Only in this isolated place did Yun Ye feel a trace of freedom. Master Li Gang had shown mercy just now by merely calling him timid. The feeling Li’er gave Yun Ye could no longer be described as timidity—the word “terror” was perhaps more accurate.

When he was a bachelor living alone, he dared to do anything and could do anything. Even if something went wrong, at worst he could just continue wandering with his brother Wang Cai. The territory of the Great Tang was vast and expansive, and hiding places were easy to find.

However, once he shouldered the responsibilities of the Yun Family, half his courage was fed to the dogs. When his child was born, it was completely finished—only a tiny bit of courage remained. As more children were born one after another, he eventually became the cowardly mouse he was now. Although all men were like this, the older they lived, the smaller their courage became, until in the end only smoothness remained. Now being pointed out and lectured by the ancients, Yun Ye’s heart was full of bitterness and grievance.

“For the benefit of the country, I would face life or death; how could I avoid it due to fortune or misfortune?” There were plenty of people like this in the Great Tang. Yun Ye only wanted to live longer, to see his descendants grow up, to wear mourning clothes and a hemp rope for Old Madam, and then wait for Yun Shou and the others to wear mourning for him. Life was supposed to be lived this way. Now that circumstances had changed, he didn’t know what kind of hopes Li Gang and the others had placed in him. To carry these hopes on his back and still wield power in the imperial court—Yun Ye felt that Li Gang and the others were overestimating him.

They didn’t know that as Li’er gradually aged, he would become increasingly warped. They thought he would remain wise and enlightened like this forever, not realizing that without the confidence of his youth, he would rely on killing people to heighten his sense of existence.

The First Emperor of Qin was like this, Emperor Wu of Han was also like this, so why should Emperor Taizong of Tang be able to escape this pattern? The Fang Xuanling family had been exterminated, the Du Ruhui family had also been destroyed, and even the deceased Wei Zheng had been dug up to be flogged. Yun Ye didn’t believe that if he made a mistake, Li’er would show mercy for old times’ sake and let him off. Right now, Hou Junjie was still locked up in prison.

The slanting sunset shone through, passing through the window of the stone house and also through the three jade pendants in Yun Ye’s hands. Three ferocious ghost faces were projected on the wall. This time, Yun Ye didn’t fall asleep. He saw those three patterns but didn’t cry out or panic. After observing the terrain and the light, he put the jade pendants away. After many years of military campaign life, remaining calm in the face of change was something he could still manage. Since the jade pendants indeed hid a secret, he couldn’t let others share it…

Huo Zhu saw Yun Ye emerge from the stone house with a smile, and the two of them chatted and laughed as they returned to Huo Zhu’s home. After not seeing each other for many years, the former slave child had grown into a man. He heated a pot of wine, and they sat around a small stove roasting bee pupae on an iron plate to go with their drinks, listening to Huo Zhu describe the changes at the academy over the past three years.

“Master Yuanzhang ordered people to start excavating caves in the back mountain, very large ones. He said that the academy’s classics would all need to be stored in the mountain caves in the future. Old Master Gongshu was clearly on the verge of death, but when he heard this news, he came back to life and insisted on designing it himself. Over the question of whether or not to install mechanisms, the two white-haired old men cursed each other and swore never to associate with each other again. However, when I went to deliver bee pupae yesterday, I saw the two of them drinking tea together.”

“Master Jin Zhu is not yet fifty years old this year, yet he’s actually requesting that when he dies, the academy should extract his brain and internal organs and throw them away, keeping only his physical shell. He also said he found some research related to souls in ancient tombs and plans to experiment on himself.”

“Master Yanling has now become extremely reclusive. Unless there’s one of his classes, he never takes a single step out of the observatory. He’s also invited the academy’s mathematical experts to help him calculate the trajectories of the stars. It looks like results are coming soon.”

“And there’s that Xuan Ren who planned to study wolf pack relationships—his fate was quite tragic. Because he got too close to the wolf pack, a wolf king destroyed his face with one claw. He lost an eye, and only half his nose remained. After his wounds healed, he found a coppersmith to forge a mask for him. Now everyone at the academy calls him Master Iron Face. But recently he’s gone to find that wolf pack again, because winter is coming soon, and he plans to see how the wolf pack distributes mates and food.”

“Chang’an City is now spreading rumors that Yushan Academy should be called an insane asylum instead. That analogy Li Tai made with stones has also become known to the people of Chang’an, and they all say he plans to put people on a catapult and throw them out just to see whether people can actually fly or not.”

Huo Zhu’s alcohol tolerance was poor. Half a pot of wine and he was already tipsy, his face flushed red from the heat of the stove. It was clear that he was very satisfied with his current life—one could even say satisfied to the extreme.

Yun Ye carried a jar of honey and a large bundle of bee pupae out of the forest maze by a small path. From afar, he saw Wang Cai watching him. Seeing Yun Ye emerge, he immediately rushed over, pressing his big head against Yun Ye’s chest seeking comfort. His coat was disheveled, and there were crisscrossing bloody marks on his legs. Yun Ye was furious at this. When had Wang Cai ever suffered such a loss? Who did this?

The Yun Family servants stood trembling to one side. Seeing the Marquis enraged, they hurried over to explain. No one dared to attack Wang Cai. It was because it had gotten late and it was the pandas’ feeding time, so they all surged over to eat. Wang Cai had run over and knocked over the pandas’ food trough, trying to drive all the pandas away. As a result, he was surrounded and attacked by a large group of pandas. They had finally driven the pandas away with great difficulty, and Wang Cai had ended up like this.

Good heavens, how could he dare to disturb wild beasts while they were eating? Yun Ye squatted down heartbroken to examine Wang Cai’s injuries. Fortunately, none were too serious. He took out golden wound medicine from his chest and carefully bandaged Wang Cai’s wounds…

Both brothers were in poor spirits, walking one after the other dejectedly toward home. By the time they arrived home, it was already dark. Yun Ye ordered people to prepare medicinal water and rebandaged Wang Cai. Xinyue held up a lantern on the side, constantly asking Wang Cai what had happened and why he was injured.

Yun Ye was irritable and annoyed and couldn’t be bothered to respond. Only after he had finished tending to Wang Cai did he hand him over to the groom, ordering him to take good care of Wang Cai. Only then did he return to the bedchamber. He didn’t even look at the food and drink Xinyue brought over, only feeling a ball of fire in his chest that he couldn’t vent.

He hadn’t left home for three days when Duan Hong came over. Seeing Yun Ye teaching his sons and daughters to read, he didn’t interrupt. Under the pear tree, he picked a pear and ate it without washing it, and also asked the servants for a pomegranate.

After Yun Ye had assigned lessons to Yun Shou, had Yun Mu practice calligraphy, and had the younger ones recite texts, only then did he walk over and signal to Yun Ye to come to the pavilion to talk.

The hard pomegranate fruit instantly split into four or five pieces in Duan Hong’s chicken-claw-like hands. The gem-like seeds were each plump and full. Yun Ye took a piece, put it to his mouth, and bit off a large chunk. He ate the seeds and spat out the pomegranate skin, waiting for Duan Hong to speak.

“Marquis Yun, actually your family’s stone lions never left your family’s gate at all. They were just thrown into the drainage ditch by someone. What killed Yan Hongxin wasn’t a stone lion either, but a giant hammer. They hammered his entire body bit by bit until it was the size of the stone lion’s pedestal, then just placed another stone lion on top. Your family’s stone lions have already been fished out of the drainage ditch.”

“How do you know it wasn’t smashed by a stone lion but by a giant hammer? More than a dozen people all saw with their own eyes a stone lion descending from the sky and crushing Yan Hongxin to death. What you’re saying is different from what Yan Song said.”

Duan Hong chuckled and said: “Marquis, you’ve forgotten that this slave has practiced the skills of thieves and burglars. Although I haven’t practiced them to perfection, I still know some clues. What’s more, this slave cut open Yan Hongxin’s corpse piece by piece to examine it. There’s no mistake.”

“As for those people who saw the stone lion descending from the sky—what did they see? They only heard a loud boom, and then saw a stone lion pressing on a corpse, too horrible to look at. Heh heh heh. Not a single person saw the stone lion falling down. Common market folk spread rumors and exaggerations, and in the end it became a stone lion descending from the sky and crushing someone to death.”

“Nothing can withstand investigation. As long as you investigate carefully, you’ll always find loopholes. The minds of those common market folk were all seized by the stone lion—who would pay attention to a covered carriage parked nearby? Moreover, not a single person recognized Yan Hongxin. A big burly fellow like him walking past them, they should have had at least some memory of him. But when we took Yan Hongxin’s portrait and asked all those people who saw Yan Hongxin die, not one person had seen him. Don’t you think that’s strange, Marquis?”

“The skills of thieves and burglars involve making maximum use of external conditions—such as people’s thoughts, lamplight, reflections, habits, sunlight, darkness, smoke, and so on. It’s not about brute force and violence; we emphasize skill and rationality even more. This person who just made his debut, although he’s practiced these skills fairly well, his heart is still too soft. If he wanted to make the stone lion killing someone become actual fact, he should have also killed a few of those passersby. It seems this master who emerged from seclusion is a kind person who doesn’t want to kill innocents indiscriminately. If you see that person again, tell him: ruthlessness is the essence of thieves and burglars.”

After Duan Hong finished speaking, he cupped his hands and was about to leave, but Yun Ye grabbed him and said: “That’s not right. The implications in your words make it seem like I’m an accomplice of the murderer. How absurd!”

“Marquis Yun, His Majesty ordered you to take good care of Prince Qi. You keeping Prince Qi at your home was correct, but not placing him under house arrest was too excessive. In four days’ time, Prince Qi came out from the Yun Family a total of six times. Four of those times were accompanying the little princess consort to stroll through the markets, and one time there wasn’t even a guard protecting them. Prince Qi was holding a little pig and joking with the princess consort, without the slightest bit of vigilance.”

“You are a meticulous person. Four people died at Prince Qi’s manor—how do you know the murderer won’t make a move against Prince Qi? In the past, when there was a murderer attempting to assassinate His Majesty, you made the guard work airtight without a single gap. Now Prince Qi is in danger, yet you’re behaving too loosely. Forget about that expert who emerged from seclusion—even this slave, if I wanted to make a move against Prince Qi, it would be an easy matter. This situation appearing can only have one possibility: You must know that expert, and knowing that Prince Qi You wouldn’t be the target, you confidently allowed Prince Qi You to come and go from the Yun Manor without adding protection.”