Inside the waterside pavilion, the only sound breaking the deathly silence was the splashing of koi fighting over raw meat.
Liu Zhao stumbled and collapsed onto the Persian carpet, his black gauze cap long lost somewhere in the mud outside.
“Your Highness, the constables of Shuntian Prefecture are completely useless!” Liu Zhao lifted his pallid face, his voice trembling uncontrollably. “I tried to present the official writ to make arrests, but the street opposite the Bright Moon Pavilion was lined with no fewer than a hundred hidden sentries! Those men, all in short garments, stood there without even breathing heavily. Worst of all, I saw with my own eyes that beneath their outer robes, they were all concealing standard-issue repeating crossbows!”
“Repeating crossbows…” Xiao Jingxing uttered the words, a wave of horror surging in his eyes.
Liu Zhao prostrated himself on the ground, knocking his head against the carpet with muffled thuds. “The constables of Shuntian Prefecture saw those weapons and didn’t even dare draw their blades! Under the emperor’s very nose, apart from the Imperial City Bureau within the palace, who else could have the authority to deploy standard-issue repeating crossbows? This scheme… I cannot break it, Your Highness!”
At the mention of the Imperial City Bureau, Xiao Jingxing staggered back three large steps.
His waist slammed heavily into the rosewood long table, knocking the Buddha-hand citrons from the offering plate and sending them rolling across the floor.
Those were the emperor’s men.
Only the old emperor could mobilize the Imperial City Bureau.
Xiao Jingxing’s breathing grew harsh and ragged, his chest heaving violently.
The composed demeanor of a crown prince who usually orchestrated strategies was utterly shattered. Only one thought remained in his mind.
Father knows everything. He’s going to use the cruelest method—publicly executing me in front of all of Beijing!
Xiao Jingxing let out a low roar, grabbed a gold-inlaid jade wine goblet from the table, and hurled it into the koi pond in the pavilion.
Water splashed everywhere, scattering the fish fighting for food. Then came rosewood carvings, agate fruit plates, jade ruyi scepter—everything within reach he smashed to pieces like a madman.
The two concubines in the pavilion knelt in the corner, shrieking and begging for mercy.
Liu Zhao, watching the First Prince in this frenzy, shrank back in fear but had no choice but to shout for help: “Your Highness! You must make a decision quickly! If this rumor spreads into the court and the charge of treason is confirmed, my entire nine generations will lose their heads along with yours!”
Xiao Jingxing’s eyes were bloodshot, his breath coming in gasps.
He kicked over an obstructive low table, grabbed Steward Wang by the lapels, and spat in his face.
“Prepare the carriage! Harness the horses! I’m going to the palace!”
…
Deep within the Forbidden City, Changchun Palace.
The dying autumn sun filtered through window lattices papered with Korean silk into the inner hall.
Rising smoke of calming incense curled from a bronze beast-headed censer inlaid with gold.
Noble Consort Wan reclined on her phoenix couch.
This woman, who had stood firm for ten years amidst the intrigues of the deep palace, still had delicate, radiant features—time had left few marks on her face.
Two maids knelt on the footrest, using goat-hair brushes dipped in henna juice to carefully paint her nails.
A dull thud sounded.
The heavy doors of Changchun Palace burst open with brute force, letting gusts of wind and fallen leaves rush in.
The eunuchs on duty outside were horrified, but before they could stop him, Xiao Jingxing stumbled and crawled into the inner hall.
“Mother, save me!”
Xiao Jingxing threw himself before the phoenix couch, his knees hitting the golden bricks hard.
Noble Consort Wan frowned a little and raised her hand, the one whose nails hadn’t been painted. The palace maids and eunuchs, all trusted confidants, immediately withdrew, carefully closing the heavy doors behind them.
Only the mother and son remained in the hall.
Xiao Jingxing clutched desperately at the hem of Noble Consort Wan’s splendid palace silk, his tongue tied. He poured out everything: the storyteller at the Bright Moon Pavilion, the precise accounts by weight and hour, the hidden sentries of the Imperial City Bureau and their repeating crossbows, and his own suspicion that the old emperor was about to strike him down.
“Mother! Everything about me has been exposed! Father’s Embroidered Uniform blades must already be drawn! Please beg Father for mercy on my behalf, I…”
Before he could finish.
“Slap!”
A sharp crack exploded in the hall.
Noble Consort Wan swung her right hand in an arc, the finger guards of her gold-chased armguard cutting through the air, striking Xiao Jingxing’s face with full force.
The blow was immense. Xiao Jingxing’s head twisted aside, several bloody welts appearing on his left cheek. He was completely stunned.
Noble Consort Wan shook her numb hand, pulled out a silk handkerchief, leisurely wiped her fingers, and tossed it onto Xiao Jingxing’s face.
“Fool.”
Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried bone-chilling coldness and the authority of one above all. “How could I have given birth to such a useless thing like you? Flustered and losing all composure at the slightest trouble. With this mud-Buddha’s courage, you still dare to covet the position in the Eastern Palace?”
Xiao Jingxing covered his cheek, gaping in shock, not daring to speak.
Noble Consort Wan stood up, her skirts sweeping the floor. She looked down from her height at this usually arrogant and domineering First Prince sprawled on the ground.
“Think carefully! Your father is an emperor who crawled out of heaps of corpses—a warlord on horseback. After decades on the throne, if he truly wanted to deal with a treasonous prince, would he use such lowly tactics?”
Noble Consort Wan’s tone was as hard as iron, every word striking the vital point.
“If the emperor had solid evidence of your treason, he would just send an imperial decree to the cabinet, have Shen Lian seal your prince’s residence directly, and be done with it! Why would he need to find a storyteller in a teahouse to spread the word for you? Would he sacrifice the royal family’s dignity? Or the prestige of the Great Qian Empire?”
Xiao Jingxing was stunned by her words. He blinked rapidly, covering his face, the tangled mess in his mind torn open by his mother’s force.
“But… there really were hidden sentries from the Imperial City Bureau outside Bright Moon Pavilion, carrying repeating crossbows…” Xiao Jingxing retorted weakly.
“Call you a fool and you’re nothing but mud that won’t stick to the wall!” Noble Consort Wan scolded with bitter disappointment. “The fact that the Imperial City Bureau stood by and didn’t make arrests shows that this is absolutely not your father’s intention! He just heard of this strange news too! The emperor sent Shen Lian to guard that teahouse to observe coldly—to see who in Beijing is setting the trap and who starts jumping around!”
Noble Consort Wan turned and walked toward the bronze crane-shaped lamp stand, her gaze piercing.
“This is clearly someone with godlike reach forging false evidence and fanning flames right under the emperor’s nose! They’re using those foolish commoners as knives, aiming to have your father kill you!”
Xiao Jingxing felt a chill run down his spine, cold sweat seeping from his back.
Someone had actually dared to set such a deadly scheme in the capital.
“Mother…” Xiao Jingxing crawled closer and looked up. “Who is really behind this? Who has the ability to uncover my smuggling accounts from the northern border?”
Noble Consort Wan stopped by the crane stand, extending her finger guard to toy with the wax drippings on the lamp.
“The source of the smuggled military supplies is at Zhenbei City. He Minghu and Ma Jin’an—those two wretches—who did they just die at the hands of?”
Xiao Jingxing blurted out: “Xu Zhan…”
“There you have it,” Noble Consort Wan sneered, connecting the entire chain. “The moment He Minghu lost his head, word spread in the capital’s teahouses, spilling every detail about your sales of fine steel and crude salt. Not a single weight or hour wrong. Under heaven, could such a coincidence exist?”
Noble Consort Wan turned her head, her phoenix eyes half-squinting. “That old bastard Xu Youde was cornered by Shang Qitai at the cliff’s edge, so he hurled out that castrating Four-Seal Verification method. He wants to flip over the entire court’s table! This scheme at the Moonlit Pavilion is definitely the Xu family’s doing! He’s dragging you into the mud to buy time for his house!”
Xiao Jingxing finally understood everything now.
The Xu family… the Xu family again. That old viper really was a clinging wraith! The terror in his eyes was instantly replaced by blazing rage.
“The Xu family! Always the Xu family!”
“Xu Youde, that treacherous cur! He dares to scheme against me!” Xiao Jingxing shot to his feet, murder burning in his gaze. “I’ll go back right now and muster my household troops. I’ll flatten the Earl of Sincerity’s mansion and flay that old fox alive!”
“No—it should be that Xu Qinghuan!”
“Take one step, and I dare you!” Noble Consort Wan snapped, her voice sharp as a blade. She seized Xiao Jingxing by the collar.
“I just hammered open that wooden head of yours, and now you’ve sealed it shut again! The Imperial City Guard has every eye on you right now. If you send troops against the Xu family at this critical moment, it’s practically a confession! You’d be telling your father outright that the smuggling accounts are real!”
Xiao Jingxing froze, his fists clenching until his knuckles cracked. “So I just stand here and do nothing? Let the Xu family press a knife to my throat?”
Noble Consort Wan released him and smoothed the wrinkles on his collar. The anger on her face faded, replaced by the venomous cunning honed through years in the deep harem.
“Battle in the court—drawing a blade is the stupidest move. Didn’t the Xu family swear a military pledge before the Golden Throne? Fifteen days to deliver three hundred thousand bushels of army grain to the northern frontier?”
Noble Consort Wan walked to the desk, took up a brush, and wrote a few characters on a short slip of paper.
“The northern frontier matter is off-limits to everyone now. It’s the Great Qian’s top priority!”
“That Xu Youde pushed through his new policies and cut off the revenue of the Ministry of Revenue and all the civil officials. Those scholars are already itching to tear his flesh off and eat it raw.”
Noble Consort Wan folded the slip, sealed it into a bamboo tube, and handed it to Xiao Jingxing.
“Send this letter through the secret line to Jiangnan’s Jinling. Give it to those great Confucian scholars from the old families.”
“As for the result…”
