Li Bingsheng froze, and turned to look at Hua Lingyin with bewilderment.

The latter hesitated for a long moment before finally saying in a low voice: “In those days, Ye Shuangtian pushed with all her might to reform the imperial examination system. Before she could accomplish it, she was imprisoned on charges of accepting bribes, and every member of her family and her descendants were implicated.”

Ye Qiongxin was simply one of those caught up in the fallout. The one truly involved in the case was Ye Shuangtian.

Li Bingsheng recalled it now — when she had just begun forming memories, she had once met Ye Shuangtian. Her Imperial Father had said she was a Chief Minister who had served two dynasties with an excellent reputation for virtue. At that time Ye Shuangtian had even given her a perfectly straight paperweight as a token of affection.

But later, as she grew older, the things she heard about Ye Shuangtian changed to “treacherous minister” and “corrupt official” and the like. Not long after, the woman died in prison, and her entire household was stripped clean.

Li Bingsheng lowered her eyes in a vaguely dazed state — just in time to meet Chen Baoxiang’s gaze.

She was kneeling down below, looking at her with unblinking eyes: hope, anticipation, unease, and tension all mingled together — like a supplicant prostrating before the Dragon King during a drought, or a suffering soul looking up to Guanyin in their darkest hour.

“……You’re still backing me into a corner.”

Half-frustrated and half-softening, she said, “Chen Baoxiang, I have only just ascended the throne. What I inherited is a realm riddled with wounds. The great clans are powerful, the feudal princes are in endless conflict, and I have no time to deal with the accumulated affairs of years past. You shouldn’t trouble me with one family’s private grievances.”

“Your Majesty misunderstands.” Chen Baoxiang clasped her hands in a bow. “Your subject has no intention of seeking to redress the Ye family’s injustice — the ancestral burial ground can wait awhile, there’s no rush. But winter is drawing to a close and the Spring Imperial Examinations are approaching. Is this year’s examination to proceed the same way as in years past?”

The Great Sheng’s imperial examinations were open to both men and women, but candidates first had to pass the regional and prefectural examinations, and then obtain a letter of recommendation from an official of their home region — both were required without exception.

The result of this system was that students were compelled to attach themselves to powerful households and cultivate connections.

Attaching oneself to a powerful household required money. For the sons of families it was manageable enough — the household could always scrape together a bit of grain to support the endeavor — but for daughters, nine out of ten would abandon the attempt when faced with this obstacle.

Li Bingsheng had been running private schools all along — of course she knew this system had to change. But after ascending the throne, she had been overwhelmed with affairs of state, beset with constant upheaval, and she hadn’t been able to attend to it.

Her expression eased. She walked back to the imperial desk and rummaged through it, pulling out the “bricks” Zhang Zhixu had submitted the other day from the pile of memorials.

Zhang Zhixu had used three “bricks” to lay out for her exactly how the examination system ought to be reformed — his words earnest and moving to read.

But as she read on, Li Bingsheng’s expression gradually grew complicated.

In the days before she sat upon the throne, she had a very clear sense of how certain maladies ought to be treated — but now that she truly occupied this seat, she had discovered that knowing the remedy for many ailments did not mean one could simply apply it.

Abolishing official recommendations was of course a fine thing — it could indirectly curtail the power of the great clans and allow more people to participate in the examinations.

But the great aristocratic families had defended this system for three hundred years. Reforming it meant pulling up their roots — it would inevitably provoke resistance and upheaval.

Li Bingsheng couldn’t help thinking of Ye Shuangtian again.

Had this woman truly been found guilty and had her household stripped for accepting bribes?

The Imperial Study fell quiet, with only the occasional sound from the charcoal brazier still burning.

Chen Baoxiang knelt silently, watching as Li Bingsheng read carefully through the memorial, then watched again as she grew truly curious and in a low voice told Hua Lingyin to go and fetch the case files from those days.

Her expression eased slightly. At last she drew out something she had been keeping in her sleeve.

“Your Majesty, your subject has had nothing to do lately and has been walking about the capital. Somehow or other, people kept stopping her and pressing things into her hands. As your subject cannot read, there was nothing to do but hand everything over to Your Majesty.”

She raised a thick ledger in both hands.

Li Bingsheng looked up, her temple beginning to throb.

What sort of spectacle was this now — she had absolutely no desire to look at it. Chen Baoxiang was always creating more work for her. This time she firmly resolved not to take the bait — not once, not at all.

Hua Lingyin stepped forward and accepted it, flipped through a couple of pages, then raised her eyebrows. “Your Majesty?”

“My ears have gone blind.”

“No — Your Majesty, please just take one look.”

“My eyes have gone deaf too.”

Hua Lingyin was caught between laughter and helplessness. She forced the ledger open to a few conspicuous names and presented it insistently.

Li Bingsheng was compelled to take one look — her face crinkled into a knot.

But once she made out what was written there, she composed herself, took it, and flipped through it rapidly.

It turned out to be a ledger of bribes — recording over two hundred individuals, their official ranks varying from high to low, all implicated in bribery amounts of over a thousand taels each. Names, home registrations, whether complaints had been filed, and where the suppressed complaint documents were stored — all laid out in neat and orderly fashion.

Li Bingsheng snapped it shut with a sharp sound, feigning anger: “Chen Baoxiang, you truly have boundless audacity. Offending people isn’t enough — you must push them all the way to the brink of ruin. Aren’t you afraid they’ll be driven to desperation and drag you down with them?”

Chen Baoxiang blinked with an innocent air. “Oh? Is this thing very formidable?”

Formidable didn’t even begin to cover it — this was precisely the blade every ruler dreamed of possessing.

How does a ruler govern those beneath them? By holding the power of life and death over their subjects, of course — but sometimes even emperors were constrained by the rules and could not act purely as they wished.

With this ledger, everything changed.

To execute a political enemy — that would inevitably invite gossip. But to execute a corrupt official? Not a soul in court could say a word against it, and word spreading among the common people would have them applauding with delight.

Li Bingsheng felt a soaring elation inside.

But even as her elation soared, a sudden chill ran down her spine.

Beside her lay the case files of the Ye family, just presented — not yet opened.

High upon the imperial throne, she felt as though her own shadow were overlapping with the shadow of her Imperial Father from years past.

The same imposing dragon robes. The same art of governing those below.

Li Bingsheng stared with a drained face at the knotted cord on the case file, and realized she seemed to know what was written inside without opening it at all.

“Chen Baoxiang!” She shot to her feet, genuinely furious. “You are reckless and presumptuous and have repeatedly transgressed against your sovereign. I am fining you one full year’s salary — and until further summons, you are prohibited from entering the palace!”

Chen Baoxiang was not in the least surprised.

She simply took one long, steady look at the figure seated above, then folded her hands together and bowed slowly all the way to the ground: “I gratefully receive Your Majesty’s grace.”

No one could challenge imperial authority and still walk away unscathed — Chen Baoxiang thought His Majesty had already been remarkably merciful to her; not even a flogging had been ordered.

She lowered her gaze and withdrew, walking slowly out along the palace corridor.

“How could what befell the Ye family have been on account of bribery — Ye Shuangtian was incorruptible her entire life, never even purchasing a decent house, forcing Qiongxin to walk half an hour to the academy every time she went.” Ji Qiurang’s voice sounded in her mind.

“The charges against her family were handed down all at once. The evidence wasn’t found by searching their home — it was simply brought forth and presented in court.”

“Because it was a charge of corruption, Ye Shuangtian was beaten and pelted with objects by the common people even as she rode in the prison cart.”

“Many people knew clearly that she had been wronged — but what good did knowing do? The imperial will was thus.”

Indeed — if the imperial will had not been thus, how could Gu Changyu have convicted Ye Shuangtian?

Yet it was precisely because the imperial will had been thus that she wanted to ask the present sovereign a question.

Was she going to walk the same path as her predecessor?

The things she had spoken of wanting — could they be obtained by following the road her predecessor had already walked?