Huang Qingxing was struck hard enough that blood welled between his lips and teeth. He worked his throat and swallowed it back down.

“This subordinate has failed in his duty. Please forgive me, Your Highness.”

The matter had been rushed, and yet it had to be done. The Prince of Huai wished to stand amid a gathering of ministers and force the Emperor to relent and reconsider the succession. To build such a base of influence in so short a time — looking across the entire court, there was no one who could serve this purpose but the Pei family and those connected to them by marriage.

“If he was someone worth drawing over to our side, why antagonize him in the first place?” The Prince of Huai’s anger was not only directed at the empty banquet table today but at having boxed himself into a dead end from which there seemed no path back. “Why move against him at all?”

Huang Qingxing explained, “Earlier, Pei Shaohuai stood on the side of the Eastern Palace. If he had not been removed… even if the Crown Prince made a grave error, with the support of the Pei faction, the Crown Prince could still have made a comeback.”

“Those who serve me are the glazed tiles on the roof — those who do not are paving stones on the ground.” The Prince of Huai had no intention of pressing further on the matter of the Pei faction. “Go and investigate. Pei does not believe that a family of such interwoven connections and so vast a clan could be without even a single crack.”

“This subordinate obeys.”

After the Prince of Huai departed, Huang Qingxing sat in the seat the prince had just vacated, drew out a white silk handkerchief, and carefully wiped away the traces of blood at the corner of his mouth. Then he changed his appearance, donned a wide-brimmed hat, and left He Xiang Tower by the back gate, slipping into a civilian alley.

Mingling into the crowd of the busy market, indistinguishable from everyone else, Huang Qingxing stopped before an umbrella stall, exchanged a coded signal, and left a small roll of paper for the contact. In this way he reported to his superior: that the previous day, he had let his true intentions slip before Pei Shaojin.

Before long, that very night, Huang Qingxing received his superior’s reply — just two lines. The first read: “How many people have truly grasped the deer in the end? Not knowing they spend their days dreaming they are fish. You exposed yourself long ago.”

Anger surged through Huang Qingxing like a tide.

Even written on paper, the words carried within them a lightness, a mockery, and a contempt — as though pointing at Huang Qingxing’s nose and saying aloud: “It was not yesterday that you revealed yourself — Pei Boyuan saw through you long ago.”

The superior had sensed that Huang Qingxing’s identity might already have been exposed, and yet still allowed him to follow Pei Shaohuai’s lead and enter the capital, entering the Precious Spring Bureau — which made Huang Qingxing feel once again that he was nothing more than a pawn toyed with in his superior’s palm: a step forward was a test; whether it succeeded or failed was of no consequence.

Humiliated yet powerless to fight back, the superior had even mockingly told Huang Qingxing that he was no more than a man dreaming himself a fish.

He turned the paper over. On the back was the second line: “Spare nothing — help him launch the palace coup.” “Him,” naturally, referred to the Prince of Huai.

It was clear, then, that the Prince of Huai was not the one who had “truly grasped the deer” either.

……

That same night, the Lin family’s grandchildren — young Lin the Sixth — tucked his father’s letter in his clothes and, under cover of the night, entered the Earl’s estate and delivered the letter to Pei Shaojin.

Lin Yuan had taken his fleet out to sea for trade. Lin Yao had led a caravan north to deal in jewelry with the Tatar people. This was a letter Lin Yao had sent back from the northern frontier.

“Father said to deliver the letter to Elder Uncle, but as Elder Uncle is now…” Young Lin the Sixth said. “The matter is urgent. I ask Second Uncle to read it and act quickly on whatever decision needs to be made.”

After Young Lin the Sixth left, Pei Shaojin unsealed the letter and read. Only then did he come to understand.

Early in the year, as in the two years prior, Lin Yao had brought his jewels north to trade with the Tatars for fine horses. At first everything went smoothly. But two days before the exchange was to take place, the Tatar nobles suddenly changed their terms, saying that this year they did not want jewels — they wanted grain instead.

By then, the horses had long since been sent back to Da Qing. Lin Yao had no grain to offer, which meant he was in arrears. The Tatars detained him. Lin family members of the trading caravan, upon learning of this, found a way to ship in a batch of grain and obtained the official authorization documents for the grain transaction from the government office — only then were they able to redeem Lin Yao.

Other merchants from Da Qing who had come north to deal in jewelry were not so fortunate as Lin Yao. Unable to produce grain, they remained detained in the Tatar encampments to this day.

Beyond this, upon Lin Yao’s return to Datong Prefecture, he discovered that rumors had begun to spread throughout the surrounding areas — rumors claiming that a calamity star had descended from heaven, causing the northern territories of Da Qing to suffer long winters year after year, with abnormal cold, farmland barren, and not a single grain to be harvested. The rumor-mongers were inciting the people to flee south immediately to save themselves, saying that if they were too slow and were stopped by the officials, they would have nowhere to run even if they wished to escape.

The harvests in the Qin and Jin regions had indeed been poor these past several years, and the winters colder than before. Once such rumors spread, it was inevitable that many among the common people would believe them and quietly set off south.

In his letter, Lin Yao wrote: “At present the rumor has only just begun to stir — the splash is not yet large, and the officials believe that the people are attached to their native land and would not readily leave the Qin and Jin regions to migrate south. They appear somewhat indifferent. Yet the instinct to survive is human nature — once enough people believe it, no one can say what troubles might arise. I hope that my cousin will make preparations early…”

Lin Yao had detected something suspicious from these two matters and had sent an urgent letter back specifically to alert Pei Shaohuai.

“Elder Brother already foresaw long ago that there would be unrest in the northwest…” Shaojin murmured to himself. He recalled the words his brother had charged him with the day before the incident — the northwest frontier must be guarded against not only the Tatars’ undying desire to push south, but also against the danger of unrest erupting in the Qin and Jin regions, which could cause those territories to fall.

The trade of jewels for fine horses had been going smoothly — for the Tatars to suddenly change their terms, someone must have “reminded” the Tatar tribes, telling them that the harsh winter had come, and that only grain could sustain life.

Tatars fighting for survival out of desperation would have their battle strength greatly magnified.

One could even say that the other side may have reached some kind of agreement with the Tatar tribes — using the Tatars to stir up unrest in the northwest frontier, creating a diversion, and using it to manufacture an opportunity for their own seizure of power.

When it came to pass — the Tatars spurring their horses south in invasion, the people overwhelmed by layer upon layer of fear, civil disorder erupting across the land, the northwest gateway of Da Qing becoming a living hell — would the court respond or not?

Pei Shaojin hurried to take out a simplified map of Da Qing and spread it across his writing desk, and began analyzing with the map before him.

Da Qing’s military forces were divided into the Front Army, the Rear Army, the Central Army, the Left Army, and the Right Army — five armies in total.

The Right Army held the most expansive territory of all. In the north it governed Gansu, and the Qin and Jin regions, and had to resist the Tatar peoples beyond the northwest frontier. In the south it had to hold down Sichuan, Chongqing, and Yunnan, resisting harassment from the chieftains of the southwest territories.

Among the nine border garrison towns, seven were located on the northwest frontier. Da Qing maintained its most vigilant defense along the northwest frontier, deploying the greatest number of troops there.

This particular position made it the easiest place to exploit.

Consider this —

Once the Tatars saw through Da Qing’s strategy in the border trade, driven by the will to survive in the bitter cold, the tribes would certainly join forces and storm the passes. Two armies facing off would be on the verge of erupting at any moment — and thus the northwest would be reporting a military emergency.

Any great war was not merely a matter for the border troops. It also concerned the survival of the common people of the northwest — whether they would die under the chaos of war and the hooves of horses, or under the crushing weight of military costs. In wartime, military expenditures consumed at least five times what they did in peacetime. While the court’s grain and supply lines were still on their way, the crushing military costs would fall upon the people of Gansu, Qin, and Jin.

Already plagued by the rumors of “a calamity star sowing chaos, endless winters, not a single harvest” — with the weight of full-scale war added on top, the people would surely come to believe it completely, and would begin to panic, each seeking their own escape.

Refugees would rise like waves, migrating southward in streams like a column of ants. Along this road, no one could say how many disasters would unfold, how many lives would be lost.

With the northwest prefectures emptied of their people, the morale of the troops would also be affected. Once morale collapsed, fighting strength would be greatly diminished.

On the court’s side, in order to hold the northwest frontier, troops would inevitably be reinforced and sent to support the northwest campaign. The Front Army was garrisoned primarily in Fujian and Huguang. The Left Army held Liaodong and Qilu. Both were far too distant from the northwest frontier; the cost of moving troops across such distances was prohibitive. The only feasible options were the Central Army and the Rear Army.

The Rear Army and the Forbidden Army jointly garrisoned the capital region and its surrounding lands. If the Rear Army’s forces were transferred to the northwest, the defenses of the capital region would inevitably be weakened.

“Elder Brother also mentioned the maritime defenses — in the event that the pirates, seizing the moment, came from the sea, hoping to take advantage of the chaos for their own share…” Pei Shaojin could not suppress a wave of alarm. If it truly came to that, what the court would be facing was not a simple struggle for succession, nor a palace coup confined within high walls — but a great cataclysm that would slaughter the common people and plunge the entire realm into chaos.

Enemies from all four directions rising together, hoping to carve up Da Qing as one might divide a rich meal.

Even if they could not fully devour it, they could massively drain Da Qing’s military strength and national power. The entire country would be tossed upon turbulent winds and rains — unable to defend against harassment, and with no heart left to develop productivity.

“So Elder Brother had already foreseen all of this, which is why he warned me of those things in advance,” Pei Shaojin said, only now fully understanding.

Without thinking of the broader whole, one cannot manage even a small corner of it. Through how many solitary nights had his elder brother run the calculations again and again, before he could think it all through so thoroughly.

Under his elder brother’s guidance, Pei Shaojin had likewise seen through the other side’s intention. He drew a broad stroke with his brush, circling one corner of the map. What the other side sought was not the northwest frontier, nor the maritime defenses — it lay in that circled corner.

He rolled up the map and put it away, then pushed open the window of the study. To the south, the Mercury star shone brightly, its light doubled and correct, gleaming alone above the southern sky.

Just as he was thinking, a dark shadow flashed past. Pei Shaojin was so startled he stumbled back a step. The figure swept past him, hand moving with precision to slip a folded square of paper into Pei Shaojin’s collar.

Pei Shaojin was about to shout when the shadow had already vaulted to the top of the wall, flipped over, and vanished without a trace.

Still unsteady from the shock, Shaojin unfolded the paper and found on it a single hurried line: “Pei Shaohuai is entirely safe — tell all of you not to worry.”

The tension between his brows eased all at once. Delight welled up in him, and the weariness across his face swept clean away — but in the very next instant, doubt crept back in. Whose hand was this? And who was the martial shadow that had come and gone so freely just now? Was it truly someone sent by his elder brother to deliver the message?

Pei Shaojin hoped it was true.

After careful consideration, Pei Shaojin decided to have someone invite his father, his mother, and his elder sister-in-law to the front hall to deliberate together.

……

When the maidservant came to summon Yang Shiyue, she was with Nanny Chen, adding oil to the lanterns along the covered walkways throughout the estate — filling each one to the brim, enough to burn bright through the entire night.

From the main gate inward, all the way back to the small courtyard where Pei Shaohuai lived, every stretch of walkway was lit and radiant.

Yang Shiyue went to the front hall. The moment she entered, her second brother-in-law handed her a slip of paper and asked, “Does Sister-in-Law recognize the handwriting on this?”

She looked closely and, in her joy, could not hold back the tears. Murmuring, “I knew it would be this way…” she turned and closed the hall door.

Only then did she say quietly, “It is the handwriting of Chief Commander Yan of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.” Such distinctive, freewheeling, slanted strokes — the two families had been neighbors for years in southern Fujian. How could Yang Shiyue not recognize them? She continued, “If Chief Commander Yan has returned, and my husband has been able to send word through him, then he must truly be fine. Father and Mother may set their minds at ease.”

She moved to Lin Shi’s side and gently wiped away her mother-in-law’s tears, offering comfort: “That my husband took this risky course of action — causing Mother such worry — must have been out of unavoidable necessity… From here on, we still need to help him keep up this act.”

Lin Shi gave a nod. “I know what is at stake.”

The several of them discussed the matter briefly, then each quietly returned to their own courtyards. Because Lin Shi and Yang Shiyue had come out with reddened eyes, the household servants thought some new misfortune had struck.

……

Within the Eastern Palace, a prolonged house arrest had left the halls filled on all sides with sighs of despair — the masters’ futures were uncertain, and the servants too lived in fear and anxiety.

Since the one time Pei Shaohuai had offered counsel, it had been a very long while since the Crown Prince had gone into the side courtyard to do his carpentry.

Yet on this day, Crown Prince Yan Youzheng, watching the Embroidered Uniform Guard soldiers posted at every palace gate — as though a prisoner caged — found his spirits plunging to a low with no measure, and, as though moved by some force he could not explain, pushed open the door to the woodworking room once more.

Wood shavings flew through the room in clouds. The Crown Prince took out all his pent-up frustration on the plane.

The door was pushed open, but this time it was not Pei Shaohuai — it was the Imperial Grandson Yan Chen. He stood beside his father, letting the wood shavings fall upon himself without a word, until his father stopped planing the wood and stood there catching his breath. Then he spoke: “The Emperor’s birthday is only ten more days away. Does Father still have the heart to stand here alone, planing wood?”

The days of being under house arrest alongside his father had stripped away much of the youthful air from Yan Chen, leaving in its place a measure of aged composure.

“Locked inside this Eastern Palace with nowhere to go — what does the Emperor’s birthday or the Myriad Longevity Festival have to do with father and son?” The Crown Prince said with a heavy heart. “If we were to send birthday gifts, it would only dampen the occasion.”

“It is not about the birthday celebration — it is that the Myriad Longevity Festival is almost here, and Imperial Grandfather has still not yet issued a decree…” Yan Chen let the words trail off, leaving the second half unspoken.

He had not deposed the Eastern Palace — which meant the Prince of Huai had not yet prevailed.

“When people grow desperate, they are capable of resorting to any means.” Yan Chen offered the warning with concern.

Yan Youzheng was taken aback. He understood what his son meant, and his voice softened as he looked at him. “Are there not Embroidered Uniform Guard soldiers standing guard in layers all around? Chen’er, there is no need for such worry.”

“It is not that I am worrying over nothing,” Yan Chen said. He tossed the wood plane to the ground and sat down across from his father on the long bench, looking him in the eye. “Father — no matter how many people stand guard, it is not necessarily safety. The only true safety comes from holding power firmly in one’s own hands.”