In the thirteenth year of Tiancheng Lingwei, on the second day of the second month, Bai Shi’s daughter attempted to assassinate the sovereign above the Yue River.

That night, the Emperor’s palace lodge blazed with light until the first light of dawn, at which stars and moon hid their brightness.

At that moment, Xiao Nanhui was gazing blankly at a pitch-black expanse of sky.

Unlike the unlit darkness of the night of the New Moon Ceremony, the Emperor’s palace lodge tonight was ablaze with light — yet the atmosphere was heavy with the chill of impending punishment.

Bonfires crackled and spat sparks, illuminating the entire inner courtyard with harsh brightness. The glaring red light blotted out the stars above, making the night seem all the darker, without a trace of light.

Xiao Nanhui knelt on the cold, hard ground. She did not even notice that her hands, bound behind her back for too long, had gone numb and stiff.

Her thoughts were still caught one hour earlier. She had climbed off Bai Yun and looked out from Tingling Tower: on the platform, all was chaos — the world turned upside down, sun and moon overturned.

The crowd scattered and fled in all directions, crashing through the wooden barriers set up along the riverbank. Some tumbled into the water; some were trampled underfoot. The sounds of weeping and screaming were unceasing.

Those sounds still lingered in her ears now, impossible to drive away.

Someone moved nearby, bumping into her body. She blinked, and her vision focused on what lay before her.

The terrified performers were huddled together in a cluster, their tears and distress washing the greasepaint and powder from their faces into a smeared ruin — much like the chaotic and tangled scene of that evening.

Officers from the Court of Judicial Review and the Magistrate’s Office came continually to pull one or two of them away for questioning, ruling out the possibility of an inside-outside conspiracy in the assassination. The performers being dragged away wept and wailed, their fingernails scraping across the ground and leaving bloody gouges.

Not far away, the altar and ritual implements used in the ceremony on the platform were being prised apart and smashed open for inspection one by one. The pure white wild ram that had been sacrificed on the platform lay on the ground, its four limbs already cold and rigid. Its head, severed by a single blade stroke, still bore undried blood. Its horizontally slit pupils stared straight at Xiao Nanhui, like two doors half-open.

Since ancient times, ceremonies had always selected solid-colored animals, calling them “sacrifices.” Among them, pure white calves and lambs were considered the finest. White symbolized purity; youth symbolized the vitality of life — these had always been the deity’s most beloved offerings. And it was said in legend that the wild ram’s pupils could connect the realms of heaven and earth; some also said they were in truth the gates to the underworld.

She reached out a hand, wanting to close those eyes.

The next moment, the great hall doors that had been tightly shut burst open with a bang, and the tense atmosphere of the inner courtyard poured out with the cold wind.

The officials who had been waiting outside all lowered their heads in silence. No one dared whisper among themselves at a moment like this. The footsteps of palace attendants, inner officials, and medical officers mingled together, shot through with the sound of Dan Jiangfei’s sharp reprimands. Each voice carried a thread of tension stretched near to breaking.

Every word and phrase that drifted out from the inner hall she could hear clearly, yet her mind was already in such disarray that she could not make sense of any of it. The sounds gradually became garbled noise swirling inside her skull.

A familiar figure emerged from the rear corridor of the inner hall — Ding Weixiang, wearing a somber expression. He seemed to glance briefly in her direction. Though his gaze carried anger, it ultimately shifted away, and he turned toward the side chamber.

That Ding Weixiang had not rushed over and cut her down on the spot — did that mean the Emperor was still alive?

She saw that Ding Weixiang was holding half a black-feathered arrow in his hand. The shaft had been sliced through by a swift blade — clearly Ding Weixiang’s handiwork.

Xiao Nanhui let out a faint breath of relief, then immediately sensed something was wrong.

The shaft was there — but where was the arrowhead?

Her heart began swaying back and forth again. Unease and anxiety crawled like insects over her entire body, gnawing at every inch of her skin, trying to burrow deeper.

Another group of medical officers entered swiftly through the side door. They looked, every one of them, older than the groups that had preceded them. Yet not one of the white-bearded old men dared lag behind — each pumping their legs as fast as they could, their medical boxes nearly flying from their hands.

Xiao Nanhui’s heart was just like those teetering boxes: she had no idea what was inside, only knowing that everything had been turned upside down and was rocking back and forth.

She had not moved from her spot, yet she felt the entire world was shaking. After a good while she realized it was not the world that was moving — she herself was trembling.

In the agonizing torment of each passing minute, like a thousand cuts applied one by one, the waning moon had already slid to the west.

A cold wind blew over the golden toad perched on the eaves of the temple, setting the copper bead in the toad’s mouth ringing. A low, sobbing sound reverberated through the entire palace lodge — like the keening of a funeral.

With a creak, the main doors of the great hall finally opened slowly. Palace attendants on both sides bowed low and stepped aside, clearing a passage down the center.

Dan Jiangfei’s figure emerged, walking unhurriedly, his eyes half-lowered, not looking at the many different expressions gathered in the courtyard.

“My lords — His Majesty requests your presence.”

At those words, a wave of exhaled breath rose throughout the inner courtyard, one after another.

The Emperor had not died.

As long as the Emperor had not died, everything could still be discussed.

Xiao Nanhui too let out a breath — then without warning someone behind her grabbed her by the collar and dragged her forward. Then she saw Bai Yun being escorted in through the side door, both hands and feet bound in iron shackles.

She suddenly realized something: she herself was in absolutely no position to worry about anyone else. If she could not prove her own innocence, she and Bai Yun would be lumped together as conspirators of a rebel faction. At that point the entire Xiao Mansion would be implicated.

The temperature inside the great hall was very low. The great copper brazier had not been lit. In its place was the familiar lotus-carved water clock.

The officials had long grown accustomed to such an atmosphere. It seemed that once the sound of its dripping began, everyone was instantly transported back to the Yuan Ming Hall in the imperial capital — that hall that stretched on and on, dark, without end.

Someone took the lead, and the officials in the hall began fervently inquiring after the Emperor’s physical and emotional wellbeing.

After a round of competitive, clamoring, and fervent well-wishing, the scene grew quiet once more.

The Emperor sat upright beneath the divine image. Behind him, incense burned on the altar table, curling up a thread of pale blue smoke that shrouded his face in an indistinct haze.

He seemed to have shifted his position, one hand resting lightly against his temple.

“We are unharmed. However, the Lady Cui intercepted the arrow for Us, and her life now hangs in the balance. We are most concerned.”

Lady Cui?

Xiao Nanhui suddenly recalled the identity of the woman who had been seated beside the Emperor at the ceremony. No wonder the figure had seemed so familiar when she had observed her from Tingling Tower from a distance.

Cui Xingyao. The daughter of the late Prince Kang. The beautiful young woman whom the entire Cui clan had pinned all their hopes upon, who had been sent into the imperial city in a palanquin piled high with silks and brocades — Xu Shu’s beloved. Yet now she had become the Emperor’s bedchamber companion.

Counting from that earlier glimpse on the small hill outside Quecheng, she had now seen her from a distance three times, and had not given her much thought.

But now, that name seemed to be engraved into her mind in an instant — the force of it alarming.

Someone in the hall gave a muffled sob — a sound that was jarring to hear. Then a civil official with a round face, short eyebrows, and a somewhat ungainly frame stepped out and bowed: it was Yu Youwei, Cui Xingyao’s maternal uncle and the current Director of the Imperial Clan Court.

“Old subject has lost composure. It is only that upon suddenly hearing this news, grief overwhelms me and I cannot master myself. Yet when I think that my niece could offer herself for His Majesty’s safety, your subject feels great pride as well. I only pray that His Majesty’s broad blessings may protect her through this ordeal.”

Yu Youwei prostrated himself, both shoulders trembling as though overcome with grief. The Emperor beneath the divine image raised a gentle hand, bidding him rise.

“Director Yu, please rise. The Lady Cui is quiet and virtuous, principled and good in character. We have conferred upon her the title of Noble Lady Shu. Her fate is to bear this responsibility, and she will certainly find fortune from misfortune.”

Yu Youwei’s plump, round waist swayed with surprising agility as he performed another deep bow.

“Old subject gives grateful thanks for His Majesty’s grace and benevolence.”

With the rites complete, he finally climbed to his feet and slowly withdrew. Another voice immediately followed.

“Since His Majesty is unharmed, your subject requests that this traitorous case of attempted assassination be sternly tried in open court at once. May His Majesty be pleased to grant this.”

The man who spoke had naturally shaped peach-blossom eyes, their corners deepened with the lines of age, though one could still faintly make out the captivating quality they had held in youth. Only his thin, sharp lips were pressed downward, marring the appeal of his entire face and adding to it a dark, forbidding quality that made people reluctant to meet his gaze.

This was an air that came only from years immersed in the dungeons and interrogation chambers — and the one approaching was none other than Xu Shu’s father, the current Grand Warden Xu Zhi.

“Granted.”

At the sound of that familiar voice, Xiao Nanhui was lifted almost immediately to her feet.

She drew closer to the figure beneath the divine image — close enough now to make out the silver threading that wound and curved across his robes. Yet she still could not see his face clearly.

He was still in the moonlit-white ceremonial robes from the ceremony. They appeared immaculate, showing not the faintest trace of stain or blood.

She looked down at her own Light Vanguard military uniform — unwashed for two or three days, and after the ordeal of this night, covered in dust. The collar had been pulled out of shape, and the fabric at the knees had already worn through.

She nearly flinched in place — only to find that she could not actually move at all.

And so she knelt on the icy stone tiles at the center of the great hall, subject to the scrutiny and judgment of countless gazes.

The last time she had been in this hall, he had been so near to her.

Now, separated by only a day or two, he was once again as distant as when they had first met.

“Rebellious criminal Xiao Nanhui — you conspired with the traitor of the Bai Shi clan to plot assassination. The evidence is clear and the suspect is in hand. What have you to say in your defense?”

When Xu Zhi opened his mouth, it was not Bai Yun he questioned — it was her.

Xiao Nanhui finally understood where Xu Shu had gotten that foul mouth of his. She must have slaughtered his entire clan in a past life, to be so thoroughly at odds with the Xu family in this one.

She forced herself not to look at the face of the man ranked first among Tiancheng’s most ruthless enforcers, and fixed her gaze instead on the expanse of moonlit white behind him.

“Your subject had reserved a seat at Tingling Tower, drawn by the reputation of the perch fish banquet. Your subject’s loyalty to Tiancheng is beyond question — there is no treason in my heart, nor any part in this assassination. I beg His Majesty to investigate clearly!”

Xu Zhi noticed the direction of her gaze and struck directly at her most vulnerable point.

“Then let the Right General explain clearly — why was Bai Yun in the same room as you? And why were Tiancheng’s own black-feathered arrows used in the assassination attempt?”

To this interrogation, Xiao Nanhui had no defense.

“Your subject does not know. Your subject earlier borrowed from the Black Feather Camp a bow and three black-feathered arrows — solely for the purpose of practicing archery. Lieutenant Lu can vouch for me.”

Xu Zhi let out a cold snort. “Lu Songping was negligent in his duties, commanding the entire Black Feather Camp yet unable to keep a single key prisoner in custody. He himself has yet to clear his own name — how can he vouch for you?”

The one person who could have proved her innocence was already entangled in the matter. Even if she were covered from head to foot in mouths, she would not be able to explain this away.

After a suffocating silence, that familiar voice finally spoke.

“Nanhui had purchased two perch fish banquet invitations, intending to attend together with me. I did not come due to other matters, and the other invitation remains in my room at the guest courtyard. If Grand Warden Xu disbelieves this, he is welcome to send someone to search. If we in the Xiao Mansion were of one mind in plotting assassination, would we so carelessly leave behind such evidence?”

Xiao Zhun had still stepped forward to speak for her.

But at this moment, Xiao Nanhui felt not a trace of gladness or joy.

The moment Xiao Zhun stepped forward, he was inevitably bound up in this matter and could not easily wash himself clean.

Yet certain words, coming from her mouth, carried no weight at all. From Xiao Zhun they were entirely different.

This rebuttal stirred a small ripple among the officials. Some seemed to nod in acknowledgment. Yet the charge of treason was enough to make anyone step back. No one dared stand forward to speak on the Xiao Mansion’s behalf.

Once, Xiao Zhun’s military achievements had been such that every official in the court sought to draw close and curry favor. Now that he had stumbled and fallen, not even a voice of protest could be heard.

Such is the coldness of human feeling.

“That may just as well be evidence you deliberately left behind as a smoke screen. What the Qinghuai Marquis has said proves nothing.”

What Xu Zhi said was a venomous and cutting argument — yet every word rang true as well. No matter what, she had indeed been in the same place as Bai Yun when it happened.

“If Our memory does not fail Us, it was the Right General who captured the Bai Shi daughter in Bijiang earlier.”

The person who had been silent all along now spoke. Xiao Nanhui could almost sense a subtle but decisive shift in the air.

Seizing on this momentum, someone finally stepped forward.

“Precisely!”

A voice rang out behind Xiao Nanhui, surprising her somewhat.

Su Pingchuan’s voice was urgent — far removed from his usual arrogant manner: “Your subject was also present at that battle. Your subject can bear witness: the Right General fought bravely and never retreated. It is utterly impossible that she colluded with the traitors of the Bai Shi clan.”

By Su Pingchuan’s official rank, he should by rights have had no place speaking in this proceeding. But behind him stood Duke Xuanyuan’s estate, and even Xu Zhi had to show some measure of wariness toward that.

Xu Zhi’s expression barely wavered. Those eyes swept toward Xiao Zhun’s place among the officials, shifting his line of attack — and still striking where it cut deepest.

“She may have had no prior connection with the Bai Shi clan — but the Qinghuai Marquis is not without one.”

The officials sighed and murmured. Private whispers began.

For some of the older ministers who had served at court for many years, the old affairs of the Xiao Mansion were not exactly unknown. Yet that secret had never been fully understood — only three or four parts certain, with six or seven parts conjecture and uncertain guessing.

What did it mean to fear the power of rumors? This was Xiao Nanhui’s first direct lesson in it.

Her hands had started trembling again. This time not from anxiety, but from anger.

“My adoptive father has devoted himself to Tiancheng and risked his life in battle. There is absolutely no possibility that he would betray the country or attempt to assassinate the sovereign!”

“The Grand General did indeed render distinguished service in recovering Bijiang. But is there not still the matter of sentiment in this world? In some things, no one can say for certain.”

Xu Zhi spoke with perfect composure, as though stating a fact known to all yet simply not yet committed to writing.

If the emotion she had felt a moment before could be called anger, what Xiao Nanhui felt now was as though the blood through her entire body was about to ignite.

The Xiao Mansion’s numbers were sparse; after Prince Shuo’s death, Xiao Zhun had alone held up the wishes of the entire clan. Through all these years, the few people in the household — though calling themselves master and servants — had each regarded the others as their only support, enduring and persisting through hardship together. Now the other man’s light, offhand remark swept away all the lonely suffering the Xiao Family had endured over more than ten years, then tainted it with a tinge of impurity, steering people’s imaginations in a darker direction.

If her dagger had not been confiscated, she might already have lunged forward and stabbed Xu Zhi several times by now.

To untie the bell, one must find the one who tied it. Xiao Nanhui forced herself to calm down and turned her gaze to Bai Yun, who had remained silent throughout.

She still remembered what Bai Yun had said in Tingling Tower. She believed this woman would not harm Xiao Zhun.

“Tell me — exactly how did you get to Tingling Tower?!”

To preserve what little remained of courtroom decorum, she had been suppressing her voice throughout. Yet what emerged now came almost like a roar from the depths of her throat.

“Say something!”

Bai Yun remained unmoved. Her gaze had never left the Emperor from start to finish, and the depths of her eyes were frightening in their blankness. Only after a long moment did she slowly exhale two words.

“By chance.”

“At a time like this you still intend to prevaricate? Without someone else’s help, how did you escape from the Black Feather Camp with its layer upon layer of guards? If there was no prior arrangement, then out of all the pavilions and towers along both banks of the Yue River, why did you choose specifically that private room in Tingling Tower to make your move?”

“Your defenses were indeed tight — yet no wall is truly airtight as long as it is guarded by people. There is always a gap to slip through. As for why I acted from Tingling Tower — Tingling Tower is the tallest building on either bank of the Yue River. On ordinary days its traffic is dense, and it is easy to go unnoticed within the crowd.”

“Preposterous. The Black Feather Camp is still ten li from Jiaosong County. How did you reach the city before the guards discovered you were gone — and on your own?”

“Could it be that Grand Warden Xu has forgotten? Before my father was elevated to Imperial Censor, he served for eight years as Prefect of Liangshu Commandery. I followed my official father wherever his duties took him, and I have set foot in every corner of Jiaosong County. Back then, Grand Warden Xu was still a student under one of the scholars, often coming to our door with books in hand to pay his respects — and it was my father who promoted you with his own hand—”

“Silence!” The woman’s cutting methods proved more practiced than his own. The color drained from Xu Zhi’s face; the artificial softness that usually masked his peach-blossom eyes fell away, revealing the cold menace beneath. “Before His Majesty’s presence, do you dare stir up trouble and speak such slander?!”

Xu Zhi had barely finished speaking when Xu Shu, who had been standing quietly in the rear ranks, stepped forward. He made no show of avoiding it — moving to stand shoulder to shoulder with his father.

“Your subject believes that the Bai Shi woman is evasive and cunning by nature, and that questioning her yields nothing. It would be better to hand her to the Judicial Review Chamber for punishment on the spot — that will surely draw out the full account of what happened.”

At those words, Xiao Nanhui could not stop herself from glancing over at Xiao Zhun’s expression.

He remained where he was, seemingly without much visible reaction — but Xiao Nanhui saw his hands, tightly clenched inside his sleeves.

To torture Bai Yun as a means of provoking Xiao Zhun into making an error — a vicious, ruthless stratagem.

She recalled Xu Shu’s reaction when the Emperor had just announced the news of Cui Xingyao’s injuries, and found a thousand reasons to believe he intended to use this as a vehicle for personal revenge.

What a pair — the Xu father and son. When it came to ruthlessness and ingratitude, each generation surpassed the last.

And yet the very next moment, Xiao Nanhui felt her heart sink into the darkest depths of despair.

“Granted.”

With a light, understated word, the Emperor pushed everything toward the point of no return.

She had no standing to blame him. Yet she could not conceal the disappointment that rose from the very bottom of her heart. He was a man of such perceptive understanding — he could not possibly fail to see through the Xu father and son’s scheme. And yet he had still given his consent.

The left and right court officers began summoning the Judicial Review Chamber. The approaching footsteps of the punisher drew steadily closer.

Xiao Nanhui turned to look at Bai Yun. She still showed no particular reaction — as though she had long anticipated this would come.

There was no shortage of people in this world who died and accepted their end. But she should not drag Xiao Zhun down into the water with her.

Xiao Nanhui suddenly regretted many things. She regretted having let her mind be thrown into disarray in Tingling Tower and failing to stop everything in time. She regretted the day she had acted on impulse and slipped into the guest courtyard. She regretted not finishing the job on the battlefield in Bijiang.

It was all because of this woman. All because of her. If not for her—

“You are thinking: if not for me, the Xiao Mansion would have been all right. Am I correct?”

Bai Yun’s words were very soft — so soft that in the entire great hall they seemed to be spoken only for Xiao Nanhui’s ears.

The next instant, the laughing woman was dragged away by the punishers from the Judicial Review Chamber. But her soft, drifting voice fell against Xiao Nanhui’s ear, carrying with it a thread of mockery.

“Xiao Nanhui, have you forgotten what I said? The one who created this situation, who placed the Xiao Mansion at a disadvantage — it was never me. It was your own choices. If in Tingling Tower you had not stopped me, my arrow would by now have taken that dog Emperor’s life, and how would Xiao Zhun be held to account? It was you — it was your own choice. Between Xiao Zhun and the Emperor, you chose the latter—”

No. That is not how it was—

How could that be?

Xiao Zhun had raised and cared for her for more than ten years. To her, he was a presence that, having been one’s teacher for a single day, remained one’s father for life. He was the person she had admired for years yet never dared speak of openly. How could such a presence possibly lose out to someone she had known for barely a year — someone separated from her by a chasm ten thousand fathoms deep?

And yet — in that short, fleeting moment when she had lunged toward Bai Yun, had she truly not considered the consequences if the assassination failed?

How could she not have? Of course she had thought of it.

She had even been able to envision the full process of interrogation and punishment by the various ministries — could picture the expression on that fool Ding Weixiang’s face — could foresee the catastrophic ruin the Xiao Mansion might face.

And yet even so, she had still reacted the way she did, instinctively. What the mind chose may not have been true feeling — but the body’s reaction could not deceive her.

Even now, before everything had been decided, her heart had been fixed on whether he was alive.

She had not wanted him to die.

For that, she had in a single instant staked the life or death of the Xiao Mansion — staked everything she had.