From mid-February to the end of March in the twenty-first year of Zhengyuan, spring rain fell intermittently over Yun Jing. The rustling sounds became so familiar that even Ni Su’s dreams were filled with damp rain.

The twenty lashes she had received were not light. Even after three full months of recuperation, though the broken wounds on her body had scabbed over, the injured tendons and bones still hurt terribly, confining her to bed.

Qingqiong had transplanted a willow tree outside her window. The soft willow branches swayed gently in the fine rain, their tender leaves fresh and new. Ni Su lay prone on a soft pillow, staring at it unblinkingly.

“No one plants willow trees in their home.”

Jiang Shao draped yesterday’s cloak—dried during a brief rainless spell—over a wooden rack. The characters “Ziling” embroidered in silver thread along the sleeve edges were quite prominent. She turned her face. “You did this because of him?”

Throughout these three months, Jiang Shao had remained here caring for Ni Su—changing her bandages, dressing her, helping her wash, rarely returning even to the Meng manor.

“It’s been raining too much lately. Come April, there will be even more rain.”

Ni Su’s complexion was still very pale. “In the past when it rained, I would boil willow leaf water for him to use. He loved cleanliness. Even as a ghost, he always cared greatly about his clothing and conduct.”

“He was always a child of complete propriety.”

Jiang Shao sat down by her bed. “Yunxian and his teacher were good friends. He used to come to our home with his teacher quite often. Yunxian always told me that if Princess Wenduan hadn’t already sent Ziling to Master Chongzhi, he would have wanted to take Ziling as his student.”

“The year he passed the imperial examination, not just Master Chongzhi—Yunxian was so happy he didn’t sleep the entire night, eager to rush to the examination hall to see his test answers.”

“I remember.”

Jiang Shao’s eyes and brows carried a gentle smile. “Once in the palace’s Zhaowen Hall, he got into a fight alongside the Crown Prince with those imperial clan children. Master Chongzhi was furious and made him kneel in the courtyard all afternoon. It was cold that day, and that night he ran to our house. I personally made hotpot for him and Yunxian to eat together.”

Ni Su suddenly spoke. “In the past, did he smile often?”

Jiang Shao recalled that night—the hot steam from the pot floating in the lamplight, that young man’s eyes and brows so animated, so fond of smiling. She nodded. “Yes, his features were extremely handsome, and when he smiled, it was very beautiful.”

Hearing this, Ni Su thought of his face. She had actually never seen him truly smile. Perhaps this was the difference between a body of flesh and blood and a remnant soul—his features could never be as animated as a living person’s.

Though he appeared nineteen years old, he had already wandered the netherworld for a hundred years. His hands could still hold a brush, still hold a sword, but he was always taciturn, never smiling. He would often quietly read books, quietly listen to her speak.

He always cautiously examined his identity as a remnant soul, yet still cared about clean and tidy clothing, about his appearance, about propriety.

“Can he truly… never return?”

Jiang Shao’s gentle voice suddenly brought Ni Su back to her senses. She raised her eyelids. The room was full of spent candles. Throughout these three months, she had burned lamps daily. “The reason I could summon his soul was because the Netherworld Pagoda held locked within it the thirty thousand heroic souls of the Jing’an Army. That was the only significance the netherworld permitted for his return to the mortal world.”

“And now, Wu Dai is dead, Pan Youfang is also dead.”

The rain mist rustled, the morning wind moist. Ni Su’s voice was very soft. “He cannot possibly return anymore.”

The room fell quiet for a moment. Jiang Shao’s heart also felt very uncomfortable. She had wanted to say something to comfort Ni Su, but looking at this young woman, she wasn’t crying, and even her words were very calm.

For a moment Jiang Shao didn’t know what to say. Suddenly she remembered something and turned to walk to the writing desk to fetch a book. “A’Xi, I almost forgot. You should look at this.”

Ni Su reached out to take it. On the cover were three characters: “Snow of Green Cliff.” Her heart stirred and she immediately opened it. On the frontispiece, several lines of vigorous, forceful calligraphy formed a “Rhapsody for Summoning Souls.”

Ni Su raised her head. “This is…”

“This book was personally authored by Censor Jiang Xianming while imprisoned in the Censorate Prison. The ‘Rhapsody for Summoning Souls’ on the frontispiece was composed by Hanlin Scholar He Tong, who was also a student of Master Chongzhi and Ziling’s senior fellow student.” Jiang Shao pulled up the quilt that had slipped down from her body. “The volume you hold was written by their own hands. Now, this book is being printed most frequently by all the major bookshops in Yun Jing.”

“They heard about you striking the Petition Drum twice while in prison. This book—they begged Yunxian to be sure to deliver it to you.”

For a moment Ni Su couldn’t speak. She only stared blankly at the frontispiece—

*Return, oh return! Why do heroic spirits not return?*

*Return, oh return! Where do loyal souls rest? At rocky streams where birds are silent, where clouds soar high and winds are pure, where lake waters flow ceaselessly, across thousand-mile journeys, thoughts without end…*

Censor-in-Chief Jiang Xianming authored the book “Snow of Green Cliff” to write the biography of General Jade Token Xu Hexue, and Hanlin Scholar He Tong composed within this book a rhapsody for General Jade Token and the thirty thousand soldiers of the Jing’an Army.

Once this book appeared, all the bookshops in Yun Jing printed it almost without cease.

For someone who had been dead sixteen years, people could still remember his name because he was a traitorous minister whom everyone had the right to condemn.

Too many people had forgotten that beneath his sullied reputation lay buried a past that had been covered over.

But in this book authored by Jiang Xianming, people came to know him anew. They remembered he was a descendant of the Xu clan of Qingya Prefecture. They remembered he was the son of General Tiancai Xu Xian.

His father Xu Xian had defended Ping River for ten years before his death, preventing barbarian cavalry from penetrating deep into the northern frontier for a decade.

And he had entered the capital at age seven, at thirteen traveled alone to return his mother’s ashes to their hometown, at fourteen passed the imperial examination but abandoned the brush to take up the sword and traveled to the frontier.

At fifteen he captured alive a prince’s son, at sixteen reclaimed a thousand miles around Yan Pass, at seventeen made barbarians flee in terror at the sound of his name, at nineteen received the title of General Jade Token.

Thanks to oral accounts from Miao Tianzhao and Gerang, every battle General Jade Token Xu Hexue fought while alive was detailed vividly and thoroughly by Jiang Xianming between the lines.

“Green Cliff has snow, yet I have failed it.”

This single sentence Jiang Xianming left at the page’s end with heavy strokes was neither poem nor lyric, yet it moved everyone who read this book.

Those who had wronged that general—how could it be just one “I”?

“Nowadays this book is spreading fiercely. Even in the teahouses they’ve begun using the book’s content to tell of the battles General Jade Token fought while alive. Those illiterate common folk with money listen in the teahouses, those without squat in the tea stalls listening to students reading it character by character…”

The Deputy Magistrate Yang of Guangning Prefecture sat in the back corridor talking with Deputy Magistrate Tao. “Even my wife has been taking the children to teahouses daily these past days to listen. Old Tao, have you really not read it?”

“With such a commotion, how could I not have read it?” Deputy Magistrate Tao felt gloomy. “But even so, with these commoners petitioning daily outside Guangning Prefecture, it’s still a problem… How can people like us manage affairs involving the imperial clan?”

From mid-February to the end of March, Heir Apparent Zhao Yi personally presided over the old case of General Jade Token Xu Hexue’s treason. From the Yongzhou military reports of sixteen years ago, to testimonies of local officials, to the议罪 and conviction for General Jade Token’s treason—the officials implicated already numbered in the hundreds.

Now, over eighty officials had been imprisoned in the Office of Nocturnal Interrogation for questioning.

“If you ask me, these common folk are just naive! Even though the Crown Prince is now reopening the case for General Jade Token, Duke Luguo is still imperial clan. Do they really expect the Crown Prince to execute Duke Luguo?”

Deputy Magistrate Tao detested this drizzling weather, and his tone while speaking was also quite unpleasant.

“Now the Crown Prince is having the Hanlin Academy and the Remonstrance Academy deliberate on the crimes of Pan Youfang and Wu Dai, but those two are already dead. Censor Jiang’s book has made the common folk remember what General Jade Token did for country and people while alive. They feel pain in their hearts, yet have nowhere to vent it. In that affair back then, Duke Luguo was after all the son of Prince Nankang. Though he’s pushed everything onto the already deceased Prince Nankang, no one can say he didn’t participate. The common folk now hate him terribly.”

Deputy Magistrate Yang watched the rain intensify and beckoned over a bailiff. “Call some men and set up a large oilcloth canopy outside our prefecture office. Don’t let those commoners get soaked by rain and catch cold. It’s not worth it.”

“Yes.”

The young bailiff responded and turned to leave with flying steps.

Deputy Magistrate Yang turned his face and added, “Old Tao, Administrator Yin hasn’t even spoken yet. Stop fretting here. We just need to report matters here to the court. As for the rest, don’t worry about it.”

In April, not just Yun Jing’s Guangning Prefecture but also some regional prefectures—besides memorials officials sent to Heir Apparent Zhao Yi’s desk, there were also blood petitions from ten thousand citizens.

Far away in Yongzhou, Army Supervisor Han Qing and General Qin Jixun, along with Commander Wei Dechang, Yang Tianzhe and others, jointly submitted memorials. The army and people of Yongzhou were united in heart, earnestly requesting the Heir Apparent restore General Jade Token Xu Hexue’s innocence and justice.

“Crown Prince, this minister believes that Duke Luguo is honored as imperial clan. Moreover, there is presently no concrete evidence proving Duke Luguo participated back then. We absolutely cannot impose the death penalty on him!”

In Chaotian Hall, a court official spoke up.

“If he hadn’t participated, how could he produce the current confession?” Gerang stepped forward, his words pressing. “Could it be that before Prince Nankang died, he specially reviewed his life’s achievements before his own son?”

Such sarcasm made that official’s face alternately green and white, but he didn’t dare argue with this Vice Commissioner of Military Affairs, Lord Ge.

“Duke Luguo is imperial clan. Your Highness has after all not yet ascended the throne. How can you impose the death penalty?” Huang Zongyu spoke at this moment. He glanced at Gerang with some displeasure. “You only know to indulge in momentary verbal sparring, but don’t know that doing so places His Highness in what position!”

“Just because Duke Luguo is imperial clan, must we handle him lightly?”

“We’re simply not imposing the death penalty, not refusing to punish him at all!”

“For such grave crimes, if we cannot impose the death penalty, what meaning is there? General Jade Token’s death, the deaths of those thirty thousand Jing’an Army soldiers—must we truly let them vanish like smoke and clouds?”

“Your Highness cannot kill imperial clan at this time!”

The officials quarreled again.

Meng Yunxian said not a word. Only Huang Zongyu was so anxious his head was covered in sweat.

“Minister Huang.”

Zhao Yi’s sudden call made Chaotian Hall instantly quiet. Everyone followed the Crown Prince’s gaze toward Huang Zongyu.

“This minister is here.”

Huang Zongyu bowed.

Zhao Yi asked him, “Do you truly believe that now I must impose the death penalty on Duke Luguo?”

“This…”

Huang Zongyu felt this question was very difficult to answer.

“Mencius said: The people are most important, the state comes next, the ruler is least important.”

Zhao Yi clasped his hands behind his back. “Xunzi also said: Water can carry a boat but can also overturn it. If you gentlemen serve as ministers, think of the state, and also think of the people’s livelihood, then I ask you—how should these two characters ‘public sentiment’ be interpreted?”

The entire court was silent. The officials looked at each other.

“Minister Huang.”

Zhao Yi again directed his gaze to Huang Zongyu. “Do you believe that as Heir Apparent, I should go against the current?”

“This minister…”

The sweat on Huang Zongyu’s forehead increased. For a moment he couldn’t answer.

Meng Yunxian suddenly stepped forward, bowed to the Crown Prince in respect, then straightened his body and looked toward the hundred officials. “You’ve heard the memorial from Guangning Prefecture, you’ve also heard the memorial from Yongzhou. All the memorials sent before His Highness, His Highness has also had read to you.”

“I must remind you all—we are now reopening a case for those who were wronged. The common people are watching the Crown Prince, watching you ministers. Those soldiers guarding our borders for Great Qi are also watching us.”

“‘Green Cliff has snow, yet I have failed it’—has anyone here not heard these words? If reopening a case cannot be thorough, if those who are guilty cannot bear the responsibility they should bear, is this still reopening a case?”

Pei Zhiyuan stood nearby. His heart stirred and he couldn’t help but speak:

“Must we who are living continue to wrong General Jade Token?”

The court officials fell silent for a moment, unable to say anything. Huang Zongyu’s complexion was very poor, but he also didn’t speak further. Seeing this, Zhao Yi spoke gently: “I know you are all considering my interests, unwilling for me to gain a reputation of cruelty toward imperial clan. I thank you all.”

“But now public sentiment surges. If I cannot follow public sentiment, is that not also a kind of cruelty?”

Now public sentiment was boiling. The court officials weren’t unaware, but in the current situation, what could they do? They couldn’t possibly arrest those commoners gathered before Guangning Prefecture, could they?

Naturally they could not.

When the morning court ended, the two Ministers Huang Zongyu and Meng Yunxian remained in the hall. Zhao Yi descended from the steps. Seeing Huang Zongyu’s face dark with displeasure, he bowed in respect.

“Your Highness… What are you doing?”

Huang Zongyu was startled. “This minister dares not receive this!”

Zhao Yi straightened his body. “Previously I was thinking incorrectly. As you said, I cannot kill all eighty-plus people imprisoned in the Office of Nocturnal Interrogation.”

Huang Zongyu froze. “Your Highness… has thought it through?”

“Yes.”

Zhao Yi nodded. “Minister Meng has already told me of your devoted care. If I use the method of eliminating the old faction in one sweep to resolve the factional strife between new and old, that too is a kind of partiality.”

Huang Zongyu couldn’t help but look toward Meng Yunxian nearby. Just moments ago he had been cursing Meng Yunxian fiercely in his heart, but now felt somewhat embarrassed.

“Minister Meng told me that the old faction has its shortcomings, and the new faction also has its improprieties. If I blindly favor the new faction, it actually benefits the new policies not at all. What I must do is remain impartial—do right, and I won’t be wrong.”

“Your Highness, this is exactly what this minister meant!”

Huang Zongyu lowered his head.

“Yes, I know your devoted care.”

Zhao Yi supported his arm. “But, Minister Huang, I can pardon some among them, but I cannot pardon Duke Luguo. Please do not obstruct me further.”

Huang Zongyu raised his head. He saw the Crown Prince’s expression was firm and cold, the earlier gentleness restrained. At this moment it was so brooking no opposition. He opened his mouth but couldn’t say anything.

Duke Luguo had originally thought that according to what Zhou Ting said, if he revealed the truth of General Jade Token’s treason case from sixteen years ago and pushed everything onto his already deceased father the Prince, he could walk out of the Office of Nocturnal Interrogation.

He was imperial clan. If the current Heir Apparent wanted to ascend the throne and gain a reputation for benevolence and magnanimity, he absolutely could not move against him.

But who knew that Jiang Xianming and He Tong, the two imprisoned in the Censorate Prison, would not remain quiet? They used their brushes as blades, peeling away sixteen years of dust, making the world remember anew that General Jade Token’s unparalleled achievements.

Countless people’s pain and remorse transformed into surging torrents, overwhelming and vast.

Sixteen years ago, Yongzhou’s public sentiment had subjected General Jade Token to death by a thousand cuts. Now the flood-like public sentiment of the realm also ultimately demanded blood.

On the fifth day of the fourth month—

The Qingming season.

Heir Apparent Zhao Yi ordered the execution of over thirty criminal officials. The Hanlin Academy and Remonstrance Academy deliberated for several days and finally on this day determined Duke Luguo’s death sentence.

When Duke Luguo heard this news in the Office of Nocturnal Interrogation, he fainted on the spot.

On this night of falling fine rain, the night market was cold and deserted of people. The commoners wore plain clothes, held lamps, and gathered at the gate of Princess Wenduan’s mansion.

“In the Princess’s mansion there are only Ziling’s garments from before age fourteen. When the Emperor previously ordered the Princess’s mansion’s wealth confiscated into the state treasury, his clothing… was all burned.”

He Tong had just been released from the Censorate Prison. He had become much thinner.

Hearing this, Meng Yunxian fell silent for a long while. “Now even if we wanted to find a piece of his clothing, it’s this difficult.”

“Lord Meng, why don’t we find some other objects as substitutes? Is there anything else?” Pei Zhiyuan spoke from the side.

“No, there’s nothing.”

He Tong lowered his head.

Even the coffin placed in the Princess’s mansion spirit hall today was completely empty, with no objects to place inside.

“I have something.”

Such a woman’s voice came through. In the dense fine rain, the commoners who weren’t holding umbrellas turned around to see a thin young woman.

She walked with staggering steps, supported by others.

“Is that Mistress Ni?”

“That’s Mistress Ni, isn’t it…”

“It’s her!”

People recognized her. They unanimously made way for a path. Meng Yunxian watched his wife Jiang Shao and that young man called Qingqiong together supporting Ni Su as she walked over.

“Mistress Ni, what are you holding?”

Pei Zhiyuan saw her arms held something wrapped in a shawl and spoke to inquire.

Ni Su extended both hands. The shawl scattered open, floating with the night wind, then pressed down by rainwater. Inside it, covered in rust stains, two sections of a broken spear were revealed before everyone’s eyes. “This is the silver spear General Jade Token used while alive.”

“Today, let us consider this spear as his bones.”

Everyone looked at the broken spear in her hands. Some women and children couldn’t help but secretly wipe away tears.

“…Very well.”

Meng Yunxian’s voice was hoarse. “A’Shao, quickly help her inside.”

Jiang Shao responded and together with Qingqiong helped Ni Su enter the Princess’s mansion. As Ni Su walked, she looked around. The Princess’s mansion had been sealed for many years, overgrown with wild grass, not yet cleared or repaired.

A wall of roses came into view, colors varying in depth and shade, luxuriant and brilliant.

Ni Su suddenly stopped. She couldn’t help but remember a certain night when she and he were in an unfamiliar courtyard, roses clustered like brocade, and he carefully sheltered her in his embrace.

“Roses have thorns.”

His voice suddenly rang in her ears.

“A’Xi?”

Jiang Shao didn’t know what was wrong with her and called softly.

Ni Su came back to herself, shook her head, and holding the broken spear slowly walked into the spirit hall. An empty coffin stood in the center. Ni Su saw the memorial tablet on the altar table.

Lacquered gold characters—his name.

In the spirit hall white candles burned constantly, the smell of incense sticks thick and strong. She bent down to place the broken spear into the coffin, then unfastened the cloak from her body and handed it to Qingqiong. “Give it to Minister Meng.”

“Alright.”

Qingqiong accepted the cloak and turned to go out.

Princess Wenduan’s mansion was brilliantly lit. Nearly all the commoners of Yun Jing had gathered outside the main gate. They raised their heads, watching that Minister Meng holding a cloak, standing atop the eaves.

Jiang Xianming, He Tong and others all stood below, looking up at him.

The night wind tugged at Meng Yunxian’s garments. He stood on high, his hands suddenly spreading open that cloak, facing north, calling out in a resonant voice: “Xu Hexue!”

Just as he shouted out this name, Meng Yunxian’s throat choked. He forcefully suppressed the emotions in his heart. “Xu Hexue! Soul, return! Precious delicacies and jade grains, fine vessels and fragrant wine—your home awaits! Five abundant grains, rich offerings of six livestock—remove all obstacles! Heaven above and earth below offer nowhere to go! Nowhere to go!”

“Soul, return! Heaven above and earth below offer nowhere to go!”

“Soul, return!”

The commoners shouted again and again in chorus:

“Xu Hexue! Soul, return! Heaven above and earth below offer nowhere to go! Return to your former dwelling, return to your former dwelling!”