Among the three thousand beauties of the imperial harem, he had never shown any particular favor to any of them. It was not that he truly regarded them all as interchangeable wooden posts — it was that an Emperor could not show partiality. If he favored one, the court would follow suit, and the one he favored in that devouring place called the imperial harem would not survive for long.

But his impression of Consort Zhen remained remarkably vivid. The Empress Dowager had once remarked that Consort Zhen was a rare clear-sighted woman in the harem.

She had known when to contend and when to retreat. She had known how to remain inconspicuous while keeping herself alive, and how to ensure that the Emperor would remember her — remember that she was the only daughter of Sun Qi, that the son she had borne was not merely the Sixth Prince of the Great Qing, but the sole blood of the Sun Family. She was, in effect, showing him through her actions that the Sun Family held nothing he needed to be wary of.

Her early death had genuinely saddened him. Yet the only thing he had been able to do was offer a stick of incense for her, and through the Empress Dowager, bring that newly bereft child close for a time — then send down occasional gifts through the Empress Dowager, so that others would know the child enjoyed the Empress Dowager’s affection and think twice before troubling him.

That was all he had been capable of. Except at the New Year and on the imperial birthday, when father and son might catch a distant glimpse of each other across the hall, they did not meet in ordinary times. That son of his had never come seeking him on his own initiative. Was it not precisely because the eldest and the fourth saw this that they had dared lay their hands on him? Would they have dared to try the same with the fifth?

The hand gripping the memorial trembled. Right here, under his very nose, so close to where he sat — and he had known nothing of it at all. Were they simply that capable, or had the people around him already been bought off, most of them, one by one?

“Yanxi.”

Gu Yanxi straightened and bowed. “Your subject is here.”

“Clear out those around me. The outcome — the outcome does not need to be reported. Handle it yourself.”

“Yes.” Gu Yanxi raised his head and looked at the man seated above. His brow furrowed suddenly. He skirted around the great writing desk, moving with the ease of long familiarity, pulled open a hidden compartment, and retrieved a medicine bottle. He shook two pills from it and held them out toward his imperial uncle.

The Emperor looked at him, and his eyes softened. He took the pills into his mouth and swallowed them with the water Lai Fu handed over.

Gu Yanxi suddenly leaned close to the Emperor and drew a breath through his nose. The Emperor’s heart clenched. “Yanxi…”

Gu Yanxi’s face was cold. In two or three swift movements he found another hidden compartment and drew out a lacquered box. He opened it: several round, glossy vermillion pellets lay inside, unmistakable.

Lai Fu’s eyes went wide with disbelief.

“When did this begin?”

“Outrageous — Yanxi, you dare to…”

“Imperial Uncle.” His voice was flat. “You gave me my name. You saved my life. Everything I am was given by you. Even if you wished to take all of it back, I would not utter a single word of protest. But this — you will never touch this again.”

Gu Yanxi closed his fingers over the pellets, and when his palm opened again, they had been ground to dust.

He turned to face those who had prostrated themselves on the floor — he had not noticed when they had done so. “Your obedience to imperial command may appear blameless, yet your actions showed complete disregard for His Majesty’s well-being. I will not tolerate this. Someone, come.”

The doors opened without a sound. Members of the Seven Lodges knelt in rows outside the Imperial Study.

“One hundred lashes each. Demoted from the First Lodge to the Seventh Lodge.”

One hundred lashes — even given their physical conditioning, that would cost them half their lives. But what wounded them most deeply was not the lashes. It was the demotion from the First Lodge to the Seventh.

The Seven Lodges were divided into seven ranks. The Seventh was little more than a pool of candidates; only those who excelled in every regard were admitted into the First. The First Lodge was home to the finest operatives in the entire Seven Lodges. To be cast down from the First to the Seventh laid bare just how furious Gu Yanxi truly was.

“Yanxi, you are venting your anger on those who did nothing wrong.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I am. Because you have erred, and there is nothing I can do to you for it.”

The Emperor pressed a hand to his forehead. When this young man turned intractable, there was truly nothing to be done with him.

The offenders were swiftly removed. Knowing the matter was not yet concluded, personnel remained standing by outside the Imperial Study.

“Investigate. I want to know who presented this elixir, and who was involved at every step. Every last person is to be taken into custody. As for the alchemist who concocted it — bring them here, pellets and all.”

“Yanxi…”

“Your Majesty, allow your subject to show you what becomes of a man who takes too many golden elixirs.”

“I know, I know. I promise you — I will stop. I will never touch them again. Is that not enough?” The Emperor was thoroughly at his wit’s end. Who, in the end, was the ruler here and who the subject? “Leave the others out of it.”

“Knowing full well this substance harms the body, yet making no effort to prevent it — not having their households seized and their clans executed is already showing clemency!” Gu Yanxi turned back and continued issuing orders: “Go and summon Shao Yao.”

Everyone withdrew. The doors closed again. Only then did Gu Yanxi turn to look at Lai Fu. “I imagine Lai Fu has no knowledge of this matter.”

Lai Fu knelt with a rueful smile. As the Emperor’s personal attendant, saying he knew nothing would require someone willing to believe him. “I await the Shizi’s judgment.”

“Yanxi, he truly did not know — if this old fellow had known, would he not have come to me with a death remonstrance on the spot?” The Emperor laughed. Though his nephew had just put him through a thorough dressing-down, the oppressive frustration he had been carrying over his sons’ failures had somehow dissipated. His sons did not regard him as a father. His nephew held him in his heart as an uncle. And so he had been angry enough to make the scene he did.

And Lai Fu — whatever else could be said, he was at least loyal enough.

So in the end, he had not become a man utterly alone.

Gu Yanxi’s gaze toward Lai Fu no longer carried daggers, but the anger still smoldered within him.

He had not anticipated that the Emperor would be taking golden elixirs. Throughout history, how many emperors had died precisely because of this? His imperial uncle could not possibly be ignorant of this — and yet he had still chosen to take them. The only possibility was that someone had been whispering in his ear. He would find out who. And if this matter was connected to those few…

The cold in Gu Yanxi’s eyes was sharp enough to cut. This time, he would move against them personally.

“Lai Fu, go and summon the imperial physician who regularly checks the Emperor’s pulse for his routine health examination. Bring along the records from the past six months. Also have someone send over the Emperor’s daily activity register. I want to see it.”

“Yes.”

Knowing there was no use in objecting, the Emperor simply said nothing. Even now, suspicion was beginning to take root in his own mind. When had he begun taking the golden elixirs?

The Emperor rubbed his temple. His thoughts felt murky and sluggish. He had a vague recollection of a time and place, but when he reached for the specifics, they slipped away. When had his memory become so poor?

The disturbance here could not be hidden from those with eyes and ears throughout the palace. Even the Empress Dowager’s quarters took notice, and the old Empress Dowager — fearing that uncle and nephew had fallen into some quarrel — quickly dispatched Yuxiang to come and learn what had occurred.

Gu Yanxi could not risk letting his grandmother learn of this. He had Lai Fu offer an explanation: that someone had planted spies among those close to the Emperor.

He closed the daily activity register and pressed his brow together. From the records, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. No new faces had appeared in the Emperor’s immediate circle. Though the frequency with which he had been favoring the consorts had increased of late, the women themselves remained the same ones as before — their identities and backgrounds entirely transparent. By all appearances, none of them should have had the means to cause trouble.

And yet the harem was certainly entangled in this somehow. Without someone continually whispering in his imperial uncle’s ear night after night, his imperial uncle would never have been moved to try such a thing.

His imperial uncle was not an enlightened ruler or a sage sovereign. He was stubborn and deeply suspicious, and he could turn his back on people without a trace of sentiment. But neither was he a foolish one. A few honeyed words would not be enough to deceive him.

So the problem still lay among those who had been close to him for years.

Gu Yanxi set the register aside. If something were to happen to his imperial uncle, who stood to gain the most?