Chen Baoxiang stopped smiling.

Her expression settled into seriousness as she cupped her hands and bowed toward the throne: “Your servant and Master Zhang alike wish nothing more than for Your Majesty to be eternally well, to have all wishes fulfilled, and to enjoy boundless fortune and longevity. What Master Zhang has done is nothing more than what Your Majesty has long desired.”

“When did I ever wish to overturn half the court?” Li Bingsheng narrowed her eyes, and with a flick of her hand, she knocked the thick memorial’s cover loose.

The cover pulled a cascade of white pages with it, arching from the imperial desk like a bridge down to Chen Baoxiang’s feet. The fanned and fluttering pages revealed Zhang Zhixu’s long-deliberated strokes — character by character, neat and refined.

Chen Baoxiang reached out and caught it, then, gathering her nerve, raised her eyes to meet the sovereign’s gaze: “Without overturning the old, there can be no new order. With respect, this half of the court that was left by those who came before — it was never worthy of serving as Your Majesty’s support to begin with. Especially when among them there lurks a leech so large and blood-hungry.”

How fat the profits of the salt administration were could be seen at a glance from a single saltworks in Shangjing.

Chen Baoxiang had long been puzzled as to where Cheng Huaili found so much money to fund private troops and extend his patronage and promotion to so many military officers.

Then Zhang Zhixu told her: the Salt and Iron Transport Commissioner’s surname was Liang, a man of unremarkable origins whom Cheng Huaili had personally recommended to Li Jü, and who had thus been placed in this lucrative post.

Suddenly everything made sense — including why, after ascending the throne, Her Majesty had been slow to settle accounts with Cheng Huaili.

This old schemer had his claws in far too many people.

“You — still saying whatever you please to my face.” Li Bingsheng’s anger did not continue to rise.

Instead she sighed and turned toward Hua Lingyin: “Just who gave this person her nerve? If anyone else came here to sound out the imperial will and then say so to my face, their neck would have been broken eight times over by now.”

Hua Lingyin clicked her tongue and shook her head: “If your servant sees it correctly, Your Majesty — it was you.”

“Me?”

“If Your Majesty were not wise and enlightened, how would she dare remonstrate so directly? And likewise, if she were not wholeheartedly devoted to the throne, how could Your Majesty have tolerated her until now?” Hua Lingyin said with perfect seriousness, then could not help but frown. “But it truly is too presumptuous.”

“What? I’ve been presumptuous to Your Majesty again?” Chen Baoxiang scratched her head with an innocent air. “What should I have said, then?”

“Forget it. With that mouth of yours, I have no expectations.” Li Bingsheng kept shaking her head.

The royal study was ablaze with lamplight, which made the dragon and phoenix patterns on Li Bingsheng’s long skirt shimmer and gleam.

She suddenly rose from her seat and walked down toward Chen Baoxiang, pacing slowly to stand before her.

Then she bent down and, page by page, gathered up the scattered memorial and stacked it back together.

“You are right — there are those who are unworthy of serving me.” She pressed her fingertip to the closed memorial and looked at Chen Baoxiang. “But to cut out a sore too hastily is to cause enough pain to make people fight back.”

“Chen Baoxiang — are you and Zhang Zhixu tough enough to survive?”

The young woman before her raised her eyes without a trace of fear, grinning wide: “Your Majesty need not worry. As long as the blade doesn’t come from Your Majesty’s own hand, nothing can take either of our lives.”

Young, full of vigor, fearing neither heaven nor earth — a pair of eyes as bright as the sun.

Li Bingsheng straightened up, a quiet feeling of emotion moving through her.

“Go, then. I wash my hands of it.”

“Your servant — thanks Your Majesty!”

It was as though the blood in her veins had begun to boil. Chen Baoxiang strode quickly out of the royal study, imperial token in hand, and sprinted toward the Ministry of Justice.

In the first year of the Shengtian reign, soaring salt prices brought hardship to the people. The new Emperor, in fury, demoted the Salt and Iron Transport Commissioner Liang Yongsheng, dismissed over three hundred officials connected to salt transport, and reformed the salt system from one of government-controlled production and sale to one of government-set prices and taxation, with private merchants producing and selling salt freely.

This move greatly stabilized salt prices, increased court tax revenues, and substantially enriched the national treasury of Great Sheng.

But tremendous upheaval erupted in Shangjing. Not only did debate rage without cease at court — even outside Zhang Zhixu’s own gate, a hundred-odd colleagues had gathered in protest.

Things were no better on Chen Baoxiang’s end. Cheng Huaili, who had been quiet for several months, suddenly turned like a dog whose tail had been stepped on — he ordered Meng Tianxing to set an ambush for Zhao Huaizhu and Fenghua.

Zhao Huaizhu had been prepared and sustained only minor injuries. Fenghua had been somewhat careless and had her right leg bone broken in the street.

Chen Baoxiang’s eyes went bloodshot. She seized her blade and stormed into Meng Tianxing’s private residence.

Meng Tianxing had been on his way out to report his success. Before he knew what had happened, he was grabbed by the hair and dragged into the street. Chen Baoxiang extended two fingers, pointing first at his eyes, then at her own face.

Then she flipped the blade to use its spine and, without so much as a blink, smashed both his leg bones clean through.

His screams of agony tore through the length of the street and echoed above the Cheng Manor.

Cheng Huaili sat in his wheelchair, face ashen, his breathing so rapid he was nearly on the verge of fainting.

It was not that he felt any pity for Meng Tianxing. He had many disciples; losing one still left others.

What he felt was that he had been driven into a corner.

After his legs had been broken, Song Jüqing had already shown him less respect than before. Now that his financial supply was cut off as well, this most accomplished of his disciples would likely no longer be content to remain under his control.

The men he had been maintaining in his martial arts schools would probably gradually lose their loyalty to him too.

Even the Pei Family — the Pei Family that had depended entirely on him to produce men of standing — had no one rushing over now to inquire after him.

Money was the most important thing in this world. With money one could have everything; without it, a person was stripped back to nothing.

Cheng Huaili had no intention of being stripped back to nothing.

He sent for someone to go and withdraw all the money belonging to him from the banks.

But before his trusted aide could step out the door, the man was forced back into the courtyard.

He showed his shock and terror plainly on his face, and called out in a stuttering voice: “Chen — Chen —”

Cheng Huaili jerked his head up.

Before his eyes, Chen Baoxiang crossed the threshold in white robes, her brow and eyes as cold and sharp as an ice blade in the depths of a winter pool.

“You wasted your efforts sending someone to frighten me, so I came to notify you in person.” She walked slowly into the courtyard and stopped ten feet from him, her gaze full of cold mockery as she said: “The banks connected to the embezzled funds of the former Salt and Iron Transport Commissioner Liang Yongsheng have been seized and searched. The banknotes found to involve bribery have been transferred to the Court of Judicial Review as evidence.”

“……” Cheng Huaili gripped the armrests.

He seemed to want to stand, then sank back into the chair with a kind of helpless collapse, the expression in his eyes shifting from a rage that seemed to flay the bones clean, and slowly becoming the dejection of an old man.

“You truly hate me deeply.” He said softly. “But Baoxiang — after all, you are my own flesh and blood. What could there possibly be between a father and daughter that cannot be talked through?”

Chen Baoxiang looked at him steadily.

The man let out a long sigh, his manner visibly softening: “Your elder brother is foolish and dull. Your second brother is sickly and weak. In truth, you are the one most like me. You and I both possess extraordinary physical strength, and we both have hearts set on climbing higher. The same blood runs in both our bones.”

“I know you harbor grievances over your mother’s matter. But Baoxiang — is it possible there was slander from outsiders that created misunderstandings between us?”

“No child doesn’t want a father’s approval. You are the same. Rather than saying you want to kill me for revenge — it’s more that you have fought your way to this position to prove something to me, to make me regret abandoning you.”

“—I already regret it.”

In every household under heaven it is the same: the father is the banner held aloft, the hero who shoulders mountains. No mountain of gold or silver can match what a father’s single word of praise — after a hundred harsh trials — does to a child’s heart. No matter what has come before, if a father lowers his head and yields, the child must be moved to tears and must let things rest.

Cheng Huaili felt this was simply how things naturally unfolded.