◎ The Posthumous Edict ◎

The chamber was sealed against all light, and only the faint scent of quiet-water incense clinging to him could be caught in the dark. Zhou Tan found, from somewhere, brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, and laid out several of Liu Lianxi’s letter pages on the desk.

He seemed able to tell the order in which the pages belonged. Picking up the brush and dipping it in ink, he circled two characters first.

“Gongshu.”

“Do you know this surname?” Zhou Tan asked.

“Of course,” Qu You answered. “The Gongshu family has stood since the Spring and Autumn period. Their founding ancestor, Gongshu Ban, built siege ladders for the state of Chu — a craftsman of a skill rarely seen in this world. People praised him, saying he could make bronze speak.”

“Correct,” Zhou Tan said, circling another set of characters — “Wuyuan.” “The ‘craftsman with no part in it’ mentioned in the letter is a descendant of the Gongshu family — a famous artisan within Great Yin’s borders. He once served the imperial household, and no small number of the capital’s famous buildings were built by his hand.”

With this reminder, Qu You finally recalled the name — one she found somewhat familiar. She had only skimmed general history, never studying it as thoroughly as she had criminal law, but the name Gongshu Wuyuan shone brightly enough in Great Yin’s art history that, with some effort, she was bound to remember it.

He had been a renowned architect of his time. Setting aside everything else — Yin Xiangru and Gao Yunyue had mentioned to her more than once the Xiuqing Temple at Tingshan, which Gongshu Wuyuan had built by imperial decree while he still held a post within the royal household, and which had stood through a hundred generations without falling. When she’d gone on her research trip, she had even gone to see the ruins of the Tianmen Pagoda outside Xiuqing Temple.

Much of the architecture within Yin’s imperial city had also come from his hand. But Gongshu Wuyuan seemed to have resigned his post and retired into obscurity while still in his prime, and even the last palace hall he’d overseen was torn down not long after. Once he left the capital he vanished into anonymity, and the Gongshu family fell into decline from then on. The history books called him the “final song” of the Gongshu clan.

Could the contents of this letter really be connected to such a skilled craftsman?

Qu You still remembered — when she’d first crossed over into this world, aside from her curiosity about the inner palace, she had also wanted to explore the customs and culture of Great Yin. One of her wishes had been to meet the great artists of the age. And now, in the space of only a short time, she had already met a great poet whose fame would outlast a thousand years, and found herself entangled with this architect whose name filled the history books.

Not to mention that Zhou Tan himself now sat right before her… People’s circumstances were always strange, wonderful things.

Qu You looked down and pointed to another name on one of the letter pages. “So what’s the relationship between this Gongshu Duan and Master Wuyuan mentioned in the letter — is he his descendant?”

“This is Master Wuyuan’s son. The Gongshu family has lived in the western frontier for generations — their ancestral home is Ruozhou, the very place Peng Yue once stayed.” Zhou Tan set down the brush for a moment and pointed to a vague, crooked shape Liu Lianxi had drawn from memory on one of the letters. “Miss Liu’s memory of it wasn’t precise, but the shape remains recognizable — this is the seal stamp used at the relay stations when correspondence passed between Ruozhou and the capital. These letters were written between someone in the capital and Master Wuyuan’s son, who was in Ruozhou.”

“Ah,” Qu You said, suddenly understanding much more now that he’d explained. “Then this ‘the hidden secret of my father’s death’ and ‘was saved by me’ refer to Master Wuyuan? And the Zhenru Hall renovation… what does all this have to do with you?”

“Zhenru Palace was an old hall within the imperial city — also Master Wuyuan’s final work,” Zhou Tan said, not answering her directly. “It’s a pity it no longer exists.”

“Why would a palace hall within the palace no longer exist?”

“Zhenru Palace was torn down. Do you know what was built on the original site after the hall collapsed?”

Qu You asked, puzzled, “What?”

The moment the words left her mouth, she froze. Zhou Tan gave a helpless laugh. Startled, she looked back down at the papers, feeling her voice tremble slightly. “It’s… the Candlelight Tower?”

The candle flickered. Zhou Tan lowered his eyes and nodded.

“Zhenru Palace originally belonged to Noble Consort Zhao of the previous reign. Before her death, she had already been elevated to Empress Shunde, and had moved out of Zhenru Palace, complaining only that it stood too close to the noisy East Gate. After she moved out, the palace stood empty and unused, until it eventually collapsed. No one ever lived there again.”

“Empress Shunde — is she the birth mother of the current Emperor?”

“She is.”

Empress Shunde of the Zhao clan had been Emperor Xuan’s Noble Consort. Her father was the powerful minister of the previous era, Zhao Yin. When Emperor De ascended the throne, he had relied entirely on this maternal grandfather and on Gu Zhiyan to cleanse the court. Later, Empress Shunde and Zhao Yin both died of illness in succession, leaving only Gu Zhiyan, who continued to assist Emperor De for many more years after becoming Chancellor.

“This man wrote to Gongshu Duan, inviting him to the capital, claiming that Master Wuyuan had been saved by him, and that he later died, leaving behind a written account to pass on.” Qu You looked down, studying the pages. “‘Duan has seen the rough sketch’… does that mean the sketch for Zhenru Palace? Overseeing the renovation of Zhenru Palace should have been Master Wuyuan’s rightful duty — how could that bring disaster upon him?”

“Ruozhou…”

Zhou Tan’s hands rested on the desk, his shoulders trembling continuously. Qu You sensed he was straining hard to keep his voice steady. “Peng Yue’s ‘accidental’ death on Jinghua Mountain was never as clean as it seemed. If anyone dug deep enough, they would surely see something was wrong. Fu Qingnian went so far as to plead for his exile — and yet once he was dead, Fu Qingnian no longer seemed to care. When I met with him, he told me the man was nothing but a useless pawn. But if he was such a useless pawn, why go to such lengths to protect him before?”

Qu You patted his back. “Before Peng Yue died, you asked him what he was holding — surely that’s the very thing Fu Qingnian was trying to protect by keeping him alive. While he lived, it was a piece of leverage against him — Fu Qingnian had to keep him safe out of fear. Once he died, that leverage went into the ground with him — Fu Qingnian was probably even more relieved, which is why he never pursued the matter further. It must be so.”

Having said this much, she closed her eyes, frowning as she thought it through. “Lianxi’s letter also mentioned that the Du father and son, drunk, rambled about holding something over the chief minister — that must be exactly these letters she went to such trouble to find. Which means the person who wrote them must be the chief minister himself.”

“Ha ha ha ha…” Zhou Tan slammed his fist onto the desk, laughing with cold, mocking bitterness. “Fu Qingnian… I should have guessed it long ago.”

He rose, carrying the candle over to the curio shelf, and moved aside a relatively clean vase. Qu You heard the click of some mechanism, and then a section of the chamber wall sank inward, revealing a bright yellow brocade box.

Sensing what this meant, she followed him a couple of steps toward the shelf, then suddenly grew alert and asked, “This hidden chamber of yours — if someone came into the residence and stood in front of the bookshelf, could they hear any sound from within?”

Zhou Tan shook his head. “When my teacher had this residence built, and later left it to me, it was precisely to prepare for moments such as this. The seams of this inner chamber were all cast with molten copper, the ventilation shafts buried deep, and the walls reinforced. Even if someone pressed their ear against the crack in the bookshelf, they wouldn’t hear a sound.”

He reached out and lifted the bright yellow brocade box, cradling it in his hands with something close to reverence, then turned to look at her.

Qu You suddenly felt that what Zhou Tan was about to hand over was not simply an object, but his very life and fortune — just as he had asked her, voice trembling, moments before. To learn of this matter meant not only that she would be dragged into this treacherous political arena, but that he, too, would be binding everything he had irrevocably to her.

She watched him open the brocade box. Inside lay a pale-gold scroll, bound with silk ribbon, treated with the utmost care.

“This is…”

“The posthumous edict.”

Zhou Tan answered, his voice heavy.

Six months after Emperor Shang seized power, Zhou Tan had escorted the grandson of Prince Jing into the palace, taken out Emperor Xuan’s posthumous edict before the entire court, and secured for him a rightful, legitimate ascension to the throne.

Historians had argued endlessly over this act. After the flower-cutting reforms, Zhou Tan’s name had already been dragged through the mud, but even before he became Chancellor, opinion of him had been sharply divided. That he could rank first among the biographies of treacherous officials was precisely because, when later scholars compiled the history of Yin, they had doubted the authenticity of this very edict, and so branded him first among the ten unforgivable crimes — that of “treasonous usurpation.”

This mystery that had troubled later generations for centuries had now been taken out and laid bare before her eyes.

Qu You’s heart lurched violently, and she stepped back without meaning to. If Zhou Tan could produce the edict now, at this very moment, then it could not possibly be the forgery he later supposedly created to put the grandson of Prince Jing on the throne.

Emperor Xuan truly had left behind a posthumous edict — one stating that “the Emperor lacking in virtue shall abdicate to the heirs of Prince Jing”!

“This edict… how did it come to be in your hands?” Qu You asked, nearly biting her own tongue. “Did Chancellor Gu leave it with you?”

Under the candlelight, Zhou Tan’s lashes were dusted with a faint golden glow. Whenever he lowered his eyes, those long, beautiful lashes showed themselves, and when they trembled faintly, they looked like the antennae of a butterfly stirred by the wind. “Before my teacher left the capital, he instructed me to go, in the dead of night, to the study of his old residence, and retrieve this from behind the plaque above the shelves, to guard it carefully. I’ve thought about it over and over since then… had my teacher already resolved to die by then? If not, why else would he have left something so important in my keeping?”

He closed his eyes, a look of pain crossing his face. “I kept thinking that once he returned to Yangzhou, I would find time at year’s end to visit him and finally ask him why. But he… he never even crossed the Qingxi River outside the capital. His old clothes are still in my residence. His coffin held nothing but a single umbrella of a myriad names. I wanted to go and see him off, but they wouldn’t let me through the gate. With His Majesty watching me, I didn’t dare lose composure, couldn’t even go and mourn before his memorial stone. All I could do was kneel here, through the entire night — and to this day, I’ve never been able to understand why my teacher abandoned me.”

Qu You took the brocade box from his hands, sealed the lid, and set it back into the recess. She turned and led Zhou Tan to sit back down, saying nothing, only holding his hand. Perhaps it was because of how tightly she gripped it, but that long, beautiful hand of his slowly began to warm.

Suddenly, something became clear to her.

Zhou Tan was despised by the scholar-officials, cursed by countless people — not because he had betrayed his teacher’s school and clawed his way back from the imperial prison alive, but because Gu Zhiyan had died.

If Gu Zhiyan had lived, then Zhou Tan’s clinging to life at Song Chang’s mercy could still be explained as a chancellor’s love for his student — an outward break, but in truth a way of protecting him. But Gu Zhiyan had left without a single word, drowning himself as Qu Yuan once had, and in the eyes of the world, that meant the Chancellor had judged his own student unworthy.

And so Zhou Tan had given up on everything, unable to bear a world so corrupt, with nothing left to hold onto.

“I once thought… my teacher punished me deliberately, because of the past.” Zhou Tan’s voice tightened. He gripped her hand back with some force, as if urgently trying to draw strength from her to keep going. “But after reading these, I suddenly realized…”

He spoke vaguely, evasively, and Qu You didn’t know what “the past” he referred to meant. She didn’t ask. She listened patiently — if Zhou Tan wanted to tell her, he would, in his own time.

The grief in his words ran deep. Qu You thought back to that same hazy rain on Jinghua Mountain, when this same man, delirious with fever, had tried with all his strength to push away the only embrace he could have leaned on, self-loathing sharp and clear in his amber eyes.

So it was — in his heart, even the person he respected most had abandoned him in death. His numb, going-through-the-motions work at the Ministry of Justice, his self-destructive ruin of his own reputation, his refusal of any comfort from those close to him — all of it, surely, had been a kind of self-punishment.

And now he had finally found the courage to hold her hand, tears still unshed and pooling in his eyes, yet hope had rekindled within them, like a man in darkness who had begged for the last flame left in the world.

“I suddenly realized — I was wrong. My teacher… did he really take his own life?”

Author’s Note:

There’s another update coming later — Little Mist is working hard for a double update today!!!!