At Lingyun Pavilion, Wang Daxia and Lu Ying dragged Wei Caiwei to the entrance, where two guards blocked their path with long spears. “This is a forbidden area. Entry is not permitted without summons!”
Wang Daxia said, “We’ve caught a thief who was stealing and are bringing him to Minister Yan for punishment.”
The guard glanced at the “thief” whose face was covered in blood and muddy water. “You wait here first. I’ll go up and report. Without Prince Jing’s orders, no one may enter without permission.”
Wang Daxia said, “There’s no time for reporting. This person is skilled with poisons. Tonight, all those dancing guards consumed some kind of mushroom that makes people dance. He was trying to escape in the chaos when we caught him. Those who use poison can also cure it. Time is urgent – whether our comrades can regain consciousness depends entirely on this thief. Take us in first, and you can report when we reach the door.”
The guard heard this and agreed it made sense, saying, “Follow me.”
Lingyun Pavilion was heavily guarded, with sentries posted every ten steps. The three followed the leading guard to the top floor of the pavilion.
Two guards also stood at the entrance to the top floor. When the leading guard went in to report, Lu Ying and Wang Daxia caught the others off guard, using handkerchiefs soaked with sleeping drug to cover their mouths and noses, knocking them out and dragging them to a corner.
Inside Lingyun Pavilion, Prince Jing and Yan Shifan heard that the Deadly Poison Master had been caught, and that tonight’s chaos was caused by poisonous mushrooms the master had administered. Prince Jing angrily berated Yan Shifan:
“These are the death warriors you carefully trained! Other people’s dogs bite whoever they’re told to bite, but the dogs you raised can’t even bite a nursing infant to death – they specialize in biting their own people! They’ve even disrupted my Heaven Worship ceremony. When Father Emperor blames us, will you take responsibility for this?”
In the four years since Prince Jing was enfeoffed, he had made no progress except in his weight. He was impetuous and easily panicked, always shirking responsibility when trouble arose.
Yan Shifan immediately knelt on the ground. “It’s all this old minister’s fault. Please give this old minister a chance to atone for his crimes through merit.”
In the pavilion, Eunuch Wei, the chief eunuch of Prince Jing’s mansion, had always served Prince Jing closely, following wherever the prince went. Eunuch Wei’s mind was still relatively clear, understanding that for Prince Jing to successfully ascend the throne, he must rely on Yan Shifan’s power. This was not yet the time to break relations, so he quickly advised:
“Your Highness, even tigers have moments when they doze off, let alone Minister Yan who is advanced in years. Some oversights are understandable. Besides, the poison master has already been found. Force him to prepare an antidote and pour it down the guards’ throats – everything will be resolved. After all, it wasn’t the Taoist priests who were poisoned. Tomorrow they can still set up the altar and perform the rituals as usual. Issue a gag order about tonight’s disturbance and suppress the matter. How could the Emperor know? Treat it as if nothing happened, and all will be peaceful under heaven.”
Yan Shifan knew Eunuch Wei was giving him a way out and quickly said, “Exactly so. This old minister’s life is worthless, but Your Highness’s imperial mandate to worship Heaven is what matters.”
Prince Jing listened, his anger somewhat abated. With a grand wave of his hand, he said, “Drag him in!”
The guard went out to relay the message, only to be knocked out at the door by Wang Daxia and Lu Ying. The two men entered the room supporting Wei Caiwei by her arms, one on each side.
After entering, they threw Wei Caiwei onto a meditation cushion on the floor, and she fell face down.
Hearing his fiancée make a muffled thud as she hit the ground, Wang Daxia’s heart ached. Taking advantage of Prince Jing, Yan Shifan, and Eunuch Wei’s attention being focused on the fallen “poison master,” Wang Daxia and Lu Ying stabbed two needles into the back of Prince Jing’s and Yan Shifan’s necks. The two men instantly felt as if all their strength had been drained away and collapsed thunderously to the ground.
Eunuch Wei was just turning over Wei Caiwei on the ground and taking out a handkerchief to wipe the blood from her face to verify her identity when he heard the commotion. As soon as he turned his head, Wang Daxia leaped forward, pressed him to the ground, stuffed mushroom powder into his mouth, then covered his mouth.
Eunuch Wei first struggled like a stranded fish. After a while, his hands and feet went limp, his gaze became vacant. Wang Daxia released him and even removed his shoes. Eunuch Wei climbed up from the ground and began dancing a strange dance in his socks.
While Wang Daxia was knocking out Eunuch Wei, Lu Ying went over to help up the fallen Wei Caiwei. Only then did the collapsed Yan Shifan and Prince Jing see clearly that these two unknown small fries and the fake poison master were all familiar faces!
Moreover, they were mortal enemies who had repeatedly caused them trouble and blocked their path. From Prince Jing’s fall from a favored prince to being demoted from the capital to become a feudal prince in Anlu, Hubei, and from Yan Shifan’s position of great power to being stripped of office and sent home to retire – all of this was related to these three mortal enemies.
They could truly be called sworn enemies.
Prince Jing glared with rage, wanting to cry out for help, but lacking strength, his voice like a mosquito’s buzz as he said, “You three have tremendous audacity, daring to plot against a prince! This is rebellion. I will report to the Emperor and exterminate your nine clans.”
The original plan was to kill only Yan Shifan, leaving Prince Jing for the future Crown Prince Yu to eliminate. But since Yan Shifan and Prince Jing were inseparable, colluding like wolves and jackals, they had to change plans temporarily and take out the whole nest.
“Exterminate whose nine clans? It’s not as if we did it.” Wang Daxia picked up the ritual brush used for ceremonies, dipped it full of golden ink, and wrote twelve characters as large as winnowing baskets on the pavilion wall: “From primordial chaos springs the muddy source, the white lotus blooms to herald a golden age!”
This was the most classic slogan of the White Lotus Sect.
Both Prince Jing and Yan Shifan were stunned: they were going to frame tonight’s treasonous act on the White Lotus Sect!
Why did this feel strangely familiar?
Lu Ying placed several paper-crafted white lotus flowers on the altar table, fabricating the scene. “Prince Jing, Minister Yan, four years ago, you used the White Lotus Sect as a cover to create fake dark omens in Prince Yu’s mansion to assassinate Prince Yu. Afterward, you pushed everything clean onto the White Lotus Sect. At that time, did you two ever think there would be today?”
Wei Caiwei rubbed her shoulder that had been hurt in the fall. To perform this act well and get revenge for herself and Wang Daxia, she was going all out, saying:
“Everything today is merely the retribution for all the evil you’ve accumulated over the years. It’s all your own evil fruit that you’re tasting. However you schemed against others before, others will use the same methods to scheme against you. Only today do I finally believe that evil receives evil retribution. It’s not that there’s no retribution – it’s just that the time hasn’t come. Tonight is the night to settle all sins.”
Wei Caiwei slowly approached the two men, like a goddess of vengeance. “I’ve been looking forward to tonight since I was seven years old. For this, I’ve waited a full fourteen years. My surname is He. My father was Thousand-Household He of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Four years ago, I killed Thousand-Household Chen and his son. I also wanted to kill you at the same time, but then I was powerless – a humble traveling physician while you were the lofty Vice Minister Yan. I couldn’t even touch the hem of your robe. Now, I can finally have my revenge.”
Wang Daxia knew Wei Caiwei’s background, and Lu Ying had also guessed she was the missing Second Miss He. To protect her, he had always played deaf and dumb, pretending not to know. This was the first time he saw Wei Caiwei personally admit her identity and that she had killed Thousand-Household Chen and his son.
If it had been the past Lu Ying – aloof and cold, rigid and upright, inflexible – she would probably have found it difficult to accept Wei Caiwei using private punishment to resolve hatred. But the current Lu Ying had changed. She could lie, she had friends who would stick by her through thick and thin, and she knew that some things simply could not be resolved by law and prison.
Because in this world, people were born unequal. High officials and royal family members had privileges of pardon. The lives of low-ranking military officers and common people were not considered lives at all, subject to arbitrary killing at will.
If the law could apply to everyone, if everyone were equal before the law, then Lu Ying would undoubtedly stop Wang Daxia and Wei Caiwei from taking private revenge. She would use the law to judge Yan Shifan and Prince Jing’s crimes and execute them according to proper legal procedures.
But during these years in the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the results of various incidents had shown that the law was only used to constrain ordinary people. High officials and royalty could trample on the law and even use it as a weapon to harm others. In their eyes, the law was just a foot rag with no constraints on them whatsoever.
Since the law was unjust, unequal, and could not protect innocent people, why maintain this corrupt law?
Therefore, Lu Ying “betrayed” her original intention in joining the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Some people simply could not be dealt with through law.
Hearing Wei Caiwei claim the surname “He” and mention the death of Thousand-Household Chen and his son, Yan Shifan’s eyes showed complete bewilderment. He had no memory of the people Wei Caiwei spoke of. He had taken too much money and harmed too many people. The tragedy of Thousand-Household He’s family – he simply didn’t know about it, and even if he had known, he wouldn’t have cared.
Now that the tiger had fallen to the plains and was bullied by dogs, Yan Shifan knew he couldn’t fight head-on and was focused only on making peace. “Dr. Wei, I have offended you greatly in the past. Whatever you want, just ask. I only beg to keep my life.”
Wei Caiwei opened the “good things” in the Deadly Poison Master’s bundle. “I only want your life.”
Wang Daxia, holding the golden ritual brush, finished writing and framing it on the White Lotus Sect. “Same here. Yan Shifan, you’re best at using others as knives to kill people. You used the White Lotus Sect to try to harm Prince Yu unsuccessfully, then borrowed the hands of Japanese pirates to kill my father, just because my father was closely monitoring your Yan family and blocked your treasonous path. You’re scheming and calculating – you wouldn’t naively think I’d let you go, would you?”
Seeing that making peace was useless, Yan Shifan immediately shifted targets, his gaze falling on Lu Ying. “Dear niece, our Yan and Lu families are relatives. Your second sister is my eldest son’s wife, and your second sister’s flesh and blood is my own grandson. I personally watched you grow up and was on good terms with your father. I styled myself Dong Lou, he styled himself Dong Hu – we two were like blood brothers. You cannot stand by and watch me die!”
Lu Ying said, “Our Lu family will protect our own daughters, sons-in-law, and grandsons. Even your two grandsons who were expelled from the Kong mansion by the Duke of Yan Sheng, we’re raising them at home where no one dares bully them. Our Lu family has done right by family relationships. Minister Yan need not use family ties to threaten me.”
She continued: “Good and evil always receive their due rewards. If you had been able to listen to my father’s advice back then, to be more lenient in your conduct and not do everything too ruthlessly, leaving yourself a way out, you wouldn’t have this fate today. What you face today is all the fruit of your own actions receiving retribution. Don’t mention me, a mere mortal – even if an immortal wanted to intervene to save you, they would face divine tribulation and be struck by lightning for acting against heaven.”
Hearing this, Yan Shifan felt a sensation he had never experienced before enveloping him – this was despair. Not even when Emperor Jiajing decreed the confiscation of his family property and his demotion to his home province of Jiangxi had he felt such despair. To think he was being forced into a dead end by three juniors barely in their twenties!
The younger generation was truly formidable! Yan Shifan was unwilling to accept this, but Prince Jing beside him had his own calculations, saying, “Since you two have come to seek revenge on Yan Shifan and it has nothing to do with me, let me go. I won’t expose you – I’ll just push everything onto the White Lotus Sect.”
“Is that so?” Wang Daxia pointed at Eunuch Wei who was dancing. “You instructed the stinking Taoist priests of White Deer Temple to trick my fiancée into a carriage and drag her to the outskirts to kill her, then frame it on the White Lotus Sect. Forgotten about that?”
Wang Daxia kicked the prince of the realm with his foot. “My fiancée was forced to cut her arm and bleed profusely as a warning before she could escape. You want us to let you go – when you were harming others, did you ever think of leaving them a way out?”
Author’s Note: Wei Caiwei eliminated all the direct murderers who killed her sister in the first volume. When Ban Xia makes a move, it’s always fatal.