Spring of the thirteenth year of Zhenning passed quickly. The auspicious vats that Deng Ying had designed to be placed before the Gate of Heart-Nurturing Hall were finally completely installed.

When Yang Wan occasionally walked past on the imperial path below the Heart-Nurturing Hall, she saw apricot blossoms reflected in the water, their faint shadows flickering. Fallen flowers floated rather than sank in the vats, and even when beaten down to the bottom by several sudden showers, they lay naturally on the green moss.

The spring in the entire Ming Imperial City was extremely reminiscent of Deng Ying’s temperament.

Warm, clean, pervaded with the crisp yet thin fragrance of freshly laundered silk clothes.

Yang Lun’s “Land Clearing Strategy” began to be implemented in Jiangnan.

But in early March, continuous heavy rains in the South caused the Jing River to breach. This led to flooding in three or four counties near the upstream of Yunmeng Lake that were conducting land surveys, as well as seven or eight counties at the confluence of Huaiyin Qingkou and the Huai River. The Huguang Provincial Governor Yu Shangwen memorialized Emperor Zhenning, requesting tax exemptions for four counties. Emperor Zhenning followed the Cabinet’s advice and issued an edict exempting Jingzhou’s four counties from taxes for one year.

Unexpectedly, when the counties in the Huai River flood zone saw Hubei take the lead, they also successively submitted memorials requesting exemptions.

However, when the pile of memorials came up, the Ministry of Revenue began to have difficulties.

The national treasury had been seriously depleted during the Zhenning years, with various ministries already borrowing against future income. Seeing that last year’s New Year’s silver for the department officials still hadn’t been distributed, how could they withstand such outflows without inflows? Therefore, whenever the Cabinet jointly discussed disaster relief matters, the Ministry of Revenue rejected them all citing lack of funds. The people in more than ten disaster-stricken counties could barely survive, local authorities were overwhelmed, and the land-clearing work gradually became extremely difficult.

Yang Lun memorialized requesting to personally go south to oversee the land clearing matters, but He Yixian took the opportunity to suggest to Emperor Zhenning to temporarily suspend the southern land clearing. He recommended someone called Liang Fan from the Ministry of Works to investigate the disaster and oversee the engineering work to plug the breach.

When Deng Ying told Yang Lun about this matter, Yang Lun nearly jumped out of his chair.

“Ha! Who knows how this Liang Fan will exploit the Ministry of Works’ allocations when he goes south? Everyone knows that after land clearing, the Ministry of Revenue needs money to buy land. We’re already desperate to squeeze silver from stone cracks. Now with natural and human disasters looming, they still embezzle! They’ve become lawless!”

Deng Ying hadn’t slept well the previous night, and now Yang Lun’s voice made his forehead throb with pain.

Since they were discussing matters in Yang Lun’s private residence, everyone sat very casually, only Deng Ying stood with his hands down, standing for an entire hour.

He was truly quite uncomfortable at this point, and had to press his temples and cough twice before saying to Yang Lun: “I can recommend someone from the Ministry of Works to you, if the ministers are willing to trust me.”

Yang Lun sat back down angrily, gesturing for him to say the name.

Deng Ying said in an even voice: “Xu Qi. After the Heart-Nurturing Hall project ended, he returned to his position in the Ministry of Works.”

Yang Lun didn’t speak, but Bai Huan suddenly asked: “Why do you recommend this person?”

Deng Ying turned around, cupping his hands toward Bai Huan: “This person oversaw the Heart-Nurturing Hall construction with me. Although he is overly upright in character, he is extremely loyal and righteous. If Minister Yang needs to go south to supervise land clearing, this person should not be controlled by Director He, nor use the flood to restrict the Ministry of Revenue.”

After he finished speaking, everyone present fell silent, some with doubtful looks, some completely disdainful.

It was almost summer, and that day was particularly sunny. Yang’s main hall courtyard had been baked by the sun all day, gradually forcing out a damp and stuffy smell from the muddy ground. An official surnamed Wu from the Ministry of Revenue couldn’t help wiping his face, suddenly standing up to say: “Today’s private discussion – I don’t know why Vice Minister Yang would let the Eastern Depot Chief in, and I dare not ask, but I’ll speak frankly. Whether it’s Xu Qi or Liang Fan, they’re both recommended by the Ceremonial Office. How much difference could there be? Forget about restrictions, I think their Ceremonial Office now has to kill on their minds!”

Bai Huan raised his voice: “Official Wu! Watch your words!”

Official Wu said: “Elder of the Cabinet, these are my heartfelt words, what is there to fear? Even if his Eastern Depot guards arrest me as soon as I leave, what I should say, I must…”

“If he meant to arrest people today, he wouldn’t be standing injured before us!”

Bai Huan’s raised voice cut off Official Wu’s words. Deng Ying was startled and looked up at Bai Huan. He also had a glimmer of hope, trying to see a trace of pity for him in his unacknowledging teacher’s eyes. However, Bai Huan didn’t look at him, waving his hand to contain his voice, saying wearily: “Enough, continue the discussion.”

Yang Lun looked toward Deng Ying, seeing that he was wearing casual clothes that day. Though it wasn’t very hot weather, his blue satin Daoist robe was already soaked with sweat. Yang Lun remembered the old wounds on his legs, and beckoned a servant to come in, instructing: “Bring another stool.”

“No need.”

Deng Ying bowed to Yang Lun, “I didn’t come today to discuss matters with the ministers, I only hoped to give you all some preparation for tomorrow’s imperial audience, so you wouldn’t be caught off guard. There are still official duties at the Depot, I must take my leave now.”

Yang Lun stood up: “Someone sees him out.”

Deng Ying straightened up with his hands down, “I wouldn’t dare, please let me go on my own.”

After speaking, he bowed again to everyone in the hall, backed up two steps straight-backed before turning to arrange his sleeves as he stepped down from the doorway.

Yang Lun watched Deng Ying’s figure disappear at the second gate, then turned to ask Bai Huan: “What does teacher think?”

Bai Huan was silent for a while before saying: “Xu Qi can be recommended, but it’s better not to have the Cabinet propose it. Communicate with the Ministry of Works, have them submit a memorial today, we’ll endorse it tomorrow, and submit it together during the imperial audience.”

Yang Lun responded “Yes.”

Bai Huan sighed and stood up shakily.

“That’s all for today.”

Yang Lun hurried forward to support him. As the teacher and student crossed the second gate, Bai Huan suddenly stopped, “What’s with the foot injury?”

“Ah?”

Yang Lun was startled, “Whose… foot injury?”

“Deng Ying’s.”

Yang Lun hadn’t expected Bai Huan to suddenly bring up Deng Ying’s leg injury. He was somewhat taken aback but still explained: “Oh. I heard it was injured by torture instruments when he was being tried at the Ministry of Justice the year before last.”

“Mm.”

Bai Huan nodded and continued walking, without asking anything more.

Yang Lun tentatively said: “Teacher, may I… associate with him in the future?”

Bai Huan stopped in his tracks, “Why would you ask me this?”

Yang Lun said: “He is our eyes in the Ceremonial Office.”

“Then just treat him as eyes!”

“Teacher…”

Bai Huan gripped Yang Lun’s hand, saying solemnly: “Yang Zixi… Once there’s friendship, you’ll think of fellow student ties. When he gets into trouble, you’ll easily make one wrong decision and fall into eternal damnation with him. Look at him…”

As he spoke, he raised his hand pointing outward, “Look what path he’s walking! He stepped over the lives of more than eighty people from the Tongjia Academy to take charge of the Eastern Depot. There’s not one person in court who doesn’t hate him. Who can protect him? Only the Emperor can protect him. But what is he doing? Is this what a servant should do? He privately communicates information with us – once the Ministry of Works recommends Xu Qi tomorrow, He Yixian will immediately understand what he did in between. If you treat him as a fellow student, do you dare to acknowledge this matter with him? You must distance yourself…”

Yang Lun unconsciously clenched his hand, “Must we just watch him like this…”

Bai Huan sighed, his eyes growing hot, his throat constricted.

“We can only watch…”

Yang Lun said: “But my sister is still with him.”

Bai Huan raised his head. A flock of birds in the clouds dove down their manner like knowing death yet still rushing toward it. The words he had originally been unwilling to say suddenly came out.

“Zixi, even one’s child, should they not be abandoned for the sake of the country?”

These words were spoken as they reached the main gate.

Bai Huan still gazed at the horizon but spoke no more.

Yang Lun raised his head to look straight out the door, seeing the spring path with green trees, swallow grass like green silk, a scene of warm spring prosperity, yet he vaguely felt that the whole way was covered in three feet of ice and strewn with white bones.

After leaving the Yang residence, Deng Ying walked alone on the main street. Several Eastern Depot guards saw him from far away in the crowd and swarmed to his side saying: “Chief, you’re out alone?”

Seeing their flushed faces and that they weren’t wearing official uniforms, Deng Ying gathered his sleeves and asked while walking: “Did you go drinking?”

One of them replied: “Yes, we went for a celebratory drink. Commander Chen married a second wife and got a new house, we just came from the festivities.”

Deng Ying nodded: “I heard about him buying a house last month.”

“Indeed! Oh my, it’s huge! Although it’s only a two-courtyard house, it looks extremely spacious. Chief, speaking of which, you should also get an outside residence. What’s the point of always living in the palace? I see many Beijing officials eagerly waiting to show you respect, some even bringing property deeds – what’s the harm in just taking a look?”

Deng Ying smiled: “If they’re coming through your channels, you go look.”

“How can that be? These past six months, you’ve distributed everything to your subordinates, not adding anything for yourself inside or out. If you don’t want anything for yourself, at least think about Lady Yang!”

Deng Ying stopped walking, “Don’t speak like that.”

As he finished speaking, they had reached the East Prosperity Gate.

When the guards saw the person at the gate, they suddenly fell silent as winter cicadas, pulling at each other as they left.

Deng Ying looked up and saw Yang Wan standing behind the East Prosperity Gate, wearing new palace clothes, her hair in a loose bun. Over these past six months, she seemed to have developed new insights into makeup and clothing, becoming increasingly radiant.

“Why are you here?”

Yang Wan walked a few steps closer to him, “Can you tell what’s different?”

“Promoted to Registry Chief?”

Yang Wan smiled: “Yes, I want to host a celebration tonight, but I don’t have a place, so I need to borrow yours and Li Yu’s.”

Deng Ying hesitated: “My place is cramped, I’m afraid…”

“It’s fine.”

Yang Wan walked forward with him, saying as they walked: “Now that the weather’s warm, we don’t need to eat hotpot inside. I see you usually cook outside anyway. There won’t be many people this time, just you and me, Li Yu, Yun Qing, and Chen Hua. I’m not asking for much, just some liveliness. Look… how many times have we talked about getting together? Your health hasn’t been good, so we never managed to do it.”

Deng Ying nodded in agreement: “Alright. I’ll first return to the Depot office, then come over.”

Yang Wan suddenly asked: “When you went out today, did you go to see my brother?”

Deng Ying paused, “How did you know?”

“I guessed.”

She looked at his ankle as she spoke, “Looking at how you walk, I know you stood for a long time. Outside, beside him, who else would dare make you stand so long?”

She finished speaking and moved closer to Deng Ying, “Deng Ying.”

“Mm?”

“Don’t be afraid of him in the future, just sit while talking to him. If he’s not nice to you again, I’ll go to the Imperial Court Gate and scold him.”

Deng Ying laughed out loud, “The Cabinet Elder was also there today, I couldn’t be disrespectful.”

“Oh.”

Yang Wan sighed, “I can’t mess with that old master. Ah…”

This sigh carried some heartache, “I also stood all day today, there really are many people I can’t mess with.”

Deng Ying hurriedly asked: “What happened?”

Yang Wan pressed her lips together, “Noble Consort Jiang suddenly wanted to read some classics. Just reading would have been fine, but then she ordered me to recite them. I read for half a day, her palace maids nearly fell asleep – clearly revenge against me.”

“Is it because of last time when you reported the Yanxi Palace incident?”

Yang Wan shrugged, “What else could it be? I finally understand why Lady Jiang punished me that time.”