Earlier, the monk Cangjie had disguised himself as Xu Ji’s attendant and used the opportunity to memorize as much of the Weiyang Palace’s layout as he could see.

Of course, what he could observe was limited — Xu Ji did not have the freedom to wander freely through the palace.

But what Cangjie could see was enough to work with. He had his own plan.

He had calculated: with Xu Ji as his instrument, and given Li Chi’s nature as an emperor, Li Chi would inevitably choose to see in person this monk whose medical arts were said to be extraordinary.

Xu Ji’s first thought had been to send a substitute — someone with sufficient knowledge of medicine to pass scrutiny.

But he had later realized the flaw: medical knowledge alone was not enough. The Emperor would certainly know that this monk had once held considerable status in Daxing City. One casual question about that period would be enough to expose any imposter.

So, reluctantly, Xu Ji had agreed to let Cangjie enter the palace himself.

What kept Xu Ji awake at night was the fear that Cangjie would make some unpredictable move — something that would drag Xu Ji down with him. He was well and truly trapped. And by the time he had understood that, it was already too late.

Looking back now, Xu Ji could see why Cangjie had accompanied him inside the palace that once — there had been a separate purpose to it. He feared Cangjie would make an attempt on the Emperor’s life right there in the audience chamber. Yet something told him that wasn’t right either.

Because there was no reason for it.

Xu Ji, at this point, knew exactly how uncomfortable his position was. He was being held over a fire from two directions. On one side, the Emperor was stringing him along by appearing to still need him, while in truth dismantling him piece by piece. On the other, Cangjie was using his own abilities to maneuver Xu Ji like a puppet.

He had thought he could use the Emperor’s temporary reliance on him. He had thought he could use Cangjie’s strength to poison the Emperor and let him die slowly.

Instead, he had become the most passive player of all.

But what could he do? The Emperor had already sent a decree requiring him to bring Cangjie to the Weiyang Palace tomorrow morning.

—

And so Xu Ji had no choice but to warn Cangjie: do not do anything rash.

Cangjie had smiled. “I’m not seeking my own death. Surely you don’t think I’m planning to assassinate the Emperor? What possible reason would I have to do something so suicidal?”

Xu Ji said: “His Majesty will be back in the Weiyang Palace tomorrow — probably in connection with the poisoning of the Empress and the Prince. Otherwise he wouldn’t have returned from the Imperial Garden so quickly.”

Inside, Cangjie allowed himself a smile. *Of course. Why do you think I poisoned them there?*

The Imperial Garden had been staffed with people Li Chi could no longer fully trust — and so Li Chi would move back to the palace. Every step was within Cangjie’s calculations. Not one had deviated.

—

The design of Cangjie’s plan was, in truth, not complicated. Its power lay not in cleverness but in exploiting the one thing most destructive to any court: suspicion.

When he had poisoned the Empress and the Prince in the Imperial Garden, who had originally staffed that garden?

Lian Xiwu — one of Li Chi’s most loyal and consequential officials, the man who had done so much in the building of Chang’an.

Of course, a man of Lian Xiwu’s seniority would never personally select the household servants working in the Imperial Garden. That was the gap. The one Cangjie had found and exploited.

What he needed to do was actually very simple: make the founding Emperor of Da Ning begin, gradually, to suspect the men closest to him.

Lian Xiwu held a lower rank than Xu Ji, lower in precedence than Yan Qingzhi. But among the civil officials of this court, his weight was easily in the top five — perhaps only one person could precede him: Wu Naiyu.

Cangjie knew his own limits perfectly. Kill the Emperor? Impossible.

And killing an emperor — even if successful — was hardly a thing to be proud of. It was a shallow and crude act.

No. What he wanted was to plant fractures between the Emperor of Da Ning and those utterly devoted ministers of his — to make the Emperor question them endlessly, without rest. *That* was the perfect game.

Lian Xiwu was a civil official. And Xu Ji had been making it known that in the future, the authority of civil officials should exceed that of military men.

That was precisely what Cangjie was working with.

The game was not complicated. But doubt, once seeded in a human heart — that was the most fearsome thing in the world.

—

The Forbidden Army was under Xiahou Zhuo’s command — so when the warhorses suddenly charged toward the Imperial Prince, it was Xiahou Zhuo who would be looked at.

But of course Li Chi would never genuinely suspect Xiahou Zhuo. He and the Emperor were brothers in all but blood.

Cangjie was not trying to make the Emperor suspect Xiahou Zhuo. He would have to be a great fool to believe that was possible.

What he wanted was for the Emperor to suspect that someone within the civil administration had infiltrated the Forbidden Army — someone trying to frame Xiahou Zhuo.

Xu Ji was already inside the game. Drawing Lian Xiwu in was the next step. After that: Ye Celeng.

But Cangjie had no intention of approaching Ye Celeng himself. He had read Xu Ji well enough to guess that Xu Ji had almost certainly already worked to pull Ye Celeng into the web.

At which point, three of the most important civil officials in the court — all inside the game.

Cangjie was very pleased.

—

He told Xu Ji: “Just set your mind at ease, Master. I’ll go back and prepare, and come here first thing tomorrow morning to go to the palace with you.”

Xu Ji said: “I advise you not to do anything foolish. The only likely outcome is that we both die.”

Cangjie nodded. “You don’t want to die, and neither do I. Put it out of your mind.”

He rose, went back through the rear window, and was gone.

He wound through alleyways, shook off every shadow following him, and then, in a dark lane, changed into clothes he had left waiting there.

He dressed himself as a woman, took a few more circuits for good measure, hired a carriage, and rode back to the quiet little courtyard in the southern quarter.

Back in his room, Cangjie breathed out slowly. The room was bare — not even a copper mirror.

He supposed his disguise as a woman probably looked rather ridiculous.

He opened the willow chest again, took out Yang Jing’s spirit tablet, and wiped it once more with the handkerchief — slow and careful.

“Your Majesty,” he murmured, “it should be nearly done.”

He went on, speaking only to himself: “He destroyed what was yours. I don’t have the power to destroy his kingdom in turn — but I will do everything I can to destroy the trust between Li Chi and those brothers of his.”

“An emperor who suspects his ministers — those ministers are eventually destroyed. Sovereign and subjects out of one mind, one purpose — the cracks will form in this Ning dynasty too, in time.”

He breathed in slowly, deeply.

“Xu Ji thinks I might move against the Emperor tomorrow — and so his mind is already lost. He has no strength to stand against an emperor and yet insists on doing so. An emperor like Li Chi will play him until there is nothing left of him.”

“If Xu Ji were truly clever — if he had seen through the Emperor’s plan — he would have chosen to go along with it. To be obedient and diligent, to carry the burdens placed on him willingly. To become the man who absorbs the blame. When the Emperor finally moved against him, only he himself would be ruined — and considering all those years of faithful service as Chancellor, the Emperor might even leave him his life.”

“But desire too great turns a person into something wild and unrecognizable. In those old days — you were the same, Your Majesty. And now — am I so very different?”

He looked at the tablet.

“Whatever I do — when the Ning Emperor one day tells his own children the stories of the past, you and your father will both be the foolish emperors in those stories.”

He placed the tablet back inside the chest and looked at it one last time.

“Tomorrow is the true beginning of this plan. Your Majesty — if you cannot see it — I’ll tell you all about it afterward.”

—

The next morning.

Xu Ji was up before dawn — in truth he had barely slept at all. That monk Cangjie had robbed him of his nights.

There were many things he had intended to say to the man, and so he waited early for him to arrive.

Cangjie came and went like a ghost. Since arriving in Chang’an, Xu Ji had thought a man like that would be easy to control — and had instead found him entirely beyond his reach. He could only wait for Cangjie to come to him. And Cangjie had said he would come first thing this morning.

But the time to go to court came and went, and the man had still not appeared.

As the head of the imperial officials, showing up late to court was unthinkable, and so Xu Ji had no choice but to go to the Weiyang Palace without him.

His mind was uneasy the entire time, so much so that he was visibly distracted on the floor of the court hall.

When the session finally broke up and Xu Ji tried to slip away, the young eunuch Ding Qing’an stopped him.

“Chancellor, His Majesty requests your presence in the Eastern Warm Chamber.”

Xu Ji could do nothing but follow Ding Qing’an to the chamber. Li Chi asked him briefly about court matters for the past few days, then raised the subject of the monk.

“I hear you came across a man of considerable ability in Shu Prefecture — a monk with remarkable medical skill, said to be able to restore youth. Why have you not presented him to me before this?”

Li Chi was smiling as he asked.

Xu Ji dropped immediately to his knees. “Your servant is at fault. I should not have listened to such nonsense. I only — my strength and energy have felt diminished lately, and in my anxious state I grasped at straws. I thought only that if I could restore some vitality, I might better fulfill my duties to Your Majesty. I never imagined this would reach Your Majesty’s ears.”

“What fault is there in that?” Li Chi said. “Wanting more energy to serve me is admirable and well-intentioned. Why would I blame you?”

He asked: “Yesterday I had Ding Qing’an send word for you to bring the monk here for me to see. Has he come?”

Xu Ji stole a glance at Li Chi, then quickly lowered his head again. “That monk, on hearing that Your Majesty wished to see him, grew so excited that he drank rather too much last night — so that when I sent someone to fetch him this morning, he hadn’t yet come to. I feared his drunken state might offend Your Majesty’s dignity, and so I came ahead without waiting…”

Li Chi could not help but laugh. “A monk — who drinks wine?”

Xu Ji caught himself and hurried on: “I also found it absurd, Your Majesty — to break his vows in such a way, and over something like this — if you ask me, this kind of person is probably just a fraud to begin with. Your servant will go back and turn him out of Chang’an at once—”

“No need for that,” Li Chi said. “Looking at you, you do seem more vigorous than before. Here is what we’ll do: send someone back to check whether the monk has sobered up, and if he has, bring him here. A monk who can find joy enough to drink — probably a free spirit, and you know I’m fond of that sort of person.”

“Yes, yes, of course — your servant will send someone at once.”

Xu Ji left the Eastern Warm Chamber, and had absolutely no intention of sending anyone. He rushed home himself.

Once there, he asked his trusted men — Cangjie had never arrived.

With no other option, Xu Ji gritted his teeth and summoned the fake Cangjie.

“Go drink a mouthful of wine,” Xu Ji told him. “In a while you’ll come to the palace with me to see His Majesty. Whatever He asks, answer it. Don’t say more than necessary. I’ve coached you on what to say — do you still remember?”

The fake monk, upon hearing he was truly going to meet the Emperor, went visibly pale.

But he dared not refuse. He gulped down some wine and trailed after Xu Ji into the palace.

Every step of the way he was shaking. Looking at his craven appearance, Xu Ji felt only helpless.

The real Cangjie had vanished without a trace. Heaven only knew where he was or what he was about to do.