At the first glimmer of dawn, the smoke from yesterday had dispersed from the streets. Yesterday’s chaos in the city meant morning court was naturally unnecessary today. Merchants boldly ventured out to repair their damaged storefronts, but found riders galloping down the imperial thoroughfare, heading straight for the Censorate near the Imperial Academy.

By mid-morning, when all things were at their most flourishing, people gradually began to gather by the roadsides, walking together toward the Censorate to see what was going on. It was said that the general who had led troops into the city the day before, flying the ‘Chengming’ banner, was now seated on a rosewood chair in front of the Censorate, leisurely drinking tea.

The first to arrive was the Censor-in-Chief Luo Rong, who had received word. He himself was half-doubting whether the Crown Prince had ‘returned from the dead.’ When he arrived, he saw a man in crimson official robes sitting at ease beneath the Censorate’s plaque facing the imperial thoroughfare.

His royal banner of dark red and black fluttered behind him.

Luo Rong wiped the sweat from his brow, climbed the steps, and was about to make a low bow — but with a jolt recognized a familiar face.

So he swallowed back the words ‘Long life to the honored one’: ‘You…’

Song Ling raised his hand to pour him a cup of tea, and smiled: ‘Censor-in-Chief Luo, it has been a while.’

Clearly the same face, even bearing the half-smiling, half-serious expression he often wore — yet the moment he spoke, it truly made one feel a hidden, emanating authority of one who had held high position for many years. Moreover, he recognized that voice!

Luo Rong had served in the Censorate for many years. After Lu Hang died and was implicated, he became Censor-in-Chief. In the first year of the Tianshuo reign, when the Crown Prince made his first inspection tour of the Censorate, he had been an ordinary censor and had not dared even raise his head. He only remembered that the Crown Prince wore a crimson robe with a hidden pattern of twining flowers, and the air around him was suffused with a calm sandalwood stillness.

In court and at ceremonial rites, that Crown Prince who was the subject of so many tales was too far away from him. Truly speaking, he had already forgotten what the other man looked like, and could only recall his voice.

But the man before him now…

He knew that Ye Tingyan had enjoyed immense imperial favor since coming to the Censorate, and though people had initially been quite critical of him, during the several power struggles between the Empress and Yu Qiushi, he had maneuvered openly and secretly between the Emperor and the assembled officials, easing relations, and had saved untold numbers of people’s lives and fortunes.

But if he was that Crown Prince, why had the current Emperor not recognized him?

In a flash, a thousand and one thoughts passed through Luo Rong’s mind. In the end, he said nothing, bowed his hands and withdrew to one side, and did not dare drink the cup of tea he had poured.

Yesterday the Empress had issued an edict summoning all the officials to the palace, making it perfectly obvious she intended to depose the current Emperor and re-establish Crown Prince Ling. But this military banner bearing the ‘Chengming’ seal alone was not enough — the Empress had been entangled in government affairs for too many years, and who knew whether she intended to use a puppet to seize power for herself?

They were all waiting, waiting for that ‘Crown Prince’ to appear in person before making their decision.

In Luo Rong’s assessment, this was indeed a matter of extreme difficulty — even if the features were identical, even if he bore his former voice, how was he to prove that ‘I’ am ‘I’?

The imperial throne represented the Mandate of Heaven, the sacred vessel. A matter of deposition and re-establishment naturally required the utmost caution. Civil officials cherished their reputations like their lives — who would dare share with him the risk of ‘usurpation’?

Pei Xi glanced at Luo Rong and said worriedly: ‘Your Highness, I imagine he will not be willing to drink this cup of tea.’

Song Ling shook his head, still with an unhurried and composed air: ‘Wait a little longer.’

He settled into the chair and recalled how Bai Sensen, on the eve of entering the city, had asked him whether he wanted to restore his original appearance.

Luowei had been at his side at the time, and had quickly asked: ‘The original disguise involved a bone-eroding pain. If you change back now, must you endure it again?’

Bai Sensen answered honestly: ‘When I altered your appearance and Miss Qiu’s, I only needed to use some special materials to modify your features and make minor adjustments. Though the result is not entirely the same as before, someone who is very close to you might detect some discrepancy.’

‘So for safety’s sake, I used a different method to alter Lingye’s appearance. My sect once transmitted knowledge of a medicinal herb — one must first take this herb and immerse his face in it for three days. During those three days the pain is unbearable. After the three days, I must reset bones and apply medicine before I can sculpt a new face for him. To restore his original appearance would require the same ordeal.’

Luowei gripped Song Ling’s hand tightly. Song Ling smiled and patted the back of her hand: ‘Does it matter to you what I look like?’

Luowei shook her head and only said: ‘Do not suffer any more.’

And so he had smiled: ‘Do not worry. Even if I restore my original appearance, they will not believe me for the sake of a face. When that time comes, they need not concern themselves with what I look like.’

‘I am going to make them recognize me with this face.’

…

Song Ling set down his tea cup and saw the crowd gathering before the Censorate growing larger, everyone staring at the military banner and murmuring to one another. They seemed to be puzzled as to why the official on the platform had not knelt.

Could it be that this ‘Crown Prince’ was a fraud?

A woman galloped through the marketplace, parted the crowd below the platform, climbed the steps in two strides, knelt and clasped her fists, and called out: ‘This commoner woman has received great grace from His Highness the Crown Prince and Her Highness the Empress, and by good fortune survived the Jintian Poem Case, then escaped from an unjust prison. Even dying ten thousand deaths could not repay this!’

She bowed her head twice toward the person above, then turned around. Someone in the crowd recognized her and cried out in surprise: ‘Is — is this not the Miss Qiu, the daughter of Lord Qiu who once struck the drum to sound her grievance?’

Qiu Xueyu scanned the crowd, then immediately said: ‘The Crown Prince lives. The Jintian Poem Case of those years was the late Grand Preceptor’s means of eliminating dissidents! The five princes never plotted rebellion. The three people at Tinghua Platform were framed because they were favored by the Crown Prince! I have in my possession a letter written in blood by the Grand Preceptor before his death. I request the Censorate to examine it!’

This blood letter was not a forgery. It was the letter Yu Qiushi had left for Song Yaofeng before his family was executed, instructing her to pass it on to Luowei.

No one knew what kind of feelings he had harbored as he wrote this blood letter, nor why he had covered it with all his private seals as if afraid no one would believe him.

Luo Rong straightened the official cap atop his head and hurried forward to receive it. He had only glanced through it once before he felt dizzy.

This was indeed Yu Qiushi’s handwriting, and moreover every word and sentence was meticulous and appalling — without having personally experienced it, no one could possibly have written such a confession.

For a moment, cold sweat trickled down, and he was at a complete loss.

The crowd below the platform was extremely curious about the blood letter in his hand and began whispering to one another once more.

Luo Rong forced himself to steady his nerves and began reading the confession carefully. But before he had even reached halfway, he suddenly heard from the crowd the crisp sound of a bronze vessel being struck.

Before long, the crowd parted in two directions, and a merchant in fine silk clothes strolled forward, holding a gilded bronze bowl, striking it as he walked, and singing a folk song that had been circulating in Biandu for some time.

‘Imitation Dragon’s Chant, Imitation Dragon’s Chant — wind rises and clouds flow but no rain comes, lying in the water with golden claws hard to find. The green moss is not originally of emerald color — how can this thing be used as a fine bamboo? The lotus flower has left the nation for a thousand years. After the rain one smells its iron-tinged scent —’

The voice was clear and crisp. It was only then that the crowd realized that though the person had their hair gathered high, she was a woman.

After finishing the song, she walked up the steps and knelt beside Qiu Xueyu.

‘Long life and endless years to the Crown Prince.’

Someone recognized her and tugged a friend’s sleeve, whispering: ‘Is this not that Elder Ai, the merchant who came from Jiangnan?… Just the other day I saw them — husband and wife together on the north street, distributing rice porridge and giving out money. It is said that more than half of the businesses north of the Bianhe River are in this Elder Ai’s hands.’

By singing this folk song at this moment, she was publicly acknowledging where the folk song had originated.

The Crown Prince’s old followers had composed it to call for redress of his grievances — it was indeed true.

…

The scene before the Censorate was a lively commotion, but in the Imperial Academy just a street away, the atmosphere was extremely tense.

Xu Dan sat in a corner and swept a glance over those below the hall.

Since that Crown Prince had set up a chair in front of the Censorate to drink tea, the Imperial Academy’s students and the scholars of Qionting had filed out the doors. Not daring to go directly to the Censorate to watch the excitement, they had by unspoken mutual agreement come to the Academy’s main hall.

Several venerable senior scholars of great prestige and reputation sat at the head of the hall. Some of these senior scholars had even retired long ago, yet for some unknown reason, today they had all gathered at the Academy.

Even when a great Confucian scholar came to lecture and debate policy, people had never come so completely as today.

Seated next to Xu Dan was the young civil official who had sat beside him at the Dian Hong Grand Assembly — He Zhong.

He and He Zhong, and the man then unnamed whom he now knew as Chang Zhao, had sat beneath the Dian Hong Platform talking of the secrets between the Emperor, Empress, Grand Preceptor, and the late Crown Prince — it felt like just yesterday.

In a blink of an eye, Chang Zhao had risen step by step and been to him like a friend of life and death. He Zhong, with no heart for political affairs, had instead made many friends in Biandu through his excellent poetry. He himself had taken on the task of compiling history, originally planning to live quietly — yet unexpectedly his mentor had died, the court’s atmosphere had grown ever worse, and with no outlet for his full ambitions, before his lamp in the dark of night, he had been able to find some relief only through an offhand word of praise from the Empress.

‘The honored guest who guards the archive tower unto death, through water, fire, and war, will not abandon it.’

‘Official Xu, where is the archive tower of your heart?’

Xu Dan’s thoughts were in chaos. The few young students standing guard at the main hall door had received news from below the Censorate and were relaying it aloud to the assembly: ‘It is Grand Advisor Zhang! The long-ailing Zhang Pingjing has actually gone to the Censorate platform to bow his head!’

‘Was not Grand Advisor Zhang so ill he could not even get up? How did he manage to go and bow his head?’

‘He was helped there by others, and climbed the Censorate’s long steps with great effort. After reaching the top of the platform, he knelt and called out three times: “Heaven does not favor the sacred master — ten thousand years like an endless night.”‘

…

This news quickly flew to Song Lan and Luowei as well.

Having not slept all night, Song Lan’s hair was disheveled, dark circles under his eyes, and he seemed to have aged considerably. Since the day before, Luowei had been sitting on the other side of the red steps, resting with her eyes closed. Song Lan had been talking to himself at her, and in the end had even cursed her loudly, yet she had not responded once.

Zhou Xuechu passed the news to her. She glanced at it and gave a somewhat astonished laugh: ‘Grand Advisor Zhang has been calculating accounts for the nation all these years — he truly is a sly old fox. When I went to visit him, I could not detect the slightest sign of deception.’

Song Lan suddenly realized that what she was saying was nothing less than — Zhang Pingjing’s illness had been feigned.

He was unwilling to be loyal to Song Lan, or he had detected Luowei’s attempt to install her own person in the Ministry of Finance, so he stepped aside to make way for a better man. He was the pillar of the Ministry of Finance, the cornerstone of the State Council — since he fell ill, the State Council had never managed to properly calculate the imperial treasury’s tangled accounts again.

His hand trembled slightly with rage, and then relaxed after a brief moment: ‘Ha — what use is it that they went? Luo Rong of the Censorate is right there. Why doesn’t he bow his head to your Crown Prince?’

Luowei ignored him and only said mildly to Zhou Xuechu: ‘Thank you for your trouble. Please pass along news quickly when it comes.’

Zhou Xuechu patted her shoulder, rose, and left.

Seeing Luowei’s silence, Song Lan continued his mockery: ‘This is your trump card? A drum-beating escaped convict of the court, a marketplace merchant, and at most a retired Minister of Finance — even if Zhang Pingjing’s prestige is high, what he headed was the Ministry of Finance. What kind of place is that? Chickenfeed and petty coin, rank with the smell of money. Literati and scholars — how could they take him as their leader?’

The more he said it, the more certain he seemed, as if he were convincing himself.

Luowei suddenly said: ‘We have lived together day and night for so many years. You deliberately tested me, you left me openings, I also found your cracks and could have disposed of you directly… yet I did not act. You always suspected me from before, yet you could never be certain of my intentions, never moved against me — do you not understand why, with me right there at your side, I did not kill you?’

Song Lan said, word by word: ‘I would like to hear your explanation.’

Luowei did not look at him. She leaned sideways against the towering golden steps, looking up at the coiled dragons, fierce and grimacing on the ceiling: ‘I did not kill you, because I was always waiting for today.’

‘I have waited until it came, and now I will tell you.’

…

The Censorate was now a dense mass of people.

Zhang Pingjing drank the first cup of tea that Song Ling had poured.

Song Ling poured himself a cup and found the tea had been steeping too long and was rather strong.

So he raised his hand and poured it out, and instructed: ‘Cuozhi, bring Us some freshly boiling water.’

He had only just spoken when Pei Xi saw a plain and simple palanquin being carried slowly forward from outside the crowd.

When Zhang Pingjing had come, Song Ling had had no particular reaction. Now, however, he rose formally from that chair and stepped forward to meet the palanquin.

Pei Xi added the boiling water for him. Song Ling tasted it first, found it satisfactory, then poured out the water, poured a fresh cup, and holding it respectfully in both hands, made a bow toward the foot of the steps.

‘— Teacher.’

Two elders, vigorous and sharp-minded, stepped out together from the small palanquin — one warm and cultivated, the other bearing a stern and imposing manner. The two walked up the steps together, all the way to the front.

Others did not know who they were, but Luo Rong was thunderstruck. He hurried forward and blurted out: ‘Assistant Minister Gan! Master Zhengzhi!’

Fang Hezhi smiled as he took the cup of tea Song Ling offered, and teased: ‘His Highness has not changed much over these years — old Gan, what do you think?’

Assistant Minister Gan appraised the situation carefully and said gravely: ‘Indeed so.’

…

Fang Hezhi had, after Crown Prince Chengming led troops to exterminate the murder-and-sacrifice cult of years past, claimed he needed to select a burial site for a dear friend and requested leave to go south, then returned to his old home in Xuzhou. Assistant Minister Gan had claimed illness and stopped appearing in public from the third year of the Tianshuo reign, only showing himself at the time of the Empress’s investiture.

The foremost Confucian scholar under heaven, together with the co-compiler of the nation’s great canonical texts, appearing before the Censorate — this was a wave that, like a stone thrown into water, instantly stirred up a thousand layers of waves in the Academy. Even the several venerable senior scholars at the head of the hall grew somewhat restless, huddling together and whispering, seemingly deliberating something.

Xu Dan heard someone whisper: ‘Assistant Minister Gan was originally the Empress’s mentor — it is understandable that he would support her… how remarkable that they also invited Master Zhengzhi here.’

‘Even with Master Zhengzhi going, it still cannot prove “his” identity, can it? Moreover, some say he looks entirely unlike the golden statue at Tinghua Platform.’

‘Did someone not say he was that former sycophantic…’

But the young page who had come to report had not finished his account. Gasping for breath, he drank some clean water under the crowd’s urging, then continued: ‘…After inviting the two great scholars into the Censorate, he — he suddenly had people hang a plain piece of white silk below the plaque reading “Censorate.” The piece of silk was enormous — one had to stand on a chair to reach the top. Someone found him some vermilion ink. After wetting his brush, he wrote a poem on the silk. By the time I came, he had only just finished the first line.’

The crowd asked curiously: ‘What poem was it?’

The page recalled and said: ‘I deliberately memorized it. The first line he wrote was: “I think of the immortal who has already gone west riding the yellow crane, westward to the Mountain of Ten Thousand Years!”‘

He was writing the ‘Elegy for Jintian.’

The noisy main hall of the Academy suddenly fell quiet. The page did not understand the significance, but seeing the complex expressions on everyone’s faces, he made a quick bow and hurried away.

Xu Dan slowly rose from his seat and took a few steps.

He scanned everyone’s expressions — he could roughly guess the unspoken meaning in those complex faces. The people who had come to the Academy today were precisely the group of students who had once recited the ‘Elegy for Jintian’ in unison beneath the Censorate.

Who had not written a poem to mourn the Crown Prince?

Who had not added fuel to the fire of that case with its sweeping implications?

Who could, at this juncture, acknowledge his identity and dare to honestly tell everyone that they had been deceived back then?

Moreover, the hour was late. To acknowledge it now would be to inform the world that they had never genuinely, sincerely from the bottom of their hearts mourned that Crown Prince who was praised by the common people — that everything they had done back then had been mere compliance with power and fashion, merely a stage to pursue fame and profit.

Seeking from others is easy; seeking from one’s own conscience is hard.

Even though they clearly and plainly knew that without yesterday’s army flying the Chengming banner, there would be no Biandu today.

To face their own shame and faults directly was still too painful.

When Song Lan had once coerced Song Qiyu to write the ‘Elegy for Jintian,’ this was precisely what he had relied upon.

All a gamble on the human heart.

Xu Dan suddenly felt something in his heart blazing up, burning him red in the face, growing hotter and hotter.

In the fire’s light, he seemed to go back to Canglan County, occupied by the northern army, in Youzhou’s finest archive tower. Everyone had scattered in all directions, he himself was still young, the shadow of death hovered over his head, urging him to flee quickly. But he glanced back at the tower full of books and scrolls, and still decisively hugged the water vat to one side, pouring all his strength into it, splashing it over the advancing flames.

‘I know what you guard. In my heart there is also an archive tower. What is in yours, Official Xu — where is your archive tower?’

Xu Dan could no longer restrain himself and walked forward toward the front of the hall, faster and faster, as if slowing down a single step would let the fire of those years scorch the hem of his robe.

In one breath he walked to the doorway. He gripped the door frame, turned around, and suddenly called out loudly: ‘Fellow scholars —’

Everyone looked up in astonishment.

He was normally poor at social interaction, poor with words. No one knew why today he was as if possessed, pouring out the words from the bottom of his heart in a jumbled rush.

‘I am a person who grew up on the border. Before the imperial examination, I had never entered the capital. The place I was born, even by Youzhou standards, was remote — yet even in that remote village, there were people who knew Crown Prince Chengming’s name.’

Everyone had originally been dismissive of what he said, but seeing him trembling with speech and red-eyed, they could not help but grow solemn.

‘I am roughly the same age as His Highness. I was twelve years old when he was invested as Crown Prince and bestowed grace upon all under heaven. But he and the Son of Heaven were truly too far away from me. Not until I was fifteen did the old people of the village return in high spirits, saying that through the Crown Prince’s insistence, the border had finally reopened mutual trade, and we no longer had to travel more than ten li to barter goods, or go out of our way to fetch water… Afterwards, this name appeared more and more often. Because of him, because of the late Emperor’s benevolence, I had books to read and stable days to live through. I even traveled a thousand li to stand in halls I would never have dared dream of before.’

He spoke whatever came to his mind, muddled and tangled, with no time to worry about whether others could follow him.

‘And Her Highness the Empress… just in these recent years, conflict reignited on the northern border. After the Ye family’s decline, the border cities were pillaged and massacred, nine out of ten households emptied, with flesh and blood left to rot in the wilderness. Her Highness sent the nation’s greatest general, Senior General Yan, who had been guarding Biandu, to the frontier, and in that place full of desolation, he stayed for five years. For five years the northern army did not take so much as a hair from our people. Occasionally smoke would rise, but it would quickly vanish — if she had truly harbored treasonous ambitions, why would she have sent her greatest support to the border?’

‘I do not understand. I truly cannot understand. When the city was under siege yesterday, Biandu’s military strength was insufficient — even His Majesty was preparing to abandon the city and flee. If not for these two people leading their troops back to rescue us, Biandu today would certainly be like those border cities massacred into rivers of blood! The woman who struck the drum has already stated everything clearly. Grand Advisor Zhang is here, Assistant Minister Gan and Master Zhengzhi are also here. Even if you have a hundred schemes and towering doubts in your hearts, would it really be so difficult to first walk down to that high platform, ask Censor-in-Chief Luo for that complaint letter, read it carefully through before making a decision? Why are all of you hesitating, why won’t you acknowledge it, why can you not ask your own hearts — is it truly impossible that he is still alive, or do you simply prefer that he were not alive?’

Xu Dan grew more and more agitated as he spoke, louder and louder. He did not know what force drove him — he only felt these words had to be said. They were pent up in his chest, burning until they were scorching hot. If he could not speak them aloud, he feared he would be consumed by the flames alive.

‘Among all of you, is there truly not one person who sincerely mourned him in a poem? Is there no one who feels gratitude toward Her Highness for these years of painstaking effort, who remembers His Highness’s achievements of fighting the locust plague, building waterworks, and eliminating the cult? Is there no one here who was a friend of Yang Zhong, Zuo Chenjian, and Liu Fuliang, or who drank and talked with the five princes? If everything is true, then by the Tinghua River, at the Censorate platform, how many people — how many wrongfully dead souls — they are all watching us. We too were deceived and are pitiable. Do we not dare demand the truth for ourselves?’

His words fell. Silence reigned below the hall. Xu Dan wiped his sleeve across his face, and only then realized tears had long been streaming down his face.

Careless of his own undignified appearance, he turned and stumbled out of the Academy, walking toward the Censorate where voices thundered, muttering as he went: ‘I am a man who compiles history. The path of history is open — I am willing to take it. Even if none of you go, I must go.’

Not long after he left, someone in the hall murmured to himself: ‘My mother — was killed by the cult back then.’

As if in a trance, he followed after Xu Dan. He Zhong stood on tiptoe to watch Xu Dan’s retreating figure, and suddenly recalled how at the Dian Hong Platform he had once said ‘three springs full of snow, flowers not blooming, this year at last one sees clear skies.’

It turned out that heaven had sent down a divine prophecy from the very beginning, in the darkness. Clear skies — this was also because an old friend had returned.

As if awakening from a dream, he leapt to his feet: ‘Brother Xu, wait for me!’

…

Song Ling’s tea had been refilled for the fifth time.

The Censorate was built very high, and when he stood on the chair to write, he would occasionally look back and see in the far distance, on the Bianhe River, the solitary shadow of Tinghua Platform. His golden statue was sealed in old and stale past events, together with some souls who should never have knelt, who should never have died unjustly.

He thought of a summer afternoon in the Hall of Zishang, when he was dozing face-down on the desk. Song Qi, hearing from Luowei that he was asleep, had not entered, but the two of them stood at the lacquered garden-style window, their voices intertwined with the sound of cicadas.

Song Qi said excitedly in a low voice: ‘Elder sister, I wrote a new poem yesterday that was praised up and down by several teachers. I brought it for you and Second Elder Brother to see.’

Luowei fanned herself and said with interest: ‘Very good, let me see it first — last time the poem you wrote for me circulated widely in the capital and gave me great face. Today I have specially made the finest ice bowl to thank you…’

And there was the evening when sunset filled the sky, and he and Liu Fuliang, Zuo Chenjian, and Yang Zhong drank wine together at the Fengle Tower.

Though the heir apparent should not privately associate with scholars, he had a genuine fondness for these three men’s writing and, having met them by chance at the Fengle Tower, found a certain affinity. So he accepted the invitation and got drunk with them.

During the feast, they talked of governance, of ideals, of ambitions. In their carefree moments, he also learned that all three of them were from Jingchu and Liangguang regions, where the murder-and-sacrifice cult was widespread, and had suffered greatly from it in their youth. He listened to their sincere and heartfelt young gratitude, and felt deeply that everything he had done was worthwhile.

Yang Zhong was a meticulous man who was very fond of cleanliness — no one knew why he could be friends with the free-spirited Zuo Chenjian. After getting drunk, Zuo Chenjian embraced him and nearly vomited all over his garments. Song Ling watched Yang Zhong’s expression of pained suffering and could not hold back — he laughed out loud.

Liu Fuliang was a shy person, but with a good capacity for drink. While those two were swaying back and forth, his hand never trembled a single time as he poured tea.

Song Ling noticed the dark circles under Liu Fuliang’s eyes and teased him that he was in the prime of his life with things going his way — why was he tossing and turning sleeplessly? Liu Fuliang was startled, then said softly: ‘Your Highness will laugh at me. I — I am about to be married, to my teacher’s daughter. These days, whenever I think of it, I am so happy I cannot sleep through the night.’

…

Song Ling stood with his back to the street, listening to the sound of approaching footsteps from a distance.

He raised his hand and wiped away the tiny trace of moisture that had escaped from the corner of his eye, lifted his gaze to the sky — the summer day was bright and clear, ten thousand li of cloudless sky.

Pei Xi helped him down from that chair. He was silent for a long while, then slowly turned around and looked at the white-robed scholars crowded below the platform.

The complaint letter had already passed through all their hands once. Now everyone stood with heads deeply bowed, not knowing what they were thinking.

Song Ling’s gaze flowed across each person’s face, and in them he saw anger, regret, and grief. He gave a bittersweet smile, then suddenly drew a fire-starter from his sleeve, crouched down, and set fire to the ‘Elegy for Jintian’ he had just finished writing — which from a distance had looked like fresh blood dripping.

Tongues of fire licked upward, devouring the easily burned silk with great speed. In the crackling sound of the fire’s burning, Luo Rong, who was nearest and had kept all of Song Ling’s actions in sight, was the first unable to bear it — he knelt down in tears and called out loudly.

‘Long life and eternal well-being to His Highness the Crown Prince!’

Xu Dan knelt without hesitation, sweeping down those fifty-three civil officials, scholars, and students of the Imperial Academy behind him. The watching citizens passed among themselves Yu Qiushi’s blood letter — written before his death for Song Yaofeng — and found it utterly harrowing. Looking up again, the noon sun was burning bright, enveloping the figure on the platform in a dazzling light.

And so before the Censorate, all those present prostrated themselves, and the shouts that rose startled half of Biandu.

‘Long life and endless years to the Crown Prince —’

‘Long life and eternal well-being to His Highness the Crown Prince!’

…

Luowei finished listening to Zhou Xuechu’s account, and at last let out a long sigh of relief.

She smiled as she stood up, and said softly: ‘Have the palace servants come to sweep Qianfang Hall once more, and prepare to welcome the various officials.’

The Censorate was very close to the palace complex, and not far from Qianfang Hall. Zhou Xuechu had not closed the hall doors when she came, and so even here, one could faintly hear the thunderous cries of greeting from the distant crowd.

Song Lan sat blankly on the cold golden steps and shook his head, yet that sound could not be driven away.

He felt dizzy, his very lips somewhat pale. The steps cast in gold beneath him grew brighter and brighter, colder and colder — so cold he could not help but shiver.

Then he heard Luowei’s voice.

‘You built your standing on schemes and cunning. I will destroy you with righteousness.’

She was answering that question he had posed earlier — why she had not killed him.

Luowei walked to stand before him. Her voice was calm and indifferent, carrying a razor-edged chill: ‘I lived at your side for so many years, pretending so well that in the end you believed me. In truth, with a single blade I could have ended you. On countless nights, lying at your side, I was almost unable to restrain myself from making a move. But at those moments, I would always recall how in my youth, when reading books, I came across the four words “orchid and wormwood burning together,” and felt contempt — that which is noble and pure should not, even burning to death, be willing to burn together with wormwood.’

‘A flash of clarity made me resolve that you could not die in such a way — on such-and-such a day of such-and-such a month and year, the Emperor of Great Yin known as “Zhao” died in an assassination. Such a record would be too unsatisfying. I not only wanted to kill you — kill your physical body — I also wanted to kill your posthumous name, make you die within the very public opinion you yourself had constructed, and become infamous for ten thousand generations in the records of history.’

‘You were so afraid of dying badly that you gave yourself the character “Zhao” as your title right upon your enthronement. But I have thought of one more fitting for you. Listen —’

‘On such-and-such a day of such-and-such a month and year, the Tyrant Emperor’s sinister plot was exposed and he was executed in Qianfang Hall.’

‘Posthumous title: Li — one who does not repent of past transgressions.’

‘Do you find it to your liking?’