Faced with his expression, Luowei suddenly felt a twinge of nervousness.

It had been a long time since she had felt this way.

In the years since she had become Empress, she had encountered all manner of courtiers in the imperial court — those filled with grand ambitions, those who smiled while hiding knives, those ruthless and merciless. She had maneuvered around them all, learning much from them, then using what she had learned to win hearts and gather trusted allies. She had grown so adept at it that, at some point unknown even to herself, she had transformed into the composed and unflappable person she was today.

As long as she could see through another’s heart and discern what they truly wanted, even in confrontations with Yu Qiushi and Song Lan, she had never once felt she had the lower hand.

But him…

From the moment he appeared at Xiuqing Temple — or perhaps even earlier, from when he had knelt before the crabapple blossoms in Qionghua Hall and, in soft, gentle tones, deduced without a single error all of her calculations in the West Garden murder case.

Luowei had understood with perfect clarity that this man before her would one day become a formidable adversary she would have to fear.

Yet strangely, this realization did not fill her with dread — instead, it gave rise to a heart-pounding kind of joy. That day in the corridor when she had laughed aloud, it was this very feeling that had moved her to do so.

Luowei herself could not quite explain whether this was the pleasure of meeting a worthy opponent, or the madness of one who, having glimpsed an opportunity, would rather see everything reduced to ashes than let it slip through her fingers.

Growing up, she had absorbed her mother’s naivete and kindness, her father’s gentle magnanimity, Song Ling’s upright and steady bearing… every person who had shaped her youth had left their mark upon her, becoming an imprint on her very being.

And the deepest, most painful scar was the one left by losing him.

Luowei turned this over in her mind again and again. Once, she would surely have despised this feeling of losing control — but now she welcomed it, even taking a strange satisfaction from the disruption of old order. Perhaps it was because she had spent too long, far too long, alone in this cage of heaven and earth, and only the thrill of walking the edge of a precipice could make her feel she was still alive.

So what did it matter that Ye Tingyan was exceedingly dangerous.

What did it matter that she had crossed a boundary with him, cultivating this confused and tangled ambiguity between them.

At least for now, he could help her contend against the immense forces she sought to oppose — sending blades and provisions to her solitary war.

That was enough, wasn’t it… Whether she would one day die at his hands, or whether she could make him die at hers — those were matters for the future.

Luowei lifted her head again, looking at Ye Tingyan kneeling before her.

For some unknown reason, now that she had thought through all of this, the man before her suddenly seemed not quite so difficult to read.

Whether it was their first encounter on the road when he had disregarded all propriety, or later the bold invitation at Gaoyang Terrace, or the entanglements at Xiuqing Temple and behind Luyun Mountain… it was not that he was incapable of concealing his emotions without flaw — he simply could not be bothered to do so.

Previously, her nerves had been taut, and she had been certain that a man with such a profound and inscrutable mind could not possibly harbor any lingering sentiment toward her.

Now, with sudden clarity, Luowei understood that for Ye Tingyan, ‘having lingering feelings’ and ‘acting for convenience’ were no contradiction at all. He had come to align himself with her because it was the choice most advantageous to himself after weighing all considerations — why, then, would he bother to suppress emotions that were harmless and beneficial?

After all, he was hardly some upright gentleman devoted to Confucian virtue. He wanted something — he simply reached out for it plainly.

Seeking power, desiring beauty — these were pursuits common to men throughout the world, and he was no exception.

So Luowei curved her lips into a smile.

She bent down, deliberately close to his ear, and asked: “Lord Ye, how might you be made to witness this Empress’s sincerity?”

Ye Tingyan’s hand tightened slightly.

Luowei reached out a finger and playfully ruffled the few loose strands of hair at his brow. Seeing his reaction, she grew even more certain of her assessment, and found it increasingly amusing.

Perhaps the people she had dealt with in the past had been too upright. She had nearly forgotten that beauty could also serve as a weapon.

Having seen through him, she had reclaimed control over the dynamic between them.

Before life and death came into play, this faint and fragile thread of sentiment — whoever possessed it was the one at a disadvantage.

Ye Tingyan had not understood her sudden shift, and said in a low, measured voice: “What does Your Highness think?”

Luowei applied gentle pressure and interlaced her fingers with Ye Tingyan’s. Her other hand followed along his hair at his temple and came to rest again on the side of his face.

She held his gaze without blinking, unwilling to miss even the smallest flicker of expression on his face. Her tone softened almost unconsciously, dropping nearly to a whisper: “Lord Ye will witness this Empress’s sincerity. But before that, I have two things I wish to ask you.”

Ye Tingyan held his breath and listened as she spoke: “The first — tell me just one truth: the several times you risked danger to meet with me, was it truly because of feelings from years past?”

She no longer called him “Lord Ye,” nor referred to herself as “this Empress.”

This time, Ye Tingyan did not falter. Almost self-indulgently, he let himself lean his face into that hand, half-true, half-false, and declared with conviction: “Your Highness asks for truth — then know that it is not only those past years. At first sight of you on the road before the crimson tower, I was… struck at once by love, moved by your beauty.”

She knew this, too, was not his whole heart’s truth — but it fell precisely within what she had anticipated.

The smile on Luowei’s face deepened: “The second — when you were in Beiyou, you presented His Majesty with a painting, ‘Treading the Vermilion Sky to Pieces.’ What was the meaning of this gesture?”

Ye Tingyan had not expected her to ask this. He paused for a moment, then turned the question back: “Does Your Highness know what it meant?”

Luowei was deliberately vague: “I only wish to know — how were you so certain this gesture would win His Majesty’s favor?”

Ye Tingyan suddenly felt her hand was very cold — so cold that he could not help but shiver.

He turned his face slightly away, withdrawing from her touch: “Your Highness, did you know that I too have many brothers at home.”

Luowei replied evenly: “I am naturally aware of this.”

“From boyhood, my father and mother favored my eldest brother. Whenever they set out on campaign, they would always take him along, while I was always the one left behind.” Ye Tingyan said, “They called it impartial love, but in truth, I understood from childhood that it is only what one cherishes most that one cannot bear to let leave one’s side.”

“Father, mother, eldest brother, second brother — all were fine people, and I held them in respect. Yet living long under such partiality, I was not as indifferent as I appeared on the surface.”

Having said this, his tone shifted: “When my brother perished in the Battle of Youyun He, my grief was utterly devastating — but only I myself knew that mingled within that grief was a strange and peculiar satisfaction. Heaven is always fair: it took from me the love and care I was owed, and compensated with his life. If even I was thus, then how must His Majesty have felt — that prince who, from childhood, had never known favor?”

He was remarkably candid, laying bare the shameful and dark impulses buried deepest within himself, without the slightest concealment, right before her face.

Luowei listened and felt a wave of revulsion. A chill ran down her spine in repeated waves.

She recalled Song Lan telling her with great admiration that Ye Tingyan had anticipated long ago that someone would try to use his relationship with Shen Sui as a weapon against him, and that at the very first moment of Shen Sui’s misfortune, he had already composed a declaration of righteous indignation.

No wonder… no wonder that within the brief span of his days in Beiyou, he had been able to win Song Lan’s wholehearted trust and be regarded as a kindred spirit.

It was not that he had seen through men’s hearts and penetrated Song Lan’s mind — it was that they were far too alike, each most capable of understanding the other’s hidden darkness that could not be shown to the world.

She found it difficult to keep smiling, yet held herself together so that no flaw showed on her face. Ye Tingyan was still speaking, each word falling into her heart one by one, like venomous serpents.

Ice-cold and rampant. Turbulent and disordered.

“I know His Majesty received his elder brother’s care and protection for many years, and must have felt affection for him. Yet I also know that no one willingly plays the role of the one who is cared for all their life — least of all a sovereign. I offered the painting to His Majesty as a gamble. And now that gamble has paid off: sovereign and subject know one another, subject knows sovereign — surely this is a fine tale. Your Highness is now His Majesty’s wife; you must also understand his unspeakable suffering from years gone by.”

He had spoken so much in one breath that even his tongue felt numb.

For Luowei, these words were merely an ordinary confession. But for him, they were no less than the agony of being sliced apart piece by piece. He clearly understood their heartlessness — yet he still harbored this desperate hope that he might see even a sliver of the revulsion those words would have produced on her face.

More boldly still, with more wild imagination — given their years of connection, she might speak up in defense of the late Crown Prince, even if only a single word. Even just one.

The fantasy collapsed utterly.

Luowei listened. Not a single expression crossed her face — no emotion whatsoever. A blank, absolute silence, completely dead.

After a long pause, she even reached out to touch his cheek again, and with an inscrutable air, offered a word of praise: “Good. Very good.”

In that instant, Ye Tingyan stared at her slender neck and felt that he truly wanted to kill her.

In the twenty years he had grown up among the classics of the sages, he had never once harbored a single violent impulse — yet now, facing her, he felt more and more that perhaps one day he would cast aside all his ‘integrity,’ ‘moral resolve,’ and ‘Confucian teachings,’ and entangle himself with her until gold and stone were ground to dust and orchid and mugwort burned together.

Yet for now — he was unafraid of the transgression of coveting the Empress, and she was unperturbed by the shameful act of betraying imperial favor.

Both of them pure and unguarded, hearts and minds unsettled, the Way no longer capable of sustaining them [1] — perhaps this, too, could be called arriving at the same destination by different roads.

Luowei closed her eyes, and finally understood wherein Ye Tingyan resembled Song Ling.

Setting aside their appearances for the moment — if Song Ling were likened to the moon at its zenith, and Song Lan to the depth of night, then Ye Tingyan was plainly a stretch of utter darkness, yet one who insisted on capturing a sliver of moonlight, doing his utmost to mask it.

Before, she had not understood him well enough, and had always felt that though this man’s scheming ran deep, there was somehow an unexplained quality of luminosity about him — autumn water for his spirit, jade for his bones — and that beneath the scheming there might lie hidden another realm entirely.

But it had been her own excessive longing, creating an immense illusion. Even to compare him to Song Ling was an insult to Song Ling.

What grace or integrity was there to speak of. What unwarranted expectations to harbor.

She gave a cold laugh, had just opened her eyes and was about to speak, when a powerful grip seized her from the stool where she had been sitting properly, and she tumbled squarely into Ye Tingyan’s arms.

Ye Tingyan had pulled her to him and held her close. He had originally been kneeling at her feet, and now, following the motion, he settled into a seated kneel. Seeing the flustered expression on her face, a flash of pleasure rose in his heart: “Your Highness, are you finished with your questions?”

Luowei felt a flicker of indignation, which subsided in an instant. Looking at his half-smiling expression, she felt a sudden, groundless irritation — yet he happened to be wearing jasmine sandalwood incense, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost mistake it for the real thing.

Did he think that these repeated acts of insolence would give him mastery over her?

She did not care in the slightest — this meant nothing as a form of captivity.

So Luowei suddenly exerted force, withdrew her hand, then raised both hands to cup Ye Tingyan’s face, and pressed a light, skimming kiss to the corner of his lips.

“— Have you now witnessed this Empress’s sincerity?”

Ye Tingyan had not anticipated her action, and his body stiffened. He called out in a hoarse voice: “Your Highness…”

Luowei, however, said: “Do not speak.”

She kissed him with her eyes closed, appearing deeply focused — yet once he fell silent at her bidding, he immediately perceived her distraction.

As she kissed him, who was she thinking of?

Now that he was merely an outer official, she was already capable of such behavior — how many others among her many trusted associates in court had received this same treatment?

Altogether, as Pei Xi had said, surely he was far from the only one.

So Ye Tingyan felt a surge of irritation, reached out his hand to the back of her neck, seized the initiative from her, and pressed her firmly toward him.

Luowei clenched her jaw tightly, refusing to relent. Ye Tingyan lightly bit her lower lip, and taking her off guard, finally achieved the deep kiss he had sought.

In the marital chamber, Luowei loathed Song Lan’s kisses and had almost never shared such intimate moments with him. But Ye Tingyan was not the young emperor who came to her with requests — he had also cleanly stripped away the mask of the gentleman, recklessly uninhibited.

This time, he was not thrown into confusion by her audacity. Luowei could not even understand where he conjured such burning emotion.

Ye Tingyan kissed her as though dying of thirst, yet a tide of sorrow spread through his heart.

He recalled their first kiss — it was in the spring of the tenth year after they had first met.

Su Zhoudou had fallen gravely ill. He had accompanied his imperial father on frequent visits outside the palace, personally calling at the manor to pay respects. The young woman in a simple white garment sat at the wooden window beneath a crabapple tree, lost in thought.

He knew that Emperor Gao and Su Zhoudou intended to arrange a marriage between them. The Ministry of Rites had even already begun drafting the imperial decree for the betrothal of the Crown Prince’s consort.

Luowei had looked up and, seeing him approach through the falling flowers, offered him a smile: “Crown Prince brother.”

After the investiture of the Crown Prince, she had changed how she addressed him.

He asked stiffly: “I have just obtained a piece of uncut jade. I wish to carve it and give it to you as a gift — what style do you prefer?”

“Anything is fine.”

Luowei sat under the tree with reddened eyes. He stood silently before her, flower petals falling upon both their shoulders — yet neither moved to brush away these things imbued with sentiment.

Until he made up his mind and spoke in a low voice: “Weiwei, the Ministry of Rites has already drafted the decree, but I still wish to ask you —”

“Are you willing to marry me, to come and live in the Eastern Palace, and become my wife?”

They had shared each other’s company through so many years, with mutual unspoken understanding — but to state such feelings plainly was a first.

Having spoken such words, even knowing she harbored affection for him, he could not help but grow nervous.

Luowei said nothing. The tip of his tongue turned faintly bitter; he forced himself to continue: “If you are unwilling to be bound by the palace walls, or if… your heart belongs to another, you may tell me so directly. Teacher entrusted you to my care. Whatever you wish for, I will look after you well.”

Still no reply. The silence stretched so long that his heart began to drum within him — he hardly dared raise his eyes.

When he finally came to his senses, the young woman had already leapt down from the windowsill and came sprinting toward him, even rising onto her tiptoes to offer a clumsy, inexperienced kiss.

He was startled, then overjoyed, and held her close with tender care. He heard her mutter with indignation: “Song Lingye, you are a fool!”

In the blink of an eye, the past dispersed like drifting clouds.

Ye Tingyan half-opened his eyes and saw Luowei’s brows creased, her expression one of discomfort and unease. The congestion in his chest deepened, and he could not help but kiss her more fiercely.

Luowei’s original intention had only been to see Ye Tingyan wear the same embarrassed expression as last time. Moreover, though he was undeserving, she had used him as a stand-in for someone else in her kiss, and within her, there was a certain perverse pleasure of humiliation in this.

Now, having been caught by him, it looked rather as though she had delivered herself into the tiger’s den — not even logic could defend her.

Luowei felt irritated, tried to push him away, and was seized by the wrist, which he caressed again and again.

The calluses on his fingers must have come not only from gripping a brush but also from long years of gripping a blade.

When she kissed him, her heart had been untroubled. But as his encroachment deepened, the tension in her heart surged abruptly. Her pulse pounded wildly, and Ye Tingyan seemed wholly unaware, his breath pressing upon her in a way that made her feel, in a daze, that even her ability to breathe seemed to depend upon the other’s indulgence.

Luowei’s vision went white. Finally finding a sliver of space, she mustered all her strength and pushed him firmly outward.

The action was faster than her thoughts.

— Crack.

Luowei’s forceful palm strike sent Ye Tingyan’s head snapping to one side, and a red handprint immediately bloomed across his pale white cheek.

He was stunned. He reached up to touch his own cheek, and rather than anger, he laughed — even tilting his other cheek forward: “Did Your Highness enjoy the strike? One slap in exchange for one kiss — this official finds it quite a worthwhile bargain. Would Your Highness not care to bestow another?”

Luowei drew in several deep breaths before she could recover herself. She felt her lips and the palm she had used to strike him both aching considerably. For a moment, she did not know what to say, and could only declare with vehemence: “Lord Ye has obtained his sincerity at last, has he not? This Empress is somewhat weary — shall we now speak of proper matters?”

Ye Tingyan half encircled her waist with his arm and laughed aloud.

“This official complies.”

After their exchange of thrusts and parries, their plotting and scheming laid out in careful detail, the two finally rose, only to realize they had entangled themselves here quite long. Fortunately, Ye Tingyan and Chang Zhao were presently ordered to handle a case, so there was a ready excuse even for late departures.

Having struggled on the ice-cold floor with him for so long, Luowei rose and felt her legs numb and her back aching. Ye Tingyan seemed not to notice at all; seeing her stumble a step, he even reached out proactively to steady her by the forearm.

Within the old palace hall, what rotted most easily was what had once appeared most splendid — the brocade. She had privately dispatched servants to tidy it: first they replaced the faded hanging curtains and bed canopy in the hall, then repapered the windows, swept the dust, and burned incense in the quiet room.

Ye Tingyan turned his head sideways, his gaze flickering, and again noticed the bed canopy that had been replaced in the inner chamber. A word of concern rose to his lips but was swallowed back, exchanged for a lingering and dissolute remark: “Was it Your Highness who had this place restored? How convenient — this official loves best the color cyan, loves best the color orchid blue. When I return, I shall have my own canopy changed to match.”

Hearing the teasing tone in his words, Luowei threw him an unamused glance: “Is that so. And what color does Lord Ye find disagreeable?”

Ye Tingyan feigned contemplation: “Hmm, allow this official to think…”

Luowei said without patience: “When you have thought of it, do not forget to inform this Empress. This Empress will tomorrow send servants to change everything here to exactly that color.”

Ye Tingyan smiled: “Your Highness takes such care — truly a great favor.”

Luowei mimicked his expression with a false smile: “Naturally. Lord Ye need not offer thanks.”

The sunset blazed in ten thousand resplendent shades — a grand and magnificent spectacle. When the great hall door opened, Ye Tingyan instinctively raised a hand to shield himself and turned his face away.

This prompted Luowei to recall something suddenly: “Ah, right — last time this Empress had Attendant Feng inquire on my behalf, and learned that you once had a condition with your eyes?”

Ye Tingyan was quiet for a moment, then replied with studied nonchalance: “Your Highness is most observant. I… made an error of judgment in earlier years, and was imprisoned through someone else’s scheme. Afterward, in a place of total darkness, I was suddenly exposed to light, and lost my sight for a period. The old ailment has persisted without cure and recurs frequently. Your Highness need not laugh at me.”

Luowei looked with some surprise at those eyes again, and felt an unexplained twinge of regret in her heart, though she did not pursue the topic: “Before Lord Ye departs the palace, you ought to find a means to conceal the bruising on your face.”

Ye Tingyan then extended both hands with cultured refinement and said: “I beg Your Highness to bestow upon me the means.”

Luowei stared at him: “What can this Empress bestow upon you? Does this Empress have a round fan to lend you, that you might cover your face while walking?”

Ye Tingyan said with perfect innocence: “As long as Your Highness is willing to bestow it, this official would not mind.”

So Luowei had no recourse but to call for Yan Luo and instruct her to go borrow a box of face powder from one of the palace attendants — it had to be the most common variety, one whose origin could not be discerned.

After Yan Luo went to carry out the errand, the two waited briefly on Gaoyang Terrace.

It was precisely the hour of sunset, the horizon thick with crimson clouds. Ye Tingyan stood for a moment, then drew from his sleeve a silk handkerchief meant to cover the eyes: “With such a beautiful scene before us, we should rightly view it together — yet I cannot look directly, and may only barely make it out when things are hazy. Would Your Highness tie this for me?”

Luowei knew that even if she refused, he would certainly continue to press with words. Since that was the case, she might as well spare herself that effort.

So she accepted the handkerchief without a word and wrapped it over his eyes.

He was taller than her, so he bent down.

Through the haze of the silk veil, he could dimly perceive her close at hand — so near that a slight bow of his head would have let him kiss her.

Her fingers brushed through his hair. Her eyelashes lowered.

She was exactly as she had always been — even her focused expression differed little from the one he had seen in his dreams.

Ye Tingyan suddenly felt his heart soften.

Only he remained unable to leave the cage of the past. He had tried every means to probe, hoping to find in her some evidence of lingering, unextinguished feeling — yet without exception, he always came away empty-handed.

And yet, even so thoroughly heartless as she was, he still could not help himself.

Though he kept silent on the matter, unwilling to admit it — even fabricating excuses in front of Pei Xi, hoping to deceive even himself.

But in this moment, he realized with hopeless resignation that what he truly wanted was very little. The so-called ‘sincerity’ he sought… did not require burning lips or endless kisses. To be able to watch the same setting sun, quietly and gently, would already be very, very good.

* * *

After nightfall, Yan Luo carried a candle through one courtyard after another. When she finally reached the deepest part of Qionghua Hall, she found Luowei writing calligraphy beneath the lamplight.

The palace attendants had all withdrawn. Yan Luo set the candle in its stand, then walked to Luowei’s side.

She looked down to see that Luowei was copying a rubbing, having just written the first line.

‘Zhongni dreamed of his passing — at seventy and two.’

By now she no longer copied the Orchid Pavilion Preface, no longer practiced the ‘flying white’ script. She had completely abandoned her former preferences, starting her calligraphy entirely afresh, and rarely dipped her brush at leisure — her style shifting unpredictably, her characters inconsistent in appearance. This was a lesson she had absorbed from past mistakes.

Yan Luo had only glanced at it briefly before saying: “This servant has prepared a bowl of cool, refreshing cream for Your Highness. Your Highness should eat first, then write.”

Luowei raised her head and caught sight of herself in the bronze mirror — her lips slightly swollen. She had no choice but to set down her brush, take the bowl and dish Yan Luo offered her, and, inclining her head, gestured: “Come look — how are these characters?”

Only then did Yan Luo notice that the rubbing she was copying was not the brushwork of a Tang Dynasty master, but something written on a paper made of auspicious crane design. She leaned in and studied it carefully, noticing that one side bore the seal impression reading ‘Self-written.’

She said with surprise: “Is this Grand Preceptor’s rubbing?”

Luowei replied: “It is the Grand Preceptor’s copy of the ‘Zhongni Dreamed of His Passing Rubbing.’ I obtained it from someone else and brought it here to study. They say that seeing the writing is like seeing the person — perhaps by examining its framework and spirit, one might also catch a glimpse of the writer’s mind.”

Yan Luo studied it for a long while, then spoke: “This evening when Your Highness returned, you said so little. This servant has turned it over and over in my mind, and still feels that it will be no easy matter to bring down the Marquis of Feng Ping on the testimony of a single horse trainer.”

Luowei smiled, but did not answer her question directly: “A’Fei, do you remember — when you first came to Qionghua Hall, you once asked me a question.”

“I remember,” Yan Luo said after a moment’s reflection. “At that time, in despair, I asked Your Highness: the Grand Preceptor has deep roots in the court and colludes with His Majesty — however we look at it, the path before us seems a dead end.”

“It is indeed very difficult.”

“Then Your Highness told me that pruning a diseased plum tree does not mean forcing its main trunk upright by brute force — rather, one begins with the fine branches and trims them away one by one, the lateral growth that has sprung up in all directions. Among those branches, each one is different, and the method of pruning is different as well. If applied to the court, it means the people around the Grand Preceptor: among them are those who bend with the wind, those bound by mutual interest, and those each harboring their own schemes — all different in kind.”

“For those who waver back and forth — given the court’s present situation, what strategy ought one to employ?”

“This servant believes that winning them over with gentle persuasion would be best.”

“And those bound by mutual interest?”

Yan Luo was briefly at a loss for words, and after weighing her answer said: “Severing their interests is no easy task — perhaps there is a strategy of winning over their hearts.”

Luowei offered a word of praise, then continued: “Precisely so. For someone like Yu Qiushi, who holds a high position, the greatest difficulty lies in attending to all those beneath him. Ye Tingyan chose to strike first at the Marquis of Feng Ping because the Marquis is the one among Yu Qiushi’s many followers who is closest to him and most entangled in mutual interest.”

“A person like this, he will necessarily exert the greatest effort to protect him. But it does not matter — from the moment Lin Zhao was bitten back by that horse trainer at the Muspring Grounds, the outcome of this move was already an assured gain.” Luowei finished her bowl of cream and set down the dish. “The Marquis of Feng Ping is not a clever man. As long as Song Lan takes the bait and sends both men into Zhuque Division, the Marquis will inevitably panic and go to Yu Qiushi for help. At this point, our Grand Preceptor will face a very delicate dilemma: should he protect this man, and if so, how much effort should he put into protecting him?”

Yan Luo gradually understood her meaning: “His Majesty’s suspicion is so heavy, and no one in the court understands this better than the Grand Preceptor — after all, all these years, he has been using precisely this trait to eliminate political enemies. So if the Grand Preceptor rashly intervenes in this matter, he risks arousing His Majesty’s suspicion. The Grand Preceptor is by nature cautious; once he thinks it through clearly, he will inevitably find himself torn and hesitant.”

“As long as he begins to waver, this move is as good as won.” Luowei picked up her brush again and wrote a second line. “Just now I heard from Ye the Third about this, and my only relief is that he did not end up on someone else’s side. If this blade were pointed at me, I honestly do not know whether I could handle it.”

She glanced at the original rubbing and moved her brush quickly: “After returning, when I thought it through more deeply, I found it even more intriguing. Lin Zhao has already walked into the trap. Regardless of whether he can be rescued, as long as he dies, this move cannot be broken — it is not impossible that even the Marquis of Feng Ping himself will be implicated. After the spring tour, when the Council of State settles the accounts for the beginning of the year, there will be quite a number of shortfalls.”

Yan Luo felt a jolt in her heart.

Last year, a natural disaster struck the south — tax revenues fell short. Within the Forbidden Palace, there had also been a fire, and the repairs were not yet complete. The treasury was precisely short of funds. If Ye Tingyan raised the matter before Song Lan, would Song Lan not think of this?

Luowei did not continue further, but said lightly: “In any case, the Marquis of Feng Ping is bound to suffer enormous losses — whether he can even keep his life depends on fortune. With this, Yu Qiushi and the Marquis of Feng Ping will inevitably fall into discord. Consider this: if even the Marquis of Feng Ping fares thus, what of the others? One heart grows cold, and the cold spreads a thousand miles — it will be no easy thing to warm again.”

Yan Luo ground ink for her, and after thinking through it all, shook her head and sighed: “This scheme is truly ruthless to the heart’s core. This servant trembles just hearing it.”

Luowei bent over the desk writing, and for some reason thought of something. She paused her brush and a thick drop of ink fell: “Yet in truth, even the most flawless strategist in the world can encounter variables. Ye the Third’s plan ultimately still produced an unexpected change — he had originally intended to fire an arrow when Song Lan was attacked, to win more of his trust. Who would have thought that all his preparations were done for someone else’s benefit, and there was actually another person who took advantage of the wind he had created.”

Yan Luo said: “This servant heard of it — apparently a Scholar of Qiong Ting surnamed Chang.”

“If he is the Grand Preceptor’s man, competing against Ye the Third, it would truly make for quite a drama. I wonder how it will play out.” Luowei gave a yawn and said: “Well, for now you and I can simply watch the performance. Even if something unexpected arises, he ought to handle it with ease — otherwise, he would truly be failing this Empress’s expectations.”

“If the drama unfolds beautifully, we can add more fuel to the fire.”

Song Lan had intended to come find her today; she had declined on the pretext of having received a fright. Otherwise, she did not know whether she could get a good night’s rest.

Having completed the rubbing, Luowei picked it up and looked it over with a contemptuous expression: “The Grand Preceptor’s calligraphy was presumably set in its form from early years. What it is filled with is not even a scrap of true spirit of his own. The events described in the rubbing hold no terror for him either — from this, one can see that calligraphy as a window into the person is entirely unreliable.”

Yan Luo followed her gaze to look, and saw only that the latter half read —

There has never been one who is born and does not grow old, grows old and does not die.

The form returns to the burial mound, the spirit returns to what received it. The pain, the poison, the bitterness, the sorrow — how can one dwell on these?

Good and evil find their recompense, as a shadow follows a form.

Without the slightest deviation. [2]