A squad of riders charged forward toward Xiaoyao Marquis Manor, nearly trampling people underfoot. But they wore the uniform of the Inner Guards, and their horses moved too fast — those who had almost been trampled dared not say a word, and could only watch as the riders flew past. The one at the lead — how did it look like a woman? And with her hair streaming loose, no less.

Xie Yuzhang had no thought for propriety whatsoever. Her horse surged ahead of the Emperor’s.

Li Gu watched her from behind. In the night, her great black cascade of hair — which in the end there had been no time to pin up — flew wildly in the wind with every galloping stride.

Ahead, the sky had turned a shade of orange-red, and people on the road were already running toward it. A fire was something no one dared simply watch — once it spread, no one could escape. Nearby residents grabbed basins and buckets and rushed to help.

The fire was larger than expected.

Xie Yuzhang leapt from her horse, looked up at the orange-red sky, and stood speechless, stricken.

Li Gu also dismounted, looked up to gauge the fire, and frowned deeply.

The Deputy Magistrate of the Capital Prefecture, his face gray and sooty from the smoke, was directing the firefighting efforts. Upon seeing the Emperor himself arrive, he hurried forward to pay his respects.

Li Gu asked, “What happened?”

The Deputy Magistrate replied, “This official does not know the details.”

Seeing Li Gu’s frown, he quickly continued, “After Princess Yongning left the manor to enter the palace, this official did not dare to leave and remained on watch. Then, suddenly, cries of fighting broke out inside the manor. Some people burst out through the gate attempting to flee — the Princess’s guards gave chase, shouting that there were intruders. The Gold Martial Guards went to assist and joined in the pursuit. Then unexpectedly, fire broke out inside the manor. Our men all rushed to help fight the fire, and then three more fires broke out in succession… and it became what you see now.”

He added, “In this official’s estimation, Your Majesty, it is plain that someone set these fires deliberately.”

Before Li Gu could speak, Xie Yuzhang suddenly asked, “Four points?”

The Deputy Magistrate said, “Precisely.”

Xie Yuzhang went cold all over.

The Crown Prince and Fifth Prince were dead, which left — counting it out — the Xiaoyao Marquis, the Eighth Prince, and the Ninth Prince as three points, and then Madam Yu as a fourth.

There had been fighting inside the manor — most likely the Gao Clan’s people. But even if the Gao Clan could not carry out a kidnapping, why would they massacre the Xiaoyao Marquis’s household? Why? It made no sense!

She had already — she had already stamped out everything at its worst. She had already done everything she could to save everyone…

“Yongning?” Li Gu saw Xie Yuzhang’s face, utterly pale in the firelight, her eyes stretched wide and unseeing. He called her name and received no response, and so reached out to take hold of her.

Xie Yuzhang’s body swayed and she fell into Li Gu’s arms, having lost consciousness.

Right until the moment she fainted, Xie Yuzhang had still not understood why the Gao Clan would have annihilated Xiaoyao Marquis Manor’s household.

In truth she had fallen into a blind spot in her thinking — it had never occurred to her that the people shouting and fighting inside the manor and the person who had set the fires might not belong to the same faction at all.

Exactly as she had deduced, the group that had erupted from inside the manor was indeed the Gao Clan’s people. The Gao Clan had been keeping watch over Xiaoyao Marquis Manor all along; when Xie Yuzhang arrived with people to seal it off that evening, their lookouts knew at once that something was amiss and immediately sent word to their hiding place.

By the time Xie Yuzhang’s people arrived, the place was already empty.

But these were bold and capable operatives. Rather than retreating, they had come toward Xiaoyao Marquis Manor instead. Seeing that Xie Yuzhang had left, they judged there was an opportunity, slipped over the wall at a quiet spot, and attempted to seize the Last Emperor of the former dynasty in the confusion.

But Xie Yuzhang had left her own people inside the manor — originally for the purpose of searching for any Gao Clan operatives who might have been planted there. The two groups collided, and fighting immediately broke out. Finding themselves at a disadvantage, the Gao Clan’s people made a decisive break for it and cut their way out.

The night’s events had already roused the Gold Martial Guards. Hu Jin had departed, but the Gold Martial Guards were still present. When Xie Yuzhang’s guards gave chase and cried out that there were “intruders” — and those people were indeed dressed in black, clearly for ease of movement in the dark — the Gold Martial Guards naturally pitched in to help and joined the pursuit.

In that moment, with Xiaoyao Marquis Manor in utter chaos, the arsonist slipped in without a sound.

Xiaoyao Marquis Manor occupied an awkward position in Yunjing. The Hexi loyalists were a different matter — their devotion to Li Gu was clear-cut and unapologetic. But the old Yunjing factions all gave Xiaoyao Marquis Manor a wide berth; no one wanted anything to do with it.

This was because they had all once been subjects of the former Zhao. If they were seen to speak on behalf of the Xiaoyao Marquis, they feared the new Emperor would doubt their loyalty; if they were seen to press down upon the Xiaoyao Marquis Manor, they worried the history writers would record an unflattering passage, earning them the scorn of later generations.

Everything concerning Xiaoyao Marquis Manor was reported directly to the Emperor and passed through no minister at all.

And because of this, Xie Yuzhang had a blind spot: it had never occurred to her that there was someone else in Yunjing who, like her, had been watching Xiaoyao Marquis Manor — continuously, over a long period of time.

That night, the moment Xie Yuzhang brought people to seal off the manor, this person was immediately alerted. He came quickly and observed from a distance.

He was a man of extraordinary patience. Even after Xie Yuzhang left, with the Gold Martial Guards still present, he continued to watch quietly. But when the Gold Martial Guards were lured away by the Gao Clan’s people, and a brief window of emptiness opened, he knew: at this moment, an opportunity had arrived before him such as had never existed before, and might never exist again.

He gave the order to his people. His people slipped inside.

Over the years, Xiaoyao Marquis Manor had been like a sieve, its affairs loose and haphazard, the security even worse than an ordinary wealthy household. This was because Madam Yu had never applied herself to managing it. She herself had been moving through life like a hollow shell, concerned only that her own courtyard should not lack food or clothing; everything else she let pass as it would.

On this night, the people of Xiaoyao Marquis Manor were already in a state of profound fear and unease.

First the Heir Apparent had drowned. Then several of the newly arrived staff from the previous year had suddenly seized and subdued Wu Lang — there was clearly something going on beneath the surface. Everyone in the manor knew it was a household of the former imperial family. The servants present were all frightened out of their wits, terrified of hearing or seeing something they were not meant to, only to be silenced for it in the end.

Every servant who could avoid showing their face hid themselves away in their rooms, desperate not to overhear or witness a single thing.

Those servants who had no choice but to be present endured their fear and waited in attendance at the front.

The Princess had come. Wu Lang had become a dead man.

When the Princess departed, these servants’ legs were already giving out beneath them, their hearts telling them what a harrowing night this had been — two young masters dead in a single evening.

They could not have imagined that the night’s chaos was not yet over. After the Princess left, someone had crept into the manor. Blades had flashed, a fight had broken out, one unlucky soul had lost his head, and another had fainted dead away from fright on the spot.

Fortunately, the Princess’s guards were there. When the intruders found they could not prevail, they cut their way out and fled.

By this point, every person present had the feeling that things had either “finally ended” or at least “come to a pause for now,” with the more optimistic among them feeling “safe at last.” The hearts that had been seized and squeezed throughout this turbulent night finally settled, and everyone relaxed.

The Xiaoyao Marquis, having lost two sons in a single day, was already unsteady from the shock of it all. Struggling through the contrition letter and then enduring yet another wave of terror, he could bear no more and decided to take a few elixir pills to steady his nerves.

The people Xie Yuzhang had left at his side to protect him had all gone in pursuit of the Gao Clan’s operatives, and a window had opened around him. He swallowed his elixir pills, undid his outer robe to let the heat dissipate, and lay down.

The arsonist made his way to the elixir room and found the sulfur.

He had been watching Xiaoyao Marquis Manor for a very long time and knew the layout of the manor with complete familiarity.

The first fire: the Last Emperor.

The second fire: the former Crown Prince’s courtyard. This person did not know the Crown Prince was already dead; at that moment, only Madam Yu and a few children were in the courtyard. He assumed the Crown Prince was inside and set it alight.

When the first and second fires alerted the people of the manor and they rushed to fight the flames, he went to the lodgings of the other three princes.

The three princes’ courtyards were adjacent to one another. The Fifth Prince’s courtyard, with all its occupants taken away by Xie Yuzhang’s guards, was standing open with its lights extinguished — obviously empty. He bypassed it and set fire to the Eighth and Ninth Princes’ courtyards instead.

When the fires erupted, the manor descended into complete pandemonium. The neighboring estate sent people to help fight the flames; nearby residents came as well. The arsonist grabbed an empty basin and made a show of helping, then slipped away clean.

The arsonist’s base was in the residential district behind the Marquis Manor. He returned there and reported to his master.

The master said, “First thing tomorrow morning, return to Jiangdong. Do not show your face in Yunjing for the next several years.”

The arsonist clasped his hands in acknowledgment and left under cover of night.

The arsonist’s master staggered his departure, also leaving that house. From tomorrow onward, this house would serve no further purpose.

The man led his horse out of the alley. The sky had already been set ablaze in shades of orange-red. Sulfur — truly an excellent material for starting fires. And the Last Emperor’s elixir room had contained sulfur in great quantities. Tonight, multiple factions had been moving at once; the window had appeared so suddenly, and closed so quickly, yet he had seized it.

All of it was Heaven’s assistance.

He led his horse at an unhurried pace onto the main road. A man hurrying to fight the fire with a water basin nearly collided with him. He reached out to steady the man and said, “Old sir, take care.”

The elderly man looked up. By the light of the distant fire, he saw a young gentleman as fine as a flower of jade, as handsome as an ornament of white stone — clearly a man of a distinguished family.

The old man apologized in haste.

The young gentleman asked, “Where has the fire broken out?”

The old man said, “Xiaoyao Marquis Manor. Ah, the former Emperor — Heaven’s punishment for all he brought down upon himself!”

The young gentleman said, “Do go quickly, old sir.”

The old man took up his basin and hurried off.

The young gentleman continued to lead his horse. He walked all the way from the back of Xiaoyao Marquis Manor and came around to the main road in front of the manor’s gate.

The fire burned fiercer still. Since it had been started with sulfur, it was not easily extinguished, and the entire sky had turned the color of burning amber.

The young gentleman had a pair of eyes bright and clear as autumn wind and moonlight. When he smiled, those curving eyes made young women drop their fans without ever noticing.

Now those eyes reflected only firelight — orange and red, and within them, the color of blood.

The annihilation of a household and the ruin of a family were all decided by an Emperor’s whim. Yet even now, he could not say the Emperor was his enemy.

For this world turned on the order of sovereign above and subject below, of parent above and child below — the three bonds and five constants that held everything in place. At the time, the Last Emperor had still been the sovereign, and his family the subjects.

If the sovereign ordered a subject to die, the subject must die. The sovereign was not the subject’s enemy; at most, he had wronged the subject. The subject could not resent the sovereign, let alone call him an enemy — at most, the subject could only seek to plead grievance before him.

If one day that sovereign were willing to clear this subject’s name, the subject would still have to bow in gratitude for the imperial grace, still have to praise this sovereign’s sagacity.

Yet hatred does not cease to exist simply because it cannot be spoken aloud. The young gentleman had nursed this hatred for many years, had never once imagined there would come a day when he could take revenge — only he was a man of extraordinary patience and had never given up. In the end, Heaven had granted him this opportunity tonight, and he had seized it with decisiveness.

The furious thunder of hoofbeats rang out.

The young gentleman looked over, and in the light of the fire saw a young woman in plain white robes with her hair streaming loose.

She stood there, stricken, the hot air surging out from the great gate whipping her long hair into motion, the vast firelight casting her silhouette in stark relief against the night.

She had endured things so bitter, yet upon returning she was full of life — every time he saw her, her eyes curved upward in a smile, laughter rising even before she spoke.

That cry of “Third Brother!” — how bright and joyful it had sounded.

The young gentleman’s hand, hidden within his sleeve, curled into a fist, his fingernails digging into his palm.

Let it burn. It would be best if not a single living soul survived from the Xie family.

That way, someone so noble and beautiful, translucent as crystal — she could break free of the muddy pit that was Xiaoyao Marquis Manor and be truly, freely herself.

Rather than silently, patiently, being the Emperor’s companion who could not be acknowledged in the light.

In the firelight, Li Gu reached out and took Xie Yuzhang by the arm.

Xie Yuzhang fainted into his embrace.

Lin Zhongxun quietly stepped back and vanished into the darkness of the night.

On this night, Xiaoyao Marquis Manor was consumed by fire. Of all those who resided there — not one survived.