“Your Highness — a moment, please!”
The sound of hurried footsteps rose from behind her. Without turning around, Li Shu could already picture Shen Xiao’s frantic expression.
Prospects, power, ambition, money — without his official position, everything would be gone. How could he not be frantic?
Li Shu stopped walking but did not turn to face him, her tone utterly indifferent. “Is there something further Shen Daren wishes to say?”
Go ahead then — kneel and kowtow and beg for forgiveness. Say that your senses had been clouded by greed, that you should never have so recklessly censured the Princess. And while you’re at it, give up the name of whoever directed you from behind.
If you do that… perhaps I can forgive you, and preserve the color of that official robe of yours.
The serpent strikes at its vital point: a man like Shen Xiao, who had once been willing to demean himself as a male companion in order to secure a post, could not possibly stand by and watch his official career be destroyed.
Silence lingered behind her for a long moment, broken only by the faint rustle of fabric, followed by the sound of knees meeting the carpet.
Li Shu curved her lips in a sardonic smile, then slowly turned around and looked down at him from above.
“Regarding this memorial of censure, your subordinate still has something to say.”
Li Shu walked forward a step or two, stopping in front of Shen Xiao, and gently pressed the tip of her foot down onto the hem of his deep blue official robe.
“You’re showing a bit of sense, after all. Speak, then — who directed you to write this memorial?”
Shen Xiao was kneeling, yet his spine was perfectly straight. He said, word by measured word: “Your Highness, the Princess’s reputation is widespread. This memorial was indeed written at someone’s direction and is aimed squarely at you.”
Li Shu pressed further. “Who?”
The Second Imperial Prince, seeking to strike at her in order to strike at the Crown Prince’s influence? Or some other prince also wishing to claim a share of the succession struggle?
Li Shu rapidly ran through the tangle of relationships great and small in the court, and still could not think of who might be so audaciously bold.
She had always been very cautious in the face of things she could not read. The deeper the night, the more easily danger lurked.
What was the deeper meaning behind this? Why had Shen Xiao been chosen to censure her? Did the one behind this know that she had once summoned Shen Xiao as a male companion? But that incident had taken place in Wuxing, and very few people knew of it — surely no one in her inner circle had betrayed her? Who had let the information slip?
Li Shu’s mind raced through every possibility, while Shen Xiao slowly opened his mouth —
“To reply to Your Highness: the one who directed your subordinate to censure Your Highness is no other person than all the people of the Guanzhong region affected by the drought!”
…
The…people of Guanzhong?
Li Shu stood frozen.
Even with a mind as sharp and quick as Li Shu’s, at this moment she could not make any sense of what Shen Xiao had said. She stood there in a daze for quite some time, becoming bewildered for the first time by another person.
Seeing Li Shu’s reaction, a faint smile appeared on Shen Xiao’s face — but vanished in an instant.
Li Shu collected herself and said coldly, “What does Shen Daren mean by this? I confess I do not understand. In this vast court, I do not know which official goes by the name ‘people of Guanzhong.'”
Shen Xiao said, “Your Highness is jesting.”
“I am not jesting!”
“Ah — then it means Your Highness has spent too long in the heights of power and knows only the grandeur of the court above, without knowing the suffering of the common people below.”
“Shen Xiao, just what do you mean?”
“Your subordinate means nothing beyond the plain truth. Your Highness summoned your subordinate today not for the sake of renewing old acquaintance, but to find out why your subordinate censured you. A common-born eighth-rank official — why would he, on only his second day in office, recklessly censure the most distinguished princess in all the realm? If there were no one directing him, how would your subordinate dare to do such a thing?”
Shen Xiao was still kneeling, yet the lamplight cast his shadow towering and immense.
“But no one directed your subordinate. In this whole court, which of the great and powerful would spare a glance for someone of common birth like me? Your subordinate is here to censure Your Highness on behalf of the people of Guanzhong who have suffered under the drought!”
“Since last winter, not a single snowflake has fallen across Guanzhong, not a single drop of rain. The great drought has already persisted for half a year and shows every sign of continuing. Grain prices in the markets have been rising without stop. How many people of Guanzhong have suffered hunger and starvation? Go to Tongguan Pass and look — wave upon wave of refugees has already fled in search of food and survival! Yet in the back courtyards of the nobility and aristocracy, grain is piled up beyond counting.
“Your Highness is the most favored princess of His Majesty the Emperor. Your food stipend alone amounts to ten thousand bushels. Yet have you given away so much as a single grain of rice for disaster relief?”
“Heaven and earth stand witness. Shen Xiao censures Your Highness today not out of private grievance, but out of the righteous indignation of the common people of Guanzhong!”
Shen Xiao’s deep-set eyes fixed on Li Shu, and beneath his impassioned and righteous words, Li Shu suddenly felt…a flush of shame. In all her years of maneuvering through the world of power and strategy, she had never once felt shame — yet now, confronting this man with his air of genuine moral conviction, she felt it for the first time.
Li Shu turned aside, coughing softly with a trace of awkwardness. “Shen Daren truly is…naive.” She had originally meant to say “pedantic,” then thought better of the word.
Was it not naive — full of passionate resolve to do something real for the common people, heedless of whether he had the power to do so, heedless of the consequences. Yet somehow it was rather…endearingly foolish. Li Shu found herself with a degree of respect for him.
But respect was one thing, and the great drought of Guanzhong together with the grain shortage was no longer a matter that disaster relief alone could solve. That very morning she had put forward the plan of “substituting grain for coin,” precisely to force the Second Imperial Prince into a corner and let the Crown Prince sit secure in the Eastern Palace. How could she possibly let Shen Xiao’s few impassioned, righteous words undo her own designs?
Li Shu no longer looked at Shen Xiao and walked straight toward the door.
She paused at the threshold, and in the end, out of some vestige of good will, she offered one final word of advice: “Shen Daren — in consideration of the humiliation I once imposed upon you in years past, this matter of the censure, I shall let pass without pursuing it further.”
“I would offer you one more word of counsel: you are a man of common birth who managed to press his way into the court — that alone was ten thousand times more difficult than it should have been. In the future, do not do such foolish things again. The Censorate is a fine place. Keep a low profile, do your work well, and one day your perseverance will have its reward.”
The gold-embroidered peony train slowly disappeared down the staircase, and in its wake, every serving girl and guard followed Li Shu out.
Shen Xiao rose slowly to his feet, but made no move to leave. Instead, he turned and walked to the window. Standing there, he watched as Princess Pingyang boarded her carriage below, the vehicle gradually moving forward until it vanished into the boundless night of Chang’an.
Shen Xiao stood at the window and took in the full brilliance of Chang’an spread before him — a city blazing with light even at night, every inch of it saturated with the scent of money and power.
The blazing lights reflected in the dark depths of his eyes, and in an instant it seemed as though a fierce flame erupted within — a hunger born of ambition.
Shen Xiao smiled faintly, the expression carrying a meaning that defied easy reading.
He withdrew his gaze, turned, and left the private room. His official boots came down on a white jade chess piece, the sound dull and heavy, as though crushing over a ground littered with corpses.
*
The carriage came to a slow halt at the gate of Princess Pingyang’s mansion. Hong Luo helped Li Shu down.
Li Shu was dazzled by the blazing lights at the mansion gate and furrowed her brow. “What is all this — are we welcoming someone?”
It was no wonder she was surprised. The mansion had few residents — only Li Shu and Cui Jinzhi as proper masters of the house. Add to this that Li Shu disliked commotion, and ordinarily after dark the gate would only have a few sheep-horn lanterns for light. It had never been illuminated like this before.
The gatekeeper hurried over to receive her. “Your Highness, the Prince Consort arranged this. Hearing that you had gone out this evening and not knowing when you might return, the Prince Consort feared you might come home late and had the candles lit specially to light your path.”
Li Shu furrowed her brow. When had Cui Jinzhi ever shown such concern for her? Unusual gestures with no apparent cause — could it be that the Crown Prince wanted her to do something again?
“Where is Cui Jinzhi?” Li Shu asked.
“Your Highness, in the reception hall in the east wing.”
As she spoke, Li Shu had already stepped through the gate. Her voice was cool, and she called back without turning her head: “Take down all those extra lanterns. Leave just two sheep-horn lanterns as usual.”
The gatekeeper hastened to comply, muttering inwardly: the Prince Consort’s gesture had been entirely well-meaning — why wouldn’t the Princess accept it?
In the reception hall, Cui Jinzhi had already been waiting for half an hour. A cup of tea had turned from yellow to white under his patient nursing, until by now it was completely tasteless — he picked it up, held it to his lips, found he had no desire to drink it, and slowly set it back down. Just then he heard footsteps at the reception hall entrance, and Li Shu’s figure appeared in the doorway.
Cui Jinzhi couldn’t help but let a faint smile show — but when he saw clearly how Li Shu was dressed, his smile suddenly froze. She was wearing a magnificent robe today, covered all over in gold-embroidered peonies. Such splendid formal attire — for whom had she worn it…
Li Shu had been dealing with Shen Xiao the entire evening and was somewhat wearied. She sat down across the small table from Cui Jinzhi and came straight to the point. “What business does the Crown Prince have this time?”
For Cui Jinzhi to seek her out on his own initiative — it had to be on the Crown Prince’s behalf.
But Cui Jinzhi said, “The Crown Prince has no instructions.” After a pause, he added, “Is it that we have nothing to talk about between us beyond the Crown Prince?”
His manner showed a touch of grievance.
Li Shu furrowed her brow, not knowing what had gotten into Cui Jinzhi tonight. She had just spent the whole evening with Shen Xiao, and that absurd “people of Guanzhong” business had left her head somewhat muddled. She had no patience at all now for going around in circles with Cui Jinzhi.
Li Shu cut straight to mockery. “Between the two of us, if it isn’t the Crown Prince, then it’s Qing Luo. Has something happened with that wretched maidservant?”
The smile that had still been on Cui Jinzhi’s face went cold.
Seeing this, Li Shu curved her lips in a sardonic smile. “Pregnant? Given birth? Or fallen gravely ill? Been laid to rest?” Whatever was most cutting to say, she chose it — she had no intention of sparing Cui Jinzhi’s dignity.
Dignity? Between the two of them, even the substance beneath the surface had long since rotted through.
Cui Jinzhi’s expression grew colder and colder.
Every time — it was always like this. Every time he tried to have a proper conversation with Li Shu, she would become like a hedgehog, bristling all over, so that even approaching her meant being stabbed until one bled.
Cui Jinzhi was silent for a long moment, then finally absorbed Li Shu’s taunting and said, “It has nothing to do with the Crown Prince, and nothing to do with…Qing Luo. I heard you were censured today, so I came to ask.”
He paused, then added, “By the new top examination graduate, Shen Xiao.”
Li Shu made an indifferent sound. “Him.”
Cui Jinzhi stared at Li Shu’s face as though trying to read every last fraction of her emotion. He pressed immediately: “This evening you went to see him?”
Li Shu gave another indifferent nod. “Yes.”
The scene just now rose unbidden in her mind: the gilded splendor of Xiankelai, Shen Xiao in his deep blue official robe — poor in means yet upright in bearing, his spine ramrod straight, like a stalk of cold green bamboo.
Rather pleasing to the eye. Li Shu thought this to herself.
Cui Jinzhi saw that Li Shu’s attention had wandered and pressed further. “And the outcome?”
Li Shu was puzzled. “What outcome?”
“A mere eighth-rank official who dares to censure you on his very first day in office — if you don’t give him a lesson, won’t everyone come to think you’re easy to push around?”
Li Shu let out a snort. “Teach him a lesson? Ever since you entered the Ministry of War, the way you talk has gotten rougher and rougher. What kind of lesson — beat him up?” She waved her hand dismissively. “There’s no need. He’s nothing more than a stubborn, pedantic man — he can’t stir up any real trouble. Let him censure and be done with it. If a single eighth-rank official could draw blood from me, I might as well stop setting foot in this court.”
She rubbed her temples again. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave.”
Li Shu rose from her chair and headed for the door. Her train dragged along the ground, as though a full carpet of peonies bloomed with every step, the gold thread glittering brilliantly in the candlelight.
In truth, Li Shu had no particular love for extravagant dress. Layer upon layer of embroidery only made a garment heavier, and wearing it was exhausting. At home she always preferred a light cotton weave from Songjiang — it was the finest and most comfortable thing against the skin.
Yet tonight she had gone to see Shen Xiao wearing this — but why should she have dressed so magnificently and formally for a mere eighth-rank official?
The gold thread on the gown dazzled Cui Jinzhi’s eyes. He rose, his voice cooling by a degree. “I recall that toward your political enemies you have never been one to show mercy,” he said.
He paused, then deliberately added, “Regardless of whether they hold high office or low.”
Words spoken with intent, and heard with full understanding.
Li Shu stopped in her tracks. She stood in the doorway of the reception hall and turned back. In the blazing light of the candles stood the man she had known for ten years and been married to for five.
The boundless night spread between them, like an abyss that could never be crossed.
Li Shu curved her lips in a smile. “But toward a lover…I have always been gentle.”