◎The Proclamation◎

The fire was finally extinguished as dawn approached.

With the mountain buried under heavy snow, the slopes steep and slick, and the fire still needing to be put out, Zhou Tan and Qu You did not descend the mountain that night, but spent it instead with the monks of Xiuqing Temple at Xiaofeng Peak, not far from the main hall.

Xiaofeng was the residence of the temple’s abbot. Qu You pushed open the window with her uninjured hand and saw, amid the blanketing white snow, the charred black ruins of what had once been the main hall.

Zhou Tan had already woken, and came through the door carrying a tray of vegetarian food, snow still clinging to his hair, looking somewhat disheveled. Seeing her awake, he broke into a warm smile. “A’Lian.”

He set the tray down on the small table before her. “Eat something. I’ll go take a look at the main hall, and then we’ll head down the mountain.”

Qu You glanced down at the food before her, then looked up again at Zhou Tan. In the chaos of the snowstorm the night before, she had not looked closely at him — only now did she realize how much thinner he had grown.

She reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck, and Zhou Tan, following her lead, pulled her into his embrace.

He held her tightly, his face buried deep against her shoulder, and after a long moment, said hoarsely, “…I thought I would never see you again.”

His voice caught, thick with unshed tears. “After we parted at the crossing that day, I fell unconscious for a long stretch of time, and did not wake until we had already reached the outskirts of Lin’an… My body was too weak, and even with Physician Bo’s most devoted care, I could not recover in time to come save you myself. When you schemed to secure our safe escape from the capital that day, did you never once consider — if you had perished here, I… how could I possibly have gone on living alone?”

“And yet yesterday, when you came to save me, weren’t you the one so resolutely willing to end your own life?” Qu You said gently, patting his back. “There, there. I suppose that makes us even.”

Zhou Tan released her, his eyes reddened, refusing to look at her, sulking like a child — yet even so, his hand reached over to pick up a bite of food and hold it to her lips.

Qu You laughed and ate it.

She had once thought couples who fed each other looked unbearably saccharine; now, living it herself, she found only that when love ran deep enough, one wished to spare the other even the effort of chewing.

Once they had finished the meal, Qu You, cradling her injured arm, followed him out of bed and said, “You’re going to the main hall — let me come with you… I don’t know why, but I keep feeling something about the Crown Princess…”

She did not finish the thought. Zhou Tan hesitated for a moment, then agreed.

Fortunately, the golden statue of the Buddha in the main hall had been cast from real gold and had not collapsed. Standing amid the ruins, Qu You looked up to see that half the statue’s face had melted from the heat, twisted into a chaotic mass, while the other half retained its serene, sorrowful expression, eyes lowered, gazing quietly down at her.

Several monks were nearby, murmuring anxiously among themselves, when the abbot appeared, turning a string of prayer beads between his fingers, entirely unbothered, bowing to her with a cheerful smile.

Qu You hastily returned the bow. “Master Jiyun, I trust you are well.”

Jiyun replied, “It has been many years since we last met — it is I who should ask after an old friend’s well-being.”

Qu You froze in surprise. “Master…?”

Jiyun continued at once, “You came here as a young girl, with your mother, to burn incense. I was the one who chose a new character for your name. It was so long ago — it is only natural you would not remember.”

She nodded, hesitant, and Jiyun said nothing more, turning instead toward Zhou Tan, who stood nearby. Zhou Tan pressed his palms together and bowed to him; the two exchanged a few words she could not hear, then walked off together, further away.

Qu You, coming back to herself, walked a circuit around the ruined main hall under the protection of two guards, and suddenly noticed a filled-in pit in the ground behind the statue of the Buddha.

Curious, she turned to ask a nearby monk, “Master, what is this place? Was it here since the hall was first built?”

The monk answered respectfully, “You may not know this, but there was once a hidden chamber beneath Xiuqing’s main hall, used to store candle oil and incense stones, sheltered from light to prevent spoilage. It had long stood empty, and was sealed up several years ago. It was only yesterday, when that female benefactor set off the fire powder here, that the floor tiles were blown open and it was revealed once more.”

Qu You frowned. “Does this hidden chamber connect to anywhere outside the mountain?”

The monk answered, “No, it does not connect to anything outside.”

Qu You nodded, took a few steps toward the other side, then could not help but turn back. “Master, might it be possible to have this chamber dug open for inspection? I know it would cause some disturbance, but my mind remains uneasy.”

The monk said, “That would be no trouble at all — only, the chamber has been sealed for so long that a proper excavation may take some time.”

Qu You bowed quickly. “I will leave men behind for it, then. My apologies for the disturbance, Master.”

By morning, the guards had carried out from the ruins the body of a woman burned beyond recognition. The day before, Li Yuanjun had ignited fire powder she had planted beforehand within the main hall and burned herself alive, taking with her, in the process, several of her own guards who had been stationed outside the hall. The blaze had been so fierce that no one had dared attempt a rescue, leaving her burned to this state.

Qu You went to look through the back garden behind the main hall, and, to her surprise, discovered that the fire had traveled a considerable distance along the grass behind the hall, only to inexplicably die out just as it reached the old tree draped in red ribbons.

Jiyun had already departed. Zhou Tan stood beneath the old tree, hands clasped behind his back, snow settling on its branches and drifting down in soft flurries. Seeing her approach, he turned and broke into a smile. “A’Lian, let’s tie one onto the tree ourselves as well.”

And so the two of them wrote the same wish — “peace and good fortune” — onto a ribbon and tied it to the branch together.

Qu You pulled her red cloak tighter around herself and told him what she had learned within the hall. “Did you know there was a hidden chamber inside the main hall? Something about it troubles me — I’ve asked that they dig it open to look further. For some reason, I cannot shake the feeling that Li Yuanjun would not have taken her own life so easily…”

She hesitated a moment, then shared with him the suspicion that had taken shape in her mind the day before. Zhou Tan listened closely, his gaze sharpening. “You mean to say — beyond Song Shiyan and Li Yuanjun, there is yet another hand moving in the shadows?”

Qu You made a small sound of agreement, then said, hesitant, “I truly cannot work out who set off that red firework yesterday. At this point, I even wonder whether such a person exists at all — I have no leads, nowhere to even begin.”

But Zhou Tan said, “What you suspect is not impossible. Once we descend the mountain, we should still inform Little Yan and Ziqian of this matter…”

As the two of them continued discussing it, a guard came hurrying up, cupping his hands in salute. “My lord… the general asked me to relay a message — please come down the mountain and return to the palace at once. His Highness and several of the elder ministers await you in Xuande Hall.”

Cai Ying examined, once more, the late emperor’s final edict that Su Chaoci had brought, exchanged a few murmured words with the man beside him, and at last said, hesitant, “…This is indeed the late emperor’s own hand, bearing the seals of both the late emperor and Chancellor Gu.”

With the deposed crown prince now dead and the throne without a rightful heir, the court still addressed Emperor De as “Your Majesty,” and the departed emperor before him as “the late emperor.”

Su Chaoci said evenly, “I would not dare deceive you, Lord Cai.”

The day before, he had escorted Song Xixuan into the palace bearing the final edict Zhou Tan had left in his keeping, first releasing the officials held in the Ministry of Justice’s prison, and the following day summoning the court’s senior ministers to Xuande Hall, where he read the edict aloud before them all.

The court erupted at once into chaos, opinions scattering in every direction, until at last the officials split into two camps. One faction, upon hearing Song Xixuan speak of the matter of the former Prince Jing, believed him at once — after all, he held the imperial seal, and Su Chaoci himself came from a prominent family and bore an impeccable reputation as an upright, principled official, hardly a man to commit treason without cause. The other faction remained hesitant, worried that so much time had passed since the edict’s writing that its authenticity could no longer be verified. Cai Ying looked around the assembled court, and, without saying much more, simply said, “Minister Su should first bring young Lord Zhou back to us.”

No one else understood his meaning, but those whom Emperor De had summoned before his death understood perfectly well.

As Emperor De lay dying, he had called them to his bedside, and beyond the matter of the deposed crown prince, had also given instructions regarding the succession. Too weak to say much, he had only gripped Cai Ying’s hand and murmured, indistinctly, something about a final edict.

Emperor De had entrusted that edict to Zhou Tan alone; only Zhou Tan knew where it was kept.

That day, when Cai Ying, driven to fury and despair by the deposed crown prince’s coercion, had been on the verge of taking his own life, it was Zhou Tan’s wife who had leaned close and spoken a single sentence to him.

“Chancellor Cai, take care of yourself. His Majesty left behind a final edict — if all of you should perish here, there will be no one left to bear witness to it.”

That single sentence had reminded him of the edict’s existence, and from that moment on, he had held his tongue, enduring everything, surviving within the Ministry of Justice’s grasp until this very day.

He understood full well that Zhou Tan’s wife had embedded herself at the deposed crown prince’s side precisely to preserve all their lives. Though Su Chaoci had brought Zhou Tan’s copy of the late emperor’s final edict, it remained, after all, only one man’s word — he needed to see Zhou Tan himself before he could be certain.

The assembled ministers waited a long while in Xuande Hall before Zhou Tan finally arrived, later than expected.

He appeared at the hall’s entrance with Qu You at his side, and the whole assembly stirred with emotion at once. Su Chaoci hurried forward to greet him, asking in a low voice after his health. Song Xixuan followed close behind, meaning to bow to him, but Zhou Tan stopped him before he could, and so the young emperor instead turned to Qu You. “It has been many days since we last met — is my teacher’s wife well?”

Qu You could never quite reconcile the cold, distant Emperor Ming of her memories with the boy standing before her now, and could only manage a strained smile, answering softly, “Ziqian is too kind to think of me. I am well.”

The several elder ministers whom Emperor De had summoned before his death bowed at once, half-formally, to Zhou Tan. Those unaware of the full circumstances found this puzzling, but those in the know understood well enough — Emperor De had met with Zhou Tan alone before his death and had entrusted the final edict to him, a gesture nearly equivalent to entrusting him with the care of his heir. This man would surely hold immense influence at court from this day forward, and could not be left unacknowledged.

Cai Ying straightened his official cap and stepped forward. “Young Lord Zhou, only you know where His Majesty’s edict is kept. You and I should go together to retrieve it.”

Zhou Tan bowed and said, hoarse, “Chancellor Cai speaks rightly. I have come too late.”

Emperor De had left the final edict behind the throne in Xuande Hall. The floor around the throne’s main position was paved with gold-inlaid bricks — it was there, too, that Qu You had once pried up a corner tile to hide the imperial seal.

It was fortunate, that day, that her fabricated story had led Song Shiyan to believe Zhou Tan had fled the capital carrying the edict with him — otherwise, a more thorough search might well have uncovered it.

The two of them retrieved the edict from beneath the gold bricks directly below the throne. Seeing that Cai Ying already knew of this, no one dared to voice any doubt, and all present quickly knelt.

Zhou Tan held out the brocade box. “Please proclaim the edict, Chancellor Cai.”

Cai Ying said, “His Majesty entrusted this to you.”

Zhou Tan’s expression remained calm. “The edict may concern matters too close to myself. I dare not read it aloud.”

Cai Ying sighed and took the brocade box from his hands.

The two of them walked to the front of the hall together. Cai Ying opened the edict, and found that the date sealed upon it was, in fact, the day before Emperor De had summoned them to depose the crown prince.

Emperor De had written this final edict long before that day. By ancient custom, a final edict required the chancellor’s seal — yet with the position of chancellor now vacant, the previous edict naming the crown prince had borne Cai Ying’s own seal.

It seemed that after meeting with Zhou Tan, Emperor De had hesitated for a long while before ultimately rewriting the edict entirely — and, pressed for time, had not even had the chance to summon Cai Ying to discuss it.

But in such extraordinary times, now that he could confirm the edict’s authenticity, there was no need to dwell further on such details.

Cai Ying unrolled the edict, and Zhou Tan knelt properly at his side.

“Let all ministers hear this edict: I, of meager virtue, have upheld the ancestral shrine for more than twenty years, laboring day and night, fearing always that I might betray the trust the late emperor placed in me. Of all that has passed, there is too much to recount in detail; the four directions remain at peace, free of calamity, and this alone has brought me some measure of ease… Yet I, lacking in virtue, dare not presume to bear the weight of the full imperial rites, nor make offering with the golden vessels; let the late emperor’s ceremonies be reduced by half, and that shall suffice.”

Several of the elder ministers below cried out, tearful: “Your Majesty!”

Cai Ying, his voice choked with emotion, continued reading. “…Now, beset by illness and grief beyond cure, I shall soon depart this world, and face it with deep dread and regret. It grieves me greatly. The crown prince, Yan, dwelling in the Eastern Palace, has failed to uphold filial devotion; let all his ceremonial rites be stripped away entirely. In accordance with the ancestral precepts, and knowing the late emperor’s own edict, I hereby declare before the ancestral shrine, and request that the minister entrusted with this decree, together with all ministers within and beyond the court, deliberate in unity and proclaim, in accordance with the late emperor’s edict, the welcoming and installation of the rightful heir to the imperial throne, that all ministers within and beyond the court may join in heart to assist his governance. From the time of my own ascension to this day, those officials who incurred blame for their counsel — let the living be recalled to service, and the dead be honored and compensated; let those still imprisoned be released and reinstated at once, and let all matters concerning men of learning and skill be reviewed according to their true circumstances, each properly judged under the law. Let the minister entrusted with this decree enter the Council of State to proclaim it before all ministers, and let this edict be declared throughout the realm, that all may know of it.”

The moment he finished reading, Su Chaoci rose, holding the edict he carried in his own hands, and declared, “The late emperor left behind an edict: the emperor, having failed in his duty, abdicates in favor of the descendant of Prince Jing’s line. The imperial seal, Chancellor Gu’s supplementary seal, and the Central Secretariat’s official seal — all three are complete and accounted for. I ask that all lords present examine them.”

Zhou Tan bowed low, his forehead pressed against the cold, gold-inlaid bricks.

“This subject, entrusted with the decree… humbly acknowledges the sacred grace bestowed upon him.”