“The Empress Dowager Chenghui once resided in the Western Garden. His Majesty dislikes the place, and so the Western Garden has long been left to fall into disuse. Apart from a few sweeping palace maids, no one ordinarily goes there,” Ye Tingyan replied unhurriedly. “As time passed, the Western Garden became a place where palace attendants arranged secret meetings. Since both Lu Heng and Zhang Siyi served within the palace, during the long and tedious days they had on occasion also met in secret there.”

Empress Dowager Chenghui was Song Lan’s birth mother. After Song Lan ascended the throne, he had bestowed excellent posthumous titles on both his birth mother and the late empress consort—honoring the late empress consort as the primary and his birth mother as the secondary. This gesture had earned him the unanimous praise of the civil officials at court.

When Song Lan first ascended the throne, being inexperienced in imperial affairs, he entrusted certain matters he was not entirely comfortable leaving to Yu Qiushi to Luowei instead. Truly speaking, over all these years she had dealt with affairs of the outer court even more than those of the inner palace. Yet Luowei conducted herself with discipline, and her trusted supervisors and female officials served with dedication—and for this sort of secret meeting that had occurred throughout every dynasty, those in the know simply turned a blind eye.

Ye Tingyan continued: “On the day in question, Lu Heng and Zhang Siyi were holding a secret meeting in the Western Garden. For reasons unknown to me, the two fell into a fierce quarrel. Zhang Siyi said something that sent Lu Heng into a furious rage, and so in a moment of impulse he drew his blade and wounded her, then discarded her body in the well.”

Luowei fixed him with a sharp gaze and pressed: “Furious rage—enough to draw a blade? What kind of words would drive Lu Fengying, that seasoned and worldly-wise commander of the Jintian Guard, to such anger?”

A trace of a smile—tinged faintly with contempt—crossed Ye Tingyan’s face, though it flickered and vanished before Luowei could catch it clearly: “It could only be that Zhang Siyi had transferred her affections elsewhere, causing Lu Heng to feel humiliated—or that Lu Heng had transferred his affections elsewhere and was desperate to withdraw from the arrangement. In these matters of love and passion between a man and a woman, outsiders cannot break through to the truth—but this much is certain: they can make people live, and they can make people die.”

Luowei was silent for a moment before speaking: “All because of love and passion—and it can give rise to such a desire to kill?”

Ye Tingyan said each word with deliberate weight: “When the thing one loves most has been snatched away by another’s blade, when the person one loves most has betrayed the vows of the past—how could there be no wound, no hatred, no rage, no loss of reason?”

His voice today was more subdued than usual, different in some way from what it ordinarily was. Luowei had been tilting her face upward, absorbed in watching the shower of petals across from her—but at these words she looked over sharply, as though she had heard something of great astonishment.

Ye Tingyan felt her gaze. He had not turned away in time, and so he met it directly.

They looked at each other for a long while. The ache in his eyes became unbearable, and a faint glimmer of moisture gathered there.

Luowei regarded him with an unreadable expression for quite some time before finally drawing her gaze away and giving a quiet, low laugh.

Ye Tingyan asked: “Why does Your Highness look at me like that?”

Luowei shifted her gaze and fixed it on the newly fallen petals on her own sleeve, answering quietly: “Your voice—at certain times—sounds very much like someone this Palace once knew well.”

Ye Tingyan said: “Am I not… also someone Your Highness once knew well?”

Luowei said absently: “Indeed.”

An unexpected silence fell between the two of them. Ye Tingyan waited patiently on his knees as Luowei opened her mouth to speak again.

Luowei, however, seemed to have forgotten entirely that this person was before her—and for a long while said nothing.

Liu Xi stood on his toes and glanced over, then murmured to Yan Luo beside him: “Her Highness and this Lord Ye have both gone quiet—does that mean the questioning is finished, or…”

Yan Luo replied: “Her Highness has not yet risen—how can it be considered finished? Please be patient a little longer, Liu Weng.”

Liu Xi said again and again: “I would not dare otherwise—I would not dare.”

True enough—the moment Yan Luo finished speaking, Ye Tingyan said something that caused the Empress, lost in her reverie, to change her expression and turn back to him.

“What did you say—”

Ye Tingyan lowered his eyelids and let out a slow breath, the faintest furrow forming between his brows, and he carefully repeated what he had just said.

“This servant said—this account of passion and love is in truth merely a conjecture on the part of this servant and His Majesty. It was also His Majesty’s suggestion that this servant convey it to Your Highness in this way. Before Lu Heng could confess anything, his tongue was removed by the Zhuque Division—so he said nothing at all. Your Highness accepted these poor words so readily and without question—why?”

A breeze passed through. Flower shadows swayed in the garden, drifting in scattered confusion across the ground.

Luowei asked: “What does Lord Ye mean by this?”

Ye Tingyan replied without presumption or servility: “This servant has one question and asks Your Highness to help resolve it.”

“Speak.”

“On that day, as this servant was making his way to the Crimson Platform, he inadvertently startled Your Highness’s imperial carriage. This servant knelt at the roadside to beg forgiveness; after the carriage passed, in alarm and anxiety this servant sought to find a colleague to walk alongside. So this servant turned back—and then—”

He paused here and glanced upward.

On that day of bright spring sunshine, only when a cloud passed over and blocked the light had he been able to lift his head. Looking up at that moment, he had seen a clear azure sky and cottony white clouds. Now, lifting his eyes, he followed the inverted eaves and carved brackets and saw the freshly lacquered beams—and at the topmost point of the ridgepole, the darkness.

There, someone had painted a few white birds that seemed also to wish to fly from that black canopy up into the sky.

“This servant caught sight of a member of Your Highness’s inner household—the one standing over there—walking with hurried steps toward the Western Garden. Shortly afterward, this servant was wounded, and when Young Lord Pei came, he ran straight into the fleeing palace maid from the Western Garden.”

Luowei followed his gaze toward Yan Luo’s direction. Yan Luo, not understanding her intention, pressed her lips together with a trace of worry.

“Then, as this servant was taking charge of the case—deciding on the perpetrator and writing up the official record—an interesting idea suddenly occurred to me.”

“All the suspicion in this case was placed on Lu Heng by means of the pale jade ring that Young Lord Pei had picked up—and also owing to the door of the sealed courtyard in the Western Garden having been found open by the palace maid. Lu Heng dared to do this precisely because he was certain that only the Jintian Guard held the key to that courtyard, and because the place was so seldom frequented by anyone. With the body decaying to bones over several years, there would be no way to trace its origins—yet apart from himself, who else could have opened the door from the inside to invite someone in?”

“Furthermore—the thumb ring was a private possession. Five days had passed since the incident. Lu Heng would certainly have noticed its absence. He had gone back to look for it—yet if the ring had been dropped in a place where Young Lord Pei could casually pick it up, how is it that he himself could not find it?”

With that, Ye Tingyan continued in the same gentle, unhurried voice: “Could Your Highness help this servant resolve the question?”

“What Lord Ye means is—this Palace dispatched someone that day to open the gate of the Western Garden, to discard the ring, and then under the guise of summoning an associate for you, had that palace maid deliberately run into the others so as to make the incident as conspicuous as possible?” Luowei’s expression did not change; she even raised her hands in leisurely, unhurried applause. “Remarkable—truly remarkable. If this Palace were not personally involved, I would nearly be compelled to report this to His Majesty and ask for Lord Ye to be transferred to the Ministry of Justice as an Edict Attendant.”

“Your Highness made every attempt to test the situation at first, then gave it a push at the level of court opinion—not sparing even your own reputation in order to have the case placed in this servant’s hands,” Ye Tingyan said, as though he had not heard her latter remark, simply following the thread of her own words and continuing. “Afterward, Your Highness even risked coming in person to the secret appointment, hinting to this servant that the case should be ‘smoothly’ resolved. Your Highness’s intricate calculations—eliminating an adversary without the slightest effort, without a single leaf of evidence clinging to yourself—truly leave this servant in humble admiration. Only this servant wonders: Your Highness has long been acquainted with Lu Heng as well—what old grievance did Your Highness have against him?”

Luowei asked coldly: “Are you aware of how grave an offense it is to make false accusations against this Palace?”

Ye Tingyan replied with less than wholehearted sincerity: “This servant’s crime is as great as a mountain.”

He spoke in a low and unhurried manner, every word floating to her ears in an unbroken stream, and Luowei found a fine shiver spreading from her spine outward as she listened.

Her heart beat like a drum—not only from astonishment and fear, but also from some feeling she could not clearly name.

She looked at his calm and composed face—in which, beneath the surface, blades lay concealed—and found herself strangely moved by that feeling, and suddenly she laughed quietly aloud.

She laughed louder and louder. To onlookers it must have appeared as though the Empress had heard something that delighted her beyond measure—yet as Ye Tingyan looked on, he was certain he saw in the face of this person who had once been so intimately close to him a kind of madness, unfamiliar and restrained, that he had never seen before.

Luowei asked in a low, breathy voice: “My Lord has laid it all out so carefully—but tell me—do you have any evidence?”

Ye Tingyan replied softly and gently: “That palace maid who was hurrying through the Western Garden that day—is she not now serving in Your Highness’s palace? What was seen that day… it was only this servant who saw it. Your Highness is the most meticulous of people. To leave no trace of evidence behind—how could you possibly leave any for this servant.”

And so Luowei clapped her hands with a peal of laughter: “Then this Palace was wrong just now—My Lord should not go to the Ministry of Justice. My Lord should go to a storytellers’ theater instead. And since My Lord has said so much, this Palace also has a question—please answer it for me.”

Before Ye Tingyan could respond, Luowei cut in swiftly: “On the day of the grand banquet at the Crimson Platform, My Lord ‘inadvertently’ startled this Palace’s carriage on the road—you said you did not know the paths. Then how did you know that this Palace’s attendant was headed in the direction of the Western Garden? And how did you discover the long-abandoned Gaoyang Terrace among all these derelict palace structures? My Lord is so thoroughly familiar with every road in the imperial city—has he truly had no thought of Biandu these past years?”

At these words, the smile at the corner of Ye Tingyan’s lips stiffened for just a moment.

Luowei continued: “A secret—the very reason it is a secret is that even if it were to spread, one would still have the confidence to deny it outright. This Palace has that confidence. Does My Lord?”

The two of them looked at each other, and suddenly both broke into laughter.

Ye Tingyan prostrated himself and called out clearly: “This servant thanks Your Highness for resolving his question.”

Luowei waved her hand and bid him rise: “This Palace has also finished asking what needed to be asked. Lord Ye handled the Lu Heng case with skill—thorough within and without. Only the autumn is still far away. Though His Majesty’s mind is settled, Lu Fengying has not yet died, and this Palace is always unsatisfied on Zhang Siyi’s behalf.”

“Your Highness may rest easy. At the time of the autumn executions, there are many people to be dealt with, and the Zhuque Division will certainly not wish to share the Ministry of Justice’s bustle. Furthermore, this servant requests permission: Zhang Siyi was Your Highness’s former attendant—how should her remains be handled?”

“This Palace will have someone give her a proper burial, returning her to her home family, along with a reward for her family members—with sutras chanted and prayers offered for her. Lord Ye has been thoughtful.”

“This servant thanks Your Highness on behalf of Siyi.”

Luowei gave a slight nod, satisfied: “There are no more loose ends then. This Palace has no way to detain a guest—Lord Ye, your wound—is it healing? Please leave the palace at your earliest convenience.”

Ye Tingyan rose and bowed with folded hands. He had been kneeling so long that he could barely stand, and had to grip the pillar of the walkway before he could steady himself. He had just turned to go when Luowei suddenly spoke from behind him: “By the way, My Lord—do you know where the Gaoyang Terrace got its name?”

The crepe myrtles alongside the path had not yet bloomed. On the ground, someone had planted a few listless plants of single-leaf reedmace—a plant that commonly grew on hillsides and in woodlands, now pampered and kept in a garden, and in consequence no longer flourishing.

Ye Tingyan looked at them and stopped walking.

Liu Xi and Yan Luo were walking toward the two of them from a distance. Seizing the moment before they arrived, Ye Tingyan replied in a low voice: “It comes from Song Yu’s ‘Rhapsody of Gaotang’—’On the south side of Mount Wu, at the foot of the high ridge—at dawn, she is the morning clouds; at dusk, she is the falling rain.'”

Luowei said: “The last time this Palace climbed the terrace was when I was still young. Last year at Qingming, when His Majesty went out of the city for the memorial rites, this Palace was unwell and could not go with him. I looked at the bright flowers beneath the high terrace—born at dawn and dead by dusk. How pitiable.”

Ye Tingyan turned his head and said: “Your Highness, take care of your health—do not give yourself to sorrow.”