The dawn sky was clear and bright. A white horse galloped swiftly through the haze of new spring green, its hoofbeats crossing the open countryside like a battle march.

Ming Huazhang had arrived in Hu County the previous day and met with Song Yanbo’s parents. After he had finished asking about the details of Song Yanbo’s case, he declined Song’s father and mother’s invitation to stay and set out through the night, heading for Chang’an.

Today was the last day to break the case. A vague, half-formed suspicion had surfaced in Ming Huazhang’s mind, but it needed more evidence to verify. He wished he could sprout wings and fly back to Chang’an at once.

On the road, Ming Huazhang had calculated the time. At this pace, he should arrive in Chang’an just in time for the city gates to open. For that reason, Ming Huazhang had not slept the entire night, not daring to ease his pace even slightly. When he arrived, he was actually a little ahead of his estimated time.

Ming Huazhang dismounted. Rather than invoking his privilege as Deputy Magistrate of the capital bureau, he stood quietly in the queue and waited. He had no intention of eavesdropping on others’ conversations, but as he waited, talk from those nearby drifted unavoidably into his ears.

“Have you heard? Yesterday, the Holy Sovereign had Prince Shao and the Wei heir beaten at the Danfeng Gate. The blood is said to have pooled on the ground.”

“What a pity. Prince Shao is nineteen, and the Wei heir is only eighteen. And I heard that the Wei heir’s wife, Princess Yongtai, just became pregnant. If anything happens to him from this beating, what becomes of Princess Yongtai for the rest of her life?”

“Do you think the imperial princesses and commandery princesses are common women? That if a husband dies, they must stay widows? They can remarry. Princess Yongtai has already been married once before, anyway — she can simply pick another husband from the Wu family.”

“Ah, Princess Yongtai has been married before? When did that happen?”

“Shh, keep your voice down. Princess Yongtai spent so many years in exile in Fangzhou — how could she not have been married? But her husband in Fangzhou was probably of low standing, and the Holy Sovereign disliked it, so once she returned, she had Princess Yongtai and Princess Anning both marry into the Wu family. I’m telling you this because we get along well — don’t go spreading it around.”

The one listening promised it with a pat to the chest. Their voices murmured on, gradually drifting into palace gossip, and they stopped caring about the fate of Li Chongrun and Wu Yanji. Only Ming Huazhang stood stunned for a long moment, turning back in disbelief. “What did you say?”

The city gate guards leisurely checked travel permits, occasionally pausing to exchange a few words with their colleagues. Ming Huazhang endured his impatience and waited until the check was complete, then at once led his horse forward, heading toward the Eastern Palace. But his horse had barely taken two steps before someone blocked his path.

Xie Jichuan reined his horse across Ming Huazhang’s path and said, “If you want to find out about Prince Shao’s condition, you needn’t go. Prince Shao wasn’t saved — he died last night. Wu Yanji was sent back to Prince Wei’s manor, and Prince Wei has brought in the finest physicians to treat him. Whether he survives is a matter for fate.”

When Ming Huazhang had heard the townspeople discussing how the Empress had beaten Prince Shao to death at the Danfeng Gate to vent the Zhang brothers’ grievance, he had thought for a moment he was dreaming. Such an outrageous thing — Ming Huazhang had imagined it could only appear at the fall of a dynasty like Jie of Xia or Zhou of Shang. It had never occurred to him that he would live in such an era.

How could the Empress be so muddle-headed and autocratic? With so many able men filling the court, not a single one had offered a word of remonstrance?

The shock of this realization was tremendous. By the time he heard the death of his cousin confirmed once more from someone he knew personally, he felt almost no ripple at all. Ming Huazhang said, “Move aside. I am going to the Eastern Palace to see him off on his final journey.”

Xie Jichuan didn’t budge. “On what grounds are you going? Even Princess Taiping and Prince Xiang are sitting on the fence. For a minister to go to the Eastern Palace to offer condolences — if you anger the Empress, all your years of patience and restraint will have been for nothing.”

“But I cannot remain unmoved,” said Ming Huazhang coldly. “When Prince Leyue died, I was still young — there was nothing I could do. When the Crown Prince was exiled and imprisoned, I had no power, and could only watch and wait, praying some miracle might occur. Now Prince Shao has been beaten to death in public at the Danfeng Gate, she has forced Princess Yongtai to remarry, and yet has executed her husband — if I still stand by watching, that is not restraint. That is cowardice.”

Even as he spoke, Ming Huazhang moved to urge his horse forward. Xie Jichuan stepped up and seized his reins hard. “Are you mad? Li Chongrun was of the Three Princes’ faction. With him gone, the Crown Prince has no legitimate heir. For you, this is a good thing. The Crown Prince himself is weeping and doesn’t dare make a move — what are you doing, raging on their behalf?”

Xie Jichuan’s words came like a bucket of ice water — sharp, cold, cutting. Yet Ming Huazhang was equally calm. He had not been swept away by anger. On the contrary, he was very clear-headed. The harder Xie Jichuan tried to cool him down, the more certain Ming Huazhang became of his own fury.

Ming Huazhang and Xie Jichuan had known each other for over ten years, and many things between them were left unspoken — deliberately avoided by them both. This was the first time they had ever spoken openly, or rather, argued.

Ming Huazhang knew that Xie Jichuan did not like him — and at times even resented him. Had it not been for him, Xie Jichuan’s father, Xie Shen, would not have left the court so early, leaving all his talent and ambition with nowhere to be used. The Xie family would not be walking on such thin ice, trembling with every step.

And yet Xie Jichuan was compelled to keep good relations with him. Because only by doing so could the gamble that Xie Shen had made — without consulting his own family, staking his entire clan’s life and centuries of their good name — have any meaning.

If the gamble was won and Ming Huazhang inherited Zhang Huai Crown Prince’s legacy and ascended the throne, the Xie family would have earned the merit of protecting the prince and remaining loyal. If it was lost, it would mean the destruction of their family and the annihilation of their clan.

But for a family like the Xie clan — who in their glorious days had spoken and laughed while wiping out a hundred thousand troops of the Former Qin, whose dark-robed members had filled the courts and shared the realm with the emperor of the Southern Dynasties — to die gloriously was still better than fading away without a sound.

Xie Shen had once thought their opponents would be the Third and Fourth Princes. Judging by their abilities, Xie Shen had felt fairly confident he could outmaneuver them. But no one had anticipated that their opponent would be a woman of towering ambition and iron-hearted ruthlessness.

That woman had become emperor and had slaughtered the entire Li family. The Xie clan had no choice but to withdraw from the court and go into obscurity, waiting for their moment. That wait had stretched to seventeen years. Restoring Zhang Huai Crown Prince’s name seemed ever more distant, and Li Xian’s bloodline was no longer a political asset — it had become a hot coal no one dared hold.

But now, the Xie family had no more choices. Xie Jichuan had waited all those long years, and had finally waited for the Empress to be in her twilight. The throne was about to return to the Li family’s hands. How could he allow a mistake to be made now?

For someone like Xie Jichuan and his father, their lives held only room for soaring to the highest heights or being shattered to dust. The middle ground between those two fates was not something they were willing to consider. Xie Jichuan would stop at nothing to see the Xie family’s gamble pay off.

What were a few lives worth? Political struggle had always involved bloodshed. Even if the Empress hadn’t killed Li Chongrun, the struggle for succession that would follow would demand more deaths still. The way things stood now was not necessarily bad for Ming Huazhang.

Xie Jichuan held Ming Huazhang’s gaze. Both men were calm and reckless at once — controlled yet unyielding. Xie Jichuan realized once again that Ming Huazhang and he were not the same kind of person. Neither would change course for the other. Neither approved of the other’s way of doing things. And yet fate had bound them together all the same.

They were friends, and they were adversaries. These years had brought mutual respect, and mutual wariness.

Ming Huazhang took hold of Xie Jichuan’s hand and, with quiet but firm strength, peeled his fingers open one by one and retook the reins into his own grasp. “Jichuan, I am deeply grateful to you for these years, and to the Xie family. But they are not my enemies — they are my kin. I cannot, and will not, look the other way.”

Xie Jichuan laughed — a sound that mocked Ming Huazhang’s foolishness, or perhaps mocked his own wishful thinking. He said, “Prince Wei is already suspicious of you — you know that, don’t you? If you rush to see Prince Shao off now, you’re walking straight into a trap.”

“I know,” Ming Huazhang said quietly. “But there are things in this world that must be done, even when you know they cannot succeed.”

With that, Ming Huazhang drove his horse forward. Xie Jichuan made no move to stop him. In the instant they passed each other, Xie Jichuan said, almost too quietly to hear, “And what about her? Are you leaving her to her own fate as well?”

His voice was very soft, swallowed by the sound of hoofbeats, barely audible to anyone not listening closely. But Ming Huazhang pulled up the reins immediately and turned back sharply. “What happened to her?”

Xie Jichuan gave a faint smile and said wryly, “I didn’t even say who she was, and you’ve already stopped. So many lives are bound to you — and yet all of that matters less than one woman?”

“What happened to her?”

“Dead,” Xie Jichuan said. He watched the change in Ming Huazhang’s expression, and only then unhurried delivered the rest of his answer. “But she was lucky. The killer mistook her maidservant for her — someone else died in her place. Even so, she is not in good shape. She fainted when she saw the body last night, and when I sent her back to the manor, she was still unconscious. I don’t know if she has come around since.”

·

Duke Zhenguo’s Manor.

A physician came out of the room carrying his medicine case and said, “The young lady was overcome by excessive worry, and inner heat assailed her heart. She fainted in a moment of emotional shock. There is nothing seriously wrong with her body. She should take a few nourishing herbal decoctions going forward, and have the young lady rest her mind, worry less, and recover gradually.”

Duke Zhenguo followed behind the physician and thanked him earnestly. When he finished, he paused and asked cautiously, “Physician, if there is nothing seriously wrong with her, why does she still not wake?”

The physician sighed. “Her heart is weighed down with something she cannot let go of, and her worry runs too deep. And she saw a dead body yesterday — she was likely badly frightened. Please have the maids keep things quiet, so as not to startle the young lady. She should gradually come around on her own.”

Duke Zhenguo gave his thanks several more times and had the physician seen out with full courtesies. Lady Ming, the elder, had been holding in her temper. The moment outsiders were gone, she reprimanded, “This is all your fault. You have always indulged her, letting her run around outside every day, and now look — she lies unconscious, neither truly alive nor dead. What are you going to do?”

Duke Zhenguo hurried to take hold of his elderly mother. “Mother, please keep your voice down — the physician said she needs quiet.”

Lady Ming was so angry she could barely contain herself, but she lowered her voice nonetheless, pressing down her fury. “If you had listened to me sooner, it wouldn’t have come to this. When Yulan died of hemorrhage, I said time and again that for a woman, giving birth is having one foot in the grave. Even with you by her side, she might not have had an easy labor. Better to look ahead and find a new wife to care for the two children. But you wouldn’t hear of it — you insisted on raising them yourself. Fine, if you were going to raise them, you should have done it properly. But instead, you raised your son to be reckless and headstrong, and your daughter to be willful and unruly. I told you to find Huazhang a respectable, uncontroversial post. You said you had to respect the child’s own wishes, so you let him go to the capital bureau — and then you let Erniang go as well. Is the capital bureau a good place to be? If Erniang weren’t going in and out of such a place every day, would she have attracted a killer’s attention and nearly lost her life?”

Lady Ming was working herself up into such a state that her face was flushing. Duke Zhenguo did not refute a single word, letting his mother vent. They were still talking outside when, suddenly, a maidservant inside called out in joyful surprise, “The young lady has woken! Please come quickly, Master and Madam Elder!”

Duke Zhenguo and Lady Ming heard this and immediately turned back toward the room. The air inside was thick with the smell of medicine, and curtained hangings fell all around, within which the vague shape of a young girl could be seen leaning upright. Her lips were cracked, her face drained of color, and fine beads of sweat hung at her brow. Her eyes were pitch-black, but held no luster — she stared, motionless, up at the bed canopy.

A maidservant, a little frightened, gently called, “Young Lady?”

Ming Huashang had been burning with fever through the night, and her mind was a confused haze. Her memory was a formless blur. She couldn’t recall what year it was, or what she had been doing. She heard the voice and turned, and saw several anxious, worried faces beside her bed.

They were faces she recognized. Slowly, Ming Huashang remembered — this was her father, her grandmother, and the maids who had served her the longest. They were named Jin Bao, Jixiang, and Ruyi…

Ming Huashang suddenly felt a stabbing pain behind her eyes, and tears fell without her being able to stop them. Jin Bao was here — but where was Zhao Cai?

Zhao Cai was dead. She had been stabbed to death in a squalid back alley.

She had no mother. Her grandmother was distant and imposing. Her aunts and elder female cousins were not close to her. The most important female presences in her life had truly been the maids at her side.

They were named mistress and servant, but were close as sisters. Zhao Cai most of all — she had been with her the longest, knew her the best. Zhao Cai always complained that she was lazy and careless. Things the other maids didn’t dare say, Zhao Cai would say bluntly, hitting her right on the head with them.

And yet all those years of complaining about her shortcomings — Ming Huashang still hadn’t corrected a single one of them. How could Zhao Cai have gone first? Yesterday had been their last meeting, and Ming Huashang had, in her rush to go find someone, thrust her own task onto her and run off — hadn’t even said goodbye.

Jin Bao and the others saw Ming Huashang silently weeping without a word and were startled. “Young Lady, what’s the matter?”

Duke Zhenguo came in and felt a pang of deep sympathy at the sight of Ming Huashang. He hurriedly said, “Shang’er, it’s all right now. You’re home. No one will hurt you anymore.”

Ming Huashang wept large, heavy tears but could not find her voice. Lady Ming frowned at the sight. “Why isn’t she speaking? Don’t tell me the shock has made her mute? Quickly, go call the physician back.”

Some maids poured medicine, some fetched water, some ran out to fetch the physician, and they all collided with each other in the commotion. Amid the chaotic bustle, a set of hurried, forceful footsteps crossed the cold morning light and shoved the door open. “Shang’er.”

The bead curtain swayed and clashed, giving off a clear and delicate sound like broken jade. Ming Huashang turned in a daze and saw a young man in dark robes standing in the doorway, still carrying the cold of the morning frost on his body.

It was Ming Huazhang. He must have traveled a very long road to finally appear here.

Ming Huazhang saw Ming Huashang’s almond-shaped eyes wide and frightened and vulnerable, saw her huddled in the corner of the bed with great tears streaming down, and felt a sharp wrench in his chest. He had no thought to spare for greeting the elders, no thought to maintain the appearance of propriety before the servants, no thought for the rules and customs of the world — in that moment his eyes could only see Ming Huashang, and he only wanted to go to her side.

He went past Duke Zhenguo and Lady Ming, strode to the bedside, and pulled Ming Huashang into his arms with all his strength. Ming Huashang was wearing only her inner garment; her back was so thin and slender it seemed it might snap at a touch. Ming Huazhang felt the bones beneath the fabric and felt his heart ache even more fiercely.

If he had been there yesterday, would none of this have happened? He had sworn to let her grow up happy, and again he had broken his word.

Guilt, tenderness, and rage churned through his chest. Ming Huazhang’s arms were taut with tension, blue-green veins standing out against them. But the arms wrapped around her were gentle and restrained. Both arms circled her back, as if to press her whole self into his bones and blood — clumsy and fierce at once.

“Shang’er. I’m back. I’m sorry. I came too late.”

Ming Huashang felt those strong arms at her back — like a hand reaching out to catch her as she drowned. She finally broke into sobs, gripping Ming Huazhang’s robes with all her strength, shaking with each cry. “Zhao Cai is dead. I killed her. He was supposed to kill me — why didn’t he come find me? Why did he kill her?”

Ming Huazhang listened to her collapse, his heart wrenched in two. He reached out to cup the back of her head and pressed it against his neck, slowly drawing both arms tighter around her. “It is not your fault. Neither you nor Zhao Cai should have died. I promise you — from now on, no one will die anymore.”

Ming Huashang leaned against Ming Huazhang’s shoulder and wept into a wreck. Ming Huazhang held her without any attempt at concealment and comforted her in silence. The two of them formed a world of their own, and everyone else in the room suddenly felt like an intruder.

The maids were at a loss, sensing that this was improper, but not daring to pull the Second Young Master away. Duke Zhenguo and Lady Ming stood barely a step away, and witnessing this scene, both their expressions darkened at exactly the same moment, overtaken by a feeling that could not by any measure be called a family’s glory.