For a moment, all resentment dissolved, and the cherished memories of former days between teacher and student resurfaced.

The Sixth Prince suddenly recalled: his junior mentor had once brought him — trapped in the palace, neglected and overlooked — on a journey to wander through the countryside, explaining to him the ways of farming and sericulture, praising his compassionate heart toward the farmers and saying it was entirely befitting of imperial bloodline…

That had been the first time he had ever retrieved any sense of self-confidence, feeling that he was not inferior to any of his imperial brothers.

The tears that had been pressed down by the bitter rice tea welled up again like a spring.

The Sixth Prince once more threw his arms around his honored teacher’s legs, like a lamb who had finally found its mother sheep, and said with a choked voice: “Junior Mentor treated me so well, yet I have always harbored disrespect toward Junior Mentor in my heart. I am truly, truly sorry to Junior Mentor…”

Chu Linlang, to avoid any impropriety, had deliberately stayed far away — yet she could still faintly hear the sound of loud, wailing sobs coming from Situ Sheng’s room.

The sound grew louder, giving the nearby Xia He such a fright that she shuddered, and whispered: “Lord Situ… is he torturing the Prince in the study?”

Chu Linlang stood up and peered toward the study door, thinking it was unlikely — after all, the charcoal brazier in the study had just been taken away by Guanqi. There was nothing there to inflict serious punishment with!

That evening, the Situ household’s dinner table had an extra pair of chopsticks. The Sixth Prince stayed behind and shared a simple home-cooked meal with his honored teacher.

His honored teacher had said: going forward, there was no need to be overly warm toward him in public either. Their friendship was like the bond of a true gentleman — as light as water, yet a cup of water capable of saving a life. There was no need to deliberately let others know they had reconciled as teacher and student.

Situ Sheng also took the opportunity to analyze for the Sixth Prince — who had been unable to sleep for days — the current political landscape: since the Crown Prince’s side had been willing to reprimand the Sixth Prince, and the Sixth Prince had wisely responded and dealt with the relevant parties, it was taken as a statement of position. There was no need to dwell further on the matter.

If anyone in the future brought up the matter of the ship’s cargo, the Sixth Prince was simply to give no response whatsoever.

As for the matter of the northwestern drought that he was now overseeing — that was a longstanding regional affliction and could not be resolved quickly. For a permanent solution, the approach should indeed follow the Sixth Prince’s earlier proposal to the Emperor: the excavation of irrigation canals.

However, the imperial treasury was currently strained, and the Emperor was prone to flying into a great rage over any matter involving the spending of silver. So the scolding the Sixth Prince had previously received was not due to a flawed strategy — it was simply that the timing had struck a tender nerve with the Emperor.

As long as the Sixth Prince could find a way to raise the funds for constructing the water canals independently, without drawing on the imperial treasury, he should no longer risk enraging the Dragon Throne.

As for how to raise the funds — that was for the Sixth Prince to figure out himself.

In short: the Sixth Prince had arrived spiritless and limp as a bean sprout, but when he left through the Situ household’s gate under cover of darkness, he was like a sapling that had been properly watered — his entire bearing full of vigor and confidence.

And in reciprocation, the Sixth Prince’s most earnest fulfillment of his honored teacher’s small request was only natural.

The detailed records of the newly transferred Chief Justice Lord Cheng and his relatives’ landholdings were retrieved from the Ministry of Revenue by the Sixth Prince within a matter of days, and delivered by a trusted personal attendant to Situ Sheng’s desk.

Situ Sheng had no patience for those outdated case files and pushed them aside. Over his stimulating bitter rice tea, he began meticulously and with evident relish combing through his superior Lord Cheng’s accounts.

There was nothing else to be done — since this inconsiderate superior had been deliberately put in place by someone to make his life difficult, he could hardly afford not to deploy some tactics in return. Otherwise, what was the point of carrying the reputation of “ruthless official”?

Lord Cheng was indeed someone the Crown Prince had gone to great lengths to install.

The Court of Judicial Review was the nerve center for adjudicating important cases. If the Crown Heir could not plant his own trusted subordinates there, how could he sleep soundly?

As for Situ Sheng — though the Crown Prince had an eye for talent, since Situ Sheng refused to play along, there was nothing left to do but cause him some discomfort, while simultaneously sending a message to others about the consequences of opposing the Crown Prince.

Very soon, the entire Court of Judicial Review knew that the newly arrived Chief Justice had no love for Associate Director Situ.

Trivial and useless official tasks piled up like a collapsed mountain, all thrust onto Situ Sheng.

Some also sat by in idle amusement, even quietly placing bets on when this Associate Director would erupt and go complain to the Emperor.

If that truly happened, Lord Cheng would likely have grounds for deflection. But going over a superior’s head to lodge a complaint against one’s own supervisor was generally viewed unfavorably by the Emperor. And Lord Cheng had the Crown Prince behind him — if this Associate Director went to accuse a future ruler of the realm, that would truly be laughable beyond measure!

Yet the anticipated spectacle continued to be long delayed. Lord Situ, in a complete departure from the thunderbolt ferocity he had displayed when purging the Tai Prince’s faction, abandoned all strategic flexibility and became the very picture of submissive compliance. No matter how unreasonable Lord Cheng’s demands grew, Situ Sheng shouldered them all and never once pushed back.

But Chu Linlang was well aware of Situ Sheng’s labors during those days.

She had once watched Zhou Sui’an groan and complain his way through tallying up a few account books from the counties and prefectures at year’s end, thinking at the time that that was the pinnacle of exhausting work.

But seeing Situ Sheng’s kind of toil — which showed no consideration for his own life whatsoever — she finally understood what it meant to work oneself to the bone at one’s desk.

Even an outside observer’s heart tightened watching it, breaking out in a cold sweat on his behalf.

Chu Linlang also discovered that Situ Sheng seemed to have an innate tendency toward light sleep, sometimes accompanied by headaches. However, when she practiced calligraphy in the study, he could manage to close his eyes and get a proper nap in, relieving some of the accumulated fatigue.

Even Guanqi made jokes about it: “Madam Chu, could it be that your handwriting is so ugly that our lord falls asleep just looking at it?”

Chu Linlang ignored his teasing, and while brewing restorative herbal drinks for Situ Sheng, began bringing her sewing basket into his study as well.

Sometimes even when she wasn’t practicing calligraphy, she would go sit in the study for a spell — without disturbing his lordship — simply settling quietly beside the study window, keeping a pot of calming dried tangerine peel and longan and chrysanthemum tea warming, while embroidering flowers.

When Situ Sheng grew tired from writing and looked up, he could see the bright, graceful woman sitting by the open window, her dark cloud-like hair piled elegantly on her head, her pale neck bent low, her luminous wrists turning, fingertips weaving deftly — leisurely embroidering flowers, like a painted lady from a master’s hand.

Accompanied by the faint delicate fragrance from the woman and the rising steam of tangerine peel-scented vapor, drowsiness came considerably more easily.

He would write official documents for a while, then settle comfortably in the reclining chair for a nap.

Sometimes in his light sleep, he could hear her soft, light footsteps approaching, and feel a warm blanket being laid over him.

Situ Sheng had grown accustomed by now to having someone accompany him in the study. No longer would he jolt awake suddenly and frighten her into stepping in the brazier.

Yet in that half-dreaming, half-waking state, he had to restrain himself from reaching out to touch the woman who had drawn near…

Each time, Situ Sheng would silently hold his breath, clench his fist, and then slowly let his breathing return to its even rise and fall.

He kept reminding himself: if he lacked sufficient strength, he should not touch what he had no right to touch. Yet this kind of resolve, when faced with a temptation unlike anything he had ever encountered, was like a dam riddled by white ants — on the verge of collapsing altogether.

Before, he had never wanted anything. But now he discovered it was not that he hadn’t wanted — it was simply that he had never known what it felt like to have these things.

Once tasted, he found the flavor lingered and grew into a craving he should not have had. Knowing it was something he could not pursue, it was still like wild grass sprouting in the heart — impossible to return to the original barrenness…

The small charcoal stove bubbled softly, and only after the woman who had quietly laid the blanket over him had slipped out of the room did he slowly open his eyes, his gaze resting on the half-closed door.

He silently drew a deep breath of the faint, elegant fragrance still drifting in the air, then rose and returned to his desk. But what he now read was not the Court of Judicial Review’s old case files — it was the Ministry of Revenue land account records that the Sixth Prince had been having copied out for him day after day…

As for the shoe-pinching Lord Cheng, finding that no matter how he buried Situ Sheng in exhausting clerical work it produced no particular effect, he changed tactics. Recently he had stopped assigning cases to Situ Sheng altogether.

All at once, Situ Sheng became an idle man in the Court of Judicial Review again. His colleagues all pitied and lamented Lord Situ’s situation. Because Chief Justice Lord Cheng had timed his moves with exceptional precision.

As it happened, this coincided with the middle of the year. If Lord Situ were to remain this idle for the entire second half of the year, come year’s end when officials were evaluated on their performance, and the Ministry of Personnel came to write assessments for every official — when it was Situ Sheng’s turn, the page would be completely blank, with not a single achievement to speak of.

With such an assessment in hand, how could Situ Sheng possibly pass the Emperor’s review?

Being kept deliberately idle was, for young officials, the most lethal tactic of all!

Once a record of uselessness and inaction was committed to paper, future career advancement would essentially be finished.

But then, Situ Sheng had brought it upon himself — of all people to antagonize, he had to choose the Crown Prince!

If only he could have used the merit of bringing down the Tai Prince to pledge allegiance to the Crown Heir — what a smooth and unobstructed path his career would have been!

Others might say anything, but there was someone quietly comparing himself to Situ Sheng all along: Zhou Sui’an. And upon hearing his silent benchmark go into decline, Lord Zhou felt a hidden, furtive flicker of satisfaction.

His new wife Xie Shi, after sulking over being cold-shouldered by her parents’ family for a period and feeling low, had rallied herself again.

Xie Youran had recently been diligently attending all manner of large and small banquets. Though she could not return home, she could meet her mother — who had recently been permitted to go out — at these gatherings.

Xie Youran later gleaned some vague inside information from her mother: roughly, that Aunt An had been trading on her father’s name and the Sixth Prince’s authority, and had stirred up terrible disaster. To avoid implicating her older sister and making things difficult for her at the princely household, they had to keep a low profile and could not pursue the matter with the woman surnamed Chu to the bitter end.

Xie Youran had no patience for untangling all the twists and turns involved. She had decided that her father was playing favorites with her older sister and brother-in-law, and had therefore grown cold toward her and Zhou Sui’an.

Having settled on this conclusion, she was building up a resentful determination to compete with her older sister — to see whether it was her sister’s good-for-nothing prince husband who was reliable, or the talented young man she herself had chosen who had a brighter future.

With this in mind, she had been spending a great deal of time lately with relatives connected to the Ministry of Revenue, and was also dragging Zhou Sui’an along to attend large and small banquets. The current winds of favor at court were still blowing largely toward the Crown Prince.

Though the Fourth Imperial Prince had regained imperial grace, his mother’s family had no power behind it, and with no Tai Prince backing him up either, he could not amount to much for the time being. The Crown Prince was different — his mother, the Empress, had died young, but his maternal grandfather’s family held overwhelming power at court.

Anyone with eyes could see that the future ruler would still have to be the Crown Prince.

And so Zhou Sui’an, under Xie Youran’s influence, gradually distanced himself from his brother-in-law the Sixth Prince as well. Instead, he was actively cultivating relationships with colleagues who were close to the Crown Prince.

In truth, Zhou Sui’an didn’t want to, but his father-in-law’s entire family was clearly not going to look after him as a son-in-law. He had to make his own arrangements and could not afford to follow in Situ Sheng’s footsteps.

One day, Zhou Sui’an was drinking with a group of colleagues in a teahouse on a bustling capital street. He happened to glance down from the second-floor window and spotted a familiar, elegant silhouette walking along the street below.

Looking more closely, the tall figure was none other than the Situ Sheng they had just been discussing. And at his side was a slender, beautiful figure — his former wife, Chu Linlang.

Zhou Sui’an’s eyes lit up at the sight of Chu Linlang, and he leaned slightly forward to look more carefully. But as he did, his brow furrowed.

Chu Linlang couldn’t help letting out a laugh, tilting her head up to look at him: “It seems I should expand my business a bit. My lord, if you ever grow tired of being an official in the future, why not come work as my accountant? What do you say?”

She was holding two items in her hand, hesitating as she compared one against the other at the tall man’s waist. The man bent his head and apparently said something, at which she suddenly tilted her head up and smiled at him brightly, without the slightest reserve.

Zhou Sui’an watched this with fury rising in his chest, feeling that the woman surnamed Chu apparently never looked in the mirror. Did she not see her own age? Did she still think she was an unmarried young girl? Smiling so coquettishly — what was she thinking?

The two of them came out of the jewelry shop and went out of the city together, but parted ways partway through.

Each year on this day, the offerings he prepared came in two sets.

This grave was his foster mother’s burial place — and also an unspoken, unspeakable cenotaph for the general!

By the time he finished these words, the naked threat in them was completely undisguised.

Not long after saying this, she drew her last breath. Situ Sheng, following her final instructions, delayed the announcement of his foster mother’s death.

Because the heads of that man and countless other brave soldiers of Great Jin had been cut off by the enemy and taken as war trophies, packed along with grain supplies and carried away.

Situ Sheng lowered his gaze and continued burning paper money. Behind him came the sound of footsteps — a woodcutter wearing a conical straw hat came around a bend along a mountain path.

On an earthen mound at the foot of the mountain stood a solitary grave.

The two of them had apparently been in a jewelry and gemstone shop selecting items, and Chu Linlang was helping Situ Sheng choose a jade pendant to match his belt and garments.

Guanqi followed not far behind Situ Sheng, his face full of worry — seemingly afraid that Situ Sheng would once again sink into painful self-torment.

He had not been able to fulfill his filial duties for many years before his foster mother’s chronic illness flared and took her life.

He had been obedient, curling motionless inside the wooden barrel — but that person had broken his promise and never returned for him.

No one knew that inside his foster mother’s coffin, there was also a suit of rusted armor.

It was only at this moment that he seemed to become once again a walking corpse without a soul — wandering aimlessly through the heavens and earth, neither thinking nor daring to think of anything…

The man spat out a mouthful of blood and, in terrified alarm, scrambled backward, hastily continuing his threat: “If you dare kill me, aren’t you afraid that…”

This was the tomb of his “mother,” Li Shi.

The man gave a cold laugh and opened his mouth: “The household master has endured hardship and nursed grievances all these years, keeping you as a hidden piece on the board. You should do your best to keep climbing. Never let a slackening, cowardly heart take root. The sooner you accomplish your purpose, the sooner you can go back and see the people you wish to see — isn’t that right?”

Situ Sheng slowly crouched down, making a tremendous effort to keep his rapidly destabilizing emotions in check. Then he stood, approached the gravestone, and stood before it.

These casual, impertinent words — she would never have dared say them when she had first arrived at the Lesser Court Director’s household. But now, without realizing it, she too had been thoroughly spoiled by this Associate Director, just as Guanqi had been.

The woodcutter, seemingly too exhausted, set down his carrying pole and sat resting on a nearby earthen slope. After surveying the surrounding area and confirming no one else was near, he watched Situ Sheng slowly burning paper money and said in a low voice: “Your master has sent you a letter. Why have you still made no move up to now?”

He had fulfilled his assignment and was about to turn and go, but in a flash the tall man was before him. A powerful fist struck him and sent him flying, landing him heavily on the ground.

She remembered that in her final moments, the woman had gripped his hand and said: “When I have breathed my last, delay the funeral announcement for five days. By then, it will also happen to be his death anniversary. You need not observe any taboo — use my name as cover, burn some paper money for him too, and let yourself cry freely.”

One set to mourn his foster mother, of boundless grace and deep benevolence. The other, to mourn that unspeakable ancestor from a former life.

He finished burning the remaining paper money, then smoothed over the traces of writing on the ground with his hands, and only then stood up and walked slowly down toward the foot of the mountain.

When his birth mother had “died,” Li Shi, entrusted by an old friend, had taken him in. She then used the excuse that her own biological child had died in infancy and she had charitably taken in a roadside orphan, to formally adopt him as her own — legitimately entering him into the Situ family register and changing his name to “Sheng.” His foster mother Li Shi had also scrimped and saved to have him enrolled in a private academy to study for the imperial examinations.

Chu Linlang thought this was too extravagant. She had also heard from stewards of other residences that his official career had recently encountered headwinds.

Still remembered clearly — twelve… no, thirteen years ago it had been the same: biting cold winds, snow-covered bows and blades.

What had just happened with that woodcutter had stirred up every dark memory he possessed.

Fortunately, Situ Sheng responded as he usually did, without reprimanding her for her presumptuousness, only giving a light laugh: “Support me? I fear you couldn’t afford what I’d ask for…”

Situ Sheng had been relatively unoccupied of late, but there were still social drinking engagements.

Situ Sheng, perceiving her meaning from her phrasing, addressed it directly: “There is no need to spend sparingly on my account. No matter how impoverished things may become, I could never allow my household’s female steward to eat coarse bran and bitter greens.”

The man realized he probably had two broken ribs and no longer showed any of his former domineering arrogance — he could only hastily scramble up and stagger away.

He had been hidden inside a military supply barrel stuffed full of foul pickled dried fish. All around him were the sounds of fighting and furious war cries.

When the surroundings finally fell completely silent, the young boy at last crawled out of the fish barrel, only to see corpses strewn everywhere and the ground soaked in pools of blood.

The overwhelming stench of blood mingled with the odor of rotten pickled fish, pouring unrestrainedly into his nostrils and turning his stomach — yet he could only press his hand over his mouth and hold on, committing to memory that person’s final words: “Good child, hide in the barrel and don’t move. I’ll come back for you in a little while…”

This way, his lordship’s wardrobe would need to vary each day, especially with accessories — some variation was still preferable.

He and that Qi Gong seemed to quarrel every time they met, yet the frequency of their meetings kept increasing, the two of them playing chess together every few days.

Looking at the woman surnamed Chu being so close to Situ Sheng, what rose simmering in Zhou Sui’an’s chest was a fury bordering on that of someone who had been betrayed.

She had been spoiled for choice, so she asked Lord Situ which was better. Situ Sheng was direct: “Just take both.”

Having said this, without waiting for Situ Sheng to respond, he rose, shouldered his carrying pole, and strode away.

Though they were divorced from Chu Linlang, at the bottom of Zhou Sui’an’s heart he still somehow regarded her as his wife. He even felt that the two of them had merely vented some anger in a fierce quarrel.

Chu Linlang had originally come out with Xia He to buy various items. But as it happened, the anniversary of Situ Sheng’s mother’s death was approaching and he also needed to purchase ritual paper money and the like, so they set out together.

When Chu Linlang had come to her senses and understood the hardships of a woman living alone, the two of them would still have room to negotiate.

This was the kind of salt-cured fish that poor people in Great Jin ate — something that the Jing Kingdom people, who did not eat fish at all, avoided like the plague, mistaking it for rotten, spoiled dried fish. After the barrel was kicked off the cart and overturned, no one came to examine it closely.

How could she, a female servant at the Lesser Court Director’s residence, be so close to the male master of the household!

Situ Sheng stood slowly and brushed the ash from his clothes, then instead of answering, asked a question in return: “Is she well lately?”

Having said this, he kicked the man hard once more, then said in an ice-cold voice: “Get out! Never appear before this grave again!”

Hearing that familiar voice, Situ Sheng knew without turning around who had come.

Situ Sheng’s eyes slowly filled with murderous intent. His voice was glacially cold: “On a day like today, a person like you has absolutely no right to appear here!”

The woodcutter was greatly alarmed and cried in fright: “You… what are you going to do?”

Before he could finish, Situ Sheng laughed: “She is, on all accounts, a living dead woman. This filthy, degenerate world has long since ceased to touch her heart. Tell your master to know his limits and not push me too far. He should be clearer than anyone about what blood flows through my veins — naturally cold and ruthless and devoid of sentiment. If pushed to the extreme, be careful that this born madman among you goes mad. “

Around him, the familiar voices of people were gone forever. All that remained were incomprehensible babbling and coarse, wild laughter he couldn’t understand.

On that gravestone was carved his foster mother’s native place and full name. But on the ground below the gravestone, in writing he had personally inscribed before burning the paper money, lay another name: Ancestral Elder, Grand General of National Assistance, Yang Xun — A Memorial Marker!

But the woodcutter still gave a cold snort: “The master says to tell you — though you were not raised at his side, never forget what surname truly flows in your blood. A blood debt demands blood repayment — you must never forget. Do not truly believe that because you have been entered into the Situ family register, you can live in idle comfort, coveting that paltry glory and wealth. The master can arrange a path of splendid prospects for you, and can also leave you with nothing overnight!”

The man, his eyes narrowed to slits beneath the conical hat, curved his lips into a smile: “Whether she is well or not — doesn’t that depend entirely on how your lordship performs?”

Chu Linlang took a separate carriage to make a circuit of the official land grant fields and pick up some fresh eggs along the way. Meanwhile, Situ Sheng brought Guanqi and carried the purchased ritual paper money and offerings to Canglong Mountain in the city outskirts.

This hidden piece was not of much use to begin with. But since the master had given instructions to periodically remind and discipline him, keeping tight rein on his defiant nature — now that the appropriate words had been said, he could report the task as done and leave.

On the way, she had also taken the chance to pull Situ Sheng into a jewelry shop to help him pick out some ornamental accessories to match his belt and garments.

Having said this, she felt that even she herself had gone too far. She couldn’t help sticking out her tongue and quickly lowering her head.

A gust of cold wind blew past. Situ Sheng stood motionless before the grave. Only after a long while did he finally release the fist that had been clenched tight.

Memories dark as a flood surged in — even the nauseating smell of rotten fish felt vivid enough to fill his nostrils once more.

He said nothing more, only turned to the man: “The Crown Prince has been suppressing me rather fiercely of late, and I am momentarily unable to accomplish anything. However, the Crown Prince and the Jing Kingdom appear to have been in close contact and are very invested in this matter. The Emperor’s focus is on internal affairs and he is cautious about border pressure. So the opening of border markets should see some development by the end of this month. There is no need for you to come running to me making threats.”

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