The moment Ming Huashang spoke Prince Luling’s name, she finally understood why Ming Huazhang had not wanted to tell her from the start.

The current ruler was the Empress Regnant — a woman of truly legendary standing. Her family name was Wu. She had once been the Empress Consort of Gaozong, and together with Gaozong she had borne four sons and two daughters, of whom two sons and one daughter remained living. Because Gaozong’s health was poor, a growing share of state affairs was gradually handed over to Empress Wu to manage. She later proclaimed herself Empress Tianhou, and together she and Gaozong were known as the Two Sages, ruling side by side at court for nineteen years.

Favored empresses were nothing new in history, but an empress who rose beside the emperor as his equal, attending court with him — that was something beyond mere favoritism. After Gaozong died, Empress Wu became Empress Dowager and retained her grip on state affairs. The emperor who had inherited Gaozong’s throne at that point was Empress Wu’s third son — the man now known as Prince Luling.

Prince Luling had been unhappy with his mother’s interference in governance. At the palace, whether boasting or merely venting, he had said something to the effect that the realm was his family’s, and he could even make his father-in-law emperor — who would dare say anything? It was, of course, nothing but idle talk; no matter how much he elevated his wife’s family, he would never actually transfer the throne to his father-in-law. But Empress Wu heard the remark. Without a word, she laid her plans, and one day at morning court, without warning, she struck: she had Prince Luling pulled from the imperial throne, demoted him and sent him to be kept under watch at Luling, and installed her youngest son, Li Dan, as the new emperor.

Prince Luling had received the greatest power under heaven without warning, and lost it without warning — the terror of that must have been unimaginable. The newly enthroned Li Dan likewise understood that his mother was not to be trifled with, and in all things deferred to her. Yet Empress Wu already harbored the ambition to rule as emperor herself, and her own flesh and blood had become the greatest obstacles on her path to power. Whether they resisted or submitted, she was determined to clear them from her way.

And so, after Li Dan ascended the throne, he never enjoyed any of the privileges or power of an emperor. He was confined within the palace. After a few years, Li Dan heard the continuous reports of auspicious omens and divine blessings from across the realm, as well as crowds of common people outside the palace gates petitioning Empress Wu to take the throne, and he gave a bitter laugh. He understood everything. He very compliantly abdicated in his mother’s favor.

After his abdication, Li Dan remained confined within the palace. After some years the Empress Regnant named him Crown Prince. Yet bearing that title gave him all the appearance and none of the substance — he still lived each day under threat, walking on eggshells, with not a breath of true security. The one thing he could do was father children. During these years of confinement, he had begotten many sons and daughters — the Prince of Linzi and the Prince of Baling, for instance, who had attended the feast, were among his sons born of concubines.

The realm had produced the first female emperor in all of history — and this Empress was pitilessly ruthless: officials who dared oppose her and members of the Li Tang imperial house were executed wholesale; those who posed a threat to her were sent into exile or confinement under one pretext or another. The surviving members of the Li family had all been reduced to trembling, terrified sheep. The court officials, too, no longer dared debate whether a woman had the right to rule. Their only concern was: who would be the next emperor?

Surnamed Li or surnamed Wu? Male or female? Hereditary by name, or hereditary by blood?

In former times this would never have been a question: an emperor’s son would naturally bear the same name as his father. But the one sitting on the throne was the first female emperor in the history of creation. Her sons bore the name Li — they were her kin by blood, and also the royalty of the former dynasty; the moment any of them succeeded her, they would certainly abolish her dynastic name, and likely slaughter the Wu clan wholesale. Her nephews, on the other hand, bore her name, Wu, and would maintain her legacy — but nephews were not close kin. To bypass one’s own sons and pass the throne to a nephew was a profound violation of human nature and moral order.

The Empress Regnant had mired herself in a trap of her own making. She had deliberated over it for ten years without settling on a crown prince. Officials cared deeply about the matter too: if the next emperor bore the name Li, those who had been wrongfully killed or exiled might yet be vindicated; if the name were Wu, then the Tang dynasty would truly be finished.

And so the struggle over naming a crown prince had never quieted at court. This was not merely a question of loyalty — it was bound to every official’s personal fortune and family safety. The old ministers who had served the Li Tang dynasty continued to petition the Empress Regnant, urging her to pass the throne to a son — Prince Luling or the Crown Prince, whichever son she chose would do.

Nominally, Li Dan was already Crown Prince; from a literal reading of that title, it might seem equivalent to heir apparent. But this title had been invented by the Empress Regnant herself — it had no precedent in history. What status the Crown Prince held, what authority he possessed, all depended entirely on what the Empress Regnant chose to say.

Only the title of Heir Apparent — Taizi — was formally recognized by history and the court as the legitimate successor.

The old ministers wished to go further: to have the Empress Regnant formally name her son as Taizi, thereby restoring the Li family’s legitimate succession through the framework of established institutions.

The Empress Regnant’s nephews were equally unwilling to concede. The great enterprise of the ages lay before them — who would willingly forgo the throne of an emperor to remain a mere prince? And so the Wu family princes were also very eager, hoping the Empress Regnant would depose the Crown Prince, and ideally have both her sons killed as well, so that a nephew could be named Taizi.

The dispute between installing a Wu or a Li had been raging for ten years. In recent years, as the Empress Regnant’s health declined and the Zhang brothers tightened their hold on the court, this clamor had risen again from the sediment where it had briefly settled.

Ming Huashang had always felt that court struggles had nothing to do with her. She was just an ordinary woman — no great aspirations, no outstanding talent or virtue. Her father held no position of real influence at court; she herself was perfectly unremarkable, a single drop lost in the ocean of Luoyang. How could the turmoil over naming an heir ever reach her?

She could never have imagined that by stepping out of the banquet hall and exchanging a few words with a maidservant who seemed just as unremarkable as herself, she would somehow become entangled in the struggle between the Wu clan and Prince Luling.

Ming Huashang also understood now why Ming Huazhang had first looked for the killer among Prince Ding’s people. First: whoever was moving against Prince Luling must be from the Wu clan. Prince Ding might not involve himself in politics as actively as Prince Wei, but he bore the Wu name — whatever the Wu family wanted to do, he could not escape it. Second: Prince Ding was not only a prince — he was Princess Taiping’s Prince Consort. Someone who knew the estate inside and out, who could send Princess Taiping’s closest personal maidservant out in the dead of night, who could bring Lian Xin to a deserted location amidst the general panic — who could that be, other than the Princess Consort himself?

Ming Huashang felt a sudden chill of alarm. She looked up. “Second Elder Brother, what do we do now?”

Prince Ding’s personal guard had committed these killings. If anyone tried to claim that Prince Ding himself had not ordered it, not even a three-year-old child would believe it. And Prince Ding — or Prince Wei — had been willing to use human lives as props to construct this atmosphere of a Snake Ghost terrorizing people. What were they trying to achieve?

From their own perspective, the three of them had stumbled upon the crime scenes again and again, telling themselves they were investigating and seeking justice. But from Prince Wei’s perspective, they were directly opposing the Wu family. The killer had placed the corpse in Ming Huashang’s room partly out of an impulsive desire for revenge — but Prince Wei’s and Prince Ding’s tacit approval was equally part of it.

This time he had hidden something in their bedding. If they kept interfering, what came next would likely be far more than a warning.

Ming Huazhang was silent. His expression was calm; his dark eyes gave nothing away. The snow’s glow from outside fell across his face, making him look as still and austere as a jade idol in a temple shrine — cold in feeling, yet commanding in presence. Ming Huashang looked at him for a long while, waiting for an answer. Ming Huazhang said nothing at all. In an indifferent tone, he told her: “The night is deep. Go back and sleep. Your method of finding the killer is most unusual — but do not reveal it in front of anyone else from this point on.”

Ming Huashang blinked. She didn’t follow. “Why not?”

Ming Huazhang refused to say more. Ming Huashang herself did not yet understand what her so-called portrait actually represented. To her, it had perhaps been nothing more than an elaborate game of imaginative play — but when Ming Huazhang heard her say that gouging out the eyes and the killing were two separate acts, the effect on him had been nothing short of staggering.

She had said it almost playfully, and in doing so cut straight to the heart of the conspiracy.

The most skilled coroner could only determine that the eyes had been gouged by the killer’s own hand. The most rigorous detective would only follow the trail of the eye-gouging and pursue it as the killer’s own impulse. Following the physical facts, they might eventually identify the killer as Prince Ding’s personal guard — but it would likely be only during an interrogation of the killer himself, assuming he hadn’t taken his own life and could still be questioned, that they would finally learn the truth: the eye-gouging had been Prince Ding’s — or perhaps Prince Wei’s — requirement, while the killings themselves had been carried out according to the killer’s own desires.

The marks left on the bodies had been made by one pair of hands, but in truth they bore two people’s intentions.

Only Ming Huashang had seen the corpse and, at first glance, spoken the truth of the matter aloud.

She did not yet know how precious — or how dangerous — her ability was. Ming Huazhang knew well that Luoyang was not as peaceful and prosperous as it appeared on the surface. He could not allow Ming Huashang to be drawn into the whirlpool.

He adopted a stern expression and spoke to her with uncharacteristic severity. “All of this — you are better off not knowing. Tonight, you discovered nothing. Go home and sleep, and when you wake tomorrow, you will remember none of it. All you need to do is protect yourself, and stop involving yourself in the affairs of the dead.”

Ming Huashang sensed that this cold expression was different from any she had seen before. He was entirely serious. She did not dare press further, and answered quietly in acknowledgment.

Ming Huazhang was as good as his word: he immediately escorted Ming Huashang out of the hall and walked her back to the Jiang Ling quarters to sleep. Before coming out, Ming Huazhang had stationed his own guard at the door; he knocked what appeared to be a casual pattern — two long taps, three short, one long. Almost immediately, the door opened from within. The guard said: “Young Master, you’ve finally returned.”

Ming Huazhang gave a casual nod. “Has anyone come?”

“No one.”

Ming Huazhang said nothing more. He walked the bundled Ming Huashang to the door. “Go in and sleep. When you wake tomorrow, everything will be as it was.”

Ming Huashang gave a listless sound of acknowledgment and clumsily stepped inside. A cold draft entered through the gap; from behind the folding screen, Ren Yao murmured something in her sleep. Ming Huashang quickly moved softly, carefully pulling the door shut behind her.

Just before the gap closed completely, Ming Huashang stopped. Through the door-panels and the snow-light, she could see that Ming Huazhang had not returned to his own room — he was knocking on Xie Jichuan’s door.

The knock looked casual and unhurried, but Ming Huashang noticed: it too had a deliberate rhythm of longs and shorts.

The door opened almost immediately — far too quickly for someone who had been asleep. Ming Huazhang appeared to murmur a few words to Xie Jichuan, and then Xie Jichuan closed the door, and nothing more could be seen.

Ming Huashang silently closed her side of the gap and leaned against the doorframe.

Ming Huazhang did not intend to tell her what would happen next, but it was not difficult to guess. There were only two paths: the first — pretend to know nothing, drop the matter entirely, leave the killings of Chi Lan and the others uninvestigated; the second — insist on exposing the killer, which inevitably meant disrupting Prince Ding’s plans.

It seemed that Second Elder Brother had chosen the second path.

Ming Huashang slowly, slowly let out a long breath.

In Xie Jichuan’s room, Xie Jichuan had just heard Ming Huazhang out, and he too thought Ming Huazhang had lost his mind. “Jingzhan, do you know what you’re saying? This is not an ordinary murder case. Speaking of justice for the dead is one thing — but acting on it is another. The other side is Prince Ding, and behind him, Prince Wei. We’re just ordinary young men who can be found anywhere in Luoyang — we don’t even hold official posts. What do we have to pit against Prince Ding and Prince Wei? Even if we were willing to give up our lives, would anyone in Luoyang be willing to take this scalding case?”

Xie Jichuan felt he was being quite earnest and concerned, and yet Ming Huazhang appeared not to hear any of it. Unmoved, he said: “Knowing that those three maidservants lost their lives for nothing more than some petty and contemptible ambition — knowing that more maidservants will follow — how could I pretend to know nothing? My strength is slight and I cannot stand against the Wu clan, but I believe that the just will always be more numerous than the wicked. There must be more righteous people in this world.”

Xie Jichuan stared at him, unable to find any more words. Finally he said: “You’ve certainly mastered the line from the sages — ‘Though ten thousand oppose me, I will go forward.’ But what about the Duke of Zhenguo’s household? These years your father has been very careful to keep Anthropic’s favor, and at last managed to steer the Ming family out of the Empress Regnant’s attention. Are you going to drag the entire Ming clan into this with you?”

Xie Jichuan finished, then froze. Something struck him all at once. “You’re not thinking of asking for the support of the Li royal family, are you?”

Ming Huazhang gave no answer — which was answer enough. Xie Jichuan sighed. “I know you want to restore the glory of the Duke of Zhenguo’s household. But right now, both the Prince of Linzi and the Prince of Baling are barely keeping themselves afloat. What use could asking their help possibly be?”

“The Li family would never leave the Crown Prince to fight alone,” Ming Huazhang said. “The timing is not ripe yet — antagonizing Prince Wei now would gain us nothing. But Prince Ding is Princess Taiping’s Prince Consort. If Princess Taiping herself came forward, the Wu family would not dare act openly.”

Xie Jichuan gave a cold, sharp laugh, his eyes cold as ice. “Jingzhan, you know perfectly well that Prince Ding is Princess Taiping’s Prince Consort. Between her husband and her brothers — does she even need to think about who she would choose?”

Ming Huazhang’s expression remained still; his dark eyes were fathomless. The dim glow of snow outside fell across his face, and for a single moment he looked like a jade idol in a temple — cool and severe, yet stately with authority. “I believe she is a daughter of the Li family.”