He refused to turn around, so Yang Wan couldn’t see his expression as he spoke these words.

Until now, she still couldn’t fully comprehend how devastating castration was for a grown man, but she had glimpsed a fragile corner of Deng Ying’s spirit. Like “frost that melts easily, while the full moon rarely stays constant,” his nature was like the winter season – unafraid of ice and cold, yet displaying humility through his excessive silence.

As a person from later times, Yang Wan’s only remaining humility toward this era came from Deng Ying’s humility.

He respected the punishment that had humiliated him, understood the teacher who had abandoned him and defended old friends who had misunderstood him.

His forbearance was a life force that belonged to him alone.

Yang Wan understood all this, but she didn’t want to see the humility Deng Ying showed before her.

It wasn’t humility – it was true degradation.

This made her wonder: in the history where she hadn’t appeared, had Deng Ying ever loved anyone?

Did the person he loved know how to dissolve his sense of unworthiness?

“Deng Ying.”

“Mm.”

Yang Wan pulled the quilt to her shoulders, freed one hand to smooth the messy hair on her forehead, and said, “I’m thinking about the same question as you.”

“What?”

How do I deserve you treating me this way?

She said these words to herself in her heart.

But outwardly, she changed the subject, pointing at the mooncakes on the table: “Come get the mooncakes, I want to eat some too.”

The mooncakes Yang Wan brought were wrapped in oiled paper, three in total. The crust was different from the mooncakes Deng Ying had eaten before, seeming to be made from glutinous rice.

Deng Ying placed the oiled paper on his knee and took one out to give to Yang Wan.

Yang Wan withdrew her hand after breaking it open, and the icy filling spilled out.

“Try a bite.”

Deng Ying took the half mooncake, “Inside is…”

“Peanuts and dried fruits, ground together with ice. I originally taught He Yu and the others to make these to please the young prince. He especially likes them. Giving them to you is perhaps a bit presumptuous – just try it as something novel. My throat isn’t feeling well, I can’t eat these. I want one with meat filling – give me the one with the red heart mark.”

After speaking, she pointed to one stamped with a plum blossom pattern and said: “That one was made for Teacher Zhang.”

Deng Ying froze at her words.

Yang Wan pulled her hand back under the quilt, “I didn’t go pay my respects to Teacher Zhang last time, but I’ve always wanted to do what I could to show my regard for him.”

Deng Ying held the mooncake without speaking. The icy filling melted and ran down his wrist into his sleeve. He hurriedly lowered his head and took a bite.

Yang Wan watched him eating and couldn’t help but smile.

“Deng Ying, whether it’s Teacher Zhang or the people of Tongjia Academy, their deaths won’t be in vain.”

Deng Ying swallowed the cold sweetness in his mouth and replied: “But I’m afraid that in the future, no one will know how they died.”

“Someone will.”

Hearing her confident voice, Deng Ying couldn’t help but turn back, “Yang Wan, I am a person who has no control over my life or death. If one day, I end up like my teacher, I hope you won’t record me, won’t let anyone know how I died.”

Yang Wan was stunned for a moment before asking, “Why?”

“I don’t want anyone in the future to suffer questioning and humiliation like the people of Tongjia Academy did, ending up with such a fate, all because they wanted to prove something about me.”

He looked up at Yang Wan as he spoke, “I can live dishonorably because living cleanly is no longer possible. Since that’s the case, I want to listen to my teacher’s words, remember my position, and continue doing what I can do.”

Yang Wan looked at Deng Ying, “I’ve always wanted to ask you – have you made up your mind?”

Deng Ying looked at the half-mooncake in his hand, “I have. The previous emperor established the Eastern Depot to monitor the Embroidered Uniform Guard, but after His Majesty ascended the throne, he trusted the Zhang father and son, so the Eastern Depot became virtually powerless. Now, although Zheng Bingbi is the Superintendent Eunuch of the Eastern Depot, he cannot interfere with the affairs of the Northern Disciplinary Command.”

“You want this position.”

Deng Ying nodded at her.

“This time, when the Northern Disciplinary Command executed over eighty people from Tongjia Academy, although it indeed intimidated the Six Ministries and the Censorate, it also shocked His Majesty. Zheng Bingbi told me that He Zhangyin had met with Zhang Luo, after which Zhang Luo submitted Tongjia Academy’s crimes to His Majesty. Looking at it this way, the Ceremonial Office seems to have made two moves in one step: first, to silence the officials, and second, to force His Majesty to give power to the Eastern Depot.”

Yang Wan nodded, “But if He Yixian made this move, he must intend to keep the Eastern Depot position for his people.”

Deng Ying smiled slightly, “That’s his thinking, but in His Majesty’s mind, I might be more suitable.”

“Why?”

“Because I am alone.”

When he finished speaking these words, Yang Wan’s heart felt as if it had been pierced by an icy needle.

She had to bend over, pressing her knees against her chest.

Deng Ying’s voice didn’t stop, simply and laying out the current situation.

“Given my current position, I can neither be accepted by the Cabinet nor fully embraced by the Ceremonial Office. Using me, the Cabinet won’t criticize His Majesty for favoring He Yixian. His Majesty also won’t need to worry about the Ceremonial Office and Northern Disciplinary Command colluding to become ineffective again.”

Yang Wan suppressed her pain and coughed once before continuing, “So that’s why you’ve been desperately trying to complete the Taihe Hall reconstruction these past few days.”

“Yes, it must be finished before frost falls.”

Yang Wan felt short of breath, “You know, once you take that position, it’s like tearing yourself in half.”

Deng Ying looked at Yang Wan, his gaze softening.

“I’m already not a complete person anymore.”

After he said these words, Yang Wan was left speechless.

Deng Ying sat with her in silence for a long while before finally speaking: “Yang Wan, I deeply fear divine retribution for defiling you, but I’m also afraid you’ll never want to see me again.”

He lowered his head after speaking, “You can give me the pity one gives to a slave, but nothing more. I cannot bear anything else in this life.”

After hearing these words, Yang Wan’s throat tightened.

But she didn’t immediately speak. She kept telling herself to be clever, not to judge the Deng Ying before her with overly modern thinking, not to recklessly teach him self-confidence, not to do things that would break him while harboring thoughts of protecting him.

Even so, she still felt deeply sad.

He was Yang Wan’s only faith in ten years, yet all he dared ask of Yang Wan was pity.

Yang Wan lifted her head and took a big bite of the mooncake. The fragrance of meat filling filled her mouth as she forced herself to chew twice, compelling herself not to think too much.

That night, Yang Wan didn’t return to Chengqian Palace.

She lay on her side wrapped in Deng Ying’s cotton quilt, while Deng Ying sat fully clothed beside the bed.

Yang Wan didn’t sleep all night. She remembered that night at Nanhai, when he sat before her in prisoner’s clothes. At that time, Yang Wan could still appreciate the quality born from his brokenness, but now she completely refused to think about any sense of fragmentation.

Deng Ying had truly been harmed by that cruel punishment. This harm was irreversible and difficult to repair. Although he concealed it well from Yang Lun, Bai Huan, and even himself, when the season turned cold and clothes grew thin, as she tried to get close to him, every word he revealed to Yang Wan was wrapped in blood.

In the past, viewing him through paper, Yang Wan could respect him but couldn’t love him.

Now, sharing a bed, it seemed she could love him, but first had to respect him.

See? Heaven was always the best at causing trouble.

Yang Wan opened her eyes in a daze. The sky outside was barely brightening. She had broken into a sweat once, and now felt as if she’d been pulled from water, her body burning hot.

Deng Ying sat beside her with his eyes closed. He must have been too tired from his work at Taihe Hall yesterday, but even so, his breathing remained calm, his hands lightly clasped in his lap, his half-rolled sleeves forgotten unrolled.

For some reason, no matter when, no matter what kind of clothes he wore, he always gave people a sense of coldness. It was as if he had just returned from heavy snow, travel-worn, unable to shake off the snow’s essence, and thus afraid to approach the people inside.

After frost fell, the worst chill of Zhenning’s twelfth year crept into the spines of all scholars.

Yang Wan walked alone on the great street before the Meridian Gate. Many people had gathered to watch the execution, with most of those standing in front were officials from the Justice Ministry. In early autumn, the emperor had originally decreed that all officials of the eighth rank and above in the capital must gather to watch the execution, but later, after hearing of the horrors in the imperial prison, he had withdrawn this decree.

However, most officials in the capital still gathered before the Meridian Gate to bid farewell to Zhou Congshan and the other ten students.

Zhou Congshan was an old Hanlin Academy scholar who had retired twenty years ago, now in his eighties. When he was lifted from the prisoner cart, his knees were completely fleshless, white bones exposed, his ankles too thin to hold the shackles. His eyes were sealed shut by his own blood, and when the Ministry of Justice guards pushed him onto the execution platform, he could only discern direction from the voices below.

Seeing an old Hanlin scholar tortured to such a state, several officials below couldn’t help but say quietly: “When the previous emperor established the Northern Disciplinary Command’s prison, it was meant to be an instrument of justice for the realm. This Zhang Luo, as Commander of the Northern Disciplinary Command, has employed torture beyond the law, tormenting people to this extent – it truly violates the previous emperor’s original intent in establishing the prison.”

“Don’t you understand? He’s using these people’s bodies to express the emperor’s rebuke of his officials. We should also keep our voices down – the Northern Disciplinary Command has too many eyes and ears.”

Yang Wan listened to the voices around her and looked up at Zhang Luo on the execution platform.

Today he wore the official robes of the Northern Disciplinary Command Commander, sitting behind the execution supervision desk, unmoved by the sounds of grief filling his ears.

On the platform, Zhou Congshan couldn’t kneel. The guards tried many ways but couldn’t make him stay up, so they simply let him lie on the ground. But he tore his throat crying out, desperately lifting his head to shout at the crowd: “The sovereign father is blind to such extremes… wrongly trusting eunuchs… allowing private torture, cruelly killing our… over eighty young scholars of Tongjia… Though I die today, my pure soul refuses to depart. May my flesh and blood falling to earth pave a righteous path for future generations… May my bones become trees, spreading canopies to shelter those who follow…”

May my flesh and blood falling to earth pave a righteous path for future generations.

May my bones become trees, spreading canopies to shelter those who follow.

Yang Wan stood in the crowd silently repeating these two lines, her whole body trembling.

In historical records of Zhou Congshan’s final moments, there was only the note that he “vomited blood clots, showing severe decay.”

Only today did Yang Wan learn that he had spoken such soul-stirring last words that would inspire future generations.

Not just Yang Wan – all the officials present showed expressions of grief.

They all turned angry eyes toward Zhang Luo.

However, from behind the execution supervision desk came only two cold words: “Cut out his tongue.”

Two guards from the Embroidered Uniform Guard immediately seized Zhou Congshan. A weak yet piercing scream came from the execution platform, and Yang Wan dug her nails into her hand as she whirled away.

The crowd fell silent, while her scalp burned with horror.