At the gate of the Lord Count's mansion.
Xu Fu moved the brazier to the foot of the stone steps, the sparks scattering sideways in the wind.
The sedan chair touched down, and Xu Youde lifted the curtain to step out.
"My lord, there's water underfoot."
Xu Fu hurried forward to offer his hand.
"No need." Xu Youde shook the hem of his robe and walked straight into the courtyard.
Inside the study, the charcoal fire burned fiercely, heat pressing against the door curtain.
Xu Zijin sat at the side of the desk, a cup of tea beside him gone cold. When he saw the man enter, he quickly rose and made a deep bow.
"Lord Count."
Xu Youde didn't take his seat first. Instead, he walked to the brass basin in the corner and immersed both hands in the hot water.
Specks of cinnabar still clung to his knuckles, dried into the creases of his fingers from clutching the memorial all the way back. He rubbed slowly, and a thin layer of red began to float on the water's surface.
Xu Zijin took a dry cloth and handed it over.
"Lord Count, that bowl of Jiangnan red rice in the court today," Xu Zijin began, "was surely not a spur-of-the-moment idea from the imperial kitchens."
Xu Youde wiped the back of his hands without looking up: "Go on."
"Coarse grain is hard to swallow, pickled fish is heavy with smell, and the capital feeds on mutton as winter sets in. Yet His Majesty chose the very day when the military situation is most dire across the four frontiers to place Jiangnan flavors on the imperial table."
Xu Zijin continued his analysis.
"A plan to flee south and avoid disaster—had it been floated in peaceful times, the censors from every rank would have stomped the bricks of the Hall of the Heavenly Throne into dust."
"But now the plague is raging at Zhenbei Pass, and the lives of an entire city hang in the balance. Who dares say the word 'no'? Whoever does is wagering the lives of forty thousand soldiers on the northern border against his own reputation."
"And so?"
"So this is not improvisation. This is waiting."
Xu Zijin spoke word by word: "Waiting for a great calamity, waiting until no one in court dares to object. Your Majesty has been playing this game for at least three years."
Xu Youde tossed the cloth onto the table and sat down in the high-backed chair, leaning against the armrest with his eyes closed.
"Hahahaha! Zijin, three years? You're underestimating it."
The charcoal fire crackled.
"This capital—go up to the city wall and look for yourself," Xu Youde said.
"To the north lies open plain, flat as far as the eye can see."
"Zhenbei Pass is the last door holding back the enemy cavalry before they reach the capital."
"Once that door cracks, the barbarian light horse will run wild and water their mounts beneath Desheng Gate within three to five days. The man on the dragon throne is a Son of Heaven, but he is also a man."
"A man in such straits thinks first of where to flee. That's not selfishness—that's survival instinct."
Xu Zijin seemed lost in thought: "My lord sees it clearly, and yet you stepped into the line of fire at court without hesitation."
"If I didn't step forward, the blade of the imperial decree would fall into someone else's hands," Xu Youde opened his eyes. "The Emperor's sword—if I don't take it, someone else will fight to take it tomorrow. If I take it, the Xu family's hands get bloody first; if I don't, the Xu family is deemed useless first."
Xu Zijin picked up the cold tea, then set it down without drinking.
"My lord, then let us speak of the trial at hand. Once the Emperor's sword leaves the capital, when the Ministry of Revenue's mounted envoys reach Jiangnan, who gets seized?"
"Medicine merchants, salt merchants, grain merchants." Xu Youde tapped a finger on the tabletop.
"But there is no merchant in this realm with clean hands. Those dozens of medicine warehouses in Jiangnan—trace back three generations, and behind each one stands either the great clans of Gusu or the magnates of Qiantang."
"Seize one medicine depot, and you cut off a clan's lifeline. Today I confiscate their ancestral assets; tomorrow they record this feud of an entire household in the Xu family's ledger."
"Retaliation is certain afterward."
"And the retaliation won't be in Jiangnan—it will be here in the capital."
Xu Youde sneered: "They wouldn't dare challenge His Majesty directly, so they will bite the hand that holds the sword. Censorial memorials could pile up to a height of three feet overnight."
"The assassination of this is worse! If Zhenbei Pass falls..."
"The Xu family becomes the eternal traitor—the one who beguiled the sovereign and abandoned the northern frontier." Xu Zijin finished the sentence with alarming speed. "His Majesty needs a scapegoat more urgently than he needs to hold the pass."
"And if it holds?"
The study fell silent for a moment.
"If it holds..." Xu Zijin looked up, "Lady Qinghuan will become famous from one battle alone, Commander Tie will send a memorial commending her deeds, and every soldier at the frontier will know the imperial envoy bears the surname Xu."
"And my lord will have just extracted millions in gold and silver from Jiangnan. Soldiers in the north, wealth in the south—both ends wrapped around the name of Xu."
"Go on."
"Then the man who finds it hardest to sleep at night across the entire court will need to change his seat."
Xu Youde smiled, but the smile vanished instantly.
"Win and die. Lose and die." Xu Youde's voice carried a note of despair.
He reached for the cup of hot tea on the desk, his fingers touching the cup's rim, freezing mid-motion.
"This daughter of mine... when she was seven, she would crouch outside my ledger room and listen to me tally grain shipments. Now she is in a death zone, the city rotting with plague, and I, her father, sit here in the capital drinking hot tea."
Xu Zijin stood with his hands at his sides, letting the man's grief run its course.
"Lord Count," he said at last, "since the fire is already lit beneath us, retreat is out of the question. There is only one road left."
"Oh? Zijin, what do you propose?"
"Go to Jiangnan and stir the waters."
Xu Youde raised his eyes.
"The confiscations cannot stop at medicine warehouses." Xu Zijin's voice was ruthless. "We must force them to reveal every card they hold."
"Who secretly maintains oceangoing ships, who hoards armor and crossbows, whose silver has ever been lent to horse traders on the northern frontier."
"If my lord holds only money and grain in his hands, that is mere wealth—His Majesty can reclaim it at will. But if my lord holds a ledger of death debts for thirty clans of Jiangnan, that is a lifeline."
"And what does one do with a lifeline?"
"Bind it to the court." Xu Zijin lowered his voice: "Take these accounts, give half to the Emperor, and keep half with the Xu family."
"The Emperor needs the Xu family to suppress Jiangnan, and Jiangnan needs the Xu family to delay their sentence. Neither side can make a move against the Xu family—that is what it means for someone to become untouchable."
Xu Youde looked at him for a long, long time.
"Your words cut deeper than mine did in the court."
"My lord spoke for the Emperor's ears. What I speak is for yours alone."
Xu Youde nodded slowly, lifting his tea to swallow the cold ache in his chest.
"Zijin." He set the cup down. "Leave Jiangnan to me. But now you must attend to another matter."
"The provincial examinations—the results are about to be posted!"
"Heading up soon, indeed." Xu Youde's expression turned serious. "You crossed Cui Mingyun at the gate of the examination grounds—the Cui family has reserved that debt."
"The moment the results are posted, if you place near the top, the stir you cause will be ten times greater than if you had failed. For these next few days, you are to go nowhere and meet no one, whatever invitations come your way."
Xu Zijin nodded earnestly: "Understood."
"Keep your composure." Xu Youde fixed him with a gaze. "The waters of the examination halls are murkier than those of Jiangnan."
A gust of wind tightened beyond the window, and snow slid from the eaves.
...
A thousand miles away, the western death house at Zhenbei Pass.
Wind and snow poured down through the gaps in the iron bars, sending bits of straw spiraling across the floor.
The smell of the lowest cell block blended into one foul brew.
Old Sun carried his medical chest at the front, with Little Li the apothecary trailing behind, as they worked their way from cell to cell. Only half of the oil lamps along the corridor were lit, their flames kept low.
"Third cell." Old Sun stopped.
Through the bars, a scar-faced man lay curled at the bottom of a pile of weeds.
His body was wracked with spasms, his knees knocking rhythmically against the stone wall.
A piece of dried wood was clamped between his teeth, already bitten flat from the agony.
On his exposed arms and neck, his skin had taken on an unhealthy, mottled dark red.
"Open the door!" Old Sun ordered.
The jailer rattled the lock open.
Little Li crouched down, his hand trembling as he reached out. He pressed two fingers to the man's wrist.
She counted silently in her heart, but her brow was slowly beginning to knit tighter.
“Sir!” She looked up. “The pulse is bounding and rapid—nearly seven beats per breath. This isn’t an external evil taking hold; the poison has already reached the organs, and the qi and blood are leaking outward.”
“At this rate… he won’t make it through the night.”
Lao Sun didn’t answer.
He opened the register beneath his hand, and by the lamplight, dipped his brush and recorded the pulse readings one by one.
Halfway through his notes, a scream rang out from the next cell over, followed by the sound of dry heaving.
Yet no sound of anyone bringing up food.
Three cells further east, someone began pounding against the bars.
“Sir,” a jailer called from outside, “cells nine, eleven, and sixteen—all of them have passed out.”
Lao Sun closed the register and seized the man’s left arm, forcing it open with effort.
“Bring the lamp closer!”
Little Li hurriedly lowered the lantern.
What they saw startled them both.
The gash, half an inch long, was swollen hideously. Around the everted, torn flesh had sprouted a ring of murky blisters.
Worse still, the yellow fluid inside the blisters was still churning.
Not a single sign of the wound closing or scabbing over.
Lao Sun stared at the wound for a good dozen breaths.
He rose wearily and looked back down the length of the holding cell.
Fifty iron-barred cages, stretching out of sight.
These were the stoutest death-row convicts they had picked—no sickness, no tumors, men who could take a beating and keep fighting!
Yet barely a night after being planted with the toxin.
Fifty men, and by the looks of it, not one was in light condition.
“The imperial envoy said we must prepare for the majority to die,” Lao Sun sighed, a note of exhaustion in his voice. “If they all die, this method is finished—and those people in the city…”
Just then, from the far end of the cell block, someone suddenly slammed hard against the bars.
“Medical officer! Medical officer!”
Oh? It was that shyster lawyer who’d feigned illness and taken two lashes for it.
