Deep inside the archives in the central courtyard of the Imperial Clan Court, the air was thick with the scent of aged paper and old ink.
Xiao Ying sat before a pile of yellowed records concerning deceased members of the imperial family. An old genealogy register lay open in front of him, its cover faded with age. He could not help rubbing his aching temples.
Spread across the desk was a genealogical chart he had painstakingly copied and organized himself.
The chart was covered in red circles marking children who had died young. The sight was enough to make anyone’s blood run cold.
After calculating the figures, he knitted his brows tightly.
“…Father had nineteen sons?”
Xiao Ying pressed his finger against the page and left it there for a long time.
That number would not have been unusual even in other dynasties.
The palace held deep taboos surrounding children who died young. No one would bring them up voluntarily, much less dare to ask questions about them recklessly.
It was only when he saw that long string of cold, lifeless names in the Imperial Clan Court’s genealogy register that he realized—
So many children had once lived within these deep palace walls, and so many had never grown up.
What truly aroused his suspicions was that of the thirty-three imperial offspring, only thirteen were still alive. More than sixty percent had been lost.
Among the princes, nine survived and ten died. Among the princesses, four survived and ten died. The mortality rate among the princesses was particularly high.
And that did not even include the children who had never been given the chance to be born.
At first, Xiao Ying had expected to find some common cause of death. But after examining the records, he realized he had been mistaken.
The causes of death listed in the documents varied.
—The Tenth Prince died of a high fever accompanied by convulsions.
—The Fifth Princess died of a respiratory illness.
—Some suffered from weak digestive systems and succumbed after prolonged illnesses.
—One contracted a cold after falling into water.
—Another died in an accident.
On the surface, there seemed to be no discernible pattern. Each child appeared to have died according to their own “allotted fate.”
However, when Xiao Ying cross-referenced the Imperial Medical Academy’s Records of Routine Pulse Examinations with the Daily Records kept by the Inner Palace’s Imperial Offspring Bureau, an inconspicuous term began appearing repeatedly in the histories of these children who had died young, like a ghost that refused to disappear.
—Calming Decoction.
“The Third Prince suffers from restless sleep at night. The Imperial Medical Academy recommends a Calming Decoction.”
“The Fifth Princess has nightmares and is to take the Calming Decoction for three consecutive months.”
“The Tenth Prince cries incessantly. The imperial physician prescribes a Calming Decoction.”
In palace healthcare, prescribing a calming decoction was an entirely ordinary practice. There was nothing obviously wrong with the formula itself.
But when Xiao Ying laid the recorded medication periods out along a timeline, an inexplicable chill crept up his spine.
Most of his deceased brothers and sisters shared one characteristic: from early childhood, they had been prescribed calming decoctions by imperial physicians for various “perfectly reasonable” reasons, such as crying at night, being easily frightened, or having weak constitutions.
And they had continued drinking them for months, half a year, or even year after year without interruption.
Even more troubling was the system behind this process.
When the imperial children of Dasheng were young, most lived in the Inner Palace’s Imperial Offspring Bureau, where wet nurses and nursery matrons cared for them. They did not remain by their birth mothers’ sides at all times.
In some incomplete daily records, Xiao Ying had seen complaints from wet nurses made in private.
“The Third Prince has been unusually sleepy during the day.”
“The Fifth Princess has lost her appetite and seems listless.”
Yet in the formal medical reports eventually submitted by the Imperial Medical Academy, these abnormalities had been glossed over. Only eight standardized characters remained:
“After taking the medicine, sleep was excellent.”
From the imperial physician prescribing the formula, to the Imperial Pharmacy decocting the medicine, to the palace attendants delivering it, the wet nurses administering it, and the nursery matrons recording its use, this was an exceptionally tight chain.
Each person was responsible for only one step.
The imperial physicians might have assumed that sleeping well meant the children were recovering. The wet nurses were simply following instructions.
At some point, the Imperial Medical Academy’s records would occasionally break off. A few years later, the children would die of “weak internal organs” or “sudden severe illness.”
Then what about those who had survived?
Xiao Ying’s gaze fell on several other names: Xiao Chang, Xiao Yan, Xiao Cheng, Xiao Jin, Xiao Zhuo, Xiao Yuan, Xiao Wei… as well as four princesses.
Most of these survivors shared a similar experience.
Their mothers had died when they were still young.
Some had instead survived the downfall of their maternal relatives.
Xiao Ying himself belonged to neither category.
His mother was still alive. The Lin clan had never possessed enough power to threaten anyone, and as a result, few people had paid much attention to her.
The records showed that the princes who survived had also been given calming decoctions for short periods during childhood.
But for some, after their mothers died, their supervising palace attendants changed, or they moved to a different residence, the Imperial Medical Academy’s records of the decoction abruptly ceased.
Others had stopped taking it midway for reasons that remained unclear.
And some had never taken it at all.
His fingertip suddenly stopped on one line in the records.
[Eighth Prince Xiao Ying, age two. Restless crying at night. Imperial Medical Academy recommends Calming Decoction. Discontinued after two doses.]
The Calming Decoction…
He had taken it too?
Most of the surviving imperial offspring appeared to fit a pattern: “short-term use,” “infrequent doses,” “discontinued,” or “never taken.”
He fell within that group as well.
Without the calming decoction, they had continued stumbling through life in the palace, sometimes accumulating wounds along the way, but they had survived to the present day.
Xiao Ying studied the conclusions he had written on the paper but did not immediately draw a definitive conclusion.
A small number of imperial children who had never taken the decoction had also died young.
That meant the decoction might not be the only variable. It seemed more like an invisible measuring stick.
An impulse rose within Xiao Ying: he wanted to examine the Eastern Palace’s records and confirm whether the Crown Prince had taken the Calming Decoction as a child.
What if… the Crown Prince had never taken it?
The thought coiled through his mind like a venomous snake.
But he took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the urge.
…He could not touch the Eastern Palace yet.
The moment he made a move, both the emperor and the Crown Prince would become aware of it. And what worried him most was that the lead he had only just begun to uncover might be cut off completely.
These pages of death records required living witnesses.
Who among the wet nurses responsible for administering the medicine, the nursery matrons who watched over the children, and the palace attendants who prepared the decoctions was still alive?
◆◇◆◇◆
As Xiao Yi passed the lamplight near the entrance to the innermost archives in the central courtyard of the Imperial Clan Court, his steps slowed slightly.
Xiao Ying had expressed a desire to organize the imperial genealogy that day, and Xiao Yi had agreed.
After Xiao Ying entered the storeroom, Xiao Yi casually issued an order.
“Old files are being reorganized in the central courtyard archives today. Unauthorized personnel are forbidden from approaching.”
He was not deliberately showing favoritism toward Xiao Ying. It was simply that Xiao Ying was investigating matters that went too deep.
The emperor would not want anyone else to know what Xiao Ying had been looking through in that storeroom.
As for what Xiao Ying was investigating and what he hoped to discover, Xiao Yi would not actively pry into it.
That was a boundary he had guarded for decades. He had no desire to cross it.
◆◇◆◇◆
With the questions he had uncovered at the Imperial Clan Court weighing on his mind, Xiao Ying took advantage of an opportunity to pay his respects and visited his mother’s residence.
Consort Wan took golden-yellow loquats from a brocade box. Their fuzzy skins were still intact.
She lowered her head, peeled one, revealing the tender yellow flesh, and handed it to Xiao Ying.
“From Quzhou,” she said. “Your maternal grandfather had someone send them over. Go on, have a taste.”
Xiao Ying accepted it and took a bite.
The sweet-and-sour juice spread across his tongue, carrying the fragrance of the Jiangnan waterways.
He remembered his mother once telling him that there was a hundred-year-old loquat tree in the courtyard of her family home in Quzhou. Every April, it would be laden with golden fruit, and she had often climbed it to pick loquats when she was a child.
He had never seen that old tree himself, but he had once thought that if he ever had the chance to visit Quzhou, he would make the trip in April.
As they chatted about everyday matters, Xiao Ying casually asked, as though the question had just occurred to him, “Mother Consort, was I healthy when I was little? Did the Imperial Medical Academy ever have me take anything… like a Calming Decoction?”
Consort Wan’s hand paused slightly as she peeled another loquat. She looked puzzled.
“Why are you suddenly asking about that? Of course you took it. When you were two, there was a period when you cried a great deal at night, so the imperial physician prescribed a calming decoction.”
Xiao Ying’s hand paused as he peeled his loquat.
“And afterward… how long did I take it?” he asked, pretending to remain composed.
“Not many times.”
Consort Wan frowned, seemingly recalling something unpleasant.
“That decoction was strange. The imperial physician originally instructed the wet nurse to give you a bowl every day, but after you had taken just two doses, you started sleeping for most of the day. No matter how much we called you, you wouldn’t wake up. Your whole body was limp and listless. The imperial physician even said it was a good sign—that the medicine was working well and helping you conserve your strength.”
Consort Wan gave a cold snort.
“Your mother was frightened. What kind of child sleeps as though he’s dead? How could that possibly be normal? I gave the imperial physician a thorough scolding and ordered the servants to pour all the medicine away. I never let you touch it again. Strangely enough, once you stopped taking it, you gradually stopped crying at night, too. You became very well-behaved.”
Xiao Ying lowered his head and stared at the loquat juice staining his fingertips. For a long time, he said nothing.
The brief record in the archives was true, but it was not the whole truth.
He had originally classified it as “short-term medication, discontinued immediately afterward” and had not thought much more about it.
Now, recalling it, he felt a chill that made his skin crawl.
The official record clearly stated, “Discontinued after two doses.”
But his mother’s memory told him that the physician had ordered, “One bowl every day.”
“Discontinued after two doses” had not been the natural conclusion of the prescription. Someone had interrupted a course of medication that might otherwise have continued.
That person had been his mother.
Consort Wan knew nothing about medicine. She was simply a mother who had sensed, through instinct, that something was wrong with her child. She had forcibly severed that invisible chain of medication.
That simple decision made Xiao Ying realize, for the first time, just how close he had come to ending up among the names marked with red circles in the Imperial Clan Court’s records.
If his mother had not ordered the medicine stopped… if the wet nurse had continued feeding it to him day after day, following the imperial physician’s instructions…
A chilling question silently formed in Xiao Ying’s mind.
Whose spirit, exactly, was this bowl of decoction meant to calm?
◆◇◆◇◆
The following night.
Lan Ningcheng entered Xiao Ying’s study and placed a crumpled slip of paper on the desk.
“It came from the palace,” Lan Ningcheng said quietly.
To avoid implicating Consort Wan, Lan Ningcheng had used his own connections within the palace to establish a separate channel through which the Ninth Prince could pass messages to them.
Xiao Ying unfolded the slip.
There were no greetings, no explanation, and no background information. There was only a prescription.
At the very bottom, in Xiao Wei’s neat, restrained handwriting, was a single sentence:
“An old palace formula. It may prove useful.”
Xiao Ying stared at those words, a complicated emotion flickering through his eyes.
Too fast.
Only yesterday had he discovered the first clues surrounding the Calming Decoction at the Imperial Clan Court, and today Xiao Wei’s prescription had already arrived.
The information network Xiao Wei commanded within the palace was deeper than he had imagined.
Xiao Wei understood that sending this slip of paper was tantamount to revealing, I have been watching you from the shadows.
Yet he had sent it anyway.
Because they both knew that they had little time left. Neither could afford to waste it on mutual suspicion and testing one another.
“What is unusual about this formula?”
Xiao Ying pushed the prescription toward Lan Ningcheng.
“I’ve already had the residence physician examine it. He says the ingredients are all commonly used medicines for calming the nerves and regulating qi. The dosages are medically reasonable and could even be considered mild.”
Lan Ningcheng understood a little about medicine, but to be cautious, he had consulted the residence physician beforehand to confirm the contents of the prescription.
“So, at least from this prescription alone, there’s no sign that anyone has added something immediately lethal.”
Xiao Ying murmured the words to himself.
“On the surface, it’s simply a ‘normal’ calming decoction,” Lan Ningcheng continued. “For palace prescriptions, the medicinal ingredients may be replaced or adjusted according to the patient’s status. Some ingredients, however, remain constant.”
In principle, medical treatment and medicinal decoctions for the imperial family were supplied by the Imperial Medical Academy. In practice, the quality of the herbs, the attention given by imperial physicians, and the standard of care could vary considerably according to the status of a prince or princess’s birth mother and how favored the child was.
His fingertip pointed to the two characters jiang sui on the prescription.
“Jiang sui is a mineral-based medicine. Merchants are required to maintain strict records when purchasing and transporting it. I’ve heard that it has potent properties. If the dosage is too high or it’s improperly processed, it can easily cause harm. Although it’s often used to calm convulsions, it’s generally administered in small amounts and for short periods.”
He raised his cool, expressionless eyes to Xiao Ying.
“Jiang sui does have substitutes. However, the finest-grade material is often regarded as a precious medicinal ingredient and offered to the imperial family as tribute. The more distinguished the patient’s status, the better the quality of the jiang sui they receive—and the higher its purity…”
The irony was that better and safer medicinal alternatives were available.
Yet sometimes, what these imperial nobles consumed was not chosen for its “effectiveness.” They cared more about its “price” and “rarity.”
There had once been several mineral medicines in the Precious Medicine Pavilion of Prince Yi’s residence, including jiang sui. Lan Ningcheng had later removed them all. When it came to medicines that could cause serious trouble if the dosage was even slightly excessive, he would rather not use them at all.
Xiao Ying understood what he was getting at.
He took out his own notes and handed them to Lan Ningcheng.
Lan Ningcheng turned to the latest page, where the following words were written:
“Thirty-three imperial offspring: thirteen survived, twenty died. Causes of death varied, but most had taken calming decoctions for prolonged periods during childhood.”
“Twenty out of thirty-three children died…” Lan Ningcheng murmured. “That is indeed alarming.”
“The number itself cannot serve as proof of guilt,” Xiao Ying said. “What truly unsettles me isn’t that twenty children died. It’s that their deaths appear completely unrelated, yet the same process kept repeating behind them.”
His voice was as cold as tempered ice.
“The prescription itself may be harmless. The problem is… who made them take it, and for how long.”
As he looked at the prescription, a rumor from the Northern Frontier suddenly came to mind—the physician who had cured Chief Steward Xia of a strange poison and quelled the epidemic in the north.
Physician Su.
If the physicians in the capital could find no flaw in the prescription on its face, perhaps sending it to the Northern Frontier would allow Physician Su to offer a different perspective based on medical principles.
Xiao Ying wanted to find out what abilities this mysterious man possessed—the man whom his Seventh Brother valued so highly that he had even promoted him to the position of military advisor.
◆◇◆◇◆
Far away on the Yangu Plains in the Northern Frontier, Xiao Yuan received a confidential letter through the passage connected to Tingxue Pavilion.
It had come from Guangji Trading House.
As before, it had been smuggled in alongside the account books.
The letter read:
“An examination of the Imperial Pharmacy’s old accounts reveals that this calming formula was specifically supplied for young children in the inner palace who cried at night. According to palace practice, some consumed the medicine for one season, while others used it year after year. The total quantity consumed was enormous.”
On the surface, the letter appeared to be a merchant’s report analyzing the Imperial Pharmacy’s historical supply records and the quantities of medicine consumed over the years.
In reality, the intelligence was carefully concealed beneath the appearance of an ordinary trading-house ledger.
Inside the main tent, candlelight flickered.
Xia Lanshi took the slip of paper and glanced at it. A faint trace of interest appeared in his pale red eyes.
Having suffered from chronic ill health for years, he had learned medicine through prolonged experience and possessed a better understanding of pharmacology than most people.
The mineral medicine included in the formula was indeed commonly used by the Imperial Medical Academy. But he knew all too well that medicine and poison could be two sides of the same coin.
In the right amount, it was medicine. In excess, it could become poison.
His gaze did not linger on the ingredients listed in the prescription. Instead, it settled firmly on the words “year after year” and “specifically supplied for the inner palace.”
“Your Highness, this letter… isn’t asking us to examine a patient.”
Xia Lanshi raised his head, his expression calm but wary.
“The sender knows the inner workings of the palace, and these aren’t ordinary palace rumors. This is a prescription used in the palace, specifically for young imperial children. The sender also knows that some of them took it over an extended period.”
Xiao Yuan sat upright at the desk and replied in a deep voice, “And yet it was sent all the way to the Northern Frontier.”
“That is precisely what deserves the most thought.”
Xia Lanshi analyzed the situation rapidly.
“If someone had merely discovered that an imperial physician had prescribed the wrong formula, or that a palace attendant had poisoned someone, the sender could have handed the evidence to the Court of Judicial Review or the Censorate. Instead, the message traveled thousands of li across half of Dasheng to reach Your Highness.”
He paused to consider the implications, then continued.
“This may mean… those channels cannot resolve the problem.”
Hearing this, Su Mucheng leaned over and glanced at the prescription.
His gaze fell on the words jiang sui, and his brows gradually drew together.
Xia Lanshi turned to Su Mucheng and posed a question.
“Military Advisor Su, setting this letter aside, let us consider the matter purely from a medical perspective. If an incompletely developed child were made to take a formula containing this kind of mineral medicine continuously for months, or even years, what would that mean to a physician?”
Su Mucheng’s expression turned serious.
“Jiang sui contains mercury-bearing minerals. According to modern medical knowledge, prolonged and repeated exposure to substances of this kind is extremely dangerous for young children whose organs have not yet fully developed.”
Pointing at the prescription, he explained carefully to Xiao Yuan and Xia Lanshi.
“It won’t act like an acute poison that kills someone immediately after they swallow it. But if small amounts accumulate in the body over a long period, it may affect a child’s kidneys and nervous system, causing nonspecific symptoms such as excessive sleepiness, loss of appetite, and physical weakness.”
“The most troublesome part,” Su Mucheng continued, identifying the most critical link in the chain, “is that with the testing methods available in this era, even if someone suspected that a child’s condition was abnormal, it would be extremely difficult to establish a direct causal link between a history of prolonged, low-dose exposure to the medicine and the child’s death years later from a cold or organ failure.”
He lowered his voice, his gaze grave.
“The final medical record would simply state that the child was ‘constitutionally weak,’ had ‘succumbed to a prolonged illness,’ or had died from an ordinary bout of cold-related illness.”
His expression grew even more solemn.
“The medical history would appear to be entirely ‘natural.’”
Xiao Yuan listened silently, his gaze deep and unfathomable.
Before leaving the palace, he had heard that many of his brothers and sisters had died in childhood.
At the time, everyone had assumed that it was the result of harem intrigue or simply that the children had been unfortunate enough to have fragile lives. After all, every death had seemed entirely “natural,” with not the slightest trace of foul play.
Looking back now, it might not have been crude murder through direct poisoning at all.
It might have been long-term erosion disguised as medication.
“It wouldn’t be worth going to such lengths to maintain a covert chain just to kill one or two imperial children.”
Xia Lanshi looked at the prescription and voiced the coldest possible deduction.
“A process that can persist across different palaces, different supervising attendants, and even different imperial physicians… this looks much more like a system of ‘control.’ Controlling which imperial offspring are allowed to grow up safely, and which branches are permitted to wither naturally.”
This was certainly not something a single imperial physician could accomplish simply by writing one prescription.
The main tent fell silent.
Xia Lanshi studied the prescription before slowly voicing an even deeper concern.
“If someone has spent decades doing this inside the palace… their objective may not merely be to weaken the current imperial family. They may be trying to gradually thin out the legitimate imperial bloodline over the course of generations…”
Xiao Yuan’s gaze abruptly darkened.
If that were true, then someone had been deliberately pruning the branches of a tree, controlling its growth and allowing certain forbidden branches to wither naturally.
The flourishing and withering of the entire imperial family’s branches and leaves had been quietly placed in an invisible hand.
Xiao Yuan picked up the confidential letter and paused, his fingertip resting lightly on its edge.
If the person behind Guangji Trading House really was Xiao Ying, who remained far away in the capital, then the secret he had touched was already too dangerous to be handled through ordinary correspondence.
He remembered the incident in which Xiao Ying had fallen into the water.
Moreover, there was no guarantee that only they had seen the messages previously concealed inside the account books.
The proprietor of Guangji Trading House, its accountants, its clerks, and even those who had handled the trade records might have inadvertently seen fragments of the messages.
If Xiao Ying really was the person sending these letters from behind the scenes, he must have understood that risk already.
But whether he was testing Xiao Yuan or trying to make him aware of the matter, now that Xiao Yuan knew about it, he could not simply leave it alone.
He turned to Xia Lanshi.
“Send a reply. Don’t leave anything that could be used against us.”
Xia Lanshi immediately understood.
He was skilled at imitating or altering handwriting, so he promptly fetched paper and brush. He did not ask who exactly Xiao Yuan meant by “the other party.”
The letter did not contain any of Su Mucheng’s modern medical terminology. Instead, it distilled the medical reasoning and intelligence analysis into several practical lines of investigation:
“Please review the old medical records again.
“For all children who took this formula for prolonged periods during childhood, check whether they also suffered from chronic sleepiness, loss of appetite, physical weakness, delayed development, or similar symptoms. Record the beginning and end of their medication, when it was discontinued, and their subsequent medical conditions.
“Also compile a list of those who never took this formula but exhibited similar symptoms. Do not draw conclusions yet; simply determine whether there are clear differences between the two groups.
“Next, review the personnel who attended the imperial offspring over the years: the imperial physicians who prescribed the medicine, the palace attendants who collected the ingredients, the eunuchs who delivered the decoctions, the wet nurses who administered them, and the nursery matrons who kept the records. Investigate whether the same group of lower-ranking personnel repeatedly appeared around different imperial children who died young.
“Examine the Imperial Pharmacy’s account books for similar formulas, regardless of their names. Compare the ingredients one by one, paying particular attention to whether similar mineral medicines were ever listed under different names.
“Record any anomalies first. Do not rush to conclusions. Report back if anything is discovered.”
When Xia Lanshi reached the final line, his brush paused slightly.
Xiao Yuan studied the letter for a moment before speaking again.
“Add one final sentence.”
“If there are other old accounts or transactions in the capital, there is no need to send them with the merchandise anymore. Have the old shopkeeper Chu at the western-street branch of Tingxue Pavilion handle them directly.”
Xia Lanshi’s eyes shifted slightly.
He naturally understood which channel Xiao Yuan meant.
It was one of Tingxue Pavilion’s covert intelligence routes. Old Shopkeeper Chu, who managed its western-street branch, was one of the inconspicuous nodes in that network.
Now, however, His Highness was voluntarily leaving that channel open to the person on the other end in the capital.
“What if the other party understands the message?” Su Mucheng asked.
“Of course he’ll understand.”
Xiao Yuan’s expression remained composed, and his voice was certain.
“Anyone who doesn’t understand will simply assume it refers to another old account between trading houses.”
The entire letter still looked like an ordinary piece of accounting correspondence between merchants.
Only someone who knew what to look for would understand its real meaning: from now on, whenever necessary, there would be no need to hide genuinely important messages inside Guangji Trading House’s account books. They could communicate directly through Tingxue Pavilion’s covert network.
After confirming the contents, Xiao Yuan said, “Send it through the original route.”
Xia Lanshi acknowledged the order and took the letter.
But after walking a few steps, he paused again.
“Your Highness.”
“Hmm?”
“If the other party really does use this channel…”
Xia Lanshi left the sentence unfinished.
Xiao Yuan already understood what he meant.
He lowered his eyes to the prescription on the desk, his expression unchanged.
“Then it will prove that my guess was correct.”
Whether Xiao Ying was the person behind Guangji Trading House was not something Xiao Yuan had only begun to suspect today.
The answer had long been close at hand. They simply lacked evidence before.
That was why both sides could continue pretending they knew nothing.
Now, Xiao Yuan was merely leaving that person a cleaner route.
Whether the other person dared to use it was up to him.
Xiao Yuan and Xiao Ying had never had a relationship built on trust. They were practically strangers to each other.
Yet although Xiao Ying had never actively helped him, he had also never done anything to harm him.
Now, if Xiao Ying was reaching into dangerous territory for some reason, then at least through their exchange of intelligence, Xiao Yuan would be able to infer what he was trying to accomplish.
The letter was sent to the capital along the usual route used for commercial accounts.
On the surface, it remained an ordinary piece of business correspondence.
But it was also a set of instructions that could be used to launch an investigation directly in the capital.
If the recipient followed these three lines of inquiry, they might be able to uncover the key witnesses hidden behind the process—people who could still be alive today—buried beneath the cold records of those deaths.