The wind in the mid-lake pavilion had stopped.
The evening breeze, which had just been swaying the willow threads, suddenly came to a halt the moment Xiao Jingyan's words fell, leaving no more sound.
The three people in the pavilion were surrounded by curling tea smoke.
Pei Ji tightened his grip on the teacup by a fraction. The tea inside rippled slightly. He shifted his gaze away from the surface of the tea, landed on Xiao Jingyan's face, and then quickly lowered it again.
Song Yubai's hand trembled, and a drop of scalding tea splashed onto the back of his hand, burning a red mark. However, he seemed completely unaware, stiff and unable to move.
"If Commandery Princess Xu were to also place a piece on this chessboard for the position of the Eastern Palace, what would become of this world?"
This sentence was still swirling in their ears, but no one in the pavilion dared to respond.
Pei Ji was a man of the Dali Court. Over the years, the cases he had tried could fill three rooms. What kind of words hadn't he heard? What kind of criminals hadn't he seen?
But today, this sentence, coming from the mouth of a prince, carried an entirely different weight.
The position of the Eastern Palace.
The chessboard.
Xu Qinghuan.
These three things mixed together became a deadly weapon.
Pei Ji placed the teacup back on the stone table, cleared his throat, his voice a little dry.
"Your Highness... are these words not a bit too heavy?"
He weighed his words, every syllable spoken with extreme difficulty.
"The position of the Crown Prince concerns the foundation of the state..."
Xiao Jingyan did not answer immediately.
He picked up the teacup, slowly took a sip, and held the tea in his mouth, as if savoring it, and as if waiting.
Waiting for Pei Ji to finish speaking, and also waiting for Song Yubai's reaction.
Song Yubai didn't speak. He lowered his head, staring at the red mark burnt by the tea on the back of his hand, his Adam's apple bobbing twice.
"Vice Minister Pei," Xiao Jingyan finally spoke, his pace very slow, "I am not speaking nonsense."
He set down the teacup, his fingertips tracing a half-circle along the rim.
"You yourself just said that you witnessed the yield per mu of Xu Qinghuan in Taoyuan County with your own eyes. Young Master Song also said that Earl Chengyi filled a hole of 300,000 taels within ten days, and there is no second family in the capital who could do that."
Xiao Jingyan's gaze swept across the faces of the two.
"A woman who can make grain pop out in multiples, an imperial envoy backed by the financial power of the Earl Chengyi's estate. Vice Minister Pei, how do you think the civil and military officials of the court will feel when they see this?"
Pei Ji's lips pressed into a thin line.
Of course he knew what they would think.
Those people in the court had always been sensitive to the smell of silver and grain.
"The First Prince will want to rope her in," Xiao Jingyan held up one finger, "The Second Prince will want to use her," he held up another, "As for the Grand Secretariat, they will want to swallow her whole."
Two fingers were held up in the air.
"Vice Minister Pei, she is already in the game."
After this sentence was spoken, Pei Ji's back straightened even more, but he couldn't utter a single word in response.
Song Yubai finally raised his head. He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but swallowed it back down.
The willow tree outside the pavilion suddenly shook violently.
Just now there was clearly no wind. This sudden shaking was abrupt. The willow threads rustled a few times, as if something had touched the trunk.
Pei Ji's ears twitched. He subconsciously turned his head to look outside the pavilion, and saw a circle of tiny ripples spreading on the water behind the Taihu rock. It was so faint that it was barely there. If one didn't deliberately look for it, one wouldn't see it at all.
Xiao Jingyan naturally saw it too.
But he made no extra movements, just picked up the teacup and took another sip.
The cold sweat on Song Yubai's forehead was already dripping down his temples.
If what was said just now were to spread, even a few words of it, not to mention him and Pei Ji, even the Song family would be implicated.
"Your Highness!" Song Yubai suddenly spoke up, his tone raised half a pitch, carrying a somewhat deliberate lightness. "Speaking of the Ministry of Revenue's accounts, I almost forgot to report an urgent matter."
As he spoke, he wiped his forehead with his sleeve, pulling a stiff smile at the corner of his mouth.
"The vouchers for the river channel funds submitted by the Earl Chengyi's estate have several seals that don't match. I've been checking them these past few days, and it's quite tedious. I'm afraid I'll have to be busy for quite a while."
Pei Ji immediately followed up, his tone returning to its usual stiffness.
"The Dali Court is the same. There have been many backlogged files recently, and it's truly inappropriate for me to stay long, lest I delay official business."
The two of them sang in harmony, stiffly changing the subject.
Xiao Jingyan took all this in.
He didn't press the issue, nor did he urge them to stay. He just set down the teacup, a faint smile floating on the corner of his mouth.
"Very well."
He stood up and adjusted his cuffs.
"You two have been working hard for days. I won't keep you any longer. There will be plenty of time in the future."
Pei Ji and Song Yubai almost simultaneously stood up, bowed in salute, and retreated from the mid-lake pavilion at a pace more than twice as fast as when they came.
The two figures disappeared at the end of the corridor. Xiao Jingyan stood alone in the pavilion, his gaze landing on the patch of water behind the Taihu rock.
The ripples had dissipated, and the water surface had returned to calmness.
Extremely light footsteps came from behind.
"Find out whose people they are."
Xiao Jingyan's voice was very calm.
"Yes." Someone in the dark responded in a low voice, and then silently retreated.
...
The Song Residence.
Song Yubai rushed all the way, and by the time he returned to the residence, a large patch of his official uniform on his back was already soaked with sweat.
He didn't return to his own courtyard, nor did he even change his clothes. As soon as he got off the carriage, he headed straight for the study in the east courtyard.
The door of the study was half-open, and a faint scent of ink drifted out from inside.
The Vice Minister of Revenue, Song Zhiyuan, was sitting behind the desk reading official documents, reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He held a brush in one hand and flipped through thick account books with the other. Hearing the footsteps, he didn't even raise his head.
"Why are you running so fast? What a loss of decorum."
Song Yubai couldn't care less. He walked up to the desk in a few strides, closed the door tightly, and scanned the courtyard outside the window to confirm that no one was there before lowering his voice to speak.
"Uncle, today the Third Prince..."
He recounted the conversation in the mid-lake pavilion from beginning to end, not missing a single word.
The brush Song Zhiyuan was using to read official documents stopped.
Ink dripped from the tip of the brush, smudging a black stain on the white paper, but he ignored it.
The study was quiet for a long time.
Song Zhiyuan took off his reading glasses, placed them on the desk, pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers, and slowly rubbed it a few times.
"Say it again, what were his exact last words?"
Song Yubai swallowed his saliva: "If Commandery Princess Xu were to also place a piece on this chessboard for the position of the Eastern Palace, what would become of this world."
Song Zhiyuan's fingers stopped at the bridge of his nose and didn't come down for a long time.
The cicadas outside the window were noisily loud, but the study was so quiet that one could hear breathing.
After a long time.
Song Zhiyuan slowly let out a breath of turbid air, put his reading glasses back on the bridge of his nose, and continued to lower his head to read official documents, as if nothing had happened.
"Uncle?" Song Yubai couldn't help but press. "Say something! What exactly did the Third Prince mean by those words? Does he really want to..."
"Yubai." Song Zhiyuan interrupted him, the hand holding the brush landing back on the paper, his handwriting meticulous and neat.
"The Third Prince's shrewdness is unfathomable."
Song Yubai froze in place.
"What do you mean?"
Song Zhiyuan didn't look up again.
"Go back and think carefully on this. Those words the Third Prince spoke today—were they truly meant for your ears, for Pei Ji's..."
The brush paused.
"...or were they meant for the person outside the pavilion."
