After a long moment, Cui Jinzhi released Prefect Gao’s collar, sending him stumbling backward.
Even if he could make himself into a blade, he could not cut through layer upon layer of entangled interests. All the more so since he had long since been enmeshed in that net himself, with no way to move.
Court was a thick, murky place. His father had known his temperament was not suited to constraint and had never wanted him to enter official life. Yet by some twist of fate he had ended up in this world he had once despised most, and had made it his own company.
Cui Jinzhi closed his eyes. His voice came out cold and clipped: “Leave not a single coin in your household — take out everything and use it for disaster relief. The Luofu treasury as well — drain it entirely. Settle those three counties of displaced people properly! Let a single one become a wanderer, or let a single extra copper remain in your house, and I will throw you into the Yellow River.”
Prefect Gao bowed his head, yet dared to probe: “Is there… no need to file a memorial with His Majesty? After all, we will need to draw on the treasury.”
Prefects did hold emergency discretionary powers for disaster relief, but drawing upon the full treasury still required reporting to the Emperor. Otherwise, when the Ministry of Revenue audited the accounts at year’s end, a discrepancy would be a serious matter.
In asking this question, Prefect Gao had no real intention of filing a memorial and courting his own death by telling the Emperor. He simply wanted to confirm Cui Jinzhi’s explicit stance.
Cui Jinzhi’s voice drifted away over the surging current of the Yellow River: “If you want to drag the Eastern Palace down with you, file a memorial first thing tomorrow requesting relief funds.”
He turned around, eyes red with sleeplessness staring hard at Prefect Gao. But the corner of his lips curved up into the faintest smile, which only made him look all the more pitiless. “Stop your games with me — I give the orders, and you follow them.”
Cui Jinzhi seized Prefect Gao by the collar. “If it were not for the Crown Prince’s sake, do you think that miserable neck of yours matters one jot to me?”
Prefect Gao’s heart seized.
The problem of the Yellow River’s flooding had long plagued Great Ye. Each time it flooded, displaced people spread across the land, and with enough displaced people civil unrest was quick to follow. Looking across the chronicles of earlier dynasties, it was precisely the failure to address the Yellow River’s displaced people that had eventually bred rebellion and brought those dynasties to ruin.
For that reason, every ruler of Great Ye had taken the Yellow River extremely seriously. Any disaster was expected to be reported to the Emperor without delay.
Yet Cui Jinzhi, in order to conceal the matter from the Emperor and protect the Eastern Palace, had resolved to suppress the disaster entirely.
Three counties of disaster relief was not especially difficult — the Luofu treasury could fully bear the cost. As long as the situation was stabilized, by the time the Ministry of Revenue settled accounts at year’s end he would find a way to balance Luofu’s books. Then the matter would be finished.
He was doing everything in his power to provide relief, and everything in his power to repair the embankments. He was not ignoring the displaced people — what he had omitted was only the single step of reporting to the Emperor.
But that — that was the crime of deceiving the sovereign. If the Emperor were to discover it…
Cui Jinzhi clenched his fists and refused to entertain that possibility. He continued issuing orders: “Conscript laborers to repair the embankments, then draw on the treasury to distribute relief to the three affected counties and send people to pacify the displaced.”
“Furthermore — send word to the Crown Prince. There is one thing that must be confirmed: of all the prefects along the Yellow River embankments, apart from this worthless drunkard Gao, who else is in his camp!”
The Crown Prince had spent years cultivating loyalty and his followers had not stinted in their offerings. Surely this man surnamed Gao was not the only parasite?
When visible problems surfaced, what lay hidden beneath was usually already riddled with rot beyond counting.
This Prefect Gao could not be the only fool in the lot. Cui Jinzhi was afraid that other prefectures along the river were riddled with the same rot, only not yet pushed to the point of collapse.
He had to seal every possible breach before the Yellow River gave way on a wide scale.
Cui Jinzhi was buried to his neck in work. While his attention was elsewhere, a swift horse had already set out overnight from the Henan Circuit, riding hard toward Chang’an.
*
Xiankelai.
Shen Xiao pushed open the door to the private room and found Li Shu already standing at the window, her back to him.
At the sound of Shen Xiao entering, Li Shu turned at once. Her eyes were bright and alive. She crossed to him in a few quick steps. “Shen Xiao — has the Secretariat received any memorial from the Luofu Prefect recently?”
Shen Xiao shook his head.
At that, Li Shu gave a mocking smile.
She had already worked out what Cui Jinzhi was doing.
That morning she had received an intelligence report: three counties in Luofu had been flooded; Cui Jinzhi had ridden overnight to Luofu. To protect the Eastern Palace, he would certainly conceal the disaster from the Emperor and try to deal with the whole affair quietly.
He wanted to bury it? Li Shu would make certain he couldn’t.
Shen Xiao looked at Li Shu’s expression, turned it over in his mind, and deduced: “The Yellow River has breached its banks at Luofu?”
Li Shu’s eyes flashed with admiration. “Senior Official Shen is very sharp.”
She handed Shen Xiao a note. The words “Three counties in Luofu flooded” stood out in stark relief.
Shen Xiao’s eyes lit up at once. Li Shu saw it and knew he had come to the same conclusion she had. “Senior Official Shen — act when the moment is right. That moment has come.”
“The Crown Prince chose his officials poorly and brought about the flooding in Luofu, then dispatched Cui Jinzhi to deceive the sovereign and conceal the disaster. If we bring this before Father, the Crown Prince will be utterly flayed!”
Li Shu was very agitated. It had never occurred to her that the chance to bring down the Crown Prince would come this quickly. This was practically Heaven bestowing its perfect timing, favorable terrain, and the support of the people all at once.
She could hardly wait to march straight into the palace and tell Father everything this instant!
Shen Xiao read Li Shu’s agitation and reached out to take hold of her sleeve, shaking his head at her gently.
“Do not move too hastily.”
Shen Xiao was very calm. He furrowed his brow in thought, and so his words came out slowly. “The Eastern Palace has made a mistake, which is excellent timing for us — but we must not rush.”
“The three counties in Luofu were flooded several days ago. How can you be certain they intend to conceal the disaster?”
Li Shu startled. “Naturally I know Cui Jinzhi! There is nothing he would not do for the sake of securing the Eastern Palace’s position.”
At those words Shen Xiao looked at her briefly and let out a quiet “Ah.”
Years as husband and wife — of course they would know each other well.
A small sourness moved through him, but he knew this was not the time for such feelings. He pressed them down and continued: “A guess cannot be treated as established fact. Perhaps the Luofu memorial reporting the disaster is simply still on its way, delayed by the heavy rains. Or perhaps Deputy Minister Cui is busy managing the disaster relief and has not yet had time to write the memorial in all his frantic work.”
Li Shu kept shaking her head in disagreement. “How could that be? If this is exposed to Father, the Crown Prince will be utterly ruined — Cui Jinzhi will absolutely conceal the disaster!”
Shen Xiao raised a hand to cut off her words, unhurried and steady: “Don’t be in such a hurry. I’m not saying you’re wrong — in fact you are almost certainly correct. But an impeachment cannot rest on conjecture alone. To be safe, we cannot rashly go and inform the Emperor either. What if Luofu’s memorial arrives a few days from now? We would look far too eager.”
Shen Xiao was extraordinarily measured. Li Shu caught his composure like a contagion and her own mind cooled. She sat down across from him in the wide master’s chair.
Shen Xiao turned his head to look at Li Shu. The chair was broad, and she was sunk into it, watching him intently, listening with complete attention.
Shen Xiao smiled. “I estimate a rough timeframe: half a month at most, and Luofu’s disaster memorial would normally have arrived. Let us wait half a month. If it still has not come after half a month, we file the impeachment memorial against the Eastern Palace.”
“In the meantime, over this half month, we will gather evidence of the Luofu flooding, the Luofu Prefect’s corruption and dereliction, and the Luofu embankments.”
As he laid out this plan, he used the slightly familiar “we” several times in succession — as though he and Li Shu had already been as one from the very beginning. Li Shu did not notice this small difference in phrasing. Far from raising any objection, she was already nodding along.
“You are right.”
And so Shen Xiao was pleased about this small thing — the small displeasure from the last meeting in the Jinyu Pavilion, when Li Shu had kept him at arm’s length, drifted away as lightly as smoke.
There was nothing he could do. This was all the comfort he could find for himself.
Shen Xiao concluded: “Since we are going to strike, we cannot throw empty punches. Every blow must land. We must give them no chance to dodge.”
Li Shu looked at Shen Xiao and suddenly let out a small laugh.
In her presence, Shen Xiao wore two faces. One face was composed and earnest — even edging toward severe — eloquent and thorough when it came to matters of court.
The other face was slightly guileless, prone to flustered moments and flushed cheeks and helpless confusion whenever he was with her.
Li Shu suddenly thought: that second face of his — it must only ever appear in front of her.
Over there, Shen Xiao, unaware of what Li Shu was thinking, had already run through the plan in his mind with speed. The most important step was gathering evidence — but Li Shu had many informants in the shadows, so this should not be the difficult part. Once the evidence was in hand, the Eastern Palace would have no way to escape what was coming.
However —
When this matter was exposed, regardless of what happened to the others, Cui Jinzhi had gone to inspect the Yellow River and had deceived the sovereign by concealing the disaster. That was no small charge. The Emperor had a father’s love for the Crown Prince, but also the frustration of watching iron refuse to become steel — and all his pent-up fury at the Eastern Palace would be unleashed on Cui Jinzhi.
Even if the Crown Prince and the great families stood firm in shielding him, Cui Jinzhi was very likely finished at court from that point on.
Shen Xiao turned this over in his mind, then said tentatively, “Princess, regarding Deputy Minister Cui…”
His tone was carefully probing. The words were half spoken — half for the business at hand, half for his own sake.
Li Shu turned to look at him. Her eyes were entirely without feeling. “He is bound very tightly to the Eastern Palace. It is impossible for him to break free.”
Li Shu had read the probe in Shen Xiao’s question. She was silent for a moment, then said, “Shen Xiao, I am not someone who lets emotion govern reason.”
Shen Xiao turned something over in his palm and, out of nowhere, asked, “Do you still love him? Setting aside political allegiances — setting aside everything else. Purely in terms of feeling.”
Do you still love him?
Without the differences in political allegiance, without Qing Luo, without Anle, without anything else. Did she still love him?
This was the first time since the divorce that Li Shu had forced herself to look directly at her own heart.
She lowered her head, silent for a long moment. Just as Shen Xiao had concluded she would not speak, Li Shu suddenly said, “I no longer love him.”
“In so many moments of choice, Cui Jinzhi always chose to set me aside for the time being, and go choose what mattered more.”
Love was not supposed to be like that. Love was supposed to be such that no matter if the heavens fell and the earth cracked, no matter if life and death crossed in the balance, no matter what agonizing choice lay on either side — he would reach out without the slightest hesitation and, in that very first instant, choose her.
Li Shu had grown up without enough of her parents’ love. In truth, she was deeply starved of affection — and carried an obsessive, desperate longing for it that went far beyond what most people felt.
But — such a feeling, in all likelihood, existed only in storybooks.
Li Shu gave a faint, cool smile, set aside her untethered thoughts, and said, “I will have people start gathering the evidence now.”
With that she walked toward the door of the private room.
Shen Xiao turned around, watching Li Shu’s retreating figure, his gaze deep and still.