◎The Indictment◎

Censor-in-Chief Cheng Shu walked hurriedly along the white jade steps before the Xuande Hall.

The Cheng family had served as officials in Bianducheng for five generations, with powerful marriage ties binding them deep into the court’s foundations. Though Cheng Shu had inherited his position through privilege, he was also diligent, and had become Censor-in-Chief just past the age of thirty.

The Cheng family belonged to the old nobility and held no small resentment toward the new reforms Zhou Tan was carrying out. The spectacle of that man throwing himself into the Bian River the other day had been arranged, with tacit understanding, by them together with several other noble clans.

Yet somehow, inexplicably, the Emperor had let the matter pass as though it were nothing at all.

As Cheng Shu walked, he felt his heart pounding rapidly.

At the time of the incident by the Bian River, he had been watching from a nearby tavern, wanting to see how the affair would play out. He’d taken only a few sips of the wine at hand when someone suddenly sat down across from him.

Cheng Shu looked up and found the newcomer to be none other than the Imperial Academy of Medicine’s current rising star—Physician Bo, Bo Ying.

It was said this Physician Bo was somehow related to Bai Shating, a member of the Bai family who had once been notorious at court, though the two hadn’t kept in touch for years, and no one had heard much about the state of their relationship. Physician Bo had attended to the Emperor personally since before his ascension, and was deeply trusted; even without a particularly high rank, no one dared look down on him.

Cheng Shu immediately set down his cup and offered a bow. Bo Ying waved a hand and asked with a smile, “What brings Lord Cheng here drinking alone?”

Cheng Shu answered smoothly, “I come here often. I didn’t expect to catch quite a show today, though. What brings Physician Bo here as well?”

Bo Ying answered evasively, “Coincidence, pure coincidence.”

He didn’t ask directly, but there was a faint trace of amusement in his eyes as he studied Cheng Shu closely.

Under that gaze, Cheng Shu even felt as though Bo Ying had already seen straight through the reason for his presence there that day, and couldn’t help but say, “Why does Physician Bo look at me like that?”

But Bo Ying asked instead, out of nowhere: “What does Lord Cheng think of the Chancellor’s new policies these days?”

Startled, Cheng Shu glanced around and quickly waved a hand. “One shouldn’t speak carelessly in a tavern.”

“What’s there to be afraid of saying? The Chancellor’s new orders have been moving so quickly—surely Lord Cheng must have some thoughts on the matter, and surely your family must as well?” Bo Ying said, sipping tea behind his sleeve. Seeing Cheng Shu’s face turn ashen, he hastened to reassure him. “No need to be so nervous, Lord Cheng. We’re on the same side here.”

Before joining the Imperial Academy of Medicine, Bo Ying had been nothing more than a street physician, though rumor had it he had some private connection to Zhou Tan—so Cheng Shu certainly wasn’t about to take such words lightly.

Perhaps sensing his disbelief, Bo Ying merely flicked his sleeve and explained, somewhat helplessly, “Everyone says I was recommended to His Majesty because of a private connection with the Chancellor. Heaven and earth as my witness, the private connection I have… is actually with his wife.”

At this, a faint, wistful shadow crossed his face.

Cheng Shu noticed this and seemed to suddenly understand something. He hurried to pour Bo Ying more tea, probing carefully. “The Chancellor’s wife… would that be the Lady Qu, once famous throughout Bianducheng?”

Bo Ying managed a strained smile. “Yes. When I first knew her… I had nothing to my name. She helped me out more times than I can count—if not for her, who knows if I’d even still be alive today. But it’s a pity, a pity… never mind, let’s not speak of it. Drink with me, Lord Cheng.”

From his reluctance to finish the thought, Cheng Shu seemed to sense the tangled web of relationships between these people, though he didn’t dare think too deeply on it. He simply believed Bo Ying’s story a little more than before. “No need to be so modest, Physician Bo.”

From then on, Bo Ying would often come find him for drinks, and the two grew rather familiar with one another.

After several such meetings, Cheng Shu no longer held back much either—the nobility’s discontent with Zhou Tan was obvious enough, and there seemed little point in hiding it.

Their last meeting took place on the day Zhou Tan was first dismissed from office.

Cheng Shu, naturally, had been delighted—but Bo Ying hadn’t seemed nearly so pleased, drifting into distraction repeatedly as they ate together, until, just as he was about to leave, he suddenly said, “Brother Cheng, I don’t have many friends. If something should ever happen to me one day… I may need to trouble you with a favor.”

Cheng Shu had said, “No need to stand on ceremony—if you ever need anything, just let me know.”

At the time, he hadn’t imagined anything could happen to Bo Ying. It was only after Zhou Tan was unexpectedly reinstated that he suddenly realized Bo Ying hadn’t come to find him for drinks in a long while.

Cheng Shu had someone make inquiries, and only learned that Physician Bo had grown tired of life at the Imperial Academy of Medicine and had resigned to travel far away.

He’d had a vague sense of what this might mean, but hadn’t dared to speculate too wildly, and had simply swallowed it all down.

A few months after Bo Ying’s sudden disappearance, someone delivered an unsigned box to him.

According to his servants, the box had been thrown into the courtyard at night—no one had even caught sight of who had delivered it. The box was sealed tightly, with a note attached.

He recognized Bo Ying’s handwriting. The note simply asked him to pass the box on to His Majesty, and warned him not to open it and look inside.

This box, it seemed, was something Bo Ying had decided long ago to entrust to him, arranging it deliberately before his disappearance—if three months passed without Bo Ying reappearing, the box would naturally fall into Cheng Shu’s hands.

Cheng Shu weighed the box in his hands and found it extremely light—whatever was inside was, at most, a single sheet of paper.

He held back for as long as he could, but in the end, he couldn’t resist.

……

“Lord Cheng.”

Standing on the white jade steps, Cheng Shu felt his heart racing with unease—the sudden greeting nearly made him stumble right off the steps.

He turned to find it was Zhou Tan, who hadn’t attended court in a long while.

Seeing him, Cheng Shu grew even more tense.

The matter within that box… did Zhou Tan know about it? If he didn’t, then why approach him now, of all times?

He’d heard Zhou Tan had fallen ill again recently, his frame grown pitifully thin, but set against his snow-white crane cloak, he still carried an air of refined elegance, his complexion looking rather well.

Cheng Shu had spent his days writing memorials impeaching Zhou Tan, and there was little courtesy left between them. He offered only a perfunctory bow. “Chancellor.”

Zhou Tan, holding his ivory tablet, stood casually beside him and began discussing the recent state of court affairs. Cheng Shu patiently returned a few respectful replies, and the moment he heard the eunuch’s shrill voice announcing that the court should enter the hall, he immediately turned to take his leave.

Unexpectedly, Zhou Tan’s voice drifted lightly toward him on the wind from behind: “I wonder if Lord Cheng has ever heard a certain saying…”

Cheng Shu turned back to look. The snow had briefly stopped that morning, though it remained bitterly cold. The wind howled past the young Chancellor, loosening a strand or two from his carefully pinned hair.

Zhou Tan brushed the dew from his cloak and walked past him, his voice carrying far on the wind: “The benefits of a virtuous man’s legacy fade after five generations… Lord Cheng, you would do well to watch your words and conduct yourself carefully.”

Court that morning was thrown into chaos.

Cheng Shu hadn’t expected that someone would move faster than he had—and that this person would be none other than the usually quiet and unassuming Grand Councilor.

Su Chaoci and Zhou Tan had long been at odds, and given his background in the old nobility, it wasn’t entirely surprising that he’d write such a memorial. But his audacity was still shocking—delivering it right in front of Zhou Tan himself. Wasn’t he afraid of provoking the Emperor’s fury, and dragging the entire Su clan down with him?

Cheng Shu trembled, not even daring to lift his head. To his surprise, the young Emperor on the throne seemed even more shocked than the ministers gathered before him—after hearing Su Chaoci’s memorial read aloud, he was so stunned he couldn’t even speak.

Court was dismissed in a hurry.

Cheng Shu worked up the courage to request an audience with the Emperor—with Su Chaoci having already taken the lead, presenting the secret contents of this box shouldn’t bring any punishment upon himself.

Song Shixuan, following his request, dismissed the attendants from the hall. The moment he took the document Cheng Shu handed him, his expression changed drastically.

What Bo Ying had left inside the box was a written indictment.

This indictment likely wasn’t the original but a rubbing kept on file with the local government—even the official seal from the Lin’an prefecture at the end was rendered in grey ink, characteristic of a rubbing.

The indictment recorded an old affair from years past.

When the entire household of the Prince of Jing had been slaughtered, Song Shixuan had still been an infant in swaddling clothes. Retainers loyal unto death from the Prince of Jing’s household had carried the infant south, hiding away in Jiangnan for five or six years.

After those five or six years, the death-loyal retainers had received a letter from Gu Zhiyan and brought Song Shixuan back to Bianducheng—but by then, they were at the end of their rope, and after returning to the capital, most of them died one by one while evading pursuit by the authorities, leaving Song Shixuan to wander alone for a long time.

The indictment was written rather vaguely—whoever had drafted it likely hadn’t known the identity of the person hiding in the mountains, and only lodged an accusation: that once, Bai Qiu and Zhou Shu had gotten into a fierce argument, and the two of them had ridden out of Lin’an City deep in the night, up into a desolate mountain outside the city.

Unexpectedly, there had happened to be someone hiding in that very mountain—someone who dared not move about during the day and could only emerge at night. That night, by terrible coincidence, they had run straight into this couple.

The one who wrote the accusation claimed to be Zhou Shu’s personal guard. That night, the two of them had left the household without an escort, but he, feeling uneasy, had mounted his horse and followed after them—not daring to disturb his lord, he could only wait and watch from the foot of the mountain.

The next day, the local authorities found the bodies of Zhou Shu and Bai Qiu on the mountain.

Zhou Shu had risen through the military, a trusted lieutenant of Xiao Yue, and Bai Qiu was no delicate, defenseless woman either—for the two of them to have died so brutally together, they must have encountered someone of extraordinary skill.

Song Shixuan, his face utterly pale, finished reading the indictment, and then found within the box an empty sachet bearing the mark of the Jinling Bai family.

Luo Jiangting had, long ago, mysteriously presented him with a similar indictment—but at the time, he had discussed it with Zhou Tan, and Zhou Tan had switched it out for a blank sheet of paper.

This copy now was the rubbing Bo Ying had kept, not fully trusting that first exchange to be the end of it—likely entrusted to someone else long before, meant to be passed to Song Shixuan through Cheng Shu’s hands, should Bo Ying fail to reappear for too long.

This indictment… was truly horrifying.

Cheng Shu likely couldn’t fully grasp its meaning, only vaguely sensing that the matter was of great importance. But Song Shixuan understood it completely. And Zhou Tan… must have understood it just as completely.

When he’d switched out that earlier indictment—had he already read this one, too?

Song Shixuan found he didn’t even dare to follow that thought any further.

Seeing the Emperor remain silent for so long, Cheng Shu worked up the nerve to lift his head—only to suddenly hear Song Shixuan call out sharply: “Song Yi!”

Only the personal attendants closest to the Emperor and the Crown Prince were permitted to share the imperial surname, given numbers in place of names.

Cheng Shu was still lost in confused thought when he saw Song Shixuan look at him coldly, fingers idly tracing the wax-sealed box that had clearly already been opened, his face utterly without expression.

Cheng Shu felt a chill creep up his spine, an inner voice repeating itself faintly, like a mutter, like a curse—the benefits of a virtuous man’s legacy fade after five generations.

Had he… made a grave mistake?

Sure enough, he heard Song Shixuan give a low command: “Deal with him. Leave nothing behind that could be used against us.”

And Song Yi only lowered his head and answered, deeply, “Yes.”