The weather was bitterly cold as common folk gathered on both sides of the road near Diqian Gate, their expressions varied as they watched those whose hands had been bound with a single rope by the personal guards of the Yinye Bureau.

A young man wearing a short robe walked slowly. A personal guard stepped forward and struck his back with the pommel of his blade without courtesy: “Move faster!”

The snow beneath his feet had not yet melted. The young man stumbled, then raised his head to glare fiercely at the personal guard.

Anger rising from his heart, the personal guard was about to strike when he heard a voice from ahead: “Stop.”

“Vice Commander Zhou.”

The personal guard immediately lowered his stance.

Zhou Ting walked at the front. Having stopped now, he turned back to look at him. “He is a person with official status. No matter what, it’s not your place to treat him this way.”

“Yes…”

The personal guard responded awkwardly.

The young man, however, showed not the slightest appreciation for Zhou Ting’s intervention. He simply stood his ground, refusing to move forward. “Vice Commander Zhou, I want to ask you—how are we guilty?”

“When I saw you working on behalf of Brother Ji Ming’s case before, I thought you were a good official!” He raised his bound hands, pointing at Zhou Ting in his dark black robes. “But what are you doing now? Helping those treacherous villains to deceive the sovereign!”

“He Zhongping.”

Zhou Ting’s voice was cold. “If you continue speaking improperly, your crime will be compounded.”

“Do I still fear adding another crime to what I already bear!”

He Zhongping looked around. Apart from the Yinye Bureau personal guards with long blades at their waists, both sides of the road were filled with common people who had come to watch the spectacle despite the bitter cold. Grief welled up within him. “What crime have we committed? Is it because of Minister Zhang’s last words? On that execution platform that day, so many people heard them—will you cut off their ears too? When a gentleman has doubts, he should think and investigate, and only then can he be without confusion. What did we do wrong!”

“You currently hold official status, don’t say anymore…” Chao Yisong couldn’t help but step forward, advising in a low voice.

He didn’t know which nerve He Zhongping had crossed. During Ni Qinglan’s case, he had been trembling with fear in the Yinye Bureau, timid in the extreme—how had he now become like a different person?

“I don’t need your reminder,” He Zhongping turned his face away. “Precisely because I currently hold official status, I cannot watch you people create great injustices right under the sovereign’s nose!”

“Take them away!”

Chao Yisong quickly waved to the personal guards.

“You feel guilty, don’t you?” A scholar broke free from a personal guard’s hand. “Why won’t you let us speak? Who exactly is so afraid of us remembering Minister Zhang’s last words? Who exactly is afraid of us mentioning Xu Hexue’s name?”

“We all know very clearly what kind of person Minister Zhang was. If Xu Hexue were truly a great traitor and villain, Minister Zhang would certainly have been ashamed to mention his name!”

Yet another young man spoke out in anger.

Zhou Ting suddenly fixed his gaze on him. The anger on the young man’s face faltered slightly as he avoided his eyes and lowered his head.

“What is your name?”

Zhou Ting walked before him.

“Chen Xing.”

His momentum had inexplicably weakened.

Zhou Ting gripped his blade’s hilt tightly, the veins on his neck slightly bulging. He took a deep breath and ordered:

“Bring them all back with me.”

This one statement in front of the public completely sealed the fate of these sixty-some people’s lives.

He Zhongping was yanked violently. He stumbled forward several steps, his voice hoarse and desperate: “We beseech the sovereign to re-investigate Xu Hexue’s treason case!”

“We beseech the sovereign to re-investigate Xu Hexue’s treason case!”

“We beseech the sovereign to re-investigate Xu Hexue’s treason case!”

The voices of sixty-some people shook the heavens.

Xu Hexue and Ni Su had just arrived at Diqian Gate. The closer they walked, the more clearly they could hear these voices.

Xu Hexue had never imagined that one day his name would appear in the mouths of so many people. The shouting almost pierced his eardrums.

In the cold mist, among that line of people being escorted by the Yinye Bureau personal guards, Ni Su suddenly saw He Zhongping’s face.

“Young Master He!”

Ni Su pushed through the crowd, running forward.

The Yinye Bureau personal guards immediately blocked this suddenly appearing woman. Chao Yisong turned his head and cried out in surprise: “Miss Ni?”

He Zhongping’s group had already been escorted to the Yinye Bureau. Hearing Ni Su’s voice, Zhou Ting turned his head. He stood for a moment, then said to Chao Yisong: “You go back first. Separate that Chen Xing from the others.”

“Yes.”

Having received the order, Chao Yisong turned and left.

The voices of He Zhongping’s group grew distant, yet they still rang with deafening power. Ni Su walked quickly before Zhou Ting. “Officer Zhou, they only concealed Minister Zhang’s collected works. Their crime doesn’t warrant death, does it?”

“Originally there was still room for negotiation, but now,”

Zhou Ting looked at her. “It’s hard to say.”

“Are people not even… permitted to speak?”

Ni Su’s eyelids reddened, her voice nearly trembling.

“It’s not that they’re not permitted…”

Zhou Ting’s throat was dry. He gripped the blade’s hilt tightly in his hand. “Someone has exploited their innocent hearts and pushed them onto a path of death. Ni Su, if I could, I wouldn’t want these people to die either. But now, I have no choice either.”

If the Yinye Bureau wasn’t the sovereign’s Yinye Bureau, then there was no need for it to exist.

He absolutely could not disobey the sovereign.

The youthful ambition to manage criminal justice for the Son of Heaven had pushed him into the desperate situation of creating great injustices.

That Chen Xing had already placed He Zhongping and the others in mortal danger. By saying he believed in Minister Zhang’s character, he was refusing to acknowledge Zhang Jing’s crime, refusing to acknowledge the sovereign’s edict, showing disrespect to the sovereign.

By saying that if Xu Hexue were truly a great traitor and villain, Minister Zhang would certainly have been ashamed to mention his name, he was saying that without investigation, based only on Zhang Jing’s few words, they refused to acknowledge the court’s finding sixteen years ago that General Yujie Xu Hexue had committed treason.

Both of these were capital crimes.

Zhou Ting didn’t need to think deeply about who was behind Chen Xing.

For this person to be willing to die, someone must have grasped something crucial about him.

“Vice Commander Zhou, Dong Yao has been found!”

A Yinye Bureau personal guard suddenly ran over, shouting.

“Where?”

Zhou Ting’s expression became stern.

“In a small covered boat on Yong’an Lake! Director Ding has already taken people there!”

Hearing this, Zhou Ting couldn’t suppress his anger. He grabbed the man’s lapels. “Why didn’t you report this earlier?!”

Hearing the name Dong Yao, Ni Su immediately turned her face. Xu Hexue had already turned around. He raised one hand, and scattered gleaming dust flashed and transformed into a long sword.

“Go quickly!”

Zhou Ting had just given the order when he saw Ni Su suddenly turn and run.

He glanced once at her retreating figure, then immediately had horses brought and led a group of personal guards rushing toward Yong’an Lake.

The shore of Yong’an Lake had already been surrounded by heavy troops dispatched by Ding Jin. Palace Censor Ding Jin stood in Xiechun Pavilion, staring at the young man in coarse hemp clothing standing on the covered boat in the center of the lake. “Dong Yao, I advise you to be sensible. Come up yourself—don’t make me send people to fetch you!”

“What crime have I committed that Director Ding must mobilize such forces to apprehend me?”

Dong Yao’s voice rang clear across the lake surface.

“You concealed Zhang Jing’s last words inside ‘The Collected Works of the Quiet Dwelling Scholar’ and used this to mislead people.” Ding Jin had taken in the cold wind and coughed heavily several times before continuing. “I know you acted this way because you respected Zhang Jing, but why didn’t you think of your foster father Dong Chengda far away in Wen County? I’ve heard that because of you, he has never raised his own children.”

At the mention of his foster father, Dong Yao’s heart felt as if it had been stabbed sharply. He immediately understood. “Ding Jin! You dare touch my father? Is there still law in your eyes!”

“This is exactly what I want to remind you about.”

Ding Jin’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Is there still law in your eyes?”

The ice on Yong’an Lake had been chiseled by laborers and stored in ice cellars, but the lake water was bitterly cold. No soldiers dared wade through it, so they could only summon boats from the common people to pole toward the center of the lake.

“Dong Yao, actually, if you just come up and explain clearly, it’s really just about a book collection. It’s better than you staying on the lake saying nothing, explaining nothing, isn’t it? The officials who try cases at the Censorate won’t bend the law, so what exactly are you worried about?”

Ding Jin spoke earnestly.

“Can I still explain clearly?”

Dong Yao laughed bitterly. “If I could explain clearly, how would He Zhongping and the others have been arrested by the Yinye Bureau?”

“They are they,”

Ding Jin rested both hands on the railing. “They brought disaster upon themselves through their words. You, however, still have a choice.”

The mist was cold over the lake. Dong Yao watched several small boats rowing toward him. He wiped his face, drying his tears. “Ding Jin, don’t think I don’t know about you people’s schemes!”

The old case of Princess Wenduan’s estate—he was the one who wanted to bring it up again. As the son of Lu Heng, a guard at Princess Wenduan’s estate, if he chose to live ignobly and let Ding Jin control his tongue, he could suppress this old case.

It would also place Meng Yunxian, who was handling the case, on the cutting edge of the storm.

“I’ll remind you once more—how you choose today will harm more than just you alone.” The mist was too thick; Ding Jin could barely make out the person on the boat.

“My foster father gave half his life for me, didn’t have his own children, gave up his future in the capital… He raised me, but not so I would become a treacherous and deceitful villain who fears death and harms others!”

“If I listen to you today, even if I can live to see my foster father in the future, he will certainly point at my nose and curse that I’m unworthy to be a member of the Dong family, much less worthy to be Lu Heng’s son!”

Thinking of Zhang Jing, Dong Yao’s eyes filled with tears. “Poor Minister Zhang! A lifetime of integrity, exiled for years, his family poor as can be, yet he was slandered as having embezzled a thousand acres of fields! He used most of his salary to help people like me—poor students struggling to survive in the capital… How could such a person be corrupt?”

The boats carrying soldiers drew closer and closer. Dong Yao shouted hoarsely: “It was I who concealed Minister Zhang’s last words in ‘The Collected Works of the Quiet Dwelling Scholar’! It was I who believed in Minister Zhang and also believed every sentence, every word he said for his best student before his death! It was I who wanted to reopen Xu Hexue’s old treason case!”

“Everything was done by me! It has nothing to do with He Zhongping and the others!”

Dong Yao bent down and returned to the boat, bringing out the Four Books and Five Classics he had been reading on the boat these days, tearing them into scattered pieces and scattering them toward the sky. “A gentleman will not accept humiliation. I have read the books of sages for twenty years, received twenty years of principles that our predecessors taught us younger generations, but alas—harsh winter is here, yet spring will not come…”

When Zhou Ting arrived, he heard the tragic, bitter laughter from the lake.

The torn book pages scattered and drifted in the cold wind. He vaguely saw the person on the covered boat in the center of the lake suddenly draw something from his chest.

“Dong Yao!”

Zhou Ting was alarmed and immediately dismounted.

No one on the shore noticed a wisp of pale mist moving toward the center of the lake.

But the laughter stopped abruptly at that moment.

Crimson blood flowed down Dong Yao’s neck. He fell, plunging headfirst into the icy lake water.

With a “splash,” water sprayed in all directions.

Xu Hexue didn’t even have time to grab his sleeve. He stood almost frozen at the bow, the sky full of scattered paper pages falling like white snow. His eyes fixed on the pale red bloodstain on the water’s surface.

“Director Ding! What are you doing? You forced Dong Yao to his death!” Zhou Ting couldn’t suppress his fury. He strode quickly to Xiechun Pavilion, questioning in a cold voice.

Ding Jin’s complexion was also very ugly. “How did I force him to death? I was clearly trying to persuade him to turn back from his wrong path!”

He had gone to such lengths, not because he wanted a dead Dong Yao.

Ni Su had just arrived. She lifted her skirt and walked toward the water-soaked stone steps below. Looking far into the distance, at the center of the lake was a solitary boat, cold mist diffusing, and a person standing on the boat.

Only she could see him.

The sword in his hand shattered into gleaming dust. That gleaming dust suddenly attacked the boats carrying soldiers. The people on the boats only felt an eerie cold brush past them, as if their entire bodies were being pierced by sharp thorns. They screamed and fell from the boats, soaking in the icy water.

Ding Jin, Zhou Ting, and the others in Xiechun Pavilion also felt as if something had pierced their bodies—the pain sharp and intense.

The gleaming dust indiscriminately coiled around all the soldiers on the shore of Yong’an Lake. But when it swept before Ni Su, it suddenly restrained its sharp edges and, as if it had lost its support, fell into her palm.

Ni Su boarded an empty covered boat by the lake. She poled with a bamboo staff, constantly watching that person at the center of the lake, moving toward him.

She skirted around those soldiers struggling in the water trying to reach the shore. The boats drew closer and closer, the water’s surface pale red, and the smoke-blue robes of the person on the boat were almost bathed in blood.

Ni Su wiped her face. The instant the boat sides touched, she dropped the bamboo pole in her hands and stepped across in one stride. She grasped his hand. “Xu Ziling, don’t kill them, don’t kill…”

She choked, unable to speak coherently.

You will disappear because of this, do you know that?

Xu Hexue raised his head, his pale face showing no expression whatsoever.

The scattered gleaming dust floated and drifted. It returned to his side, merging into his body. Those screams disappeared, and the soldiers in the water swam frantically toward the shore.

Xu Hexue held her hand, yet could not feel her warmth.

She was very cold.

But he still gripped tightly.

Ni Su watched him slowly crouch down. The pale red blood color soaked the broken paper pages floating on the water’s surface. He stared at them. After a long while: “A’Xi.”

“I can,”

“Wait no longer.”