The fourth son, that wretched creature, thought that just because he had his mother’s favor, he could stand toe to toe with him?

Not a chance! Since he dared to compete, he’d better be prepared to lose everything!

This time, he would use the third brother — who had long since vanished — to thoroughly destroy the fourth son’s position.

What was about to unfold in the palace would surely be most entertaining…

That day, the dharma assembly was supposed to last three days. However, on the second day, after Situ Sheng had a private word with His Majesty, His Majesty handed over the presiding of the assembly to the Crown Prince.

Sharp-eyed observers noticed that Noble Consort Jing, who had occupied a prominent position at the assembly, was suddenly escorted away and never reappeared. Only the visibly uneasy Fourth Imperial Prince and the Fourth Prince Consort remained.

Afterward, when the Fourth Imperial Prince went to pay his respects to the Emperor and the Empress Dowager, both refused to receive him, leaving him to be turned away at the door.

The Fourth Imperial Prince grew so anxious that he had the audacity to seek out Situ Sheng, wanting to set aside past grievances and fish for information from him.

Situ Sheng did receive the Fourth Imperial Prince, but invoked imperial orders as his reason for being unable to divulge anything, cutting off the prince’s attempts to probe further in one stroke.

The Fourth Imperial Prince did not have to remain anxious for long. Shortly after the assembly concluded, news of Noble Consort Jing came from the palace once again.

This time she had not been cast into the Cold Palace. Instead, it was publicly announced that Noble Consort Jing had contracted a grave illness and could not receive visitors; she was to be moved to the secluded Xiaoxiang Palace within the imperial grounds for recuperation.

Yet those familiar with palace affairs knew that the Xiaoxiang Palace was a far more terrifying place than the Cold Palace.

Being confined to the Cold Palace merely meant coarse food and a desolate existence — as long as one kept one’s spirits, it was no worse than watching flowers bloom and fall in leisure.

But of those who had entered the Xiaoxiang Palace, not one had survived a full month. Only the most heinous of crimes would send a person there.

The Fourth Imperial Prince attempted several times to enter the palace to check on his mother consort’s condition, but was stopped each time. He was told that without a direct imperial decree, no one was permitted to see Noble Consort Jing.

It is said that what raises a man up can also bring him down. Noble Consort Jing had originally risen to her position through her cousin relationship with Fang Liang’mei. Now that His Majesty had finally come to understand that the abduction of the Third Imperial Prince all those years ago had been entirely orchestrated by Noble Consort Jing herself — and that she had deliberately framed the late Empress for it — his years of love and favor had curdled into a disgust as foul as if he had been fed filth all this time.

This woman was venomous to the extreme! And yet he had spent all these years holding a viper to his bosom!

As it turned out, years ago when His Majesty was still Crown Prince, he had mistaken Noble Consort Jing for Fang Liang’mei during a night of heavy drinking, and after their single night together, he could no longer recall her face.

Noble Consort Jing had been convinced that as long as Fang Liang’mei lived, she herself would never rise. The Empress, who was Crown Princess at the time, happened to regard Fang Liang’mei with considerable displeasure, harboring deep resentment toward her. And so Noble Consort Jing seized upon the great fire that broke out during the lantern festival, using it to draw the crowd’s attention, and caused the isolated wet nurse to lose the child in her care.

Her scheme at the time had been even more vicious: she had originally intended for traffickers to do away with the infant entirely, then find a way to lay the blame on the Empress.

Unfortunately, a complication had arisen midway. The trafficker had somehow discovered the identity of the infant he had taken, and in his terror, he fled in the dead of night — and the infant’s whereabouts became unknown.

Even so, Noble Consort Jing had achieved her purpose.

Fang Liang’mei, having lost her child, fell into grief and despair, and did not long survive.

And since the Crown Prince at the time had organized the lantern viewing with poor supervision, and the wet nurse who had lost the child had been appointed by the Empress herself, the late Empress also fell out of His Majesty’s favor.

In the end, Noble Consort Jing had, through her uncannily convincing impersonation of Fang Liang’mei, successfully climbed to the position of favored consort — contentedly enjoying everything that had rightfully belonged to Fang Liang’mei and her son.

Now, Prince Tai, who had helped Noble Consort Jing rise to power, had confessed everything, and the key witness from those years had been produced. The evidence was irrefutable.

Yet the child who had gone missing — the one weighing most heavily on His Majesty’s heart — remained completely unaccounted for.

That day, His Majesty returned to the palace and wept bitterly for a long time before the portrait of Fang Liang’mei, which had been enshrined and venerated for years.

He still remembered holding the child in his arms and gazing upon him — the boy had been the very image of himself, and even in the hollow of his ear there was a dark mole in the exact same position.

At the time, a geomancer had read the child’s fate, saying he had a destiny that would bring benefit to his father’s domain — the very configuration of one who would carry on his father’s legacy.

Perhaps it was this very prophecy of “carrying on the father’s legacy” that had brought such misfortune upon the child, causing him to be stripped away from his parents at such a tender age out of jealousy.

If he could not find the child, how could he face the woman he had loved when he departed this world?

Thinking of this, His Majesty — eyes swollen from weeping — summoned Situ Sheng once again and commanded him to follow the only remaining lead, to proceed in strict secrecy, and to find the trafficker from all those years ago at all costs and determine the Third Imperial Prince’s whereabouts.

His Majesty made himself perfectly clear: whether the prince was alive or dead, he must be found.

And so after the assembly concluded, Situ Sheng departed the capital on a long journey. When he returned, half a month had already passed.

During Situ Sheng’s absence from the capital, Chu Linlang had entered the palace twice, accompanying Madam Hua to read to the Empress Dowager and keep her entertained.

The Empress Dowager had taken the words of Master Lingyun to heart, believing that Chu Linlang’s destiny was auspicious for the imperial family.

For was it not during the dharma assembly where she had held the lamp that the crimes of the treacherous consort had been exposed?

Noble Consort Jing had long relied on imperial favor to show insufficient deference to the Empress Dowager, and the grievances between these two women had accumulated over no short span of time.

Now that Noble Consort Jing was confined to the Xiaoxiang Palace, receiving slaps from the palace punishment eunuchs day after day — several teeth knocked loose, her cheeks swollen and raised — she could not die immediately, yet her body grew haggard, her jaw so aching she could barely eat. It was likely she would not last much longer.

Emperor Ren had made his meaning clear: since she had been so fond of imitating Fang Liang’mei, how could she have merely imitated the surface? She ought to experience firsthand the suffering and pain that Fang Liang’mei had endured.

When Chu Linlang entered the palace again and chatted privately with Tao Yashu, learning of Noble Consort Jing’s current circumstances, she could not help but sigh with a mixture of feelings.

No wonder Tao Yashu had no wish to enter the palace. It was indeed as they said — serving beside the emperor was like serving beside a tiger.

Boundless power could magnify a person’s every emotion.

His Majesty could bestow supreme glory upon a woman he loved for the sake of his own joy, yet he could also — once that love had faded — punish without the slightest tenderness the woman who had shared his pillow for so many years.

Tao Yashu’s feelings were surely the same as her own, yet Tao Yashu had no recourse; she was already a piece on this board and could not extricate herself.

Tao Yashu’s only wishful thought now was to plead her case before the Empress Dowager, expressing her unwillingness to marry and her desire to spend her life as a female official attending the Empress Dowager into old age.

The Empress Dowager had evidently taken Tao Yashu’s words as a young girl’s display of filial piety, mere flattery to please an old woman, and had not taken them to heart — even laughing to say that if His Majesty set his sights on Yashu, she would not be able to keep her even if she wished.

But compared to her own troubles, Tao Yashu was more worried about Chu Linlang.

For some reason, certain rumors had been circulating lately — that the newly titled Xinmei Lady was adept at social maneuvering, moving between the Ministry of Revenue’s Deputy Minister Situ Sheng and the Ministry of Works’ Senior Secretary Liao Jingxuan.

The two colleagues had even gotten into a heated argument at the entrance of the women’s school over who would escort Chu Linlang.

Tao Yashu naturally did not believe there was anything between Liao Jingxuan and Chu Linlang, yet she was somewhat worried about Chu Linlang herself.

Although Linlang was not an unmarried young woman of a sheltered household, having her name attached to such rumors was still inappropriate.

After all, Chu Linlang now frequently appeared before the Empress Dowager. If the old woman came to hear of it, there would inevitably be misunderstandings.

Especially since, after learning of how the whole matter had come about, Tao Yashu felt rather apologetic toward Chu Linlang.

If Chu Linlang had not mistakenly believed that her teacher was leading her astray — and worried that she was young and naive and might be deceived by a man — she would not have rushed to confront the teacher in such urgency, leading to all this pulling and misunderstanding.

Chu Linlang had taken her entirely as a younger sister to be protected, yet had brought this storm of gossip down upon herself. How hateful that she was confined within the palace and unable to clear Chu Linlang’s name.

Yet Chu Linlang felt that these rumors were of little consequence to her.

After all, no matter how the rumors circulated, her shop continued to bring in money and profit flowed like a river, filling her coffers to the brim. And recently she had purchased a great deal more land in the northwest, with a most abundant harvest.

Chu Linlang could laugh herself awake in her dreams — she truly had no capacity left over for lamenting her reputation.

As for the Empress Dowager hearing about it and possibly growing cool toward her — Chu Linlang did not particularly care about that either.

She was but a wildflower of the common world to begin with. Could she actually be dreaming of entering the imperial hothouse?

If the imperial family no longer needed her as their lucky ornamental carp, she simply would not enter the palace to join the merriment. Her superiors would hardly go to the trouble of sentencing her to death over such personal romantic entanglements.

After all, she was not His Majesty’s woman, and she had not placed any great green cuckold’s hat upon His Majesty’s head.

However, her mother Sun Shi clearly did not see things that way. While out buying vegetables in the street the other day, she had happened to cross paths with her former son-in-law Zhou Sui’an’s carriage.

Zhou Sui’an caught a glimpse of Sun Shi from inside his carriage and promptly had the coachman stop. He climbed out to exchange a few words with his former mother-in-law.

He was perfectly well aware of how much Chu Huaisheng had fawned upon him as his official son-in-law. When Linlang and he had parted ways, she had not even dared to inform the Chu family.

Zhou Sui’an did not know that Sun Shi had already left the Chu family, and merely assumed he still had some standing in that household. He imagined that since Sun Shi knew he had never actually intended the separation, the Chu family would surely find a way to persuade Linlang to reconsider.

And so Zhou Sui’an stood before his former mother-in-law without a trace of shame, speaking straightforwardly of Linlang’s lack of good sense.

His general meaning was that Chu Linlang had seemed to become an entirely different person after the separation — she no longer knew how to guard her reputation. Now all of the capital was talking about how she moved between two officials; how could such fickleness and flightiness come to any good?

Even as Zhou Sui’an said these words, he did not entirely believe the rumors himself, yet the genuine exasperation in his voice was unmistakable.

He was regretting it now himself. Had he known that Chu Linlang, once let go, would behave with such abandon and lose all sense of propriety, then he should not have… should not have…

What exactly he should not have done, Zhou Sui’an had no time to determine, because the former mother-in-law who had always treated him so warmly promptly spat squarely in his face: “Ptooey! And you dare to speak of my daughter’s reputation? What fickleness and flightiness? Take a good look at yourself in the mirror! My daughter conducts herself with integrity — not like certain men who live off women’s backs. You thankless, faithless Chen Shimei! And you have the face to say this to me? Do you think just because we’re two women on our own, we’re easy targets? If you ever come before my eyes flapping your tongue again, watch out — I’ll split you in two with a single blade!”

At the time, Sun Shi happened to be buying meat, and she reached out on impulse and seized the cleaver from the butcher’s stall, gesturing it toward Zhou Sui’an.

Ever since leaving the Chu family, Sun Shi seemed to walk with her head held high and her chest thrown out. After the harrowing ordeal at the oasis, where she had nearly hacked Situ Sheng with a blade, Sun Shi had become fierce indeed when it came to protecting her cub.

Zhou Sui’an had once thought Chu Linlang’s ferocity took after her father, but now he understood at last that she had actually taken after her mother — who appeared as fragile as a weeping willow.

In fright he backed away repeatedly, only to be doused by the dirty fish-washing water that had been knocked over from the nearby fish stall, leaving him reeking of fish all over.

He had not remotely anticipated that the Sun Shi who had always urged Linlang to honor and defer to him as her husband had now become an entirely different person. Left looking utterly wretched in a busy marketplace, he could only say in mortified exasperation: “I… I shall not lower myself to argue with a woman like you. Just wait until your father-in-law hears how his daughter has been carrying on, then you’ll see…”

Sun Shi spat again and said with force: “My daughter has already helped me leave the Chu family and redeemed my contract. Don’t you dare use Chu Huaisheng to frighten me! Get out of my sight! Never appear before us again!”

Zhou Sui’an truly had not known that Sun Shi had also left the Chu family. Hearing this, he stood gaping in astonishment.

He had heard Linlang say similar things before, but had considered it wishful thinking on her part — what child actually wished for their parents to separate?

Yet now every word Chu Linlang had ever spoken had come to pass, one after another. This filled Zhou Sui’an with a chill that spread from his very bones.

She had said she would never resume their former relationship in this lifetime. And those words had fallen like solid ground — with no possibility of reversal…

The servant boy behind him moved to go confront Sun Shi, but by then Sun Shi had finished berating him and swept away with Dongxue, without a backward glance.

Zhou Sui’an felt he had made enough of a spectacle of himself for one day and told the servant boy not to give chase. Yet in his heart he bitterly thought: Xie Shi had said Chu Linlang had gained His Majesty’s favor, yet here she was behaving with such inconstancy — she was sure to come to a wretched end. Since these two women refused to appreciate his concern, there was no need for him to warn them out of goodness of heart!

He just wondered whether Chu Linlang would regret her choices, when the day came and there was no one left to come to her aid.

As for Sun Shi — although she did not believe the gossip Zhou Sui’an had been spreading — she sincerely felt it would be best if her daughter cut ties with Situ Sheng sooner rather than later.

Even if she had no intention of marrying for now, she ought not to get herself entangled with a high-ranking official like him. One misstep, and once again it would be the woman whose name and standing were ruined.

With this on her mind, Sun Shi could not help but exert a little effort, asking among the neighborhood women she was on friendly terms with until she had made contact with several matchmakers.

When Chu Linlang saw the list of names her mother had brought back from the matchmaker, she was hard pressed not to laugh out loud.

A string of widowers’ and bachelors’ birth details and horoscopes, laid out before her for her selection like choosing consorts for an imperial harem — had her mother rounded up every unattached man within a ten-mile radius?

“Mother, what is all this for?”

Sun Shi replied as a matter of course: “Naturally so you can choose — see if any strike your fancy. I asked the matchmaker to find only men who have a trade and can provide for a household. You surely can’t keep things ambiguous and unresolved with that Situ Sheng forever, can you? Once you’re married, he won’t have an excuse to bother you anymore!”

Chu Linlang thought of Situ Sheng in his jealous moods, and decided that if she suddenly married someone out of the blue, he would likely drag the bridegroom off to some desolate burial grounds to bury him.

But looking over the men her mother had selected, Chu Linlang decided it was time to show Sun Shi a proper accounting of her assets.

And so she first pushed the list of names aside and slid the ledger she had been working on — the shop’s accounts — in front of her mother: “Mother, take a look. Just this one shop of mine — could all those men put together match my fortune?”

Sun Shi had never involved herself in her daughter’s business. Although she knew Linlang had purchased a shop in the capital and had later entrusted Xia Qingyun with buying land in the northwest to grow medicinal herbs, Sun Shi had assumed it would be like the shop back home in Jiangkou — barely enough to support a household, with perhaps a modest surplus.

So when she saw the accounts — the monthly revenue running into the hundreds of taels of silver — Sun Shi first questioned her own eyesight, then became alarmed, asking Chu Linlang what on earth the shop was selling to generate such extraordinary income.

Chu Linlang, watching her mother’s bewildered panic at seeing the world beyond her experience, could not help but be amused.

Business in the capital was simply more profitable than back home in Jiangkou.

But the reason this shop was bringing in money so handsomely was also related to a sudden windfall she had recently come upon.

When she had first bought the boats, she had entrusted them to Xia He’s elder brother Xia Qingyun to manage. Running cargo on the water did make money, though it had its slow seasons and busy seasons.

Later, Chu Linlang had commissioned Xia Qingyun, when running the boats through the northwest, to look out for any suitable land.

The terrain there, while occasionally suffering from drought, was very well suited to growing medicinal herbs such as gastrodia orchid. She had heard Madam He mention that growing medicinal herbs was more profitable than growing grain, and that Madam He had connections to buy however much was produced.

After calculating that the arrangement was sound, Chu Linlang had, during a slow season for the boats, sold two of them and had Xia Qingyun select and purchase a large tract of gorge land running alongside a river.

She had originally been drawn by the low price of the cultivatable land in the gorge — and since medicinal herbs were not restricted by terrain, and gorges were cool and shaded, well-suited to growing many varieties of herbs — Chu Linlang had made up her mind to buy it.

As it turned out, Chu Linlang had been born under a lucky star for wealth, destined to prosper; not long after the medicinal herbs had been planted, Xia Qingyun, while washing his face at the stream, had discovered entirely by accident that the stream flowing through the gorge contained gold dust.

He had traveled far and wide in his time and had worked gold panning before; he recognized it immediately.

After making the discovery, Xia Qingyun did not breathe a word of it to anyone, but personally boarded a boat back to the capital to inform Chu Linlang.

Once Chu Linlang had confirmed the news, her eyes lit up. She gathered together all the silver she had on hand — including the salary bank notes that Situ Sheng had left in her care — and sent Xia Qingyun back immediately, telling him to use the expansion of medicinal herb cultivation as a pretext to purchase all the gorge land along the stream.

If the silver was not enough, she would find a way to raise more.

Xia Qingyun somewhat awkwardly admitted that while he did have savings of his own, he had already sent it all back home to his parents to buy farmland and a house, and even if he wanted to help Chu Linlang pool funds together, he would not be able to produce the money quickly.

As he said this, Xia Qingyun also felt he had been short-sighted — why had he been so set on going back home to buy land? If he had bought some near the capital, like Chu Linlang, that would have been far better than staying stuck in his hometown.

It was all his parents’ peasant mentality — the moment they had money, they could only feel at ease turning it into farmland, never considering whether they might have urgent need for liquid silver in the future.

Chu Linlang laughed, and told him he did not need to put in any capital — she was still giving him a thirty-percent stake.

Chu Linlang had always been generous with those who worked for her. Although all the land had been purchased with her money, she told him that whatever gold might be produced in the future, Xia Qingyun would receive thirty percent of the proceeds.

After all, she herself was in the capital; the panning and refining would be laborious and demanding work. Xia Qingyun had discovered the gold deposit and come to tell her rather than exploit it himself — this act of loyalty and consideration she was deeply grateful for. Sharing thirty percent was only right and proper.

And so the barren, uneven land that had been poorly suited for farming in the first place — together with the headwaters of the stream — was all purchased by Xia Qingyun at a price slightly above market value, swiftly and decisively.

After that, Xia Qingyun began hiring workers and set up gold-panning frames along the riverbed.

He had not been mistaken: the place did indeed harbor a gold deposit. The yield was not enormous, but it was certainly not negligible.

This time, Chu Linlang had made a fortune in secret silence — and had stumbled upon a golden hen that laid eggs without ever making a sound!

Only at the start, the gold-panning frames Xia Qingyun had rigged up were not very efficient, the workforce was limited, and the monthly gold output was restricted. They also had no means to refine the raw material themselves, so the unprocessed gold dust was all sold through Chu Linlang’s shop.

After selling the unrefined gold dust, Chu Linlang had more capital to invest, and purchased more gold-panning equipment. With this, the gold dust output increased considerably.

Her next step was to refine the gold dust herself. By Chu Linlang’s calculations, the shop’s future monthly revenue would be well in excess of a hundred taels.

Now that she had shown Sun Shi these figures, Sun Shi was naturally given such a shock that she assumed her daughter had been doing something illegal — how else could there be revenue on this scale?

After listening to her daughter explain the entire business venture, she looked back at the ironmongers, coppersmiths, and small traders she had chosen for her daughter, and indeed had to admit they were hardly a match for her.

If she insisted on marrying her daughter off to a household like that, would she not be doing the same thing as marrying her into the Zhou family — helping prop up a failing enterprise?

Yet her daughter was this capable and this able to earn money, which was its own cause for worry. With her neither able to aim too high nor settle too low, what manner of family could possibly be right for her?

Chu Linlang could see that the silver she had earned had thoroughly astounded her mother, who would not be pushing eligible men on her for the time being.

That evening, Situ Sheng sent word that he expected to return around midnight and would not go back to his own residence — he would come directly to the shop to find her.

Linlang thought it over and decided to take the account books with her to wait for him.

After all, part of the silver used to buy the land in the northwest had been Situ Sheng’s, so he was entitled to a share of the stake.

Personal feelings were personal feelings, but where money and business were concerned, it was better to settle accounts clearly first.

Situ Sheng did return very late. Both the man and his horse were drenched in sweat — one look made it clear he had been riding without pause.

Chu Linlang laughingly pushed away the man who attempted to embrace her, muttering that he reeked to high heaven, then added hot water to the large wooden tub in the back of the shop so Situ Sheng could soak away his exhaustion.

Situ Sheng, however, deliberately rubbed his sweat-drenched face against hers before turning to undress.

This man, who appeared so refined and scholarly, seemed to undergo a complete change in bearing the moment his clothes came off. His narrow waist, broad back, and powerful build — the muscle lines flowing smoothly yet sharply defined — were something else entirely.

Only at moments like this did one suddenly realize: what kind of civil official was this? He was clearly the son of a military family, fit to charge into battle and kill the enemy… or to leave her “utterly routed” before long.

Once he had settled into the bathing tub, Chu Linlang finally managed to rein in her wandering thoughts and dragged over a stool, pointing to the profit-sharing breakdown in the account book for her former employer to review.

Situ Sheng had never paid attention to money matters, but hearing Chu Linlang divide things up so precisely, he found it distinctly unpleasant to hear.

“Are you treating me the same as Xia Qingyun?” he asked in a mild tone.

Hm? Chu Linlang had been fully absorbed in the accounts and, at his words, felt a bit confused. She even blurted out without thinking: “He’s different from you — right now I’m depending on him…”

Chu Linlang had assumed Situ Sheng was unhappy about the size of the stake she was giving Xia Qingyun and wanted to explain the difference between the two arrangements.

After all, Situ Sheng had contributed capital, while Xia Qingyun had contributed labor and effort. The gold dust output depended entirely on Xia Qingyun!

These words had landed another kick directly into a former employer’s tender spot. Situ Sheng swept the account book out of her hand with one arm, then hauled her up bodily and plunged her straight into the tub.

Chu Linlang, caught completely off guard, was soaked through in an instant. Furious, she pummeled his chest muscles: “What do you think you’re doing?! I was settling accounts with you!”

Situ Sheng pinched her nose: “I’m ‘settling accounts’ with you too! Tell me — exactly how are you depending on him?”

Chu Linlang shoved at him with all her might, but his arms might as well have been cast in iron — there was no escaping them.

She could only squint sideways at him: “I never noticed before what a jealous streak you have. In the future, your wife is going to have a very difficult time…”

She cut herself off abruptly midway through the sentence.

Topics involving the future had always been off-limits between her and Situ Sheng.

Situ Sheng never brought it up, and she never asked. It was a matter of mutual unspoken understanding. Except now she had broken the rule, thoughtlessly mentioning Situ Sheng’s future wife — which was not something she had any right to say or ask about.

—