Outside Mingyue Tower, wind and snow raged.
The bitter wind poured in through the wide-open doors, making the thick candle flames inside whip violently from side to side.
Xu Zijin stopped before the main entrance on the top floor.
The guards had already sealed off the way out, their blades half-drawn and gleaming coldly.
Xu Zijin raised his head and glanced at the blizzard beyond the doors.
Then he turned around. From a distance of more than ten paces, he casually cupped his hands toward the golden-threaded nanmu chair on the high platform.
“Today’s Deer-Cry Banquet…”
Xu Zijin’s tone was calm. “This subject has already thanked Your Highness.”
Having fulfilled the requisite courtesy, he withdrew his gaze and faced the ranks of armored soldiers standing before him, spears and blades bristling.
He took one unhurried step forward.
The hand of the hundred-man commander standing directly in front of him trembled violently where it rested on the hilt of his saber. His feet involuntarily retreated half an inch, and he forcibly shifted his body aside.
That single retreat was like a breach in a dam, completely shattering the courage of the soldiers from the Five Cities Military Command.
The guards exchanged glances, apprehension filling their eyes as they hurriedly moved to either side.
In the blink of an eye, a broad, level passage wide enough for two men to walk abreast had opened in the center of the doorway.
An entire hall of armored soldiers—and not one dared to raise a blade to stop him!
Xu Zijin dusted off his sleeves and calmly stepped out into the vast, wind-lashed snow. In moments, his figure had vanished from sight.
“Ha… hahaha.”
Several awkward laughs rang out from the high platform.
The Chief Secretary stood beside the chair, his legs trembling so badly that he could not force out even a single word to ease the tension.
Bang!
Xiao Jingxing suddenly raised his hand and smashed the exquisite white-jade wine cup he had been idly turning over in his fingers onto the floor.
Shards of jade flew in every direction.
A jagged fragment sliced open his palm, and drops of blood fell one after another onto the wooden couch.
“Your Highness! Your hand!”
The Chief Secretary shrieked. He hurriedly pulled a silk handkerchief from his sleeve and tried to press it over the wound.
“Get out!”
Xiao Jingxing lifted one foot and kicked the Chief Secretary to the ground, his chest heaving violently.
A pack of useless fools!
Half an hour earlier, those old fossils had sworn with absolute confidence that they could crush Xu Zijin beneath the rules of orthodox Confucian morality.
Xiao Jingxing had planned to sit back and reap the benefits. He would wait for those purists to force Xu Zijin into a dead end, then, as the heir apparent, descend with an act of grace and effortlessly take the champion of the new learning into the palm of his hand.
But what had happened?
Those eminent scholars from prestigious families, who prided themselves on being steeped in classical learning, had not only failed to make Xu Zijin bow his head.
Instead, three sentences from Xu Zijin had left them speechless. Even the most respected Imperial Academy scholar had been angered into unconsciousness in front of everyone!
They had not only lost the ground in the debate. They had actually turned Xu Zijin’s declaration—“to bring peace to all ages”—into a stepping-stone for him!
“What use are they…” Xiao Jingxing ground his teeth, forcing out a blood-tinged curse from his throat.
At the foremost seat on the left side of the hall, Song Zhiyuan, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites, sat with a cold expression, staring fixedly at the empty wooden chair beside him.
The Imperial Academy scholar who had just been carried away after fainting from anger had been sitting there.
Song Zhiyuan turned his head and looked straight across the crowd at Zhou Mingyuan, Left Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel.
Their gazes met briefly in midair. Both understood the suppressed shock and fury in the other’s eyes.
Once word of today’s defeat spread, the great clans and the orthodox schools of Confucianism would become the laughingstock of the empire’s scholars!
And the one who had pushed them into the limelight to take the blow was the First Prince on the high platform.
Song Zhiyuan looked at Xiao Jingxing coldly, his face dark as water.
You want to win the hearts of the common-born scholars.
You want to use Xu Zijin as a blade of imperial authority.
Yet you chose to pave your road to power with the dignity of the great clans’ centuries-old tradition!
Now that the bargain has fallen apart, you, the First Prince, have merely lost face. It is the great clans who have been roasted over the fire as your scapegoats!
“What an excellent Deer-Cry Banquet.”
A voice dripping with icy mockery rang through the hall.
An elderly third-rank official from the Taiyuan Li clan slowly pushed himself to his feet with his cane. He did not even spare Xiao Jingxing a direct glance.
“This old man is too ignorant to understand the practical meaning of this ‘peace for all ages.’ I am unworthy of the First Prince’s fine wine!”
He did not even bother with the courtesy of formally taking his leave. The old minister flicked his sleeve and turned away.
Such blatant disregard for the proper hierarchy between ruler and subject would have been unthinkable in official circles under ordinary circumstances.
But now, it was as if a spark had fallen into a cauldron of boiling oil.
Song Zhiyuan followed by rising to his feet. He tossed out coldly, “There are still official case files awaiting my approval. This subordinate will take his leave first.”
Zhou Mingyuan also stood. “I have caught a chill and cannot hold my liquor. I shall take my leave.”
Rustle, rustle, rustle!
In no more than a dozen breaths, the court officials and renowned scholars who had been chatting with one another moments before in a scramble for the best seats began rising in one row after another.
Without even looking back, they lowered their heads and surged toward the doors as though fleeing for their lives.
Their footsteps were chaotic and disorderly, occasionally punctuated by cold snorts forcibly suppressed in their throats.
Beneath the high platform, more than half of the main seating area instantly emptied, leaving behind only the remains of the feast and cold leftovers scattered across the floor.
Niu Dazhuang stood where he was, clutching the deed for the purchase of land and a residence, his face blank with bewilderment.
The examination candidates who had come along to attend the banquet exchanged baffled looks, none of them daring even to breathe too loudly.
Those left behind were nothing more than minor clerks on the fringes of officialdom, all of them at a loss.
The First Prince’s Chief Secretary clutched his aching abdomen and crawled to his feet. As he watched the officials scatter like refugees, his hands and feet began trembling uncontrollably.
“Your Highness… this…”
Xiao Jingxing’s hands were covered in blood. He stared rigidly at the backs of the officials as they departed with such utter decisiveness.
At last, his breathing lost its rhythm.
…
That night, at midnight.
The study in the First Prince’s residence was still brightly lit.
Crack!
“Fools! A bunch of useless fools!”
Xiao Jingxing’s hair hung loose and disheveled around his face.
He seized a stack of fine Chengxintang paper from the desk, tore it into shreds in a frenzy, and flung the scraps into the air.
Paper fluttered down across the entire room.
He drew his sword and slashed apart the famous landscape scroll hanging on the wall. He swept the jade carvings from the antique shelf without mercy, sending them crashing to the floor.
Then he kicked over the extremely valuable huanghuali desk. Thick ink spilled from the inkstone and spread across the precious carpet.
This chain of schemes should have been foolproof!
All Xu Zijin had needed to do was obediently accept that cup of wine and acknowledge the empty title being offered to him.
Instead, Xu Zijin had overturned the table outright—and then slapped him, the First Prince, hard across the face in front of everyone.
He had announced to the entire world that the First Prince’s bloodstained charity was worth less than a single coin to him!
“Buying a thousand pieces of gold to win a horse’s bones…”
Xiao Jingxing’s chest rose and fell heavily. He stepped straight into the pool of ink, the venom in his eyes nearly spilling over.
“You used my dignity as a stepping-stone to make a name for your so-called peace for all ages! What a ruthless scheme!”
As he was still cursing, the study door was cautiously pushed open.
The Chief Secretary, drenched in sweat, crossed the threshold. Seeing the chaos covering the floor, he dropped to his knees beside the door in fright.
“Where are they?”
Xiao Jingxing glared at him, his voice hoarse as a broken bellows.
According to their original plan, the residence’s six most important advisers were supposed to come that night after the banquet to discuss the next stage of the struggle for the throne.
The Chief Secretary’s voice trembled.
“Your Highness… the stewards of several residences have just sent word.”
Xiao Jingxing strode forward. “Speak!”
“Four of the gentlemen claim that they suddenly came down with a severe chill. They say the cold has entered their bodies and they are confined to their beds… They truly cannot come tonight.”
A severe chill? Confined to their beds?
Xiao Jingxing froze in place.
Of the six core advisers, four came from great families in Jiangnan and prestigious clans in the capital.
These men had attached themselves to him for the sake of the overwhelming power and glory that would come from helping him ascend the throne.
And now, they had all fallen ill overnight and would not even cross the threshold of his residence!
A cold?
Xiao Jingxing’s body swayed.
The study was blazing with silver-bone charcoal, yet he felt a chill creeping up from the soles of his feet and burrowing into his very bones.
His attempt to win over the poor scholars had become the laughingstock of the entire city.
Now, even the aristocratic clans that had stood unwaveringly behind him had completely abandoned him.
“They won’t come… What a fine ‘won’t come.’”
Xiao Jingxing staggered back two steps before collapsing into the only intact armchair in the room.
As he stared at the shattered porcelain and scattered scraps of paper covering the floor, the muscles in his cheeks twitched twice.
He had always believed himself to be the player moving the pieces.
Who could have known that he would become a piece on the board instead?
“Your Highness, what are we to do now?” his chief aide asked, his voice trembling and thick with tears.
Xiao Jingxing raised his head and closed his bloodshot eyes.
When he opened them again, the madness in his gaze had faded, leaving behind only icy clarity.
A cold laugh lingered in the room.
