With wind and snow swirling, they were each other’s only warmth. For that instant, even the cold tactfully departed.
Suddenly, Hu Shanwei felt her body tighten and her feet leave the ground—Mu Chun had actually picked her up!
Before Hu Shanwei could scold him for impropriety, Mu Chun hurriedly said, “You’re wearing thin-soled felt shoes, and the snow has buried up to your ankles. I’ll carry you back to your room so your feet don’t freeze—that itching and pain would be terrible.”
Separated by a thick bright red orangutan felt coat with no skin contact, Hu Shanwei acquiesced.
Hu Shanwei’s head was level with his chest, her breath from the tip of her nose reaching him. Mu Chun felt as if a cat was stretching its claws inside his chest, continuously scratching—but the cat had retracted its claws, using only soft paw pads to scratch him. It didn’t hurt at all, just felt ticklish, spreading from his chest all the way to his heart, then expanding throughout his entire body until every pore was crying out in comfort.
Mu Chun felt that the distance from the center of the courtyard to the room door had instantly become shorter than the distance from his left eye to his right eye.
So Mu Chun seemed to have grown a turtle shell, walking extremely slowly through the snow.
Hu Shanwei’s feet hung in the air, her form rigid. Her face seemed dyed by the bright red orangutan felt, and she felt the distance from the courtyard center to the room door was farther than from Xi’an to Nanjing.
Hu Shanwei urged, “Hurry up.”
Mu Chun spoke with conviction: “The path is slippery—we’ll fall.”
Mu Chun had already done his best, but helplessly the journey was only seven steps. Slowly crawling to the destination, Hu Shanwei returned to the warm room with its heated floor. She returned the bright red orangutan felt to Mu Chun.
Mu Chun put it on and tied the straps around his neck. Perhaps his hands had just been exposed to wind and snow and were frozen stiff and unresponsive—when he pulled hard with both hands, he actually tied the second knot into a dead knot.
The rope tightly locked around his Adam’s apple. Mu Chun felt difficulty breathing and tugged wildly, making it tighter and tighter.
Hu Shanwei was shocked: “Dying before achieving success, forever bringing tears to heroes’ eyes.” But Mu Chun was different—he hadn’t even set out to war yet and was strangling himself!
“Sister Shanwei… help… help me.” Mu Chun covered his neck with one hand and reached toward Hu Shanwei, his breath barely a thread.
Hu Shanwei stood on tiptoe, her nimble fingers fluttering up and down like butterflies, untying the dead knot and incidentally tying him a perfect bow.
Her soft, delicate fingertips brushed past the protruding Adam’s apple at his throat. The Adam’s apple excitedly rolled up, down, left and right. Mu Chun took his satisfied leave: “Thank you for Sister Shanwei’s assistance. I’m going now—sleep early.”
Before bed, Hu Shanwei sat at her dressing table removing her makeup and discovered an extra ornament in her hair arrangement. Pulling it out to look, it was a jade hairpin repaired with gold and crafted in the shape of a narcissus flower.
So earlier, Mu Chun had somehow secretly inserted and fastened it in her hair without her noticing in her distracted state!
Forcing a gift on someone then running away—Mu Chun was still the same as always.
Hu Shanwei accepted this gift. It was rare for him to be so thoughtful, giving the broken jade hairpin a proper burial and bestowing upon it a second life.
The gold-inlaid jade narcissus hairpin with gold cup rested on the dressing table. Though it had no floral fragrance, it surpassed floral fragrance as it entered Hu Shanwei’s dreams.
The next morning, Mu Chun departed in high spirits, also taking with him seven surviving bandit centurions including his former subordinate Centurion Shi. To convince people, he still needed to properly establish military merit on the battlefield.
Centurion Shi and the others were naturally grateful to tears: “Thank you for Master Mu’s cultivation!”
Mu Chun said, “You choose for yourselves—continue protecting Assistant Hu, or come with me to garrison the frontier.”
Though the steamed bun incident had been a false alarm, Centurion Shi had been thoroughly frightened and said, “Master Mu, this subordinate would rather die on the battlefield than dare touch palace intrigue again. The palace is truly terrifying—this subordinate never dares eat meat buns again.”
The others felt the same way, expressing their desire to go together, and so they all went together.
On the day of departure, Ji Gang braved wind and snow to see them off.
Mu Chun instructed Ji Gang: “You must protect Assistant Hu well—can’t have any more trouble.”
Ji Gang had spent these past few days exercising his specialty skill day and night—torture and forced confessions. At this moment full of anger, his speech was somewhat sharp:
“She lured you out with one broken poem, you risked everything in a single-handed meeting, staged a ‘playing pig to eat tiger’ act and eliminated General Lu, saving her. But what about her? Your journey ahead is fraught with danger, and you’re earnestly instructing me to protect her, yet she can’t even be bothered to see you off. Truly naturally cold-hearted.”
“Don’t speak of my Sister Shanwei like that!” Mu Chun grabbed Ji Gang by the collar. “She only saved herself? Weren’t you all saved together too? Without her quick thinking to recite poetry, how would I have known the mystery in the mountains? She didn’t come see me off because—”
Halfway through his words, Mu Chun remembered this was Hu Shanwei’s hidden pain, known only to him—a secret belonging exclusively to him and Sister Shanwei. Why tell it to others?
Mu Chun pushed Ji Gang backward: “Protect her well. If she loses even a single hair, I’ll settle accounts with you.”
Mu Chun strode away magnificently while Ji Gang felt indignant: “I came with good intentions to see you off, yet you scold me instead. Where’s the justice in that?”
Hu Shanwei heard the sound of hoofbeats outside and shut herself in her room, ultimately not taking half a step out.
Since parting, hearts find it hard to let go, streams slant again, mountains block again, people have gone.
On the third day after Mu Chun’s departure, Embroidered Uniform Guard Commander Mao Qiang actually came personally to Xi’an bearing Emperor Hongwu’s imperial edict.
Those from the prince’s palace who should be beheaded were beheaded, those who should suffer death by a thousand cuts suffered death by a thousand cuts. However, the main culprits Prince Qin and Side Consort Deng were both spared death. Prince Qin was temporarily stripped of his princely title, demoted to commoner status, and immediately exiled to garrison the frontier to atone for his crimes through merit.
Side Consort Deng was also stripped of her consort title, demoted to commoner status, and placed under house arrest in the very courtyard where she had once humiliated Princess Qin.
The newborn eldest son would be taken to the central capital Fengyang and given to wet nurses to raise.
Hu Shanwei was dissatisfied with this result, thinking she had misheard, and asked Mao Qiang: “These two committed heinous crimes and were even involved in attempting to usurp the heir and assassinate the Crown Prince. The evidence is conclusive, with Princess Qin righteously testifying against her own family and the eunuch Ma Sanbao tearfully accusing the pair of plundering and harming over three hundred boys and girls. Yet they’re spared death? Where’s the justice?”
Mao Qiang had organized and controlled the Embroidered Uniform Guard, handling various imperial cases and could be said to kill like cutting hemp. Others secretly called him a devil, but after Mao Qiang handled Prince Qin’s case, he felt he could be called a bodhisattva. He was Emperor Hongwu’s blade, following imperial commands, but he wouldn’t kill innocents indiscriminately. People like Prince Qin and the demoted Deng who took pleasure in killing and harming others—even he found them frightening.
Mao Qiang sighed: “Prince Qin is His Majesty’s second son. No matter how much trouble he causes, he’s still his own flesh and blood. His Majesty won’t kill his own son. Moreover, because of Prince Qin’s crimes, Empress Ma, as the legitimate mother, bears responsibility for improper guidance. In the dead of winter, she removed her hairpin and awaited punishment outside Qianqing Palace. His Majesty couldn’t bear to implicate the Empress, so he could only endure for now and exile Prince Qin to the frontier.”
“The demoted Deng is the legitimate eldest daughter of Duke Weiguo Deng Yu, and she bore the eldest son. Directly executing her might chill the hearts of the founding meritorious officials and implicate her family’s reputation, so…”
Mao Qiang paused and said: “His Majesty commanded me to secretly execute the demoted Deng, publicly announcing that she committed suicide out of guilt.”
Thus, after Prince Qin was taken away, Mao Qiang led his trusted subordinate Ji Gang into the courtyard where the demoted Deng was under house arrest.
About the time it takes to drink a cup of tea later, the demoted Deng was hanging from the roof beam, her body gradually growing cold. On the ground was an overturned stool, and on the desk was a suicide note. In the note, the demoted Deng tearfully confessed her crimes, saying she had failed Duke Weiguo’s household, failed Empress Ma’s teachings, and encouraged Prince Qin to commit various crimes—it was all her fault. She hoped their eldest son would be a good person in the future, and so forth.
Anyway, in the end, pushing all the mistakes and crimes onto women was the right approach. King Zhou of Shang lost his kingdom because of Su Daji, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang caused the An Lushan Rebellion by favoring Yang Guifei, leading to Tang’s decline from prosperity.
In a patriarchal society, men were all good—they were all led astray by bad women. When men made mistakes, instead of killing the men, they first pushed out the bad women to be killed to appease public anger. This was a tried-and-true method that occasionally even left behind fine verses like “the sovereign covers his face, unable to save her.”
This way, her natal Duke Weiguo’s household and legitimate mother Empress Ma could also be spared from the crime of improper guidance—a win for all three parties.
The Embroidered Uniform Guard fabricated the scene of Side Consort Deng’s suicide out of guilt, and thus the shocking criminal case was concluded.
The anger in Hu Shanwei’s heart remained undiminished. She felt that the main culprit Prince Qin dying ten thousand times wouldn’t be enough to repay his crimes.
But reason told her this was already the most severe punishment Emperor Hongwu could impose.
From this, Hu Shanwei understood one principle: The saying that “princes who break the law receive the same punishment as commoners” was just a lie to deceive the world!
Being in the palace, if she encountered someone with privilege like Prince Qin—an immovable force—she must first avoid, take a roundabout approach, prioritize saving her life, and find other opportunities for revenge. If she kicked directly at such a person, she would be shattered to pieces while the other would only suffer superficial wounds, and she would die in vain.
Because of her crimes, the demoted Deng could not be buried in the royal mausoleum. People from Duke Weiguo’s Deng family came to collect her body. Hu Shanwei, along with Mao Qiang, Ji Gang and others, returned to the capital together without incident.
On the tenth day of the eleventh month in the thirteenth year of Hongwu, Hu Shanwei’s party finally returned to the capital.
When they had left the capital it was still autumn, with maple leaves red as fire throughout the city and fruits hanging full on branches, like a mature and charming beautiful woman.
Today returning to the capital, heavy snow fell like that beautiful woman turning white-haired overnight, becoming a silver-haired old lady.
On this day, Princess Qin requested to become a nun and enter religious life. For the convenience of escape, she had long ago cut off her three thousand threads of worry and had been unable to touch meat or fish, already quite similar to someone who had taken religious vows.
The imperial family could not divorce, especially since this was a political marriage between nations. Entering religious life was the only way to leave palace and national disputes. Empress Ma agreed, converting a royal traveling palace on Zhong Mountain into a royal nunnery and conferring upon her the title Pure Tranquility Immortal Master to pray for the nation’s blessing.
Hu Shanwei brought the belongings that Prince Qin’s palace had packed for Princess Qin to the capital and delivered them to the nunnery’s former owner.
The eunuch Ma Sanbao, now dressed as a young palace attendant, went in to announce her. Soon he came out saying: “Pure Tranquility Immortal Master says she is no longer a person of the red dust, having severed worldly ties. She wants none of these worldly objects and asks that they be donated to the foundling home and elder care facility.”
Princess Qin, who had been deeply hurt and tormented by the secular world to the point of madness, harbored no resentment toward the secular world and still possessed a compassionate heart that mourned for heaven and pitied humanity.
Hu Shanwei deeply admired this and left the several carts of items there before returning to the palace.
Just as she reached the palace gate, Supervisor Fan came toward her and took her hand: “You’ve worked hard.”
Hu Shanwei didn’t know how to respond. Had it been hard work? She didn’t feel so. Anger and helplessness had battled along the way, finally shaking hands and making peace, transforming into compromise.
In the end, Hu Shanwei said: “Liu Siyan can never return. I’m sorry—I couldn’t bring her back.”
Supervisor Fan already knew from the Embroidered Uniform Guard about Liu Siyan having her tongue cut out, being burned to ashes, and having her bones crushed and scattered. She said: “This isn’t your fault.”
“Of course it’s not her fault! It’s Liu Siyan who was too unlucky, blocking a fatal disaster for her!” A voice rang out. In the distance was Palace Supervisor Cao—her voice heard before her person was seen.
She strode over aggressively with two palace maids holding umbrellas to shield her from the snow, yet snow pearls still rode the wind to land on her black gauze cap.
Seen from afar, it looked as if her hair had turned white.
No wonder Supervisor Fan was greeting Hu Shanwei at the palace gate—it was to deal with Palace Supervisor Cao’s fury.
What was meant to come would come. Hu Shanwei had long anticipated that Palace Supervisor Cao would come to demand an explanation. She stepped out from behind Supervisor Fan to face Palace Supervisor Cao directly.
Palace Supervisor Cao approached with red eyes and slightly swollen eyelids, as if she had just been crying. She pointed at Hu Shanwei and scolded: “Ever since you entered the palace, when has this palace had even one peaceful day? I said long ago that you’re a disaster star, but they wouldn’t listen. You can harm yourself if you want, but you’re fine while everyone else suffers!”
“During the peach blossom powder incident, you were lively and energetic while Female Scholar Shen Qionglian nearly lost her life. When the palace compiled books, you and Jiang Quan went out to search for books—you were fine, but Jiang Quan lost half his life. When the palace bestowed books, everything went smoothly for you. In the palace, Their Imperial Majesties supported you; outside the palace, Princess Yan personally disciplined her natal family’s younger brother, establishing a model for maternal relatives. When did you ever encounter half an obstacle? Everyone envied your luck!”
“But Liu Siyan went on one distant assignment for you and ended up with no intact corpse, her bones crushed and scattered to the wind! Even now, you still won’t admit you’re a disaster star!”