Night had fallen deep, and candlelight flickered in the study of the Jingbei Marquis’s residence.
Li Zihe rubbed his aching temples, finally finishing the review of the last military report from the capital on his desk.
He picked up the cup of tea beside him and took a sip. The now-cold tea spread a slightly bitter taste across his tongue, and his gaze fell on the somewhat disordered stack of papers at the corner of his desk.
They were the “duty logs” Li Ziao had sent over during the past few days.
At first, Li Zihe had harbored no expectations that these logs would yield any intelligence.
His younger brother had always been reckless by nature, acting entirely on instinct. Their father had thrown him into Prince Yi’s residence primarily to make him suffer a little and temper his disposition, while also allowing him to observe the residence’s true attitude through its everyday affairs.
As for expecting Li Ziao to uncover some deeply hidden secret, that would have been like climbing a tree to catch a fish.
Therefore, Li Zihe had initially regarded the documents as nothing more than crude duty records.
He casually opened the top few pages. Sure enough, every line was steeped in the roughness and dissatisfaction of a military man.
“Twenty-first day. Arrived at the outer courtyard for duty at the hour of Mao. Changed shifts alongside Guards Wang and Zhao. Patrolled the front courtyard at the hour of Si. No abnormalities.”
“Twenty-second day. Chief Steward Lan reprimanded me twice today, saying my footsteps were too heavy and my voice too loud. The prince’s residence has far too many rules. Chief Steward Lan’s lectures are colder than Father’s and longer than Eldest Brother’s. Taking a beating would be more satisfying than listening to him lecture me.”
Li Zihe’s gaze came to a halt.
Did this brat really have the nerve to complain about him and their father in his duty log? He had even complained about Chief Steward Lan.
They had refrained from breaking his legs already out of consideration for their ancestors.
Still, the fact that Lan Ningcheng was willing to spend time reprimanding Li Ziao was unexpected. Li Zihe had assumed that the stone-faced chief steward would either be too lazy to bother with him or simply find an excuse to dismiss him, thereby eliminating this troublesome nuisance.
Suppressing his exasperation, he continued reading.
“Twenty-third day. Changed shifts at noon. Ate half a meal. The prince’s residence’s fat black cat stole my meat again. This cat is extremely arrogant. I heard it is favored by His Highness and is apparently named Mo Yu, but it is not docile in the slightest. In addition, I went to apologize to the prince’s personal guards whom I accidentally injured earlier. I really was too impulsive back then.”
At this point, Li Zihe could not help furrowing his brows.
What an idiot. Did he really think this was a travel diary written for his elder brother?
The legitimate second son of a marquis’s household was actually quarreling with a cat in his duty log.
If this were an official duty report in the military, Li Zihe would have summoned him immediately and given him a thorough dressing-down in person.
However, seeing that Li Ziao had voluntarily gone to apologize to the prince’s personal guards, his anger subsided almost instantly.
Li Zihe took a deep breath and patiently flipped past those pages of nonsense.
But when his gaze swept over the entries farther down, his fingers suddenly stopped turning the pages.
The handwriting was still as broad, bold, and messy as Li Ziao’s usual scrawl, but the contents had taken on a different tone.
“Twenty-fourth day. This afternoon, someone delivered a stack of books. The gatekeeper said they were the passenger manifests for boarding the pleasure boat on the Xinghan River, originally kept at the Jingzhao Prefecture. Since the case involved documents requested by the Ministry of Justice, copies have now been made and transferred here for reference. Chief Steward Lan looked them over and ordered them put away without explaining their purpose. At first, I thought they were investigating the matter of His Highness falling into the water that day, but later I wondered if it might simply be an ordinary transfer of documents. Otherwise, nothing of significance happened in the prince’s residence today.”
Li Zihe’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Passenger manifests for the pleasure boat on the Xinghan River?
The Ministry of Justice?
He had only recently reviewed the case of Prince Yi falling into the water, intending to investigate the prince’s background.
Some time had passed since the incident, and he had assumed the case had long been closed. In fact, the Jingzhao Prefecture had indeed ceased its investigation.
According to rumors, during the night and early morning following Prince Yi’s fall into the water, the pleasure boat had burned until only its wreckage remained, and people had died in the fire.
The culprit responsible for setting the boat ablaze had subsequently been apprehended, and that arsonist had now been brought to justice.
There had been suspicious points in the case from the beginning. Thinking about it again now, perhaps that musical gathering had never been an ordinary affair.
That night… Lord Yuexi had also been aboard the pleasure boat.
In the eyes of outsiders, it had been an occasion on which Prince Yi, in a display of favor, brought Lord Yuexi to a musical banquet for the first time.
But Lord Yuexi was Wu Jiuling, originally a young master from a prominent family. For Prince Yi to bring him to a gathering attended by young masters from such families was, in itself, an extremely humiliating situation for Lord Yuexi.
If Prince Yi had already known Lord Yuexi’s true identity at the time, he would never have done such a thing.
Unless… he had another purpose.
Furthermore, after Prince Yi fell into the water, the detailed records showed that every person aboard the boat had provided a thoroughly detailed statement. Nothing had been omitted. Even the statements of several people who later died in the arson incident had been included.
Clearly, these statements had not been collected after the fact. They must have been taken immediately, before the pleasure boat had even reached shore and before the passengers had dispersed.
Would a young, unambitious prince really possess such an ability to react under pressure?
Such a meticulous approach only made the entire incident seem even less like an accident.
What truly intrigued him was this: Had Xiao Ying merely been pretending to sleep for the past nineteen years?
Or had he genuinely been asleep, only awakening because of certain events?
Li Zihe immediately turned to the next entry.
“Twenty-fifth day. While on patrol today, I overheard someone in the west side hall asking about a person named ‘Ding Quan.’ The person asking seemed to be a steward attached to the prince’s residence accounting office, not an official from the Ministry of Justice. I have heard someone else mention the name Ding Quan before. He seems to have some connection to the case of His Highness falling into the water. I do not know whether this is merely a coincidence. After finishing my shift today, I intend to go spar with the guards at the small training ground.”
“Twenty-sixth day. A man delivered documents from the Ministry of Justice today. He wore blue clothing and carried no official identification badge. The gatekeeper said he was delivering a message on someone’s behalf. From a distance, I thought I saw the character ‘Yan’ on the seal of the document envelope. I might have been mistaken. Also, I have been here for so many days without ever seeing His Highness. I wonder when he leaves the residence and when he returns.”
These passages appeared to be nothing more than “incidental observations” made while Li Ziao was on patrol.
Yet Li Zihe’s mind swiftly connected the words “pleasure boat,” “Ding Quan,” “Ministry of Justice documents,” and “Yan.”
As an official in the Five Armies Commandery, Li Zihe was ordinarily responsible for organizing military registers, provisions, deployment orders, and military reports.
When the Ministry of Justice needed to verify information related to criminal cases involving military registers or military affairs, the documents would often pass through his hands for examination.
Consequently, he had several professional contacts within the Ministry of Justice, including Yan Qiming, a director in the ministry.
The two men were familiar faces to each other and maintained regular exchanges of official documents. However, their relationship went no further than a mutual understanding of each other’s positions. They had no particularly close personal ties.
The Ministry of Justice was an office where power and interests were intricately intertwined.
Its internal factions were far from united. The family of the Third Prince’s mother had considerable influence within the Right Vice Minister’s faction, and in recent years, the Ministry of Justice had consequently been subject to their influence.
However, Director Yan belonged to the Crown Prince’s faction.
As for the Minister of Justice, he had always followed only the emperor’s wishes and rarely aligned himself with any faction. His relationship with the Jingbei Marquis’s household was likewise limited to the ordinary courtesies of officialdom.
“How could it be him?”
Li Zihe’s expression gradually grew grave, and he straightened his previously relaxed posture.
If it had happened only once, it might have been a coincidence. But with the Ministry of Justice appearing repeatedly in these clues, this could hardly be without reason.
Several interwoven suspicions surfaced in his mind.
Why had a copy of the pleasure boat’s passenger manifest been transferred to Prince Yi’s residence?
Why had someone happened to mention Ding Quan?
Why had the guard serving the young master of the Yan family been replaced?
And why did all these clues ultimately intersect with the Ministry of Justice?
More importantly, had Director Yan ever handled the Wu family’s old case?
He vaguely remembered that this man had indeed dealt with related documents back then. If so, which division of the Ministry of Justice had he been working in at the time?
What exactly had his responsibilities been?
Had the records concerning the grain administration in Jiangnan, or the related account books and witness statements, ever passed through his hands?
Li Zihe made up his mind. Rather than investigating whether Director Yan was connected to the case of Prince Yi falling into the water, he should first discreetly examine the files of the Wu family’s old case and see what traces Director Yan had left in the documents he had handled.
Next, he came to the two latest pages Li Ziao had sent.
“Twenty-seventh day. Today, I suddenly remembered the pleasure boat’s passenger manifest I saw a few days ago. It occurred to me that the guard of the Yan family’s young master seemed to be named Ding Quan. I saw the Yan family’s guards several times in the past when I visited Shuyu Pavilion, and I have a vague impression of Ding Quan. I remember that he was not very old, perhaps around twenty-five. This matter may be worth investigating. Today, I happened to encounter His Highness practicing swordsmanship at the small training ground and had a private conversation with him. I gained quite a bit from it.”
“Twenty-eighth day. Nothing major happened in the residence. After finishing my shift, I privately contacted some old comrades from the former City Patrol Battalion to make inquiries. On the night His Highness Prince Yi held the musical gathering, the City Patrol Battalion had set up defenses along the riverbank and guarded the carriage and horse area. They could not remember the details clearly, but they said that someone had indeed noticed the Yan family’s guard being replaced near the dockside carriage area that night. Ding Quan, who had originally accompanied the carriage, seemed to have suddenly fallen ill and did not appear. A man who looked somewhat older, around thirty or more, took his place. The manifest recorded Ding Quan’s name, but the person who actually appeared might not have been him. I suspect His Highness is still secretly investigating the incident of the pleasure boat and his fall into the water, and this matter may be connected to the Yan family in the Ministry of Justice. However, I have no evidence yet. This is merely a guess.”
Li Zihe stared at the final sentence—However, I have no evidence yet—and remained silent for a long time.
The study was so quiet that the only sound was the faint crackle of the candlewick from time to time.
He suddenly realized that he had consistently underestimated his younger brother.
It was not that Li Ziao had suddenly become clever. Rather, he had found an investigative method suited to his own strengths.
He lacked the political cunning of a seasoned official, but he possessed a soldier’s keen instinct for abnormalities in his surroundings and the ability to act decisively. Once he discovered a suspicious point, he would not sit around mentally analyzing it hundreds of times. Instead, he would go straight to his old acquaintances and question them for confirmation.
“This brat… he actually managed to uncover something inside Prince Yi’s residence,” Li Zihe murmured to himself.
But immediately afterward, a sense of wariness rose in his heart.
…Too coincidental.
Everything appeared to be a truth that Li Ziao had pieced together on his own. But what kind of place was Prince Yi’s residence?
It was a fortress personally overseen by Lan Ningcheng, where even a fly that flew inside would have its ancestry investigated for three generations.
Anyone or anything discovered to be suspicious would be kept out of Prince Yi’s residence.
How could a newly recruited guard patrolling the outer courtyard happen to stumble across these documents and conversations one after another?
There were only two possibilities.
The first was that the internal management of Prince Yi’s residence had genuinely developed a weakness.
The second was that Xiao Ying knew Li Ziao would bring whatever he saw back to the Jingbei Marquis’s household and had deliberately arranged these clues in places where Li Ziao would pass.
It was the latter possibility that truly made Li Zihe wary.
If the clues Li Ziao had uncovered were genuine, but Xiao Ying had deliberately arranged for him to discover them, that would be far more dangerous than a situation in which all the intelligence was false.
“What a remarkable idle prince. He has pretended to sleep for so many years, and even I failed to see through him…”
The corner of Li Zihe’s mouth curled into a cold smile, its meaning difficult to discern.
Prince Yi’s recent behavior had differed from his usual patterns. Looking at things now, it seemed the changes were not simply because of Lord Yuexi. On the contrary, “Lord Yuexi” might merely be a form of cover for him.
From the moment Prince Yi secured Lord Yuexi’s services—or perhaps even earlier—this game of chess had already begun.
He removed the pages of the duty log that mentioned the Ministry of Justice.
If these documents fell into his father Li Hao’s hands, then given his father’s temperament, he would most likely immediately investigate Director Yan and might even use the opportunity to test the Ministry of Justice in court.
However, Li Zihe decided to keep a card up his sleeve for now.
He first needed to determine whether he was tracking the traces left by a fox or following bait that the fox had deliberately scattered along the road.
What, exactly, was that fox trying to accomplish?
Until he had thoroughly seen through Xiao Ying’s hand, he would never allow the Jingbei Marquis’s household to place its bets blindly.
He would investigate Director Yan’s involvement in the two cases first, then determine whether this was the direction Xiao Ying wanted the marquis’s household to pursue.
Investigate, but do not commit.
Still, there was at least one thing he could confirm.
From beginning to end, Li Ziao had not mentioned “Lord Yuexi” even once in his duty logs.
This meant that, at least this time, Li Ziao knew what should be written down and what should not. He also understood that matters concerning the inner courtyard were beyond his reach.
Seeing his younger brother demonstrate such restraint and awareness of his own limits gave Li Zihe a genuine sense of pride in his growth.
◆◇◆◇◆
Under the same night sky, in the study of Prince Yi’s residence.
Lan Ningcheng stood before the desk, briefly and concisely reporting the day’s affairs within the residence to Xiao Ying.
“…As Your Highness instructed, I arranged for several ordinary matters within the residence to take place at locations he would inevitably pass while on patrol. He saw the copy of the pleasure boat’s passenger manifest and overheard the steward mention Ding Quan’s name.”
At this point, a subtle flicker of emotion, rare on his face as cold and rigid as cast iron, appeared in Lan Ningcheng’s expression.
“However, I did not expect him not only to record these things, but also to make use of his old connections in the City Patrol Battalion to investigate the replacement of the Yan family’s guard that night.”
Xiao Ying was reclining in his chair. Upon hearing this, a hint of amused interest appeared in his deep, captivating eyes.
“Your Highness originally intended to let him take a single fish home,” Lan Ningcheng said calmly. “Instead, he went and cast a whole net into the river himself.”
“He is a variable.”
Xiao Ying gazed at the dancing candle flame. His tone was languid, yet carried the composure of someone who had the entire situation under control.
“If it had been someone as clever as Xia Lanshi or Li Zihe, they would certainly have suspected that these clues had come too easily. But Li Ziao is not skilled at the multiple layers of reasoning required in politics. His first instinct will not be to suspect that someone deliberately let him see these things. However, he has excellent instincts on the ground and a strong capacity for action. As long as he has a clue to follow, he will go out and investigate it himself. This intelligence was not delivered directly by Prince Yi’s residence. It was brought back to the marquis’s household after he personally ‘verified’ it. The Li family may not believe all of it, but they will at least take it very seriously.”
“Li Zihe is suspicious by nature. He may not believe it all,” Lan Ningcheng reminded him.
“It does not matter if he does not believe it. As long as suspicion takes root in his mind, the Jingbei Marquis’s household will turn its attention toward the Ministry of Justice.”
Xiao Ying rose and walked to the window, gazing into the dark night.
“…The waters have been too still. Someone has to stir them up eventually. I want to see how the Li family will react when they see the clues pointing toward the Ministry of Justice. Will they investigate Director Yan first? Or will they challenge the Ministry of Justice directly in court? Only by testing the Li family’s reaction can I find out what they truly want from me.”
The night wind swept through the courtyard, making the shadows of the trees sway and rustle.
A rusty blade had been forcibly placed on the weapons rack of Prince Yi’s residence.
Li Ziao was indeed not a good blade. He was blunt and clumsy, with none of the finesse of a finely crafted weapon. But some tangled, deep-rooted thickets of thorns did not require a fine blade. To hack open a path through them by sheer force, a weapon like him was perfectly suited.
After finishing their discussion of official matters, Xiao Ying leaned back in his chair again, seemingly remembering something, and casually asked, “How is the progress with the ‘teacher’ we found for Yuexi?”
Lan Ningcheng replied respectfully, “Reporting to Your Highness, the person is already on the way. If there are no delays, he is expected to arrive in the capital tomorrow.”
Xiao Ying gave a slight nod and considered the matter for a moment.
“Give him a clean new identity and arrange for him to stay at that small residence in the suburbs.”
He owned a secluded little residence in the outskirts. Its background was clean, and officially, it was not registered under either his own name or that of Prince Yi’s residence. It was the ideal place to hide someone.
Lan Ningcheng hesitated slightly before asking in a low voice, “Will we not arrange for him to stay directly at Wangchen Dock? The surroundings there are quiet and secluded. It would be convenient enough to prepare a room for the teacher to stay in.”
“The room can be prepared in advance, but he may only stay there temporarily under special circumstances.”
Xiao Ying waved a hand indifferently.
“Yuexi is already living at Wangchen Dock. If that teacher also stays there permanently, it will draw far too much attention. It is better not to put all the eggs in one basket.”
“I understand. I will have someone make the arrangements immediately.” Lan Ningcheng nodded and accepted the order.
Xiao Ying was about to add something else.
“And one more thing—”
Before he could finish speaking, Lan Ningcheng’s stern expression remained perfectly unchanged as he smoothly continued, speaking in one uninterrupted stream.
“The teacher’s arrival time and route will not be fixed. Whether he enters the residence will be decided according to the movements within the residence on that particular day. Ordinary carriages from the city will be used for all routine transportation. Both the drivers and the people providing covert assistance will be changed regularly.”
Xiao Ying’s hand, which was holding his teacup, froze halfway to his mouth. He looked at his deputy, who seemed to understand his every thought perfectly.
After a long moment, he could not help laughing.
“You have already said everything before I could get a word in. What else am I supposed to say?”
Lan Ningcheng’s tone remained utterly flat. “I am merely following the teachings Your Highness usually gives me.”
“…Have I ever taught you to interrupt me?”
“Your Highness taught me to think one step ahead in everything.”
Xiao Ying was momentarily at a loss for words.
Lan Ningcheng added another sentence, his expression unchanged.
“Your Highness also said that if I could draw inferences from one case to another, Your Highness would have less to worry about.”
Xiao Ying’s hand holding the teacup paused in midair for a moment.
He had indeed said those words.
At the time, Lan Ningcheng had only recently joined the prince’s residence and would come to ask him about every little matter. Even withdrawing a brush from the storeroom required a written request for approval.
Irritated beyond endurance, Xiao Ying had casually snapped, “Can you not draw inferences from one case to another? Why do you come to ask me about everything? What do I need a chief steward like you for?”
Afterward, Lan Ningcheng had finally caught on and stopped following every procedure so rigidly.
The two had spent two years learning to work together, and at last, they had developed a degree of understanding.
Xiao Ying glanced at him wordlessly.
This man, who had once seemed so solemn and humorless, like a slab of cold iron, had now learned to use Xiao Ying’s own past words to silence him. And he did so with such righteous confidence that there was not a single flaw in his argument.
“Enough. I know you are meticulous and reliable in your work. Having a chief steward like you is a blessing I must have accumulated over three lifetimes. Is that satisfactory?”
Xiao Ying laughed as he chided him. Then, putting aside his teasing tone, he gently set the teacup back on the desk.
“Go make the arrangements. The capital has been unsettled lately. Keep your movements discreet and do not attract attention.”
“I shall obey.”
Lan Ningcheng cupped his hands in a formal salute. His expression remained as solemn as iron as he bowed and withdrew from the study.
The room returned to silence, leaving only a solitary lamp flickering faintly.
Xiao Ying leaned back in his chair alone. As he listened to the footsteps gradually fading beneath the corridor, the trace of amusement in his eyes slowly disappeared, settling once more into deepness and cold resolve.
He turned to look at the dark night beyond the window and let out a long, heavy breath.
…Another day had passed.
Back when he had spent every night drinking and reveling, he had never paid so much attention to the passage of time.
But now, time was like a blade suspended above his head. He did not know how much time he had left to uncover the truth behind those cases, nor whether he could truly turn the tables once he had done so.
From Lan Ningcheng’s report, his Seventh Brother had already left the city with his troops.
Yet Xiao Ying could not even write directly to Xiao Yuan to ask how confident he was of winning this war.
He did not know what method Xiao Yuan intended to use to seize three strategic military strongholds in the limited time remaining.
As for provisions, Xiao Ying had managed to resolve part of the problem for Xiao Yuan. The emperor had also recently reprimanded the Ministry of Revenue, which, for the time being, seemed to have settled down.
As for everything else… he could only rely on his Seventh Brother.
If his Seventh Brother could truly recover the three lost territories in the northern frontier…
Then at least they would have overcome this immediate obstacle. As for what came afterward…
He slightly raised his eyelids, his gaze unconsciously drifting toward the painting of Jiangnan in mist and rain hanging on the wall.
He looked at it for a while before slowly turning away.
◇◆◇◆◇
Night descended. Wangchen Dock, already remote and tranquil, now seemed to have severed all ties with the mortal world entirely.
The branches and leaves of the jacaranda trees gradually sank from blue-purple into inky blackness beneath the night sky.
The clusters of blossoms that had appeared translucent under the daylight were now reduced to indistinct dark shadows. Their heavy flower spikes hung silently above the pond.
Beneath the eaves, a solitary horn-shaped lantern cast a circle of dim yellow light between the corridor pillars and the flowering trees. It was the only remaining brightness in this little world.
Beyond that, nothing could be seen. Everything dissolved into a thick expanse of ink.
Outside the courtyard walls, the brightly lit corridors and the patrol guards in their imposing armor seemed to have been cut off from this place, as though they belonged to another world, distant as if separated by a deep layer of water.
A sliver of warm yellow light escaped through the half-closed lattice window of the study, cutting a long, narrow streak across the stone steps.
From inside the room came the faint sound of pages turning, one after another, slow and unhurried. Occasionally, the sound paused, as though the reader had become absorbed in the text—or perhaps had lost himself in thought.
There were no other sounds.
The night at Wangchen Dock was as silent as the bottom of a lake.
And the bottom of a lake was no place where anyone should be disturbed.
Inside the room, Lord Yuexi had just finished bathing.
A servant had dried his thick, smooth hair until it was half-dry and carefully combed it. The remaining moisture would have to evaporate naturally.
That long hair had once been his “bargaining chip” at Shuyu Pavilion, which he had deliberately grown and maintained.
Now that he had shed the dust of his former life, however, it felt somewhat cumbersome.
He wondered whether he should trim it a little shorter.
But considering that he might still need to use the identity of “Lord Yuexi,” he eventually abandoned the idea.
He turned the pages of his book with one hand, but his gaze involuntarily drifted away from the text and landed on the two rolls of clean white cloth strips lying on the desk.
He now only needed to play the role of “Lord Yuexi” when Xiao Ying required it. Even so, he still had not figured out exactly what kind of Lord Yuexi Xiao Ying wanted him to be.
The patrons who visited Shuyu Pavilion had countless different preferences, but most favored young, slender, and frail-looking boys.
To cater to those tastes, countless male courtesans resorted to every kind of extreme measure to keep themselves trapped in an almost pathological degree of thinness.
The process was both cruel and torturous, but if they wished to prolong their “blooming season,” they had no other choice.
The master of Shuyu Pavilion had never interfered in such matters.
He neither encouraged nor discouraged them. He simply laid all the available methods before the courtesans and let them choose their own paths, leaving them to bear the consequences, good or bad.
And the Lord Yuexi of the past had chosen the harshest path of all.
He had used every means at his disposal to refine himself, all for the sake of climbing to the position of Shuyu Pavilion’s top courtesan.
Because he understood all too clearly that only by becoming the top courtesan would he have a chance to come into contact with powerful, influential figures of noble status. Only then could he fight for even the faintest hope of turning his fate around.
And now, he had truly achieved that goal.
Some of it had been accomplished through his own skill, some through luck, and the rest… had depended entirely on Xiao Ying.
Xiao Ying had told him that he could remove the cloth strips at any time and eat whatever he wished.
Recently, following the physician’s instructions, he had begun adjusting his diet and slowly restoring his long-depleted body.
Although, when he looked at the much more abundant meals now placed before him, his mind still instinctively calculated how much effort it would take to burn off all those calories, at least he was gradually escaping the days when hunger left him dizzy, his vision swimming, and cold sweat pouring from his body.
Removing the cloth strips had certainly made breathing much easier. Yet, without the familiar, tight restraint around his ribs and waist, the unfamiliar freedom left him with a faint sense of emptiness and unease.
He had already prepared himself to use his own body as the price, if necessary, so long as he could clear the Wu family’s name.
Now, it seemed that Xiao Ying truly respected him far more than he had expected and had no such intentions toward him.
Although this brought him a sense of relief, it also left him strangely puzzled.
Could it be… that he, a former top courtesan, was not that attractive after all?
He sat quietly with this unease for a while. In the end, he pushed the two rolls of cloth strips aside and instructed Aiqin, who was attending him, “Help me put these two rolls of cloth strips away in the box containing Lord Yuexi’s costumes.”
Hearing this, Aiqin immediately responded, “Yes, Young Master! I’ll put them away right now!”
To be honest, he had long been unable to stand watching his young master bind himself with those things that looked more like instruments of torture. Just looking at them made him feel as though he could hardly breathe.
Just as Aiqin picked up the two bundles of cloth strips, a faint, fragmented melody drifted into the study on the night wind.
The sound was so weak that, had the surroundings not been completely silent, it would have been almost impossible to notice.
The two of them stopped what they were doing at the same time.
Lord Yuexi furrowed his brows slightly. He could make out what seemed to be a stringed instrument, but the sound was too fragmented for him to identify it clearly.
Aiqin had sharp ears and immediately recognized it.
“That is His Highness playing the konghou. His Highness sometimes plays it at the Xuanhua Waterside Pavilion in the rear garden.”
Hearing the name of the konghou, an instrument that few people could still play these days, Lord Yuexi felt his heart stir. Fragments of memory suddenly lit up in his mind.
He immediately held his breath and listened intently, his thoughts drawn along by the intermittent notes.
The broken pieces of melody in his mind gradually came together, and a tune that had lain dormant for many years broke through the ice of his memory.
He sprang to his feet.
“I want to go to the Xuanhua Waterside Pavilion!”
“Wait, Young Master! It’s cold at night. At least put on an outer robe first!”
Aiqin was startled. He hurriedly dropped the cloth strips and went to fetch an outer robe, only to hear the rapid jingling of silver bells already fading into the distance.
Lord Yuexi did not even bother to put on his shoes. Barefoot, he raced forward.
As he drew closer, the ethereal, elusive sound of the konghou grew increasingly clear.
His chest heaved, and his heart pounded like a drum.
That was it! There was no mistake!
That nameless tune from years ago—he had never imagined he would hear it again here.
At the waterside pavilion, Xiao Ying, who had been playing the konghou, heard the jingling of silver bells.
His fingertips paused, and the music abruptly ceased.
He turned his head and saw Lord Yuexi standing at the steps, panting heavily, his long hair still half-dry and his feet bare. Behind him were Aiqin and several personal guards, who had hurried after him in a panic.
The somewhat disheveled scene brought a faint trace of amusement to Xiao Ying’s eyes.
“I thought some assassin had climbed over the wall and broken into the residence.”
He could not resist teasing him, then added gently, “Whatever it is, put on your outer robe before you explain.”
Aiqin hurried forward and draped the outer robe he had hastily grabbed over Lord Yuexi’s shoulders. Then, with admirable discretion, he withdrew with the personal guards to a distance of twenty paces.
“Sit. What could possibly make Lord Yuexi so flustered?”
Xiao Ying picked up a warmed white jade wine flask and poured himself a cup of sweetly fragrant osmanthus wine. He asked the question without the slightest haste.
Only when the night wind blew against him did Lord Yuexi realize how much he had lost his composure just now. A flush of embarrassment appeared on his pale cheeks, and he gathered his robe before taking a seat.
“…A moment ago, Yuexi heard the tune Your Highness was playing. It sounded extremely similar to a piece I heard many years ago. I was so anxious that I rushed over without thinking and disturbed Your Highness.”
Xiao Ying’s hand, which held the green jade wine cup, paused slightly.
He gently set the cup down, picked up the konghou again, and rested his slender fingers on the strings. Casually, he plucked out a short passage of the melody.
“Is this the piece you mean?”
Lord Yuexi’s eyes lit up, and he nodded firmly.
“Precisely.”
The melody was almost identical to the one in his memory, down to the smallest detail. Even the timbre and rhythm were remarkably similar.
He had searched for the score for years, yet no matter where he looked, he had never been able to find it.
Since the upheaval when he was thirteen, he had almost forgotten the tune entirely.
All he could do was piece together fragments from memory, occasionally playing parts of it on the guzheng, afraid that he might forget even the last remaining traces of its sound.
Only then did he suddenly realize something.
Why did Xiao Ying also know this tune, one that no one else seemed to know?
Xiao Ying chuckled softly.
“Then do you know the name of this piece?”
“Yuexi does not.” Lord Yuexi composed himself and gently shook his head. “I have asked around over the years, even asking Yuheng, who is deeply versed in musical theory, but not a single person has ever heard of this piece.”
“That is only natural. This piece is called Inquiring of Plum Blossoms Amid Condensed Rain. It was composed by my mother consort for me and was never taught to anyone else.”
Xiao Ying’s gaze passed over the surface of the water and settled on the depths of the night.
“Rain condenses into snow; falling snow asks after plum blossoms. Snow falls without a sound, while plum blossoms announce their arrival.”
His voice softened, as though he feared shattering the moonlight.
“On the day I was born, the cold spring rain in the middle of the second lunar month froze into a light snowfall. Thus, Father bestowed upon me the name ‘Ying.’ My mother consort poured all her longing and hopes for me into this piece. Ordinarily, only the two of us knew it existed…”
He turned to look at Lord Yuexi.
“Where, then, did you hear it?”
Lord Yuexi thought for a moment.
“Yuexi once accompanied my father and eldest brother to a palace banquet. It was there that I heard this piece. That was approximately… five years ago.”
Xiao Ying’s brows drew together slightly. After a moment of thought, he suddenly gave a bitter laugh, so faint it was almost imperceptible.
“…So it was that year’s Thousand Autumns Festival.”
His long eyelashes lowered, and his gaze settled on the cold gleam of the green jade wine cup. Memories he had almost forgotten returned once more.
His tone became distant and ethereal, as though he were recounting a past that had nothing to do with him.
“That year, during the Thousand Autumns Festival, Father personally attended the Eastern Palace and held a banquet for the assembled officials. I, too, was required to attend and offer my birthday congratulations.”
He had been fourteen that year and had not yet undergone his capping ceremony. In the eyes of ritual protocol, he was still an insignificant “underage prince.”
His birthday was less than a month apart from that of the exalted Crown Prince.
After several rounds of wine, the emperor seated at the highest place suddenly spoke in front of everyone.
“His Eighth Highness plays the konghou quite well. Since today is the Crown Prince’s birthday, why don’t you play a piece for your imperial elder brother, as a token of fraternal affection?”
On the surface, those words sounded like the warm affection of a loving father. In reality, every word was a blade aimed at his heart.
In the eyes of the civil and military officials, whose countless years of experience had taught them to read the currents of court politics, the political signal conveyed by this gesture was cruelly clear.
The Eighth Prince was nothing more than a “musician” at the Crown Prince’s birthday banquet, not a member of the imperial bloodline worthy of respect.
Although his mother consort, Consort Wan, was gentle and reserved by nature, the Lin family behind her was an immensely wealthy clan that controlled the commercial routes of Jiangnan.
For the emperor to make him publicly play the konghou his mother consort had taught him at the Crown Prince’s birthday banquet was, in the eyes of the assembled officials, tantamount to delivering a harsh slap to both Consort Wan and the Lin family.
At fourteen, a prince was approaching the age when he would formally enter the political arena. All the officials were watching to see how the emperor regarded him so they could assess his value.
At that time, Xiao Ying already understood the situation with crystal clarity.
“Whether Father was trying to warn my mother consort and the Lin family behind her, deliberately redefine my position in front of the assembled officials, or simply test me…” Xiao Ying’s voice was cold and distant. “Whether he wanted to see if I would resist, or if I would feel indignant… I can no longer be bothered to distinguish between those possibilities.”
That night, the last remnants of youthful innocence in Xiao Ying’s heart were completely buried beneath the gilded splendor of the Eastern Palace and the weight of imperial authority.
He understood that on this bloody chessboard called imperial power, a prince without the support of a powerful maternal clan or military and political forces would invite suspicion and murderous intent by displaying his talents too early. He would not be rewarded with trust or important responsibilities.
His own father had personally pressed him into a humiliating position at the Crown Prince’s birthday banquet. Like an exquisite ornament that happened to be able to play an instrument, he had been forced to use his own humiliation to add further brilliance to the Crown Prince’s glory.
He still remembered that night.
Lanterns hung from the ceiling of the Eastern Palace’s main hall, illuminating the entire chamber so brightly that it was more dazzling than daylight, ten times brighter than the desolate Jinglan Courtyard.
The emperor sat in the center of the imperial throne, while the Crown Prince’s seat was placed beside it, slightly lower than the emperor’s.
Civil and military officials sat according to their ranks, their places extending from the interior of the hall to the outside. Layer upon layer of vermilion and purple official robes spread across the space like an enormous bolt of brocade.
When he sat alone before the konghou, dressed in magnificent robes, the gazes of everyone in the hall fell upon him like blades and swords.
There was pity, contempt, and the mocking anticipation of people waiting to see a spectacle.
He saw the undisguised ridicule at the corner of his Third Brother’s mouth. He saw his Fifth Brother’s ever-gentle yet hypocritical smile. The other princes merely watched in silence.
The Crown Prince held his wine cup without even raising his eyelids to look at him.
He lowered his eyes, his fingertips settling on the strings, cold as ice.
He played the piece steadily, without a single wrong note.
As for what he had played, it did not matter to those people in the slightest.
When the piece ended, the applause was sparse and scattered.
The Crown Prince still did not look at him.
The emperor gave a slight nod and casually bestowed a few insignificant gifts upon him.
And he knew that if his mother consort learned of what had happened from within Jinglan Courtyard, she would surely swallow her tears in silence in some corner where no one could see her…
After hearing the story, Lord Yuexi remained speechless for a long time.
A deep sense of guilt rose in his chest.
He had never imagined that the heavenly music that had enchanted him throughout his entire youth had been born from the shattering of someone’s dignity.
As for what had happened afterward, he could already piece together much of it from the intelligence he had gathered and the interrupted notes in the journal he had found in the study at Wangchen Dock.
The emperor had not simply been indifferent to his son.
He had treated his own flesh and blood as a pawn and a tool to be manipulated. Otherwise, why would he have issued such an order in a setting like that?
Xiao Ying had not willingly descended into the mud.
He had been pushed into it by the emperor himself.
Lord Yuexi felt a sharp pain in his heart, because he suddenly remembered the poem he had once written for Xiao Ying.
Looking back on it now, he could not help regretting it.
How could he take the wounds of another person’s past and rub salt into them all over again?
Seeing the guilt in his eyes, Xiao Ying instead smiled.
“There is no need to look like that. It all happened so long ago. I stopped caring about it a long time ago.”
His tone was calm.
“I never experienced the destruction of my entire family as you did, nor was I sent to fight on the frontier like Seventh Brother. I also have a mother consort who loves me wholeheartedly. That alone makes me fortunate enough. At the time, I played that piece only because I wanted to tell my mother consort that I was fine, that I could endure it.”
He had never played that piece for the Crown Prince from the bottom of his heart.
He had played it for his mother consort.
“Since childhood, my mother consort taught me not to compete for the limelight, not to reveal my abilities, and to conceal myself well. So all these years, no matter what I did, I sought only to hide my talents. That one occasion was the sole exception…”
Xiao Ying gently brushed his fingertip across the strings.
“That was a piece my mother consort had personally taught me. I could not allow her to lose face, so I played it with particular care.”
That piece, Inquiring of Plum Blossoms Amid Condensed Rain, had accompanied him for many years. Whenever he felt uncertain or his resolve wavered, he would play it to remind himself of the person he had originally been meant to become, and to remind himself never to forget his original intentions.
“As for that man…”
A glint of icy coldness, devoid of warmth, passed through Xiao Ying’s eyes.
“My mother consort had always warned me that I must never place any expectations on him. He is an emperor, not a father. He performed that act very well, and it happened to wake me up completely.”
He called the emperor “Father” not out of filial affection, because he knew that neither of them had ever truly regarded the other as father and son.