After leaving the Empress’s palace, Ye Tingyan made his way back to Qianfang Hall. Song Lan had not yet finished his meeting; Ye Tingyan stood waiting in the side hall for a while, catching fragments of heated arguing from behind the screen — now “How can the tens of thousands of people in Jiangnan afford to wait,” now “The border campaign has yet to be resolved.”

He stood in the shadow of the palace hall, and suddenly recalled words he had heard long ago: people said that Chu Jun harbored the world in his heart, always striving to attend to everything — but with affairs so numerous and varied, how could one truly hold both ends without losing grip?

The wound beneath his collarbone, layered over the old pain of a dagger’s thrust, became unbearable for a moment; he pressed a hand to his chest and stepped back.

A shaft of sunlight pierced through a gap in the carved window before him, and in that bright column, dust motes drifted and floated.

Song Lan happened to emerge at that very moment. Seeing his expression, he asked: “Tingyan, are you feeling any better?”

Ye Tingyan swiftly drew himself out of that state of feeling, clasped his hands, and bowed respectfully: “I thank His Majesty for his concern. This subject has no serious ailment, and with this case now concluded, I may leave the palace today.”

Several elderly ministers from the Council of State and the Three Offices’ Chief Ministers passed by on either side of the two men. Knowing this was the low-ranking official supposedly favored by the young Emperor of rumor, they all cast curious glances his way.

Yu Qiushi gave him a long, searching look.

He paid these gazes no mind, standing quietly in place. Only after everyone had passed did Song Lan speak again, with inscrutable meaning: “Good.”

Then he asked: “Did the Empress harbor any suspicion?”

Ye Tingyan replied: “At first, Her Highness was furious and bitterly scolded the guard Lu Heng several times. She said she would give Zhang Siyi’s family a proper burial. Afterward, she was simply sorrowful and said several times what a pity it was.”

Song Lan had been somewhat skeptical, but upon hearing the word “sorrowful,” he let out a sigh: “Siyi was an intimate friend the Empress had known since her youth. That she would grieve for her is only natural.”

He raised a hand and patted Ye Tingyan on the shoulder: “You handled this matter extremely well. After leaving the palace, go to the Ministry of Justice and finish things off with that person. The Zhuque Division has only just been established; if it is used too often, the old ministers will inevitably grow displeased.”

His words implied that Ye Tingyan should deal with Lu Heng on his behalf. He had expected some resistance from Ye Tingyan, given that he came from a scholarly background — but Ye Tingyan simply bowed deeply: “Your Majesty may rest assured.”

Song Lan remarked in sudden realization: “I nearly forgot — you also come from a military family.”

After taking his leave, Ye Tingyan departed through the eastern gate, where a carriage had long been waiting. He boarded it, and Pei Xi, without a word, tied a length of fresh silk satin over his eyes.

Seeing his face as white as snow, Pei Xi asked: “Young Master, what has happened?”

Outside the palace, Pei Xi stubbornly refused to use the title “My Lord,” and could no longer continue saying “Your Highness” — after struggling with the change, he now simply called him “Young Master.”

Ye Tingyan said in a low voice: “My guess was correct.”

Pei Xi’s hand trembled slightly: “Why would the Empress plot to kill Lu Heng?”

Ye Tingyan raised his hand, found the silk satin before his eyes, and for a rare moment let slip an expression of weariness and bewilderment: “I don’t know. She… is completely different from how she used to be.”

Pei Xi said: “Was Zhang Siyi not the Empress’s close companion from when she was still in her family’s residence? To use her life as bait in a scheme to kill Lu Heng — and come away from it with clean hands — the Empress has a formidable mind.”

Ye Tingyan said nothing. Pei Xi continued: “Perhaps it was out of personal enmity. The Empress’s heart has grown crooked; nothing she might do would be surprising. But this stroke of misdirected fortune has spared the Young Master the trouble of acting — our original plan was to deal with that heartless Lu Fengying first…”

The silk satin over his eyes blocked the light completely. In that expanse of darkness, the only thing Ye Tingyan found himself able to recall was the sight of Luowei just moments ago, laughing freely and uninhibitedly beneath the covered walkway — she would never have laughed like that; she had never worn such an expression.

Wild, yet restrained. Unfathomably deep.

In that instant, his heart had even ached for her.

A moment later, it condensed into a pleasure of revenge. With cold detachment, he thought: marrying Song Lan hadn’t made her any happier after all — in the end, she had changed from the carefree young girl she once was into this ugly thing of calculations and a thousand false faces.

Just like himself.

Was this what growing up meant — the destruction of beauty, the forging of something wretched?

His thoughts in turmoil, Ye Tingyan could bear to dwell on them no further, so he gave the order: “Turn and head to the Ministry of Justice.”

Before stepping down from the carriage, he squinted, reached up to pull off the silk satin, and pressed it back into Pei Xi’s hand.

Pei Xi wanted to follow, but was stopped. Pei Xi drew close, about to speak, then hesitated. Thinking he had some instruction to give, Pei Xi waited — but the man simply turned, lifted the curtain, and walked away, leaving behind only one sentence: “You are never to speak of the Empress again.”

*

Lu Heng lay half-dead in the damp straw of the Ministry of Justice’s dungeon. Ever since Song Lan had come to look at him that first time — saying nothing and ordering men to tear out his tongue — and declared that old belongings of the Crown Prince Chengming had been found in his residence, he knew it was over for him.

Song Lan was a man of extreme suspicion. After all his maneuvering, Lu Heng had grown exhausted, and had urged Zhang Bujiun to resign and leave the palace with thoughts of using the marriage as a means of escape.

Yet he should have known all along — there was no way Song Lan would let someone who knew too much simply leave.

At this thought, Lu Heng tightened his grip on the celadon jade ring that had been returned to him during the interrogation.

Zhang Bujiun had a colder heart than he had ever imagined. He only did not know whether this scheme was one she had arranged in advance, or whether the Empress had orchestrated it.

If Song Lan were willing to believe him even a fraction, he could surely drag the Empress down with him — but unfortunately, Song Lan had made up his mind to discard him as a spent piece on the board. If the Empress already knew what had happened all those years ago, then this was his retribution.

He pulled back the corners of his mouth into a smile, thinking of the beloved corpse he had seen through the water of the well that day. For a moment, he could not tell whether the pain that twisted his heart like a knife came from his bodily wounds or from some hidden anguish within — until a rustling sound reached his ears, and Lu Heng, with great effort, turned his head.

He saw, in the dim firelight, a pair of jet-black eyes.

The green robes were the garb of the lowest-ranking officials in the Great Yin dynasty; on the rare occasions he wore everyday clothing, it was dark crimson.

A few days ago, this green-robed official had knelt before a screen, surviving by the slimmest thread, and had seized his blade to carve out a path from the abyss.

And now, with time and circumstances reversed, it was he himself who had fallen into the abyss.

The Ministry of Justice’s men, upon seeing the imperial gold token in Ye Tingyan’s hand, hastily unlocked the cell, carried over a wooden interrogation chair, and dispersed everyone to a distance, afraid of impeding this man close to the throne on his important business.

Ye Tingyan did not sit in that chair. Once the others were gone, he slowly walked forward and crouched before Lu Heng, who was too weak to rise. He reached out and brushed the marks on Lu Heng’s neck and shoulder — and drew back a hand stained with blood.

“Fengying.”

Lu Heng had not wanted to listen to him speak, but the moment this word fell, he wrenched his head up, staring at the young civil official before him as if he were seeing a ghost.

“Do you know what your name means?” Ye Tingyan did not look at him; he cast his eyes downward and spoke: “Feng — to encounter, to see; ying is the chest, the heart. To look down and see your own heart — one who can do this may endure. Do you still remember any of these words?”

Lu Heng froze for a moment, shuddered, then his whole face flushed red. He stretched out blood-stained hands and clutched at Ye Tingyan’s hem, making “ah, ah” sounds — unintelligible, incoherent.

But Ye Tingyan knew what he wanted to say: “You want to ask why I am still alive?”

He had never been one for using “I” or “this prince,” and had always used “we” more frequently.

His hem was soiled with blood; he no longer cared. The Crown Prince Chengming had once been the most fastidious of men — yet now, how completely he had transformed.

Lu Heng fixed his eyes on him, searching for some trace of the person he once knew — but that elegant face was entirely unfamiliar, utterly blank.

He dared say that even if the Dowager Empress Xiancheng were to rise from the dead, she would not be able to recognize her own child standing before her.

Ye Tingyan looked up at him, and a thread of sorrow passed through his gaze. Slowly, he said to him: “I need not have come here in person — and yet, having cultivated you for so many years, I felt I should come to bid you farewell. Fengying—”

He reached to his side and drew out the Jintian Guard’s double-edged dagger, removed its sheath, and set it gently in Lu Heng’s hand. Then, gripping Lu Heng’s hand within his own, he pressed it to his own throat.

From the moment he heard Ye Tingyan’s first words, Lu Heng had been gripped by a kind of frenzied dissolution. Now with the blade pressing close, though he knew he could not live much longer, the trembling before impending death still seized him. His hand holding the dagger shook violently, and from his throat came a piercing, strangled cry.

“I know — you still think that if you reveal my identity to Song Lan, he will spare your life,” Ye Tingyan said, full of regret. “But you have no such opportunity now. In truth, from the moment you chose to betray me and seek a new master, you were bound to come to this end. Greed and malice — every person carries them; that is precisely why they hang a sword above themselves as a warning, never allowing themselves to grow slack. And you… When I selected you from among the refugees who had crossed south of the river, that was my mistake.”

Lu Heng fell abruptly silent. Still holding the blade, he trembled, unable to speak, tears and snot streaming down his face in wretched misery.

Ye Tingyan studied him carefully and continued: “Do you still remember — on the night of the Lantern Festival in the third year of Tianshi, where exactly did that blade of yours strike?”

Lu Heng followed his gaze downward.

Ye Tingyan pressed his hand to the wound where the slave’s brand had recently been gouged out, and gave a faint smile: “In the small hours of the night when I wake from dreams, I often think of you. I think of you, of your Emperor, of the Empress — I think of why you all betrayed me.”

Lu Heng started, realizing the implication of those words, and let out a strange, eerie laugh.

Zhang Bujiun had abandoned him for the sake of the “path” in her heart — and yet it turned out that in the heart of this fugitive former Crown Prince, the beloved was also a traitor.

Ye Tingyan continued: “Even when Jintian Guards die, a personal weapon must be left in Changfeng Hall to be offered in commemoration. This blade was stained with my blood and then yours — it can no longer be mounted on the Wall of Spirits. That year, when your mentor fell in battle, I retrieved his long sword and inscribed a line beside the wall—”

“The clear river waters flow deep and wide, above them maple trees stand… gazing to the ends of the earth, spring wounds the heart…”

“Ahhh!!”

A peal of laughter rolled up from Lu Heng’s throat, followed immediately by a sharp, piercing shriek. No one knew where he found the strength — he suddenly tightened his grip on the blade and fiercely drew it across his own neck.

Blood surged forth in an instant, drenching the front of his former master’s garment.

He remained unmoved, and recited the unfinished lines of the poem.

You will never have the chance in this life to die as a hero.

“—Soul, return to me; lament the rivers of the south.” [1]

When the Ministry of Justice’s men heard the commotion and rushed over, they saw only the green-robed official walking calmly out of the cell, spattered with blood yet with an unchanged expression: “His Majesty entrusted me today with bringing the former blade of Lord Lu to let him have a final look at it. Who could have expected that, unable to bear his suffering, he seized it and slit his own throat.”

The coroner entered the cell and took a brief look, then nodded to the Deputy Minister who had come to receive them: “He did indeed die by his own hand.”

The Deputy Minister exhaled with relief, and addressed Ye Tingyan with courteous civility: “We have given the Censor a fright. I will record it in the case file — stating that the prisoner took his own life. Even if the Censorate and the Court of Judicial Review refuse to believe it, they will surely find no other discrepancy.”

Ye Tingyan replied with refined elegance: “You have worked hard, Deputy Minister.”