When Lord Yuexi returned from Shuyu Pavilion to Prince Yi’s residence, the sky had already been painted in gorgeous shades of dusky gold and fading purple.
Since he could not openly enter the prince’s residence through the main gate under the identity of “Lord Yuexi,” the chief steward, Lan Ningcheng, had specially arranged for him to use a side entrance that few people ever visited.
Lan Ningcheng carried a windproof lantern and led the way in silence. Several personal guards followed discreetly at their sides, protecting Lord Yuexi in the center of their formation.
Lord Yuexi had visited Prince Yi’s residence only a handful of times, but from this day onward, it would become his temporary refuge.
He had brought very few belongings, only two wooden trunks, which the prince’s guards carried with practiced efficiency.
One trunk contained all the extravagant outfits, accessories, and cosmetics necessary to maintain his public identity as Lord Yuexi. The other held the personal belongings of the real Wu Jiuling: several sets of plain everyday clothes, old books and documents, contracts, silver, and the three handwritten notebooks concerning the Wu family.
As for the books he usually enjoyed reading at Shuyu Pavilion, he had not brought a single one. This was to preserve the illusion that he was still living there.
Lan Ningcheng led him along the corridors toward the depths of the rear garden.
Prince Yi’s residence had originally been an imperial estate bestowed upon Xiao Ying when he was granted a princely title. Before that, it had been an old prince’s residence that had changed hands several times. It was neither the largest nor the most ideally situated estate, but neither was it the worst. For Xiao Ying, it was just right.
Over the past two years, Xiao Ying had arranged for renovations to be carried out in stages under various pretexts.
One day, he would claim that the buildings were old and leaking. The next, he would say that the pond had silted up and needed dredging. A few days later, citing his fondness for mountains and waters, he would have the neglected rear garden restored.
Each project was modest in scale. To outsiders, it seemed that the extravagant Eighth Prince was merely indulging another whim and making a fuss over his residence. Few people realized that its internal layout had long since been transformed beyond recognition, all without attracting attention.
They stopped before a massive artificial rockery, cleverly assembled deep within the rear garden.
This was no ordinary ornamental rock formation. It had been rebuilt and reassembled from the original rockery when the garden was renovated.
From the outside, its cracks looked like natural fissures formed by years of weathering, with no trace of artificial excavation. Inside were narrow passages and fissures for ventilation. The exterior was covered in deep green moss and tangled vines, while a dense cluster of emerald bamboo had been planted in front, its drooping leaves concealing most of the entrance.
Unless someone familiar with the terrain pushed aside the bamboo leaves, they would never discover the passage hidden behind them.
Lan Ningcheng turned slightly and spoke in a low voice.
“Please follow me, Young Master Yuexi.”
They passed through a narrow, stony path running through the heart of the rockery, barely wide enough for one person. The stone walls on either side were cool to the touch, while the dense canopy overhead blocked most of the daylight.
At the end of the path stood a low wall covered in creeping fig. When Lan Ningcheng pushed open an inconspicuous wooden side gate, the view beyond suddenly opened up.
Behind the gate lay a secluded courtyard, entirely separate from the surrounding buildings.
Lan Ningcheng gestured for the guards to carry the trunks gently inside. Then he turned and explained the arrangements in a formal, orderly manner.
“This place is called the Dust-Forgetting Retreat. It was an additional courtyard created during the renovation of the prince’s rear garden. From now on, apart from the servants specifically assigned to deliver meals and household supplies, the other guards will patrol only the perimeter and will not enter the inner grounds. If you need to go out or require anything, simply inform the servant stationed outside the gate. His Highness has instructed that you may freely use everything here.”
Lan Ningcheng’s attitude toward him remained as it had always been: neither warm nor cold, courteous and proper, with an impeccable sense of boundaries. There was no unnecessary warmth, yet his uprightness and meticulousness offered a reassuring sense of security.
He had not merely gone through the motions. He had formally brought Lord Yuexi into the innermost circle of the residence’s security arrangements.
To Lord Yuexi, this kind of distance, free of either contempt or flattery, was actually a relief.
Lan Ningcheng turned to him. “Young Master Yuexi, while there is still some light, allow me to show you around the courtyard.”
Lord Yuexi nodded slightly and replied politely, “I’m grateful for your trouble, Chief Steward Lan.”
He had heard from Xiao Ying that Lan Ningcheng had originally passed the metropolitan examinations as a second-class jinshi before being appointed chief steward. He had served at Prince Yi’s residence for two years.
Lord Yuexi both respected and envied him.
If the Wu family had never been confiscated and destroyed, perhaps by now he would at least have passed the provincial-level examinations, or even…
He quickly cut off these pointless thoughts.
Holding the lantern, Lan Ningcheng led him on a brief tour.
The courtyard was not large, but it had everything one could need, and it was quiet and secluded. There was a living room, bedroom, music room, small reception hall, and tea room. Outside, it was connected to a beautifully designed little garden.
Large patches of hydrangeas and irises had been planted throughout the garden. The most eye-catching feature was a tall jacaranda tree. It was currently in bloom, and its profusion of blue-purple blossoms hung like a cloud of colored mist over the pond and drooping willows.
The pond was small, roughly one zhang square. Several water lily leaves floated flat on its surface, while a few lotus flowers, white with delicate gradations of watery color, had already closed for the night.
Clumps of irises stood quietly among the stones by the water. Their blue-purple blossoms rose between sword-shaped leaves.
Lord Yuexi had seen all these flowers and plants before, back in his distant hometown. For reasons he could not quite explain, seeing them again stirred a faint sense of nostalgia.
As he walked and looked around, he keenly noticed how different this place was from the rest of Prince Yi’s residence.
The main courtyard was grand and luxurious. Xiao Ying usually wore flamboyant brocade robes in shades of purple when appearing in public, and the residence’s decorations likewise favored magnificent combinations of purple, gold, and silver. Everything reflected the image he presented to the outside world: ostentatious and untouchable.
But inside the Dust-Forgetting Retreat, everything within sight was rendered in restrained, tranquil shades of blue-green, pale floral hues, and watery colors. The style was understated, yet possessed an elegance that seemed to come from the very bones of the place.
Although the furnishings had been cleaned until not a speck of dust remained, the way certain objects were arranged and the worn edges of some items suggested that someone had once lived here for a long time.
Lord Yuexi knew he should not ask indiscreet questions, but he could not resist making a tentative inquiry.
“May I ask who used to live here, Chief Steward Lan?”
Lan Ningcheng’s steps paused slightly.
He turned back. His calm, unreadable gaze rested on Lord Yuexi’s face for a moment before he replied evenly with two words.
“His Highness.”
Lord Yuexi tilted his head slightly, surprise flickering in his eyes.
As a prince, shouldn’t Xiao Ying have lived in the most spacious main courtyard of his residence?
Lan Ningcheng withdrew his gaze and continued walking, explaining in the same unruffled tone, “This is where His Highness stays when he does not wish to see anyone.”
Lord Yuexi immediately understood.
So the Dust-Forgetting Retreat had not been prepared specifically as a guest residence for him. It was Xiao Ying’s own hiding place.
Could the Eighth Prince, who was so flamboyant and carefree amid the glittering pleasures of the capital, also have a place where he could retreat and avoid everyone?
Finally, Lan Ningcheng pushed open the door to the study.
The study was not particularly spacious, but books filled the shelves made of chicken-wing wood that lined three of its walls.
At the sight of so many books, Lord Yuexi’s usually tranquil eyes immediately brightened. He had regretted not bringing his own books, but there were even more volumes here.
Soon, however, he noticed something unusual.
He had visited the study in Xiao Ying’s main courtyard before. That room also contained many books, but most were collections of poetry and prose, popular tales, illustrated albums, writings about romantic affairs, and travel journals—all befitting the tastes of an idle, dissolute prince.
The books before him now presented an entirely different picture.
The Great Sheng Code. Records of the Imperial Clan. Duties of the Six Ministries. Maps of the Prefectures and Provinces…
There were also practical works concerning grain transport, water conservancy, household registration, land taxes, salt and iron, commercial routes, agriculture and sericulture, famine relief, military administration and battle formations, and even the geography and customs of foreign lands. Thick volumes of the Confucian classics and historical records filled the remaining shelves.
Lord Yuexi withdrew his gaze from the book spines without showing his surprise and asked softly, “May I read these books?”
Lan Ningcheng simply repeated what he had already said.
“His Highness has stated that everything here is yours to use freely. That means you have his permission.”
As for anything that should not have been left here, he had already removed it long ago.
Lord Yuexi stepped forward and gently ran his fingertips over the book spines.
Some of the subjects were ones he had once studied diligently, while others fell outside his previous fields of knowledge.
He casually pulled out a volume of Discourses on Salt and Iron and flipped through several pages. It was clearly not a new book placed here for decoration. The paper had yellowed slightly, and the edges showed obvious signs of repeated use.
Thoughtfully, he slid the book back into its place.
Standing by the doorway, Lan Ningcheng dutifully finished explaining the remaining details. After outlining the areas of the residence where Lord Yuexi was permitted to move about, he said, “Young Master Yuexi, you may settle here without worry. If you encounter any difficulties, you may seek me out at any time.”
“Thank you, Chief Steward Lan.”
Lord Yuexi inclined his head slightly before adding, “There is one more thing I would like to ask.”
He stepped closer and lowered his voice.
“Does this room have any hidden compartments I could use?”
Lan Ningcheng fell silent.
After a brief pause, he walked expressionlessly to the desk and the side of the bookshelves. His slender fingers pressed and manipulated several inconspicuous wooden carvings. With a series of faint mechanical clicks, three extremely well-concealed compartments opened one after another.
“If Young Master Yuexi has need of them, you may use these. There is also a mechanism beneath the carved panel on the inner side of the foot of the bed in the bedroom.”
Lord Yuexi carefully examined how each mechanism opened and closed, then nodded in satisfaction and thanked him.
He did not mind Lan Ningcheng knowing where he intended to hide things. After all, the items he would be concealing—the secrets concerning the Wu family, his revenge, and his plans—could now be known to Xiao Ying without causing him concern.
They were now partners bound together in the same enterprise.
“Please make yourself at home, Young Master. I should not linger any longer.”
Lan Ningcheng bowed slightly, then withdrew with his lantern.
After Lan Ningcheng left, Lord Yuexi returned to the bedroom alone to unpack his belongings and put everything in its proper place.
A young servant whom Xiao Ying had assigned to him stepped forward attentively and asked, “Young Master Yuexi, would you like this humble servant to help you organize your things?”
Lord Yuexi raised his eyes and studied the unfamiliar face. He asked gently, “What is your name?”
“This humble servant is called Aiqin.”
Hearing the name, Lord Yuexi considered it thoughtfully, but he maintained his composure and said, “Then, Aiqin, please put the clothes and accessories from that trunk into the wardrobe for me. I’ll take care of the other trunk myself.”
He pointed to the large wooden trunk containing the outfits and accessories associated with the identity of Lord Yuexi.
“Yes, Young Master.” Aiqin promptly set to work.
That night, Xiao Ying had several more crates of supplies delivered through the small gate.
Besides fine incense and everyday necessities, there were several sets of soft, comfortable indoor garments. At the bottom of one crate lay six pairs of exquisitely made shoes with soft soles, neatly arranged in a row.
Looking at the shoes, Lord Yuexi could not help smiling faintly.
The six pairs were made of different materials, with every possible need carefully considered.
There were soft silk slippers for wearing indoors, lightweight leather shoes suitable for dancing practice, wooden-soled shoes designed to prevent slipping on wet ground, thick-soled boots for going outside, and two additional pairs of lightweight shoes as spares.
Apart from the last time he had gone to the abandoned kiln in the southern part of the city to meet someone, when Xiao Ying had firmly insisted that he wear shoes, Lord Yuexi usually went barefoot indoors or whenever he was in a familiar environment. Now that he was staying in the secluded Dust-Forgetting Retreat, where he would not encounter outsiders, there was even less reason for him to wear them.
Xiao Ying clearly remembered this habit of his, yet had still prepared every kind of shoe he might conceivably need.
A mixture of warmth and helplessness stirred in Lord Yuexi’s heart. In the end, he simply ordered the shoes to be put away in the bottom of the wardrobe, leaving them exactly as they were.
For the next several days, the Dust-Forgetting Retreat was so quiet that it seemed as though time itself had come to a standstill.
Xiao Ying did not appear, and Lan Ningcheng did not visit again.
Yet Lord Yuexi felt neither anxious nor uneasy. Instead, he found that these days were not much different from his life at Shuyu Pavilion.
Xiao Ying had booked his services for an entire year, so Lord Yuexi had not needed to receive other guests. Most days, he had stayed in his own room from morning until night, leaving it only when he needed to exchange intelligence. Even then, his movements had been confined to Shuyu Pavilion.
Here, there were no guests to please and no spies to guard against. Instead, he found himself enjoying a long-lost sense of peace.
At the Dust-Forgetting Retreat, he continued his daily practice: playing the guqin, playing the flute, practicing the pipa, and dancing.
At Shuyu Pavilion, these skills had been means of gathering intelligence and maintaining his identity. Here, although no one watched him with demanding eyes, he continued to practice them out of habit. He was not Wu Jiuling yet. There would still be times when he needed the identity of Lord Yuexi, and so he could not allow his skills to grow rusty.
His audience consisted of the servants and guards assigned to the courtyard.
Among them, Aiqin was especially enthusiastic.
At first, Aiqin had been curious and somewhat restrained around the famous male courtesan whose reputation had spread throughout the capital. He could not understand why his master had suddenly developed such a keen interest in a male courtesan.
But as the days passed, he gradually began to understand. Young Master Yuexi was nothing like the rumors had suggested.
Lord Yuexi remembered every servant’s name and always spoke with warmth and courtesy.
When he practiced the guqin, his fingertips moved across the strings without haste, as though he were conversing with the instrument itself. After every session, he personally wiped the instrument clean with a soft cloth before putting it away.
When he danced, his sleeves fluttered and swirled, yet his movements contained not the slightest trace of a desire to please an audience. It was as though he were simply completing something that had nothing to do with anyone else.
When he injured his ankle while practicing, he made no fuss. Instead, he found some medicinal ointment and applied it himself.
Apart from practicing music and dance, Lord Yuexi spent nearly all his remaining time in the study.
Sometimes he read. Sometimes he practiced calligraphy. He became so absorbed that he occasionally forgot to eat even when Aiqin brought him his meals.
And during these several days of reading almost to the point of neglecting sleep and food, Lord Yuexi discovered something that deeply shook him.
The Xiao Ying he had known in the past seemed to have been only the tip of the iceberg.
In this small study, he had glimpsed another side of the seemingly dissolute prince, a side that Xiao Ying had buried out of sight.
The books concerning regional trade routes, grain prices, grain transport, household registration, and land taxes all bore signs of having been read repeatedly. Their margins were densely filled with annotations, the handwriting forceful and vigorous, clearly the work of someone who had studied the material thoroughly.
The volumes on the duties of the Six Ministries, provincial maps, salt and iron, and water conservancy contained folded corners and markings. Important passages had been circled and annotated.
The books on military strategy, battle formations, and foreign customs likewise showed signs of careful study.
Beside a thick commercial ledger, Lord Yuexi found a line written in the familiar, vigorous handwriting:
If salt prices suddenly rise here, merchants will inevitably reroute their trade along the southern route. We must guard against the grain transport guilds hoarding goods to drive up prices.
Beside the section on the Ministry of Revenue in Duties of the Six Ministries, another annotation read:
A prince may not command the Six Ministries, but he cannot afford not to understand how they operate. Otherwise, he will be like a blind man riding a blind horse.
Lord Yuexi recognized the handwriting. It belonged to Xiao Ying.
These were subjects that a future heir to the throne, or a prince with serious ambitions of participating in government, would need to master.
Under the laws of the Great Sheng dynasty, imperial princes who had been granted princely titles could discuss and participate in state affairs, but they could not directly command ministries or wield their power. Nor were they granted fiefs.
This was how the emperor kept the princes under control.
The court and the public generally expected an imperial prince to be a dignified noble who knew his place and kept out of trouble.
The profound, complicated studies of governance and people’s livelihoods were hardly subjects that someone regarded as an idle prince would need to master in such depth.
Yet Xiao Ying had done far more than simply read these books.
There were so many volumes and so many annotations that it would have been impossible to study them all in only a year or two.
Lord Yuexi felt something stir deep within him.
This meant that, at some point in the past, Xiao Ying had prepared for his future with extraordinary seriousness and diligence. He had wanted to become an imperial prince who could serve the Great Sheng dynasty and put his ambitions into practice.
Apart from political strategy, the shelves held more books on commerce and people’s livelihoods than any other subject. Grain prices, cloth, tea, salt and iron, medicinal herbs, shipping, local produce…
A prince who could not control military or political power would be nothing more than an empty title if he did not even know where money came from, how grain was transported, or how ordinary people survived.
Xiao Ying had clearly refused to become such an empty shell.
Among the many books, Lord Yuexi also found a notebook on commercial routes that Xiao Ying had bound by hand.
It meticulously recorded annual fluctuations in prices and changes in trade routes across the various prefectures and provinces.
Yet all the records and annotations came to an abrupt halt on a particular page.
The final line read:
If only I could travel to Jiangnan in person and see where the grain shipments enter the waterways and where the grain departs from…
The writing stopped there, leaving a glaring expanse of blank paper beneath it.
The date recorded on that page was four years earlier.
Lord Yuexi’s fingertips remained on the date of the final stroke for a long time.
Four years ago…
That year, Xiao Ying had been fifteen.
In the Great Sheng dynasty, fifteen was the age at which the sons of imperial and aristocratic families began formally entering the court’s field of vision and learning how to take on government responsibilities.
Under the original law of the dynasty, men reached adulthood at twenty, when they underwent the capping ceremony. But aristocratic families wanted their sons to participate in government affairs earlier, so they commonly held the ceremony ahead of time.
It was therefore customary for young men between fifteen and twenty to undergo the capping ceremony, after which they could be regarded as adults and expected to shoulder adult responsibilities.
Lord Yuexi recalled the intelligence he had once gathered at Shuyu Pavilion about Prince Yi.
The Eighth Prince, Xiao Ying, had begun frequenting brothels and pleasure quarters, ruining his reputation, precisely when he turned fifteen.
It was not until he was seventeen that the current emperor permitted him to undergo the capping ceremony and granted him the title of prince, bestowing upon him the title Yi. The emperor also gave him this old estate to serve as his princely residence.
After leaving the palace, he had continued living a dissolute life and had never changed his ways.
The emperor’s indifference toward Xiao Ying had also determined how the court officials regarded him.
It was, in effect, a public rejection of Xiao Ying. The emperor had suppressed him and firmly pinned him to the position of an idle prince.
Lord Yuexi stroked the final, abruptly terminated stroke of ink. An indescribable ache rose in his chest.
In his mind, he began to imagine the scene.
A young boy, sitting alone in an obscure corner, burning the oil in his lamp late into the night as he studied the principles of governance and the art of improving people’s livelihoods. He had believed that if he prepared himself well enough, he would eventually have the opportunity to serve his country.
But when he turned fifteen, he did not receive the coming-of-age ceremony he had anticipated, nor an opportunity to put his ambitions into practice.
He was simply set aside.
That interrupted handwriting, ending when its author was only fifteen, silently recorded the transformation of that boy.
The annotations throughout the study seemed to be silently shouting a truth: before the age of fifteen, there had been a boy who worked tirelessly to master this knowledge, only to discover that in the cannibalistic imperial capital, his talents and ambitions had no place to be used.
An imperial prince without the backing of a powerful maternal clan could not expect to be rewarded for shining too brightly. Instead, he might bring about his own destruction.
Yet the nineteen-year-old Xiao Ying whom Lord Yuexi knew had not completely fallen into decadence after suffering disappointment. On the contrary, he was remarkably clear-minded.
He had simply put away the version of himself who had naively believed that preparing himself well enough would allow him to become a good prince. In its place, he had donned a mask of carefree debauchery, moving all his true plans into the shadows.
Lord Yuexi gently closed the notebook and murmured, “So… this wasn’t who you were originally.”
He had never understood, and had never dared to ask, why Xiao Ying treated him, a mere male courtesan, with such unusual consideration and concern.
Only now, standing in the very refuge where Xiao Ying had once hidden himself, did he finally understand.
In essence, the two of them were remarkably alike.
Xiao Ying had hidden the man who wanted to become a useful prince beneath the outward shell of the dissolute Eighth Prince.
And he had buried Wu Jiuling, the man who had wanted to pass the examinations and bring honor to his family, deep within the body and identity of Lord Yuexi, the male courtesan.
Both of them had been forced to put on costumes and struggle to survive amid the mud and undercurrents.
He drew a deep breath, opened the notebook again, and turned to its final page.
Tucked inside was a slightly yellowed, hand-drawn map.
Lord Yuexi’s gaze paused.
It was a map of Jiangnan, with small marks made in cinnabar ink at several waterways and towns.
Suddenly, he recalled something Yuheng had once told him.
“He can’t even fly out of the capital.”
The laws of the Great Sheng dynasty were strict. Unless he received an imperial decree, a prince was forbidden to leave the capital even once in his lifetime.
It was the emperor’s iron-fisted way of keeping his adult sons under his watch, like captive birds in a cage.
Lord Yuexi gently rubbed his fingertips over the cinnabar marks on the map of Jiangnan.
Were this map and these markings the dream of a fifteen-year-old boy who had longed to visit Jiangnan in person but could never reach it?
Or were they part of another grand scheme being carried out from afar by the Prince Yi who now sat deep within his residence in the capital, using ledgers, trade routes, and intelligence networks as his pieces?
He had no answer.
Lord Yuexi put the map away, returned the notebook to its original place, and slowly pushed open the study window. Outside, the night had deepened, and the fragrance of the jacaranda blossoms drifted into the room on the evening breeze.
Xiao Ying’s words from their previous conversations echoed clearly in his ears.
Xiao Ying had told him to think carefully about what he wanted to do with his future. He had even offered to pave the way for him, so that one day he could stand openly in the sunlight with a clean name.
Then what about Xiao Ying himself?
Your Highness, what kind of person did you once want to become?
And now… what is it that you truly wish to do?
These questions quietly rose in Lord Yuexi’s heart.
Only then did he suddenly realize that he had never once asked Xiao Ying those questions in return.
He gazed at the courtyard in the distance, shrouded in darkness, and felt something stir within him.