After these events, the Dragon Boat Festival arrived. The palace was briefly busy with preparations, and the Emperor and Empress both sealed their lips and said nothing, so the various upheavals of the preceding days seemed to vanish abruptly, set aside for the time being.

Naturally, the storms within the inner palace could not reach the officials of the outer court. After the Dragon Boat Festival holiday ended, Xu Dan returned to Qiong Ting and spent half a day organizing his scrolls and books.

In the afternoon, when the sunlight grew slightly dim, he heard a long, drawn-out announcement come from the direction of the otherwise empty archive tower.

“Respectfully wishing Her Imperial Highness the Empress good health and peace.”

He dropped the book in his hand and hurried to the front hall to pay his respects, wanting to observe this Empress who so often appeared in rumor.

The Empress wore a deep crimson jacket today, her hair loosely pinned in a simple bun, without a single rare or precious ornament. Not even pearl or jade earrings adorned her ears.

Xu Dan kowtowed three times before he was permitted to rise. He stole a glance and found that what struck him first was not the dignified bearing that matched her reputation, but rather an abrupt realization — she was still so very young.

A woman of this age, a lady of this age, was at that warm and beauty-loving prime of life. If she had married a gentleman whose looks matched her own, she would have been even more graceful and full of happiness.

Yet the Empress — first among all women in the realm, the one every woman under heaven envied — had in her brow and eyes not the full gentle and charming air one might expect. They were faintly furrowed, carrying the cool detachment that permeates one who has long held power, and a trace of sorrow that did not match that detachment.

It was said the Empress loved literature and frequently visited the archive tower, but he had not been here long enough to have encountered her before. This was his first time.

The fragrance of roses swept past him, still carrying that same sorrow. But to his surprise, the rustling of fabric suddenly ceased before him — the Empress stopped walking, looked at him, and asked with some uncertainty: “Might this gentleman be the honorable Xu Boming, Xu Dan, who came from You Prefecture?”

The inner official attending her answered softly, and so she smiled: “Today I shall trouble Lord Xu to find books for me.”

Xu Dan was flattered beyond measure. He acknowledged her words and rose, not quite daring to lift his eyes, and simply guided the Empress through the long staircase of the archive tower to where the books were stored on the second floor.

His gaze darted about evasively, which made Luowei curious: “Why does the Lord not raise his eyes?”

Xu Dan answered honestly: “Your Highness’s radiance is blinding, and this servant dares not.”

Having said this, he seemed to feel his words were somewhat discourteous and wanted to kneel and beg forgiveness, but then felt that would only make things worse, and so he froze in place. Luowei was amused by his words: “Never mind. Lord Xu need not be nervous.”

She walked ahead of him on her own, her voice sounding casual yet warm and tranquil, pleasing to the ear: “Qiong Ting is grand and has always selected only the top graduates from the imperial examinations, recalled to the capital after provincial postings, accumulating drafts and edicts, rising to Scholar status, then after sufficient seniority, appointed to the Six Ministries and ascending to the Cabinet as Grand Counselors, or overseeing military affairs — a smooth and prosperous path of officialdom. I recall that Lord Xu placed only eleventh in the second tier last year.”

Xu Dan replied: “That is so. When I received the edict to enter Qiong Ting, this servant was also quite surprised.”

Luowei turned and glanced at him. The tall wooden windows on either side let in bundled shafts of light, leaving half her face hidden in shadow.

In that silence, Luowei slowly began to recite: “The honored guest stood guard at the archive tower unto death, through fire and war he would not abandon it — Lord Xu not only earned renown in the spring examinations, but also received the joint recommendation of all thirteen counties of You Prefecture. The reason was this: before you set out for the capital, war broke out along the northern frontier. At the time, you were in Canglан County compiling historical records for all thirteen counties, lodging in the foremost archive tower of You Prefecture. When the fire of war reached the base of the tower and all others fled, you alone held on, embracing the great water vats, fighting the flames as they came, blocking soldiers as they advanced, and singlehandedly preserved all the border documentation. After the fighting ceased, the people praised you and wrote those words of tribute. Have I stated this correctly?”

Xu Dan listened, dumbfounded, and murmured: “Your Highness has stated it without a single error.”

Luowei nodded: “I also commend Lord Xu’s pure and earnest heart. That is why, when the Emperor graciously bestowed his favor, I petitioned on your behalf for the grace of assigning you to Qiong Ting’s archive tower. Are you pleased with this place?”

The scent of old books mingled with rose fragrance at the tip of his nose, making him faintly dizzy. Xu Dan knelt on the floor, suddenly enlightened — when he had been assigned to Qiong Ting, everyone had marveled. He had assumed it was the Emperor’s momentary whim after reading the recommendation letter from the thirteen counties, for You Prefecture was remote and few people knew the story of the “honored guest.”

He had not expected that someone had truly read through his own written account!

Luowei walked toward a wooden shelf where many old books were stored, saying: “Boming need not be alarmed. I assigned you here only to commend your loyalty and integrity, and to find a place where you might give full expression to your aspirations. I am not asking for repayment.”

The Empress called him by his courtesy name, a clear expression of intimacy. Xu Dan’s heart pounded wildly with emotion, unable to contain himself, and he knelt upright: “This servant… kowtows in gratitude for Your Highness’s gift of recognition.”

The new dynasty had just been established, old officials still held sway, the Emperor’s grip on power was insufficient, and the scholars selected in the spring examinations were scattered throughout the court, each serving their own factions. Had he not been assigned to Qiong Ting, he would surely have had to bow and scrape before superiors like everyone else, suffering for years without a single opportunity to rise.

Luowei picked up a book. Zhang Siyi had just arranged a chair for her by the window, and she sat down casually, asking: “Boming has been in Qiong Ting for three months. Have you given thought to where you wish to go as an official?”

Her question was vague, but Xu Dan understood her meaning.

When first entering the court, everyone made their own choices — if one wished to follow in the footsteps of the Empress’s ancestors and aspired to be an imperial tutor, one should seek early provincial posting, find a master and gain experience, and cultivate a generation’s worth of pure reputation; if one’s heart was set on being a remonstrance official, one should diligently submit memorials, constantly spur and criticize, and by personal example supervise the Emperor; those who became harsh law officials mastered criminal and penal codes; those who entered the Ministry of Finance concerned themselves with the people’s livelihood and fiscal calculations…

Or one might resolutely become a powerful minister, following the path of Ye Tingyan and Yu Qiushi, devoted entirely to fathoming the Emperor’s will and eliminating rivals — isolated yet accomplished, with gold, silver, and boundless power easy to obtain thereafter. Aside from an unsavory reputation, everything else would be fulfilled.

There were also people like Chang Zhao, who hid in scholarly circles, with a wavering stance, seemingly wanting to extract themselves from the court’s situation and wait until the dust settled before deciding.

Yet Luowei received an unexpected answer.

“This servant wishes to remain and compile histories for the realm.”

She furrowed her brow slightly, repeated his words, then sighed: “Compiling history is grueling work — ten or twenty years at a stretch. Sons of great families can still sustain themselves, but Boming comes from humble origins. If you take this path, I fear you will not even be able to save enough silver to marry and have children.”

Xu Dan bowed his head to her in silence: “If history has a path, I will gladly walk it.”

* * *

If history has a path, I will gladly walk it.

Even long after leaving the archive tower, sitting on the bed platform of the Gaoyang Terrace, Luowei was still lost in thought over these words.

The remonstrance officials had again today memorialized against the Emperor for privately establishing the Zhuque Division — ever since Song Lan established this division, similar quarrels had never ceased.

The founding Emperor of the Great Yin dynasty had once declared that this dynasty would not execute scholar-officials, yet from earlier times there had been emperors who ignored remonstrances and killed indiscriminately. Though Song Lan was young, in the eyes of the hundred officials, acting outside the Three Judicial Offices and gathering close associates into an institution was a most dangerous sign.

Eunuch interference in governance, the Emperor’s City Division killing indiscriminately… surveillance, overstepping authority, defying the law — precedents of disaster were not distant. Yu Qiushi was also guessing at the Emperor’s intentions in establishing the Zhuque Division, and so stayed out of it, leaving Song Lan alone to deal with the remonstrance officials.

Today he had been caught up with them again, and would not be free for some time.

So after leaving the archive tower, Luowei had come to the Gaoyang Terrace ahead of time.

After Yan Luo was seized, she and Ye Tingyan could find no one in the inner palace to relay messages, and so they used the archive tower as their meeting place: if a cluster of seasonal flowers was left at the window on the second floor, it was an invitation to meet.

The flower he had left today was a crepe myrtle just beginning to bloom.

Luowei took that cluster of crepe myrtle, and upon entering she casually handed it to Zhang Siyi who stood guard at the forest’s edge. She thought on Xu Dan’s words and reached out to draw the deep blue-green bed curtains closed.

And so she was enveloped in darkness.

Strangely, she found she had no aversion to this kind of darkness. The darkness even brought her a measure of peace.

Light flickered from beyond the bed curtains, and Luowei waited a long while, growing drowsy.

Just as she felt she was about to fall asleep, a slender pale hand reached over and drew aside the curtain before her face.

Luowei raised her eyes. Against the backlight she could not make out the visitor’s face, and could only catch a faint whiff of sandalwood incense.

She felt suddenly comforted, and so she reached out and grabbed the sleeve of the other person, pulling him down. Ye Tingyan, unprepared, tilted sideways and fell beside her. The hand that had drawn aside the curtain withdrew along with it, and the cluster of crepe myrtle, taken back from the inner official’s hands, floated lightly down beneath the bed platform, returning the two of them to this dimly lit darkness.

Luowei rested her hand on his shoulder and asked softly: “What did the Emperor ask you?”

On that day she had left the Princess’s manor in great haste, and due to the shocking words she had overheard, she had even forgotten to maintain her composure. When she came back to her senses, she realized Ye Tingyan was still at her side — Song Lan had sent him over; it must have been to observe her reactions and demeanor during her conversation with Ningle.

He had begun to suspect she knew of old affairs, but like Yu Qiushi, he was not certain, and so had deliberately let her go to see Song Zhiyu.

If anything in her conversation with Song Zhiyu had been amiss, it would not only have implicated herself, but might also have endangered Song Zhiyu’s mother-consort, who was still within the inner palace. It was only after Song Zhiyu had confirmed from her words that Ye Tingyan was her “intimate guest” that she dared to speak freely.

But she had left too hastily and forgotten to warn Ye Tingyan first. If he had let slip a word or two to Song Lan…

Ye Tingyan also wrapped his arm around her waist, drawing her closer, and said: “The Emperor asked me whether you and Princess Ningle Imperial had quarreled.”

Luowei’s heart tightened: “And what did you answer?”

Ye Tingyan said: “There was indeed a quarrel. Right up to the end, the Princess still held a grudge over the matter of Counselor Gan choosing you over her. You parted on bad terms. When the Princess drank the poison I handed her, she still said, ‘Seeing her like this, I have no regrets.'”

Song Zhiyu had naturally never said such a thing.

He had deliberately fabricated this line to follow the direction of Song Lan’s thinking, making him feel that Song Zhiyu in her final moments was still fixated on her petty rivalry with Luowei.

With such a quarrel between them, and mutual wariness besides, Song Zhiyu naturally would not have revealed anything.

He also remembered: after saying these words, he had seen Song Lan visibly relax, his expression seeming somewhat gratified, yet also somewhat rueful: “Imperial Sister was foolish, quarreling with the Empress all these years.”

Hearing all of this, Luowei too let out a long breath, though her voice carried a note of melancholy: “She… what else did she say?”

Ye Tingyan shook his head: “She said nothing more. The moment of emotion you two shared — I did not report it to the Emperor.”

That day when he returned to his residence, he turned over and over in his mind the last words Song Zhiyu had not finished saying.

One was: “I entrusted it to Su Xu.”

Entrusted what? If the two of them had not been at odds, what was entrusted was very likely something that bound their lives and fates — but unfortunately she had not finished speaking. Such an object, Luowei would certainly not tell him about.

The other was: “She knew long ago, and she did not.”

He truly could not work out what this sentence meant. He sat in his study for an entire night and could only think of two possibilities.

One: she had long known of Song Lan’s and Yu Qiushi’s scheme, and had not stopped it.

This sounded like Song Zhiyu’s dying grievance and accusation.

The other: she did not betray you.

What breathtaking and dizzying words. When he arrived at this interpretation, he first frightened himself, and in the night’s stillness he heard his own heartbeat, one upon another, as if urging him to believe this most unlikely of guesses.

But if so, then how should one interpret “she knew long ago” — if she had not betrayed him, should it not have been “she did not know” of their scheme?

His heart was in turmoil.

After leaving the capital of Biandu, he had traveled back and forth between north and south, painstakingly laying out his plan for revenge, learning clearly the backgrounds and histories of all those involved in that year’s affair and all current officials in court.

Who must be removed as an enemy, who could be trusted as a friend, who need not be won over, who could be used later — enticed by money, enticed by power, like-minded comrades, capable ministers of different allegiances… He had only returned to the capital three months ago, and bit by bit, without sound or sign, he was gnawing away at the political landscape of Biandu, consuming his heart’s blood, unable to sleep through the night.

Yet while doing all of this, his heart had been so still, without a single ripple, managing with ease. Only words pertaining to her, there in his study, would turn his heart into leaves swaying in the night wind outside the window — rustling, swaying endlessly.

Luowei heard all his words and seemed very satisfied. She rarely took the initiative to lean over and kiss his cheek — lately her resistance toward him seemed to grow less and less. Ye Tingyan had noticed this change but could not guess its reason.

“Lord Ye, the Emperor trusts you more and more these days,” Luowei murmured in his ear, so close that each sentence let him hear the pauses in her breathing. “The Fake Dragon case has no true culprit, and the Ningle matter was too hurried. The Grand Preceptor already knows you serve me, but lacks evidence and cannot act for now. If we allow him to recover his footing, who knows what trouble he might stir. Why not… let us wait no longer?”

Ye Tingyan sensed the meaning in her words and was somewhat surprised: “Though there are the Twilight Banquet case and the Fake Dragon case, both with unclear implications, they are still far from sufficient. You wish to strike now — on what grounds?”

Luowei rested her chin on his shoulder — she was very fond of this embracing posture, and more importantly, she could not see the other person’s face. She breathed in the fragrance of jasmine tea leaves that had been used to scent his collar, and said gently and softly: “Treason — what do you think?”

Ye Tingyan said nothing for a long while, then slowly began to speak, calling her by a peculiar tone: “Your Highness.”

Luowei was surprised: “Why the sudden formal address?”

Ye Tingyan paid no heed and continued in a rather grave tone: “Your Highness has administered court affairs for three years. Can you not see the situation in court? The Grand Preceptor is in the open, with the noble houses and lords behind him. You are in the shadows, with the court’s pure stream of scholars behind you. It is precisely with this balance of light and shadow that the Emperor can rest easy and let go, allowing you both to grasp power and contend fiercely.”

“To fight him, you must plan gradually and unhurriedly. No matter what moves he makes, you must not be impatient. You must make him lose his usefulness in the Emperor’s eyes, lose his threat, lose the capital he can rely upon. How frequently in the Great Yin dynasty have chief ministers been changed — if he no longer holds overwhelming power, demotion and dismissal are matters of a single word. For both of you, striking is not difficult; the difficulty is ensuring that the blade does not wound oneself. Treason — such a grave charge — is truly risky. How can you be certain you can remain untainted and withdraw unscathed?”

He spoke in a warm and measured tone, as if offering patient counsel, yet Luowei hearing it felt the sharpness and pressure of his words almost pressing against her. Ye Tingyan, his arm around her waist, suddenly turned over and pressed her beneath him.

Luowei instinctively wanted to push back, thought it over, and did not move, allowing him to look down at her from above. He let out a rare scornful laugh: “Your Highness, have you thought through what I have said?”

She had thought it through ten thousand times. From the very beginning, she had never planned to withdraw unscathed.

Luowei breathed out slowly, letting both hands fall naturally to her sides in a completely relaxed posture: “I have thought it through. Of course I have. I simply suddenly felt tired, truly not wanting to be entangled in these affairs with him any longer. As for the future — Lord Ye worries too much. The Emperor is after all my husband. We have known each other for ten years, husband and wife for four. The palace holds not only scheming and rivalry, but also has some measure of affection.”

Affection? She actually dared to trust in Song Lan’s affection?

Ye Tingyan was momentarily driven to fury by her words, just about to say something mocking, when he heard her continue: “Besides, there is still you, is there not? If I become implicated, Lord Ye will still protect me. Is that not right? Once the Grand Preceptor falls, not only will I be able to spare some mental effort in the future, but Lord Ye’s path to a brilliant career will be even more unobstructed. You and I formed this alliance precisely for this purpose, did we not?”

He reached out to touch her face, feeling his heart go soft and wet, filled with a mournful, clinging tenderness, and for a time he could say nothing more.

Luowei seized the moment of his distraction, suddenly sat up, and broke free of his embrace.

She smoothed her slightly disheveled hair and stepped off the bed platform: “Very well, today I only wished to inform you. The hour grows late. You go first. We can discuss this matter another time.”

Ye Tingyan said nothing and stepped off the platform, put on his official boots, and walked toward the door. But when he turned, he saw Luowei had not followed. Instead she was searching along the table in the hall, and after a long search, found a small iron piece in the shape of a flying swallow.

The iron piece looked as if it had fallen from some weapon. After Luowei found it, she relaxed with relief: “So it truly fell here. Fortunately…”

She raised her eyes and only then noticed Ye Tingyan had not left, so she moved to hide the object behind her back — but he recognized in one glance whose possession it was, and immediately felt a complicated stew of emotions, as a fierce and burning fury kindled within him: “You actually met with him here?”

What had been unclear a moment ago suddenly became plain. Ye Tingyan gave a cold laugh and said as if to himself: “No wonder you want him back in the capital. You think with his protection, even if you frame the Chief Minister on charges of treason, the Emperor would not dare touch you. Is that it?”

He suddenly recalled the Great Yin military defense map he had glimpsed in the darkness that day.

Luowei could not be bothered to explain herself and said: “I do not understand what you mean.”

“Your Highness has entirely too many close associates,” Ye Tingyan said, staring fixedly at the object in Luowei’s hand, his tone mocking. “Today you had all those words with Lord Xu in the archive tower — surely you have said similar things to others as well? No wonder Your Highness commands such willing support throughout court and countryside. With such skill at winning hearts, why do you need to consult with me at all?”

Luowei’s heart gave a jolt, and her tone cooled considerably: “Lord Ye certainly has no shortage of eyes within the inner palace.”

She took a deep breath and composed her smile again: “Consulting with you is naturally because you are the most useful of all. Last time you said you wanted to be my most useful person — could it be that was all a lie?”

“You—”

Ye Tingyan choked on the words, and stormed out in a fury, flinging his sleeve aside.

Luowei stood in place for quite a while, and suddenly found it somewhat amusing.

When she had first met him, she had thought him extraordinarily clever — almost supernaturally so — languid and soft in manner, as if nothing could ever make him feel caught off guard.

Yet who would have expected that in so short an acquaintance, he had lost composure before her time and again, making her more and more unable to read him.