Prince Wei had not taken a group of young people seriously at first. Children barely old enough to know anything — who were they to match wits with him? Yet it was precisely these people, whom he had dismissed most completely, who ruined everything he had so carefully arranged.

Even Princess Taiping had not seen through it. She had believed all along that the murders were aimed at her, and had not thought for a moment of connecting them to Prince Luling. It was only after being prompted that Princess Taiping realized the so-called ghost tale was merely the surface — the true target had been Prince Luling all along.

Princess Taiping had navigated palace life for many years and was no fool. She immediately deployed the full force of her influence, making a conspicuous show of hunting down the killer so that the entire mountain villa knew of it.

Prince Ding and Prince Wei had operated cleanly, leaving no evidence on the killer that could be traced back to either of them. As long as the killer was silenced, the matter would have to be left unresolved.

But in political struggle, once your opponent has discerned your intent and seized the initiative from you, the loss is already complete.

Princess Taiping wrote a letter and sent it by carrier hawk from the mountain villa to the Purple Subtlety Palace. The bulk of it was a lament about being trapped on the snowy mountain, with a casual mention toward the end of the ghost tale about the haunting. The Empress was sharp — she understood the deeper implications quickly enough.

It may well have been this letter that put the Empress on her guard, and she moved from leaving Prince Luling in limbo to receiving him formally in the Xuanzheng Hall. If Prince Wei had guessed correctly, today the Empress was going to make this matter public.

Prince Wei let out a long, long sigh. Political struggle is like chess. One wrong move can lose the entire game. This time he had failed in his scheme against Prince Luling, and had instead had Princess Taiping’s report told against him to the Empress — his standing before her was probably quite poor at present. He needed to find a way to recover his disadvantage quickly.

The more he thought about it, the angrier and more resentful he became. The net had been perfectly spread, every fish had taken the bait, and he had been one step from success — only to have it ruined by a handful of half-grown children whose names he had never even heard. He recalled that on that night, the ones who had gone to see Princess Taiping appeared to have been called Jiang Ling and Ming Huazhang.

As for the Jiang family — he would leave that aside for now. But the Ming family — a declining ducal household — dared to stand against him?

Prince Wei stood in the cold wind for a while, then turned and walked toward the main hall of his estate. “Summon the Heavenly Master Yang.”

·

Inside the Xuanzheng Hall, Prince Luling had wept for a good long while. The Empress looked at him — a man of advanced years, still weeping with snot and tears running freely — and sighed. “Go and compose yourself. The way you look, what would people think if they saw you?”

From the tone of those words, there were apparently people who would be coming shortly. Prince Luling ventured carefully, “Is Mother about to confer with the Chief Ministers on some matter?”

The Empress replied lightly, “Nothing of great consequence. You have come back to Luoyang after so long — Lord Di has been speaking of you these past years. He is not in good health. Allow him to see you and set his mind at ease.”

When Prince Luling heard it was Lord Di, he did not dare speculate on his mother’s intentions. He could only prostrate himself almost reverentially and say, “Your son obeys Your Majesty’s command.”

Shangguan Wan’er, who had withdrawn from the hall, appeared at that moment as if she had eyes in the back of her head — perfectly timed — to support Prince Luling to his feet, and said gently, “Prince Luling, please follow this servant.”

Lord Di had been bedridden for some time. Upon receiving the Empress’s summons, he had been helped in by others, nearly carried. When he saw the Empress, he bowed unsteadily and with trembling limbs. “This minister pays his respects to Your Majesty.”

The Empress had always admired impartial and righteous men, even though she herself was an arch-schemer. She had long respected Lord Di’s unyielding integrity, and could not bear to let him kneel in such poor health. She quickly said, “Quickly, support Lord Di. You and I — there is no need to stand on the ceremony of ruler and minister.”

The eunuchs rushed to support Lord Di. He no longer insisted on completing his bow, and asked, “Your Majesty — you have summoned this old minister today. Has some difficult matter arisen?”

This was the custom between the Empress and Lord Di. The Empress enjoyed games that required mental acuity, and would summon Lord Di whenever she had devised an interesting riddle to test him with. When thorny or puzzling cases arose at court, she likewise entrusted them to Lord Di.

And Lord Di had never disappointed her, whether it was a riddle or a criminal case. In Lord Di’s hands, there was no problem without a solution.

It was precisely for this reason that Lord Di’s counsel urging the Empress to pass the throne to her son carried such weight.

“I would not call it difficult.” The Empress said, “Lord Di, look behind the screen. Tell me — who is there?”

Lord Di seemed to sense something, and he turned, almost unable to believe his own intuition. At that moment, Prince Luling had composed himself, and he stepped out from behind the screen, bowing deeply to Lord Di. “Lord Di.”

“Prince Luling, Your Highness!” Lord Di could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw that it truly was Prince Luling. In his agitation he dropped his walking stick and moved to perform a full prostrating bow, his frail limbs trembling. “This old minister pays his respects to Prince Luling!”

How could Prince Luling accept such a bow from Lord Di? He hurried forward to support him. Lord Di, with tears streaming down his aged face, let out a long and aching sigh. “Thirteen years — this minister has finally seen Your Highness again!”

The memory of everything past moved Prince Luling to grief as well. The Empress watched as her minister and her son wept together, and felt her own heart deeply stirred. She said, “Prince Luling will be residing in Luoyang from now on. There will be no shortage of occasions to reminisce — do not weep to the point of damaging Lord Di’s health.”

Lord Di heard the Empress’s words and was filled with mingled sorrow and joy. “Your Majesty speaks truly. After thirteen years apart, it is Your Majesty’s reunion with your flesh and blood — this is a blessing for the court and a blessing for all under heaven!”

Lord Di had rarely had the opportunity to enter the palace of late, and he was certainly not content to leave having done nothing more than see Prince Luling. Once Prince Luling had withdrawn, Lord Di collected himself and spoke to the Empress with great gravity. “Your Majesty, since you have summoned Prince Luling back to the capital, it seems you have already come to a decision. For as long as the position of Crown Prince remains unsettled, the struggles at court will not cease. Your ministers are all occupied with choosing which side to align with — who among them has time to attend to the governance of the realm? When one must cut, one must cut. To delay invites only greater disorder. Your Majesty, I implore you to reflect carefully.”

The Empress sighed. There were many things that Taiping could not understand, that Shangguan Wan’er could not understand — only Lord Di, equally old and declining in strength, truly understood. Over the past year, the Empress had felt increasingly that her vitality was failing her. She knew she had to establish an heir. She also knew that returning power to the Li family was what the hearts of the people desired.

But she was unwilling to accept it. The empire she had built through such tremendous effort and struggle — was it to end with her? And once she died, would the new emperor abolish her imperial title? Would he settle scores against the Wu clan?

These reluctances and anxieties had long tormented the Empress, and Lord Di had always understood — and always urged her onward. Now, at last, the moment had come when a decision had to be made.

There were no outsiders here. The Empress had long regarded Lord Di as a true statesman, and she did not begrudge speaking her mind to him. “I know that sooner or later this realm will be passed back to the Li family. What I have wished to accomplish in my life has already been achieved, and now it is time to fulfill the mandate entrusted to me by Emperor Gaozong. But flesh and blood is flesh and blood on both sides — Prince Luling and the heir apparent each have a proper claim. Between them, which should be named Crown Prince?”

Lord Di was silent. This question had indeed stumped him.

Prince Luling was the elder. He had been invested as Crown Prince by Emperor Gaozong during his own lifetime, so propriety dictated that he should be the one. But he had been guilty of that laughable blunder about giving the realm away to his father-in-law, and it was on those grounds that he had been deposed. If that verdict were now reversed, it would mean that what the Empress had done then could not be justified. That was a fatal flaw in his candidacy.

The heir apparent, by contrast, was respectful and filial and had absolutely no black marks against his name. Moreover, he had voluntarily yielded the throne to his mother in his time — and had spent all the years since remaining at the Empress’s side to fulfill his duties as a devoted son. Passing the throne to him was also perfectly defensible.

But setting aside the elder to install the younger was the very seed of disaster for any dynasty. It would give ambitious men — Prince Wei foremost among them — an inexhaustible pretext to stir trouble. Prince Luling might not care for a time, but what about over the years?

If Prince Luling and the heir apparent became enemies and turned against each other, the court would sink into even greater turmoil. Lord Di had urged the Empress to establish a Crown Prince in the name of stability for the realm — not to brew the next round of catastrophe.

Lord Di turned it over and over in his mind, and a deep sense of regret kept circling through his thoughts. If the prince himself were of exceptional personal quality, these flaws would not be worth considering. That he and the Empress could not decide between them came down ultimately to this: Prince Luling was weak and incompetent, the heir apparent was prone to melancholy and self-pity, and neither had the makings of an emperor.

This was not something that could fairly be held against them. Prince Luling was the third son and the heir apparent the fourth — neither had ever been groomed as a future emperor from the start. Everyone’s expectation of them had always been that of comfortable, idle princes.

No one had anticipated that the winds of fate would shift so dramatically, and that history would play such a jest upon them all. Emperor Gaozong and the Empress’s first son, Crown Prince Li Hong, had been sickly since childhood and died young. Their second son, Li Xian, was then invested as Crown Prince — he was accomplished in both civil and military affairs, genuinely talented. But he was too talented, to the point of threatening the position of his mother, Empress Wu, who accused him of treason and had him killed.

The throne fell next to the third son — but the third son had ambitions without ability, made that idiotic remark about giving the realm away, and was deposed by Empress Wu on the pretext it provided. The throne then passed like a hot coal to the fourth son, who quietly acquiesced and in the end yielded it to his mother.

One could say with confidence: if Li Hong had not died young, if Li Xian had not been killed, none of what followed would ever have happened — Empress Wu would never have ascended to the imperial throne.

Lord Di felt the weight of this regret keenly. In truth, the Crown Prince of Zhanghuai — that is, Li Xian — had been the most suited of all Emperor Gaozong’s sons to rule.

He had better health than his elder brother, more ability than his third brother, and more decisiveness than his fourth brother. He was accomplished in both civil and military arts, respectful toward worthy men, and in his time the officials called Li Xian a figure with the manner of the Prince of Qin.

When he was condemned on charges of treason, countless officials had submitted memorials putting their own lives on the line to vouch for him. Emperor Gaozong also could not bear to lose this son and had been inclined toward leniency — but Empress Wu was resolute, and the verdict of treason was upheld.

A Crown Prince convicted of treason could only take his own life to atone. After Li Xian died, the court and the people wept. Emperor Gaozong bestowed on him the posthumous title “Zhanghuai,” which revealed how deeply Li Xian had been valued. All these years later, there were still those who raised the banner of the Crown Prince of Zhanghuai to rally support — proof enough that countless subjects and ministers still longed for a world in which the Crown Prince of Zhanghuai had never died.

If Crown Prince Zhanghuai had lived, the chaos of this moment would never have posed any problem at all. How Lord Di wished Crown Prince Zhanghuai were still alive. But one must face reality in the end. Lord Di pressed down his regrets and ultimately said, “Your Majesty, since ancient times seniority has determined succession. Prince Luling is the elder and should be established as Crown Prince.”

The Empress had summoned Lord Di into the palace to meet with Prince Luling, effectively using Lord Di’s words to make the matter public. Within half a day, the news had spread throughout the entire capital.

Back at the Duke Zhenguo’s residence, Ming Huashang, upon returning home, had bathed, changed her clothes, and been fumigated with incense — then had slept a long and comfortable sleep. In the evening, she finally woke and curled up on her sleeping couch to have her late-night meal.

Zhao Cai and Jin Bao sat on the footstool at the edge of the couch, doing needlework and chatting idly. “Young Miss, did you hear? Today Lord Di entered the palace and actually came face to face with Prince Luling!”

Ming Huashang held a chestnut cake in her mouth and gave a slow, inward ah. So it was that Prince Luling had returned. That probably told her what she needed to know about why Chi Lan and the others had had their eyes gouged out.

Prince Wei had been extremely anxious about Prince Luling’s meeting with the Empress — this anxiety had worked itself into his conscious mind, and so he had been fixated on gouging out eyes.

As long as the eyes were removed, Prince Luling would not be able to see the Empress.

Prince Wei had schemed and maneuvered for more than ten years, only to find the throne going to Prince Luling in the end. He would surely not accept that. What a pity — it seemed Luoyang was in for more turbulence. She only wanted to live her life in peace. Why was that so difficult?

Zhao Cai and Jin Bao were chattering away excitedly and realized Ming Huashang had not said a word for quite some time. They turned back, and saw Ming Huashang sitting there with a pastry hanging from her lips, staring blankly into space, who-knew-what running through her mind.

Zhao Cai was indignant on the verge of giving up. “Young Miss! Such a momentous thing as Prince Luling’s return, and all you can think about is eating!”

Ming Huashang hurriedly swallowed the remaining half of the pastry and said indistinctly, “I’m listening. Imperial family matters are for the imperial family to ponder. We should think about something more suitable as a mealtime topic. Oh — Jin Bao, that thing I asked you to look into: what did you find out?”

Jin Bao had not gone to the Feihong Garden, and had been making inquiries at the Duke Zhenguo’s residence in their absence. Her fingers flew through the needlework. “Young Miss, I did as you asked and asked around. But the Duke’s household moved here from Chang’an, and before the move most of the older servants were let go. There are barely any in the household who even know about Chang’an, let alone anyone who accompanied the Madam to the mountain villa at the Zhongnan Mountains.”

Ming Huashang felt a tightening in her chest. “Not a single one?”

Jin Bao shook her head.

Ming Huashang frowned. This was truly baffling. All she wanted was to find someone who had attended the late Madam of the Duke Zhenguo’s household during her confinement at the mountain villa — and yet there was not a single such person to be found.

This line of inquiry appeared to be a dead end. If she wanted to find out what had happened during Wang Yulan’s confinement, the only way left would be to ask Nanny Su herself.

Ming Huashang recalled that a maidservant had mentioned Nanny Su retired to her hometown after serving during the Madam’s confinement. She asked, “Where is Nanny Su’s hometown?”