Her hand had clenched into a tight fist, the sharp tip of the finger-guard pressing against her wrist, almost enough to pierce the thin skin there. But the Crown Princess only gripped her fist tighter — the pain kept her mind clear.
She stood like that for a long moment without speaking. The small eunuch finally lost patience and asked for instruction, “This servant will go and find the Crown Prince—”
The Crown Princess’s thoughts were snapped back by those words. Her fine, round eyes fixed on the eunuch. “Do not go!”
At the speed things were moving, the Emperor had likely already summoned the Crown Prince by now. Going to find him at this point would accomplish nothing.
What about intercepting and killing Shen Xiao on the road?
The idea flashed through the Crown Princess’s mind, but she dismissed it just as quickly.
The Emperor had dispatched the Qianniu Guards to escort Shen Xiao — that meant the Emperor placed the utmost importance on Shen Xiao’s life and safety. No one was permitted to interfere. Besides, the Qianniu Guards were highly skilled fighters, and the Crown Princess had no guards at her disposal who could match them.
The finger-guard pressed harder against her wrist, driving a small indentation into her skin — as if in the next moment, a bead of crimson would seep through.
The sharper the pain, the clearer the mind.
A flash of insight — the Crown Princess’s fine, round eyes filled with a cold, hard resolve. In a voice low but brutally precise, she gave her orders: “Send a man on a swift horse out of the city to find Cui Jinzhi. Tell him that if there is upheaval in the palace…”
The tip of the finger-guard finally pierced the fragile skin on her wrist. A single bead of bright red blood welled up, but the Crown Princess was entirely unaware of it. Her face held an expression of absolute, unsparing ruthlessness. “If there is upheaval in the palace, tell him — he has soldiers in his hand. He should know what to do.”
The small eunuch and the handmaid received their orders and hurried off. The Crown Princess stood alone in the cold, empty wind for a moment; the dry northwest wind whipped against her face until it stung, yet she felt nothing at all.
After a long while, she stretched out her hand and carelessly wiped away the bead of blood on her wrist, then walked toward the banquet.
When the noble ladies at the banquet saw the Crown Princess arrive, they rushed forward warmly to greet her — but to their surprise, the Crown Princess, who was ordinarily skilled at charming everyone around her, was today exceptionally cold and unapproachable. She brushed past them all and demanded, “Where is Li Shu?”
The noble ladies were unsettled by her fierce manner, and could only answer in a confused babble: “We don’t know.”
“Princess Pingyang hasn’t been seen for quite some time.”
The Crown Princess bit down hard, and in her exasperation, almost laughed.
The monk might flee, but the temple stays put.
*
The Crown Prince had just reached the foot of the steps leading up to Taihe Hall and was about to set his foot on the first step when he heard, coming from behind him, a set of perfectly steady and unhurried footsteps.
He turned. He knew that only the Qianniu Guards — those who moved at the Emperor’s sole command — could walk with that particular step.
The Qianniu Guards ordinarily concealed themselves in the shadows, rarely showing their faces in the open. They served the Emperor in private matters, recognized only the Emperor, and answered to no one else — not the Crown Prince, not a prince of the blood, not a high official, not a member of the imperial family. They turned a blind eye to all.
When the Crown Prince saw the Qianniu Guards walking straight toward him, his heart lurched with a sudden dread — the certainty that something bad had happened while he was unaware of it.
The Qianniu Guards were sparing with words. They bowed to the Crown Prince, then said simply, “By His Majesty’s command, please accompany us, Your Highness.”
The Crown Prince hesitated. “But the banquet—”
A Qianniu Guard cut him off — already a gross breach of etiquette, yet he did so with perfect composure. “His Majesty commands it. Beyond that, we know nothing.”
Having said this, he pressed his lips together, his gaze settling on the Crown Prince in a silent, unmistakable threat.
The Crown Prince’s expression stiffened, but he understood well enough that butting heads with the Qianniu Guards was the same as butting heads with the Emperor himself. He had no idea yet what had happened; best to go along with what his father wanted.
He looked back at Taihe Hall — the splendid, glittering palace banquet that had not yet begun, and now perhaps never would.
Then he turned, and followed the Qianniu Guards in the direction of Taihe Palace.
All the way, the cold wind swept through his robes; the dry, frigid air drawn into his lungs seemed to pull away every last trace of warmth. Perhaps because of the haste, but the moment he stepped onto the stairs of Taihe Palace, the Crown Prince felt a sudden ache in his chest, as though the cold had reached his very lungs.
He paused outside the carved palace doors to catch his breath. His gaze fell downward — and his pupils contracted sharply. The color drained from his face in an instant. He looked, in the full light of day, as though he had seen a ghost.
In truth, the Crown Prince felt exactly as if he had seen a ghost.
That figure being watched over by two Qianniu Guards, yet still standing with squared shoulders and a straight back — who else could it be but Shen Xiao, who had supposedly died in service to the court?
He was lean as a blade, cleaving through the cold air as he moved, slicing straight into the Crown Prince’s eyes — as though he carried some intangible edge, one that compelled the Crown Prince to take an involuntary step back.
Shen Xiao climbed the steps. His gaunt cheeks made his face appear all the sharper and more honed; his complexion was entirely that of a man who had been ill — a deathly pallor — but his eyes burned darker and blacker for it, black to the point of brilliance, so dense and concentrated that the very intensity of them became frightening.
Shen Xiao drew near — no more than a single step from the Crown Prince — and looked at the expression on his face: a man who had seen a ghost returned from the dead. Shen Xiao said suddenly, “Your Highness, do not be afraid. I have a shadow.”
Perhaps it was from spending these past months with Li Shu and living in unusual ease, but Shen Xiao had, on this rare occasion, made something that might be called a joke — though the joke carried its own particular undertone.
The winter sunlight was cold and pale, but shining in from under the eaves, it stretched Shen Xiao’s shadow out into a long, thin line on the ground.
For the Crown Prince, it was not a ghost he feared — it was a living man.
*
The heavy carved doors of Taiji Palace opened from within without a sound. Opening and closing such weighty doors required skill — a certain inner force, such that the doors were not pushed open but rather lifted and eased apart, to achieve complete silence.
Entering the palace hall, one could hear Emperor Zhengyuan’s coughing — a sound thick with phlegm, his breathing labored and heavy, a wheezing, bellows-like rasping particular to old age.
Shen Xiao’s brow furrowed slightly. He still remembered that when he had departed from the capital, Emperor Zhengyuan’s constitution had still appeared robust and strong.
The Emperor was sitting on the luohan daybed; the Seventh Prince Li Qin stood respectfully at his side, attending to him.
Shen Xiao walked forward and, without a word, sank to his knees and performed the full ceremony of three kneels and nine prostrations.
The full ceremony took considerable time. As he performed it, Emperor Zhengyuan, the Crown Prince, and Li Qin all watched him in silence.
They watched him — clearly humble in manner, yet clearly self-possessed. All the humility was no more than surface courtesy; his spine bent, but the bones within it did not.
When Shen Xiao had completed the three kneels and nine prostrations, he did not rise, nor did he wait for Emperor Zhengyuan to speak first. He spoke on his own initiative.
“The Luo Prefecture uprising — the court has stated the cause lay in this official’s ‘Relief Through Labor’ method, and even claimed that this official embezzled relief grain, substituting rotten grain for new, thereby inciting the people to revolt. This official has died once already; life and death are seen clearly from that vantage point, to say nothing of one man’s name and reputation — none of that matters. But the displaced commoners of Luo Prefecture — for them, this official must seek justice.”
“Your Majesty knows the sequence of events: the rotten grain caused deaths; the laborers, seized with collective outrage, began to revolt and burned the prefecture offices, looting the treasury. Knowing they had committed the capital crime of insurrection, they decided there was nothing left to lose and began a full uprising. The displaced people swept through Luo Prefecture, spilling even beyond the borders of Henan Circuit.”
“One could say that everything began with the rotten grain. Yet this official swears on his life: the relief grain for the Relief Through Labor program was all grain issued by the court — not a single grain was adulterated. The reason people died was entirely unrelated to new grain or rotten grain. Rather…”
Shen Xiao paused. “Someone had poisoned it.”
He was kneeling, so he had no choice but to tilt his head back to look up at the Crown Prince standing above him. His gaze was as keen as a blade. The Crown Prince was stared at until dread rose to its peak and suddenly exploded into furious resistance: “That is nothing but empty talk! Where is your evidence? Just because you have come back from the dead, do you think everything you say is true?”
Yet Shen Xiao seemed to have been waiting for exactly this question. He gave a perfectly calm, almost imperceptible smile. “If I had no evidence, Your Official would have concealed his name and disappeared long ago, living only to preserve his life.”
His gaze moved from the Crown Prince to Emperor Zhengyuan, who sat on the luohan daybed and had not yet spoken.
“The Qianniu Guards have also brought another person into the palace. Who sent him to Luo Prefecture — if this official were to say it, Your Majesty might not believe it. Your Majesty may send your own people to investigate. What this official can say is only what that person actually did. He poisoned the relief grain, causing deaths among the laborers; he inflamed the laborers’ emotions, causing the burning and looting of the prefecture offices; and then — even after those laborers had risen in revolt, they had nothing more than hoes and shovels and ordinary farming implements. How did they come by weapons? Someone, in order to escalate the Luo Prefecture uprising, to nail the Seventh Prince and this official utterly to a pillar of shame, deliberately with his own hand brewed a rebellion that swept across Henan Circuit.”
Shen Xiao finished speaking and bowed his head in a deep prostration. “That is all this official has to say. If Your Majesty believes it, everything can be verified. If Your Majesty does not believe it — then this official will simply die once more.”
Emperor Zhengyuan fixed his gaze on Shen Xiao for a long moment, then shifted it to the Crown Prince. Though the Emperor had grown old, his eyes were still like those of a tiger or leopard — when they fixed upon a person without moving, it was as though they were nailing that person into the very air.
After a long silence — just as the Crown Prince was nearly unable to stop himself from trembling — Emperor Zhengyuan at last moved his gaze away. “Dispatch a team of Qianniu Guards to Luo Prefecture to conduct a thorough investigation; have Shen Xiao confined in the inner palace prison. Until this matter is resolved, he is not to have any contact with anyone without Our command.”
This was isolation — yet at the same time, protection.
Slowly issuing these two instructions, Emperor Zhengyuan’s voice carried a note of cruelty: “Our health has improved gradually. There is no need for anyone to oversee state affairs on Our behalf. Crown Prince, you have labored hard these past months. Return to the Eastern Palace and rest.”
This was, in effect, house arrest — and unlike the previous confinement to quarters, this time, before the investigation was concluded, there would likely be Qianniu Guards stationed at the Eastern Palace, keeping a firm watch.
Yet Emperor Zhengyuan seemed to feel even this was insufficient. He added one last, offhand remark: “Liu Cou, Cui Jinzhi — is he not still in Luo Prefecture suppressing the uprising? Send someone to go and relieve him of his military command.”
Those words fell like the final straw that breaks the camel’s back. The Crown Prince slumped, utterly spent, every last bit of strength draining out of him.
Though Shen Xiao had never once named the true architect behind the Luo Prefecture uprising, the Emperor had ordered the Qianniu Guards to conduct the investigation — rather than the Court of Judicial Review — which made it plain that he intended to circumvent every arm of influence the Crown Prince possessed and ensure that this matter would be investigated fairly and impartially, all the way to the truth.
And what could that truth be? The Crown Prince knew it as clearly as a mirror.
Cui Jinzhi commanded soldiers in the field; military power was the greatest threat of all — yet it was also the Crown Prince’s last line of defense. With one offhand sentence, Emperor Zhengyuan stripped away that final safeguard entirely.
From this day forward, the Crown Prince could only sit within the Eastern Palace walls, watching helplessly as the truth rose to the surface, waiting for the day his deposition would come.
*
As the afternoon sun passed its zenith, the palace banquet in Taihe Hall had long since been due to begin — yet the Emperor had still not arrived, and neither the Crown Prince nor the Seventh Prince was to be seen.
The hall was filled with high officials, each one a seasoned schemer, silently speculating over what could possibly have happened. But whatever it was, it could hardly be anything trivial.
The hall buzzed with murmuring and whispers. Suddenly, a small eunuch came running in from the entrance of Taiji Palace, duster in hand, and gave it a sweep across the doorway with a pleasant smile. “My lords, today His Majesty is unwell and truly unable to attend the palace banquet. His Highness the Crown Prince and His Highness the Seventh Prince are at this moment by His Majesty’s side, attending to his illness. But since all of you my lords have already come, and the banquet has already been prepared, please begin.”
The duster spread out with a flourish, and he commanded the handmaids to begin the banquet and pour the wine. Singing girls and dancing girls filed into the hall; the music of strings and woodwinds struck up — yet for all the spectacle of song and dance, not a single person truly watched.
Eyes rested on the dancing girls; minds drifted to Taiji Palace.
Everyone could sense it: something momentous had occurred in Taiji Palace.