overseen.
At this moment, everything was still in ruins, the palace cold and empty. But she knew that a new political era was about to begin here.
Her heart pounded.
The drums of war that had lain hidden within her for so many years had finally begun to thunder, sending endless waves through her chest.
She knew that the starlight of Ziwei that she had waited for all this time had finally illuminated her destiny after she had stained herself with blood.
It was spring, when warmth returned and flowers bloomed, when willows hung low and orioles sang among the growing grass.
Two months had passed since Murong Mengze had bid farewell and left the imperial capital.
Murong Lian was taking a stroll along the riverbank in Linyi. He snapped off a willow branch and ambled along, lazily swinging it as he walked.
The academy was under construction and would probably be completed by the end of next year. These days, he was wonderfully free, leisurely with nothing much to do.
Though there were plenty of secrets in his heart that he still needed to digest.
Take Murong Mengze, for example.
She was now Chonghua’s regent, but because she was a woman, there were still conservative, old aristocrats who mocked her and claimed she was unfit to rule.
But Murong Lian knew that once Mengze’s popularity and public standing rose a little higher, she would reveal a secret she had concealed for thirty years.
When that happened, Chonghua would certainly be thrown into an uproar.
But he was betting that Murong Mengze would still be the ultimate winner.
That woman…
No.
That person had truly ironclad methods. Who among ordinary people could possibly be her match?
Just look at these two months of her regency.
She was merely a regent, yet she had already governed with extraordinary diligence, taking advantage of the weakened and fragmented power of the various factions within the court and continuously issuing new policies.
She posthumously honored Gu Mang and Mo Xi as the highest-ranking national heroes. She also intended to fulfill Gu Mang’s wish by abolishing the system of hereditary slavery and opening the academy to talented people from all backgrounds, selecting students based on examinations and spiritual-root aptitude regardless of their birth.
In addition, she sought to eliminate oppressive policies, abolish nepotism, reduce taxes and corvée labor, and welcome criticism and petitions from the people.
Compared with these achievements, what did her stains matter to ordinary people?
Murong Mengze…
Murong Mengze…
Murong Lian repeated her name several times in his heart and could not help sneering.
Murong Mengze, the Ninth Prince of the royal family.
His mother, fearing that the Empress would have him executed, had conspired with the elders of Shennong Terrace and used a concealed medicine to disguise his true identity.
Murong Chen had guarded against Murong Lian all his life, only to discover in the end that he had guarded against the wrong person.
The so-called “brothers fighting among themselves” had never referred to Murong Lian at all.
It referred to Princess Mengze, whom he had always believed to be his younger sister.
Thinking of this, Murong Lian could not help sneering again.
Murong Mengze had managed to lie low for nearly thirty years under the identity of a woman, deceiving heaven and crossing the sea. In the end, she really was ruthless.
Who could possibly take away what such a formidable person wanted?
Fortunately, he had not known this secret for very long. He had only begun to realize it during the period when Murong Mengze had cared for him while he was unconscious.
Murong Lian believed that with Mengze’s methods, given enough time, people would gradually stop talking about the years she had spent enduring and disguising herself as a woman.
As for those secret scandals from the past that only a handful of people knew about, they would eventually be crushed beneath the wheels of time and scattered into dust.
Back in the imperial capital, the Wangshu Residence was still being preserved.
As for the Xihe Residence, its steward Li Wei had decided to turn it into a charitable shelter, allowing homeless and impoverished people to stay there temporarily until they could find a way to make a living.
Li Wei said that if Lord Xihe were still alive, he would probably be happy to see him do this.
Yue Chenqing remained in the capital, but he had handed all the mecha blueprints drawn by Murong Chuyi during his lifetime to Jiang Fuli, hoping Jiang Fuli could seal them away somewhere ordinary people could not easily access.
“Weapons in the hands of good people are instruments of protection. In the hands of evil people, they become instruments of slaughter. I believe Fourth Uncle would never want his blueprints to fall into the hands of someone with ill intentions, so I ask you, Apothecary Jiang, to choose a place and seal them away.”
In the end, Jiang Fuli sealed all of Murong Chuyi’s blueprints beneath the crabapple divine tree on Shentang Immortal Island.
The crabapple divine tree had already begun to develop a spiritual consciousness. Its aura was pure and peaceful, and it was said to have gained the ability to distinguish good from evil.
Having it silently guard the wishes of those who came before was the safest arrangement possible.
Decades later, centuries later, or perhaps thousands of years later, perhaps another great master of artifact forging, as virtuous as Murong Chuyi, would emerge from the mortal world and pass this endless inheritance of compassion onward.
But Murong Lian was nowhere near as ambitious as those people.
He was merely an ordinary man with countless flaws.
He was no hero, nor did he think about so many lofty things.
Right now, he simply wanted to build his academy properly.
As for the students who entered its gates, he would choose them according to their talents, teach them the Six Virtues and Six Arts, and instruct them in the Six Conducts.
He did not know whether he would eventually produce another Chen Tang or another Hua Po’an.
There were many things he could not yet be certain about.
But there was one thing he knew for certain.
He had already decided on the academy’s first doctrine:
“Whoever is admitted shall be taught according to their talents.”
…Being someone who clearly loved illusion arts yet was forced to cultivate musical arts was something he, as the academy’s headmaster, would absolutely never allow to happen again.
It was wonderful to be able to make your own decisions.
Murong Lian sighed in contentment, brushed the ash from his water pipe, coughed twice, and slowly ambled home.