The cold wind whipped at the folds of his robes with a snapping sound. Cui Jinzhi narrowed his eyes, staring at the tightly shut palace gate before him. After a long moment, he raised his hand. “Set fire. Burn the gate.”
His army had brought no battering equipment — forcing the gate open was impossible. Fire was the only way: it would not only break through, but drive back the stubborn defenders sheltering behind the gate.
The weather was dry and cold. The flames roared to life quickly. Cui Jinzhi reined his horse back three arrow-lengths, his jaw clenched tight from nose to chin, his entire body radiating the desperation of a man who had staked everything on a single throw.
Rebellion, coercion of the palace — none of it mattered to him. He had said he would place the Crown Prince on the throne, and he would see it done at any cost. He had followed the Crown Prince for so long; only when the Crown Prince ascended would he become the supreme merit-holder among those who had aided the new emperor’s rise. The Cui Family — and all the great clans — could only continue their hundred years of glory if Cui Jinzhi did not fail them now. He bore that weight on his shoulders.
Others might think him driven by ambition or desire, but Cui Jinzhi knew the truth clearly: he acted only for his family.
Had Emperor Zhengyuan not suppressed the Cui Family, Cui Jinzhi would never have walked the path of rebellion. His two elder brothers had died in battle on the southern frontier; now it was Emperor Zhengyuan’s turn to feel that grief.
Cui Jinzhi pressed his lips together, his gaze unwavering, utterly without remorse. He simply gave another command: “Feed the fire. Keep burning.”
The palace gate was thick, and the guards inside maintained a steady stream of water to douse the flames. The gate would not give easily.
Cui Jinzhi was concentrating intently on the burning gate, calculating when it would finally yield, when he suddenly heard his personal soldiers behind him draw a collective sharp breath. He frowned and turned — they were all staring fixedly in one direction. “My lord… look…”
Cui Jinzhi followed their gaze. Several blocks away, a great blaze was raging above a mansion’s rooftop — flames leaping skyward.
And that direction… that was the direction of Duke Cuiguo’s Mansion.
Cui Jinzhi’s eyes contracted to a single point, as though he could bore through those distant flames with his gaze alone. His hand clenched tight around the reins.
The elder Duke Cuiguo was old and frail, bedridden for years, long since unable to walk on his own. If the fire had erupted suddenly… Cui Jinzhi could not bring himself to think of it. Would his father truly be consumed alive by those flames?
He had no time to wonder who had set the fire. He raised his riding crop, about to spur his horse forward, when one of his personal soldiers — keeping his head — grabbed Cui Jinzhi’s hand. “My lord, please calm yourself!”
“I will send a detachment at once to fight the fire. The battle at the palace gate is at its height — the army cannot lose its commander. You must not leave your post. You must remain here and hold command of the whole field!”
But Cui Jinzhi snapped his head around. Whether it was a trick of the firelight or not, both his eyes had gone a deep, bloodshot crimson. His voice was raw and hoarse. “That is my father.”
He had not schemed and fought — not clashed day after day in the court’s shifting tides — for power or desire, but to reclaim the family’s former glory and to give his father an account of himself.
This was Cui Jinzhi’s consuming obsession. How could he stand by now and watch the flames consume Duke Cuiguo’s Mansion without so much as flinching?
Cui Jinzhi raised his riding crop and lashed it hard across the soldier’s face. Then he drove his heels into the horse’s flanks — the animal screamed and lunged forward, an arrow shot straight toward Duke Cuiguo’s Mansion.
The soldiers burning the palace gate turned to watch him go. Rebellion carried enormous psychological weight; had Cui Jinzhi not been so relentlessly resolute, so coldly determined, what ordinary soldier would have dared follow him to set fire to the palace gate?
With Cui Jinzhi gone, the army’s will collapsed immediately. And an army without will — what threat did it pose?
*
A hundred elite cavalry rode at Cui Jinzhi’s back. Their hooves scattered the fallen snow in great flurries as they thundered through the streets and alleyways toward Duke Cuiguo’s Mansion.
In the lane of Wende, the sky above blazed red. Hoofbeats rang like blades striking stone as the cavalry drove straight in — and then Cui Jinzhi hauled hard on the reins, bringing his horse to an abrupt halt.
A hundred fine horses reared back with a chorus of long whinnies. Li Shu stood before the blazing front gate of Duke Cuiguo’s Mansion, dressed in the ornate court robes she had worn to the palace banquet, standing utterly still in the entryway. She met Cui Jinzhi’s gaze — red as blood — without flinching a single step.
For some reason, there was no maidservant or guard anywhere near Li Shu; she stood alone before the gate. Cui Jinzhi stared at her with a death grip, staring until it seemed his eyes might weep blood. Then he suddenly swung down from his horse.
Who had set the fire was self-evident.
There was no point sending anyone to fight it. The air carried the thick scent of oil — Li Shu had splashed oil before setting the blaze. The fire had spread too swiftly. No one inside could have survived.
His father could not walk. He could not even manage his own meals. How could any man survive a conflagration like this?
Ten steps of distance between them. Cui Jinzhi stared at Li Shu without wavering — in his eyes she was reflected against the wall of fire blazing at her back, making him look like a blood-hungry beast that had shed every last trace of humanity.
With each step he took forward, the great mansion behind her gave out a crack and pop, or the crash of a crossbeam falling.
Li Shu could not help but step back. She was alone; she had no way to resist Cui Jinzhi. She steeled herself, pressing her nails into her palm, and cast her gaze past Cui Jinzhi toward the palace gate — had the great army of the Western Mountain Barracks arrived yet? Was there anyone who had suppressed Cui Jinzhi’s forces?
The palace gate still seemed to flicker with fire, so Li Shu pulled her gaze back, pressed her lips together, and met Cui Jinzhi’s eyes. “Repaying in kind — measure for measure. Cui Jinzhi, Shen Xiao nearly died at your hands once. It is only right that you taste the same anguish of the heart being pierced.”
At her words, Cui Jinzhi went abruptly calm. The fire swallowed all life and all hope.
He looked at Li Shu and suddenly gave a short laugh. “You are right. It is indeed the anguish of the heart being pierced.”
Truly, what could one expect from years of marriage — Li Shu understood him far too well. She knew his demons. She knew his weaknesses. The two of them had finally arrived at close-quarters combat, a struggle of life and death, each driving a blade into the most tender part of the other’s heart.
For reasons he could not name, Cui Jinzhi felt a fierce, savage exhilaration.
He had carried too much for too many years, had betrayed too much. So many things had crushed the breath from him, and yet he had always had to brace himself and refuse to fall — all for the two characters inscribed in bold on that plaque: “Cui Mansion.”
The flames swallowed the plaque, as though swallowing his very life. He had been born in this great mansion. He had flourished with it and declined with it, had lived alongside it — and now he would die alongside it. This mansion was his life.
Cui Jinzhi suddenly reached out and seized Li Shu by the throat.
“You killed my father…” He tightened his grip around her neck, the tendons on the back of his hand standing out in sharp relief, teeth clenched. “You killed my father! You destroyed my family!”
All his fury erupted in that moment. Gripping her by the throat, he drove her backward — Li Shu slammed into the wall, flames raging overhead, the stone scorching hot through her heavy robes, the heat still searing her skin.
The very air was ablaze. The roaring fire seemed to conjure the eighteen levels of hell; every breath set her lungs on fire. The blaze distorted the air itself, distorted the figure before her.
Cui Jinzhi stared at Li Shu. In his eyes, the firelight burned — a desolate, bloodshot crimson.
“You killed my father!”
He repeated those words again and again. In this moment, it was as though he knew no other phrase — and with each repetition, the force of his grip tightened another degree.
That was his father. A man who had fought for the empire for decades — who in his old age had drawn suspicion, whose two sons had died in battle, who had grown so infirm that he was confined to his bed, watching the mansion crumble day by day, his clouded eyes full of tears.
How could Li Shu have killed him? He had not yet lived to see the Cui Family’s name restored to glory — how could she? If his father died, what purpose had all these years of desperate striving served? His father was the only family he had left in this world. He had no one left. If the family name was restored, what would be the point — there was no one left to share it with?
This fire had burned away Cui Jinzhi’s every remaining hope. His grip on her throat was iron. “Why… why must you always stand against me, Li Shu?”
“You are my wife. Why must you always stand against me!”
His eyes were crimson — yet now they seemed to fill with tears. “Why did you kill my father?”
Li Shu struggled to breathe; the hand at her throat grew tighter and tighter. She gasped, opened her mouth to speak, but could not utter a single word.
She only felt her mind growing faint, her vision darkening.
“There… wasn’t…”
Cui Jinzhi heard her voice breaking through his fingers, fragmented and thin: “There wasn’t…”
Li Shu pushed against Cui Jinzhi with both hands but could not move him. She turned her gaze toward the palace city — the flames there had already died down. She did not know whether Cui Jinzhi’s men had broken through the palace gate, or whether the palace guards had put the fire out.
Just as the darkness before her eyes grew complete, she suddenly heard the whistle of an arrow cutting through the air — and then the hand at her throat released. Cui Jinzhi dropped to his knees on the ground with a crash. A long arrow was buried in his knee, the feathered shaft still trembling.
With the force gone from her throat, Li Shu’s legs gave way and she too sank to her knees. She looked up, and saw countless soldiers pouring into Wende Lane. At their head was a deputy commander from the Western Mountain Barracks, his great bow still in hand, the string now empty.
The deputy commander’s voice was stern and cold as it carried across the lane: “Lord Cui — the rebellion at the palace gate has been suppressed. All soldiers under your command have been apprehended.”
The deputy commander stepped forward, drew his long sword and laid it across Cui Jinzhi’s neck. “By His Majesty’s order — seize the treasonous subject Cui Jinzhi.”
He turned to Li Shu. “Your Highness — are you unharmed?”
Li Shu shook her head weakly. She braced herself against the wall and struggled to her feet, her voice barely a rasp. “Have them put out the fire quickly.”
Kneeling on the ground, Cui Jinzhi let out a cold laugh at her words. “Li Shu, why put on this performance?”
The person was already dead; the mansion was all but ash. Telling them to put out the fire now — did she not find it laughable?
The look Cui Jinzhi turned on Li Shu now was pure hatred.
Li Shu did not bother to explain. She simply called a soldier over and said something to him in a voice so faint it was barely audible — she was too weak to speak clearly. The soldier listened, then sprinted out of the lane. A moment later, at the far end of the alley, Li Shu’s unmistakable large black carriage appeared, her own personal guards arrayed around it — which was why she had been standing alone before the gate all along.
The carriage drew close. Li Shu’s coachman lifted the curtain — and when Cui Jinzhi looked inside, the sight struck him like a bolt of lightning.
In the carriage lay a frail, elderly figure. A head of white hair; a gaunt, hollow face. Hong Luo was helping the man sit up with great effort. He looked at Cui Jinzhi kneeling on the ground, his clouded eyes brimming with tears. His mouth opened and moved, trying to say something, but the sounds that came out were a jumble — impossible to make out clearly.
Yet Cui Jinzhi understood perfectly.
My child… you have walked down the wrong road…