Cui Jinzhi followed the Crown Prince back to the Eastern Palace. Several close allies among the officials came along as well.
Everyone had been lectured into submission by the Emperor. They sat scattered throughout the palace hall, heads bowed, not a word among them.
The Crown Prince sat at the head, anxious and flustered. “All of you, say something — what are we to do next?”
And so the hall erupted in a clamor of voices, each person speaking over the others.
The Emperor had acted with swift decisiveness, his stance unyielding. Even the once-favored Princess Pingyang had been roundly scolded and penalized. If even the princess had come to this end — anyone else who dared to oppose the Emperor’s will now could only expect an even worse outcome.
But were they simply to surrender all their grain? In that case, the credit for disaster relief would not fall to any of them — it would not fall to the Crown Prince — it would be no more than making an effort on behalf of the Ministry of Revenue, on behalf of the Second Prince.
Then someone said: “What does it matter that the Emperor scolded Princess Pingyang? The princess holds no official post at court. If we all hold firm and refuse to surrender grain, I’d like to see whether the Emperor can strip all of us of our positions.”
The speaker was the eldest grandson of Grand Censor Xiao Jiang, currently serving as Censorate Vice Censor at the fifth rank. He had always been of an arrogant temper.
And not only he — there were few among the great clan sons at court who were not arrogant. They bowed before the Emperor in audience and stood with bent backs — that was called showing reverence for the Emperor. But when it truly came to a test of wills, they might not bend at all.
Emperors came and went upon the dragon throne — all manner of surnames taking their turn — yet the five great clans and ten great families had only ever been these few. Any one of them, when tracing their ancestry, had forebears far more illustrious than those of the current dynasty.
Their faces had carried glory for hundreds of years, and they refused to be put at a disadvantage in great matters or small.
It was Cui Jinzhi who spoke out against the group: “In my view, however much grain the Ministry of Revenue requests to requisition — that is how much we surrender. What is the point of holding firm against His Majesty now? Setting other matters aside — on my end, the Yongtong Canal project is nearly complete. Even if none of you surrender grain, the Ministry of Revenue could fill the canal’s needs with the eighty thousand shi alone taken from Pingyang’s estate. I have no justification to delay the project deadline.”
“Once the canal is complete, grain from the south will come flooding in by the tens and hundreds of thousands of shi. Grain will no longer be a stranglehold on the Ministry of Revenue — and by then, even if you wished to surrender grain, the Ministry of Revenue would not want it. Far better to take advantage of the Emperor’s present anger and quickly hand the grain over, so that His Majesty may ease his mind.”
The eldest grandson of the Xiao family frowned upon hearing this. “But—”
“No ‘buts.'”
Cui Jinzhi fixed him with a stare. “I’ve laid out every consideration clearly. There’s no point in digging in our heels against the Emperor over something like this.”
“The crucial point is not the Ministry of Revenue. The crucial point is clearly Shen Xiao. He gained renown by this business over grain, and has entered the Chancellery. Going forward, who knows how many more men of humble birth will be entering the court and crowding us out. That is where we ought to keep our eyes.”
Having said his piece, Cui Jinzhi made a cupped-hands bow to the Crown Prince and departed.
He walked several steps, then stopped in the corridor, gazing out through the eaves at what lay beyond.
The sky had only just grown dark — and yet it was already as murky and grey as the dead of night.
Rain was coming.
The great drought in Guanzhong had lasted half a year. The Crown Prince and the Second Prince had each put forward schemes, each hoping to put the other in a difficult position. Yet while the snipe and the clam struggled against one another, it was Shen Xiao — the fisherman — who had ended up reaping the benefit unexpectedly.
Cui Jinzhi’s gaze turned cold.
The remaining great clan families at court had never been through great trials. But his Cui family had come within a hair’s breadth of being utterly destroyed by Emperor Zhengyuan.
Cui Jinzhi understood better than anyone how ruthless Emperor Zhengyuan’s methods could be — and precisely because of that, he held the imperial authority in both greater awe and greater hatred.
The Emperor wanted to sweep every great clan from the court and make way for men of humble birth? Cui Jinzhi let out a cold laugh. Don’t even think about it.
Cui Jinzhi made his way out of the imperial city. Cui Lin came up leading his horse. “Master, someone has just arrived from the Yongtong Canal — the Ministry of Revenue has dispatched a shipment of grain there.”
Cui Jinzhi gave a nod and swung himself into the saddle.
He hesitated for a moment. By all accounts, he ought to ride straight down the Zhuque Avenue out of the city and head directly to the Yongtong Canal.
Shen Xiao had seized so much grain for the Ministry of Revenue — the Ministry now had ample supply — yet the Yongtong Canal still was not yet complete. These next few days, they needed to press hard and finish the canal as quickly as possible. This was a tangible accomplishment; the Emperor always favored men who delivered tangible results.
With the Yongtong Canal as a political achievement to his name, the Crown Prince would at least be able to regain a little face before the Emperor.
But…
Cui Jinzhi gripped the reins tightly. At this moment, he simply had no desire to go there at all.
Last night blocking the grain seizure, this morning the confrontation in the hall, one incident piling upon another, one exchange pressing upon the next, one day after another — he had not even a moment to catch his breath. Affairs of the court descended like the night sky, weighed down so heavily as to leave him unable to draw a single breath.
He only felt exhausted. He wanted to go back and see Pingyang.
Cui Jinzhi turned his horse’s head east, toward the Thirteenth Prince’s Ward.
Cui Lin quickly rode to catch up. “Master, we’re not going to the Yongtong Canal?”
No one knew better than Cui Lin just how relentlessly Cui Jinzhi pushed himself. Three months supervising the Yongtong Canal project — not a single major or minor matter delegated to anyone else. Once, he had been a young man of privilege who would not sleep without a high, soft bed; now he endured like an ascetic monk on the work site.
Three months of it, and the sun had stripped away several layers of his skin.
And now, suddenly, he was resting?
Cui Jinzhi only said: “Pingyang suffered greatly today. I’ll go home first and look in on her.”
He rode the full distance, and by the time he dismounted, the sky had gone completely dark. He entered the residence and turned east through the inner courtyard, making his way to Li Shu’s main chamber.
Hong Luo and another maidservant were keeping watch at the door, speaking quietly to one another in hushed, murmured fragments. The lanterns in the corridor were lit at every other interval, casting the night in a dim and gauzy luminescence.
Hong Luo saw Cui Jinzhi come and stood up at once.
The two masters of the residence had always kept to their own sides, rarely crossing paths — and when they did meet, it was in the reception hall to discuss matters. It was almost unheard of for anyone to visit the bedchamber.
Cui Jinzhi had not come to the princess’s inner courtyard in so long that Hong Luo found him almost a stranger, and stared at him with eyes that carried a faint air of guarding against an intruder.
Hong Luo said: “Prince Consort, Her Highness has retired for the night. You…”
But Cui Jinzhi said: “I won’t disturb her. I only want to go in and look in on her.”
Hong Luo hesitated.
Her Highness had given no explicit instruction — but Hong Luo was a handmaiden; she was attentive and perceptive by nature. Of late, Her Highness had grown cold toward the Prince Consort.
If the Prince Consort were to enter Her Highness’s bedchamber uninvited… she feared Her Highness would be displeased upon waking.
Cui Jinzhi saw Hong Luo hesitate and stand still, and immediately his brow turned cold. “What — do a husband and wife need a servant’s permission to meet?”
Hong Luo hastily shook her head. “No, no — it is only that… perhaps the Prince Consort might wait a moment, and this servant will go within and wake Her Highness. When Her Highness has made herself presentable, she may call upon the Prince Consort then.”
But Cui Jinzhi paid no heed. He gave Hong Luo a push and went in on his own, pushing the door open himself.
Hong Luo rushed anxiously after him, terrified he might do something untoward.
Cui Jinzhi saw that Hong Luo was about to speak and with one sweep of his phoenix eyes, silenced her before she could utter a word.
He was the kind of man whose single glance could put the Crown Prince in his place — Hong Luo was after all a servant and did not dare to stand firm against her master. She could only fall silent.
Cui Jinzhi waved his hand impatiently, signaling Hong Luo to withdraw.
Hong Luo watched Cui Jinzhi push aside the bed curtain and enter the inner chamber. She could not leave — Her Highness was sound asleep, and if the Prince Consort were to do something, she must be ready to rush in at once to protect Her Highness.
And so Hong Luo inched her way into the outer room, moved slowly to light a lamp, and slowly poured and set out tea, looking every bit as occupied — while in truth keeping one ear cocked toward the inner room, listening for any sound.
Should anything happen, she would charge in immediately to protect the princess.
Cui Jinzhi was not deaf — he naturally heard Hong Luo in the outer room. He could not be bothered to drive her away again.
He only sighed inwardly: even Li Shu’s servants now treated him with such cool distance.
He pulled back the hem of his robe and sat on the edge of Li Shu’s bed.
Li Shu liked to sleep on a very soft bed. The moment he sat, the whole surface seemed to sink beneath him, and the motion was enough to cause a stir.
Li Shu furrowed her brow faintly, as though she had registered something. But she was deeply asleep and in the end did not wake.
The lanterns in the corridor cast shifting, indistinct shadows through the carved lattice windows, dimly illuminating the interior of the room. Li Shu slept without drawing the bed curtains — she found that stifling.
The glow of the lanterns was a dusky amber, falling softly on her thin coverlet, and on her hand peeking out from beneath it.
And so it made her hand — which was usually white as jade and cold as ice — seem to carry a trace of warmth.
Cui Jinzhi slowly reached out and enclosed her palm in his.
Cui Jinzhi had entered the palace as a companion to the imperial sons at fifteen — the age of a boy’s most carefree and unruly years. He was also the most pampered among all his brothers, both legitimate and otherwise, raised to be headstrong and wild, with a temperament that chafed most at rules and restraint.
Serving as a companion to a prince was tedious. He could not go out of the palace to amuse himself; all the classics the Imperial Tutor taught in the study he could recite backwards in his sleep, and he had no desire to attend lessons. He seized every opportunity to flee the study hall, spending entire days wandering idly through the palace.
One time, flicking his sleeves and drifting aimlessly, he had just burrowed into a pile of decorative garden rocks in the imperial garden and was preparing to lie down for a nap when he stumbled upon a small girl.
Her clothing did not look like that of a palace maid — yet too threadbare and plain to suggest a princess either. There was an awkward ambiguity about her that fit neither.
When she heard his footsteps, she lifted her eyes. She had a pair of clear, piercing eyes that carried something sharp — yet more than that, a vast and empty loneliness.
Cui Jinzhi, already bored enough in the palace to fold paper flowers out of sheer idleness, naturally could not let a small girl go and mind his own business.
He drew upon his repertoire of a wandering rascal who coaxed and teased every creature he encountered: “Hey — what are you squatting here for?”
She fixed a stare on him — as though he were her savior — and said: “I can’t find the way back.”
Her voice carried the ghost of a sob, yet was swallowed back down with determination.
And so Cui Jinzhi led her out from among the garden rocks and brought her up to a high pavilion, pointing at the spot where she had just been crouching. “See there? You were right there. One more left turn and then a right, and you’d have made it out on your own.”
She gave a nod. She had very little to say.
Cui Jinzhi asked, “Which palace are you from?”
She hesitated a moment, then pointed to the northeast. “The Hall of Gazing Clouds.”
Cui Jinzhi glanced in that direction. He knew that part of the palace was remote and desolate — the sort of place reserved for neglected consorts who had fallen out of favor. He understood at once: she was likely a princess of illegitimate birth, and a neglected one at that.
No wonder she was dressed so plainly.
No wonder he had been in the palace all this time and had never once laid eyes on her.
Cui Jinzhi had been bored out of his mind and was desperate for something to do, so he offered himself readily: “Do you know the way back? Shall I walk you?”
She tilted her head and looked up at him. Whether from lack of food or lack of sunlight in that cold and deserted hall, she was thin and small all over.
She said nothing — only gave a nod.
As it turned out, the Hall of Gazing Clouds was indeed a remote and out-of-the-way place, and even Cui Jinzhi, good as he was at finding his bearings, was thrown off by one winding passage here and one narrow squeeze there. He had said he would walk her back — but in the end it was she who led him in.
They had only just stepped over the threshold when an old palace woman came rushing out in a flurry, grabbed hold of her, and said urgently: “Oh, Your Highness, where did you run off to? I told you not to wander — if you bump into some highborn person, we’ll all be in trouble!”
She went on scolding for a while, and then caught sight of the young man standing in the doorway — lounging and unconstrained, yet radiating an aura of privilege that put even some imperial princes to shame.
The old palace woman immediately said: “My greetings to the young master.”
Whatever he was, calling him “master” was always safe enough.
The old palace woman drew the girl aside and whispered: “Which young lord is this? Have you caused trouble?”
She heard the question, cast a glance over Cui Jinzhi with those clear eyes of hers, and replied calmly: “This is the third young lord of the Cui family — recently entered the palace as a companion to the Seventh Prince.”
A Cui family young lord? The Cui family patriarch wielded great influence at court — why had his son come wandering into this forsaken part of the palace?
The old palace woman hurriedly bowed and greeted him properly.
But Cui Jinzhi’s brow lifted.
He hadn’t introduced himself — and yet this girl, who had barely spoken two words the whole time, had seen straight through to his identity.
And he still didn’t know who she was.
Cui Jinzhi was the sharpest mind among all the sons of the Cui family — legitimate and otherwise — and even held his own above the imperial princes in his studies when he entered the palace as a companion. He had never before felt the sensation of being outpaced by another.
He was on the point of asking who exactly she was when the old palace woman said: “This is no place for a young lord to visit. This servant will see you out.”
And with that, she was already guiding him toward the exit.
The question died unasked in Cui Jinzhi’s throat.
Before he left, he took one last look at the Hall of Gazing Clouds.
Palace halls were all spacious and grand — in that respect there was not much difference between them. But the distance between one that was favored and one that was not lay mostly in the liveliness within.
Moss grew in the cracks between the green bricks; the quiet all around was nothing but the quiet of loneliness. The lacquer on the pillars was worn and faded; in the courtyard, apart from one old tree, a stone table, and two stone stools beneath it, there was no other ornament at all.
No wonder her eyes seemed so vast and empty with loneliness. The place she lived in was just as vast and empty.
Cui Jinzhi of the Chanle Ward had gambled away thousands of gold pieces; Cui Jinzhi of the marketplace had staked fortunes in sweeping wagers; Cui Jinzhi of the plains beyond the capital had ridden his horse at a gallop; Cui Jinzhi of the Chang’an roads had called out to friends as he passed. The young Cui Jinzhi had been high-spirited and full of life, and had done every worthwhile thing under heaven.
He had never known that within this magnificent, gilded palace, someone could be living in such… loneliness.
He followed the old palace woman out, and when he cast one last glance back, he saw her standing in the doorway, watching him without looking away. As though he were the brilliant, luminous world beyond the palace gates — and as he turned to leave, he would consign her alone to an endless, boundless emptiness.
Cui Jinzhi carried that faint and inexplicable thought with him as he slowly walked away.
This was their first meeting, and from it would grow a bond without beginning or end.