“Well, I am weary as well. As for the Spring Terrace Chess Tournament, I shall leave it to Wanshan. I can see he is bored stiff. Your palanquins should be arriving soon—return to your estates and rest.”
Emperor Shunyuan was truly exhausted, his eyelids nearly too heavy to lift. Liu Quan hurried over to support him, letting the emperor lean his full weight upon him.
The Grand Secretariat ministers were just about to rise when a piercing feminine voice cut through the curtain of rain outside the hall, carrying a note of near-hysterical desperation.
“Your Majesty! I beg you to see me! I have something I must say!”
A eunuch on duty relayed the message cautiously through the translucent window screen: “It is Consort Yi, braving the rain to request an audience with Your Majesty.”
Wen Zhuo remained impassive. He lifted his teacup, rotating it slowly as he studied the crackle pattern of the celadon glaze.
The glaze at first glance resembled a large tabby cat—and this kind of crazing supposedly was worth a hundred taels of silver? It seemed blind-eyed, heart-deaf officials were not limited to just one.
Outside the door, Consort Yi continued to wail between sobs: “Your Majesty, Chen’er did not mean it! He is only seventeen this year—he must have been led astray by someone! I beg you to have mercy on him! If he keeps kneeling like this, his body will not endure!”
Wen Zhuo listened with considerable delight. Indeed, once he had made his changes, the course of events had taken a different turn.
Before Shen Chen resorted to his trick of self-inflicted suffering, he must have coordinated with Consort Yi. She must have waited and waited, only to find Shen Chen still not sent home, until finally she could no longer sit still and had come running to plead for him.
In the previous life, this mother-and-son pair had schemed together in collusion, drawing up a list of every enemy and rival inside and outside the palace, begging Wen Zhuo to eliminate them one by one.
When they needed him, Shen Chen was humble and deferential, and Consort Yi was nothing but attentive. Upon learning that Wen Zhuo suffered from a cold ailment, she had personally sewn a pair of sleeve warmers for him as a gift, using her family’s heirloom technique of na-sha embroidery.
Later, when Shen Chen ascended the throne as he had wished, Consort Yi suddenly demanded the sleeve warmers back. Though Wen Zhuo did not understand her reasoning, he returned them nonetheless.
The very next day, Xie Langyang suddenly impeached him in court. In an instant, the assembled officials echoed the accusation, listing crime after crime against him. He stood there frozen, suddenly made the target of everyone’s arrows.
Looking upon the faces of his former lover and his student, his ears rang and his vision went dark. But Shen Chen gave him no time to react—he was immediately taken into custody and thrown into prison, with orders for the Three Judicial Offices to interrogate him severely...
It had all been premeditated. Consort Yi had taken back the sleeve warmers because she feared the distinctive embroidery would implicate her and invite suspicion.
Whenever Wen Zhuo recalled the kind and gentle expression on Consort Yi’s face that day she asked for the sleeve warmers, he felt nothing but nausea and disgust.
Hearing Consort Yi’s voice, Xie Langyang finally felt a weight lift from his heart.
Ever since the emperor had developed his cough, Consort Yi had tended to him with utter devotion—not only cooking him nourishing broths with her own hands, but also reciting sutras and praying for him every night. She had labored without complaint.
Emperor Shunyuan had taken note of all this. Even if he cared little for Shen Chen, he would still give face to Consort Yi for her efforts over these days.
With Consort Yi braving the rain to plead for him, Shen Chen was as good as saved.
Indeed, Emperor Shunyuan halted his pacing by the window, a flicker of sympathy crossing his brow.
He was weighing, comparing—whether to take back the high praise Wen Zhuo had heaped upon him and rescind his show of ‘kind intentions and careful consideration.’
Surely two hours or more had been punishment enough. After this ordeal, Shen Chen should not dare speak out of turn again.
Just as Emperor Shunyuan was about to relent, Wen Zhuo set his cup down gently upon the table, crossed his legs, and mused aloud: “The north wind howls, the cold rain darkens the palace gates—Consort Yi truly is a devoted mother. It moves one deeply.”
On the surface, this remark meant: the wind is bitter, the rain is freezing, the palace is dim, yet Consort Yi still came—how deep the bond between mother and son must be.
Combined with his tone of sympathy and concern, it almost sounded like a plea for leniency on her behalf.
Only the eunuch Liu Quan turned his head and gave Wen Zhuo a look of obscure meaning.
Suddenly realizing the implication, Xie Langyang shot to his feet, trying to interrupt the emperor’s train of thought: “Your Majesty!”
But it was already too late.
The key lay in that single word: ‘Chen’.
Consort Chen had died young, and her loss had always been the emperor’s deepest wound. More than twenty years had passed, and he had never forgotten her. Every other consort had become, in his mind, a rival who had stolen away Consort Chen’s favor. There was no way he would feel any pity for another consort while thinking of her.
Sure enough, the moment the word ‘Chen’ left Wen Zhuo’s lips, Emperor Shunyuan retracted his intended forgiveness. His pupils dilated, his cheekbones twitched involuntarily, his chest heaved, and his breathing turned deep and labored.
“Your Majesty? Your Majesty?” Liu Quan patted the emperor’s back and called softly.
Emperor Shunyuan, lost in his grief, paid no more attention to Consort Yi’s cries outside. He left directly through the back door and retreated to his bedchamber.
Only then did the assembled ministers finally understand what had just happened. Their gazes toward Wen Zhuo shifted, growing complicated.
Thank heavens Wen Zhuo had no interest in the struggle for the succession. If any prince were to win this man to their side, it would be like adding wings to a tiger—exceedingly troublesome.
Gong Zhiyuan smiled a cold smile. “Director Wen, what a fine tactic.”
Though he did not know why Wen Zhuo had it out for Shen Chen, as long as it did not involve the Crown Prince, it was none of his business.
With the emperor gone, the ministers naturally departed for their own homes.
Gong Zhiyuan left alongside the two Crown Prince partisans, Luo Mingpu and Liu Chenming. Eunuchs held umbrellas over them as they walked the long colonnade toward the palanquins waiting beyond the imperial avenue.
As he walked, he did not spare so much as a glance at Shen Chen or Consort Yi.
Back in the day, Gong Zhiyuan had actually wanted to marry his eldest daughter to the Crown Prince—even as a secondary consort would do. In time, she might be elevated to Noble Consort, bear a prince, and his Gong bloodline might contend for the throne one day.
But Shen Chen had gotten there first, pledging himself to the girl in secret.
Though Shen Chen claimed their feelings had simply overwhelmed them, and swore to make her his primary consort, there was something calculated about it all—like a fish bone stuck in Gong Zhiyuan’s throat.
Besides, as a steadfast supporter of the Crown Prince, Gong Zhiyuan had always kept his distance from the other princes. He had no intention of losing the Crown Prince’s trust for no reason.
Gong Zhiyuan left, and so did Prince Xian’s faction, led by Bu Zhangyi. The charcoal in the brazier was nearly spent, and outside the hall Consort Yi had nearly wept herself into a faint.
Without the emperor’s explicit command, no one dared to help Shen Chen rise—unless they wished to lose their life.
Wen Zhuo had seen enough of the show. He picked up the emperor’s gift of Songluo tea and prepared to take his leave. The folding fan tucked into his waistband, his tightly bound black belt drew his slender waist in yet another notch.
Just as he was about to step out the door, someone seized his wrist with force and yanked him back.
“Wanshan. You have come back too, haven’t you?”
Both of them were clever men. From the other’s behavior just now, each had already detected that something was off, so there was no point in pretending.
Xie Langyang looked at him deeply, his eyes filled with guilt, longing, and a trace of disappointment he could not quite hide.
The man before him was well-dressed, his hair jet-black, his eyes bright, his cheeks flushed—bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the dying wretch in the dungeons of the Court of Judicial Review.
At this point in time, he had not yet stained his hands with innocent blood, nor had he stooped to every means imaginable in pursuit of power.
This should have been the time Xie Langyang loved him the most.
He remembered how Wen Zhuo used to love counting the meager salary the court paid him. When he finished, he would lock away all his private savings in the small compartment beneath his bed, planning for his retirement. Sometimes, when he calculated and found it insufficient, he would even lift a few things from the emperor to pad his little coffer.
Xie Langyang would occasionally tell him not to obsess over money—that the Xie family had plenty, and no matter how extravagantly he lived, he could afford to keep him. But Wen Zhuo would retort that Xie Langyang was older than him, so what if he passed away first? That always left Xie Langyang speechless.
At this time, Wen Zhuo was living a carefree and easy life. In his leisure hours, he loved to frequent the pleasure quarters to listen to music, always at the cheapest establishment he could find.
He would idly wave a moiré-patterned folding fan, summon two exceptionally talented courtesans to keep him company, and stay out all night, indifferent to however the world outside gossiped about his dissipated ways and his lack of decorum as an official—even when Emperor Shunyuan rebuked him, he paid it no mind.
With bright, sparkling eyes, he would smile at Xie Langyang and say: “Perfect for fooling them—this way, no one will bother trying to marry their daughters off to me.”
Xie Langyang adored his sly little cleverness, adored those cunning yet affectionate eyes, adored his touch of literary refinement, and adored the way he was just the right amount of dependent and willful.
Merely recalling it now sent a surge of warmth through his chest.
But alas, that look of dependence was gone from Wen Zhuo’s eyes now, replaced by furtive schemes hidden in the shadows.
With just a few words, he could twist Emperor Shunyuan around his finger, leave Shen Chen with no one to turn to for help, and chill Xie Langyang to the bone.
Xie Langyang tightened his grip on Wen Zhuo’s wrist, suddenly realizing that Wen Zhuo seemed no plumper than he had been in prison. He could never seem to put on weight—he loved sweets like date and bean-paste cakes so much, yet he never gained an ounce.
No wonder those ten strokes of the cane had broken his leg bone.
The pain of a fractured bone—how unbearable it must have been.
And so, Xie Langyang’s heart softened once more. The force in his palm gradually loosened, his thumb stroking Wen Zhuo’s pulse with restrained tenderness: “I am overjoyed, and I have missed you dearly, Wanshan. I had nearly forgotten what you look like now.”
Wen Zhuo did not turn his head fully. He glanced down at his own wrist, and in a nearly amiable tone asked: “How dare Lord Xie grow intimate with me here in the palace?”
Just beyond the door stood two young eunuchs waiting to extinguish the lanterns, and kneeling outside were the pitiful wreck of Shen Chen and his mother.
If it had been in his previous life, Xie Langyang would never have dared to overstep so much as an inch in the palace.
The shackles he bore were too heavy; one wrong step and he would fall into utter ruin. When it came to Wen Zhuo, he felt especially guilty, even going so far as to deliberately keep his distance.
Wen Zhuo had long endured his two-faced demeanor—cold in public, warm in private—and had grown used to it, no longer finding it painful.
Wen Zhuo’s sarcasm stung Xie Langyang somewhat, but he had explained this matter long ago.
“You know, our teacher has always had men watching me.”
Giving his eldest daughter to Shen Chen in marriage had been beyond Gong Zhiyuan’s expectations, but marrying his youngest daughter to Xie Langyang had been done with deliberate intent.
The eldest son of the Xie family of Nanzhou, the top scholar of the sixteenth year of Emperor Shunyuan’s reign—Xie Langyang was the successor Gong Zhiyuan valued most highly.
A father-in-law willing to prop up his son-in-law certainly had to ensure that this son-in-law was obedient enough, loyal enough.
So for the four years Wen Zhuo had been transferred back from Bozhou and served as a fellow official alongside Xie Langyang in the court, meeting every single day, Xie Langyang did not dare cross a single line.
“That’s simple,” Wen Zhuo said, as if no grudge lay between them at all, returning Xie Langyang’s grip and rubbing his thumb across the other man’s fingers and palm, just as intimate as always. “Since you’re afraid of Gong Zhiyuan, I’ll think of a way to kill him off.”
Xie Langyang was dazed by the fleeting indulgence for a moment, then jolted awake, knowing full well that Wen Zhuo was capable of such ruthless measures: “How could you! Gong Zhiyuan is both your teacher and mine—raising a hand against him would be an unforgivable violation of heaven’s law!”
In the year Wen Zhuo and Xie Langyang sat for the imperial examinations, Gong Zhiyuan had been the chief examiner. According to ritual and custom, when candidates passed the jinshi examination, they were required to visit the chief examiner’s residence and address him as “teacher.”
From then on, all the jinshi of that examination class were considered disciples of the examiner.
However, after the palace examination, Wen Zhuo had been posted far away to Bozhou, and only Xie Langyang had been carefully groomed by Gong Zhiyuan.
So it was not undeserved for Xie Langyang to call him teacher, but Wen Zhuo did not deign to acknowledge the title at all.
“So you know that killing one’s teacher is an unforgivable crime against heaven,” Wen Zhuo said, suddenly pulling his hand away. His eyes, which had still been smiling, instantly turned cold.
Xie Langyang’s palm felt empty, and above the wistfulness he hurried to defend himself: “Shen Chen is different! A king takes the whole world as his home—how could he favor one man alone? A new emperor has just ascended the throne; this is the very time for reform, for washing away the old and bringing in the new, for purging the corrupt and praising the clean. Moreover, remnants of the worthy prince’s and the crown prince’s factions are still watching with hawk-like eyes. You… the wicked deeds you’ve done are an open secret to all. Shen Chen must give the court and the country an explanation.”
The sesame-oil lamp crackled and burned, giving off the same scent as on New Year’s Eve. Wen Zhuo asked: “So all of you had no choice, but only I am unpardonable, deserving of death?”
Xie Langyang’s gaze darkened: “Wanshan, the massacre of Duke Liu’s household, the deaths of the Third Prince and the Fifth Prince—you truly cannot shirk the blame for those.”
Wen Zhuo very nearly laughed at those words.
“Right, it’s as if I was born with a grudge against Duke Liu and the princes. Killing one wasn’t enough to satisfy me, I had to wipe out the whole house. And I pinned all the guilt on the Crown Prince and the Worthy Prince, making them tear each other apart until both were ruined, clearing a path for Shen Chen out of the goodness of my heart!”
Xie Langyang lowered his brows and reached out, wanting to embrace Wen Zhuo’s trembling body, shaking with agitation: “I know you have grievances, which is why this time I want to bear it with you, to carve out a new path together—one that neither shames heaven nor earth, nor shames our consciences, so that you may wash away your sins and become clean again.”
Wash away sins? Become clean?
So he was considered dirty.
Since ancient times, the struggle for imperial power had always been stained with blood, a fight to the death. He had become Shen Chen’s most vicious blade in order to protect Xie Langyang’s innocence. And it turned out that Xie Langyang, while enjoying his spotless reputation, had been looking down on him as filth all along.
What a worthless piece of garbage!
Wen Zhuo no longer grieved over this man. Instead, his thoughts became razor-sharp: “In the prison of the Court of Judicial Review, I kept thinking—how did Shen Chen find out that I prefer men? How did he lure me into his trap with that bitter-ruse? Now I see, it was all your handiwork.”
“How could I!” Xie Langyang truly had never revealed their relationship to Shen Chen. “Wanshan, I would never help anyone scheme against you, least of all against what we share.”
“If not you, then your wife. What difference does it make? Xie Langyang, I’m through playing your little games. If you have the means, then by all means, haul Shen Chen onto the throne yourself.”
Xie Langyang was not foolish enough to expect Wen Zhuo to support Shen Chen without a shred of resentment at this very moment. He only said: “Then, for now, could you at least stop opposing Shen Chen?”
“No.”
Xie Langyang let out a weary sigh: “You were in prison and didn’t know—that month, Shen Chen brought in the upright officials, curbed the influence of the empress’s relatives, and issued ten edicts of reform in succession. The whole court and country were thriving, full of a renewed vigor. He might not have been a good student, but he will certainly be a good emperor. For the sake of the Great Qian dynasty, for the sake of the common people—I beg you, let go of your grudges.”
Wen Zhuo picked up the celadon cup, looked at it for a moment, then suddenly raised his hand and dashed the cold tea straight into Xie Langyang’s face: “Why don’t you go say that to your dear father-in-law, and let the crown prince he so diligently supported hear it too.”
Xie Langyang was caught off guard, his forelocks and face soaked, with two tea leaves stuck to his cheek.
But he did not grow angry. He merely wiped the tea from his eyelids and continued to gaze at Wen Zhuo with the same persistent, deep affection: “I will find a way to deal with our teacher myself. But you are mine, and it is my duty—”
Just then, Consort Yi’s voice suddenly rang out from outside the hall, shouting loudly: “Physician! Physician! The Sixth Prince has collapsed! Someone come quickly!”
Outside, chaos erupted. The sound of footsteps and rain intermingled, dense as drumbeats.
A eunuch of some standing rushed to the door of the hall and called through it urgently: “His Highness the Sixth Prince has fainted! Director Wen, please go to His Majesty and speak on our behalf—we dare not move him!”
The eunuchs were perceptive enough to know that no matter how willful this Lord Wen was, the Emperor would always indulgence him.
Yet Wen Zhuo was determined to let the man die. He sauntered slowly toward the palace gates, letting out a yawn: "The Emperor has already returned to his chambers to rest. Wouldn't I just be inviting a scolding? Better to let the Sixth Prince hold out a while longer."
"This... ah!" The eunuch had no choice but to steel himself and relay the message.
The surroundings instantly fell into a profound silence. In his urgency, Xie Langyang hurried a few steps after him, his voice trembling low.
"Wanshan, Shen Chen is, after all, the future Emperor Shengde, destined by Heaven. No matter how many faults he may have, this throne must be his!"
"Destined by Heaven?"
Wen Zhuo first looked at Xie Langyang with a trace of surprise, then burst into laughter.
"Then just wait and see—whether this throne is decided by Heaven or by me!" With that, he raised his palm and pushed open the palace door, striding out without so much as a backward glance.
In an instant, a mist of rain rushed to meet him, the sound deafening—like ten thousand war drums thundering on a battlefield, plunging all of existence into a haze.
Xie Langyang, forgetting all courtly propriety, stumbled after the sliver of red in the gloom: "Wen Wanshan! The current Crown Prince is incompetent, the worthy Prince is a hypocrite, the Third Prince is crippled, the Fourth Prince has no ambition, the Fifth Prince is born dull-witted, and the Seventh Prince is still but a child. For the sake of the Great Qian dynasty's rivers and mountains, who else can you choose?"
Suddenly a bolt of lightning slashed diagonally downward, the world flashing bright as day in that instant. Wen Zhuo stood before the steps of Qingliang Hall, looking down from on high, his official robe a brilliant red like fresh blood, fluttering in the wind—he truly resembled the Wenchang Emperor in a painting, with crimson markings on his brow, commanding all celestial officials.
Raindrops pelted and crackled against him. Xie Langyang stared at his back, inexplicably seized by an uneasy dread: "You... who will you choose?"
