A thought flashed through Hua Yizheng’s mind and he sat up straight in an instant. “You want no one to dare marry Zhi’er?”
Gu Yanxi’s smile didn’t waver.
“You want to make Zhi’er someone the entire capital fears?”
“You want her to have a fearsome reputation?”
With each word he spoke, Hua Yizheng’s heart sank a little further. This man — had he ever left Zhi’er a single way out? If things between them came to something in the end, all would be well. But if they did not — how was Zhi’er to go on living her life?
“Shizi — do you truly have feelings for Zhi’er?”
He had indeed guessed his identity. Gu Yanxi looked at Elder Master Hua, whose every worry was for A’Zhi’s sake, and felt his mood lift. “I care for her more than I care for my own life.”
“And this is how you show it?”
“Elder Master, you have underestimated A’Zhi.” Gu Yanxi looked at him. “Even now that you know she has considerable skill in a fight, that she conducts business, that she can endure hardship, that she is responsible and dependable, that she would throw away her life for the sake of her family… you still underestimate her.”
Hua Yizheng wanted to say he knew there was more to it than that, but his mouth opened and closed without sound. He knew it went further than this — yet he couldn’t say what else there was.
Gu Yanxi said quietly: “Do you know what nickname A’Zhi has earned for herself in the capital? The Thorned Rose. All those young men of good families want to approach her, yet not one of them has the faintest thought of toying with her. Not because they have become better men — but because they are afraid. Afraid of pricking themselves. Does A’Zhi not know any of this? She knows. She said that if she could use such a means to keep the Hua Family in people’s minds without drawing too much attention, it would serve well enough. She was afraid of not being formidable enough — afraid that after the Empress Dowager’s protection expired, someone might target the Hua Family. As you know, in the capital such things happen all too often. With enough eyes on her, those who might wish to act would not dare be so brazen. You have been in the court for so many years — it’s not as though you have no political enemies there.”
“As long as she can protect her family, she doesn’t care at all what kind of name she carries. She had even long since given up on the thought of marrying. She said once Bailin was grown, she would hand the Hua Family over and buy herself a small house to live in, with those maidservants of hers who also had no wish to marry, and they would live their days out together. Do you think my feelings toward her are entirely unknown to her?”
Gu Yanxi smiled. “She knows. It simply doesn’t conflict with her own plans. She doesn’t much care, that’s all.”
Hua Yizheng had to admit that, given how A’Zhi conducted herself, this was entirely plausible. Even the fiancé they had once chosen for her with such effort had probably meant nothing to her.
Because she didn’t care — the broken engagement had been clean, with no resentment harbored toward the Shen Family or toward Shen Qi.
Hua Yizheng let out a slow breath, his shoulders dropping. He looked as though he had aged several years in a moment. “The Hua Family’s circumstances are not quite as well as Zhi’er described, are they? I wonder if Shizi might shed some light — we ought at least to know what Zhi’er has borne in our absence, in the places we could not see.”
“It is not that I am unwilling to tell you the truth — the Hua Family’s circumstances are indeed quite good. The clan school rings with the sound of reading, the inner household is peaceful, the branches are united. It is a far more harmonious family than most.”
“Zhi’er hasn’t concealed anything?” Hua Yizheng fixed his gaze on him. He didn’t actually need something to have gone wrong — he simply felt that things being too perfect made him more uneasy, as though he wouldn’t be at peace unless he knew of something Zhi’er had kept from them.
How could there be nothing? Gu Yanxi turned several possibilities over in his mind, and gave up one. “Hua Jing is dead.”
Hua Yizheng’s heart lurched. He had never imagined his eldest daughter would… how could she… by her nature, she should have been the one person in the Hua Family living the most comfortably of all!
“She hanged herself.”
“Song Zhengzu!” Hua Yizheng slammed the table and rose, his beard trembling with fury.
Gu Yanxi’s lips curved slightly. “She had originally intended to hang herself at the Hua Family estate. My subordinates discovered it in time and stopped her.”
The rage had not yet subsided when these words reached him, and Hua Yizheng’s hands began to shake. He closed his eyes for a moment to press down that towering wave of emotion. “Please, Shizi — tell it to me in full.”
“Hua Jing wanted to extract more benefit from her family home. The Old Madam refused and cut ties with her. The Song Family no longer treated her as they once had. She believed it was her family that had brought her to this state, so she intended to take her revenge on them through death. A’Zhi burned her spirit tablet and removed her from the family register entirely.”
In a few brief words, the whole matter was laid plain. But Hua Yizheng had spent a lifetime in officialdom — he knew too well how much lay hidden between those lines, how much effort Zhi’er, with no firm footing at the time, had poured into turning things around.
“Zhi’er did not wish it spoken of. Treat it as though you never learned of it. Now — Elder Master, do you agree to write the memorial?”
Hua Yizheng ran a hand along the rough wooden armrest of his chair and said in a low voice: “I will write it. But I wonder if Shizi could first give me some sense of where this will go. Whoever this is will resent Zhi’er for ruining his plans and will never let her be.”
“By the time A’Zhi returns to the capital, everyone who needs to be dealt with will already have been dealt with. Elder Master, if you trust me, then cooperate fully with Wu Yong. Turn Yinshan Pass into a wall of iron and bronze — do not give the tribes beyond the border any opening to exploit. This will be the Hua Family’s opportunity. The Hua Family’s rules were never written to tell you to simply take blows when you are driven into a corner.”
Gu Yanxi rose to his feet. Hua Yizheng was not a man to sit and wait for rescue when pressed to the edge — he had already been helping himself. Otherwise he would never have helped Wu Yong manage Yinshan Pass. Gu Yanxi was also worried that Great Qing was about to lose a family of purely loyal ministers — yet he trusted A’Zhi even more.
“Shizi.”
Gu Yanxi turned back from the doorway.
“In the third month, General Sun sent someone to visit and passed word along to me. He said the eastern front has been calm for too many years in a row — calm enough to make him quietly uneasy. He drills his soldiers every day and does not dare slacken. Not long ago, Pingyang learned from General Wu that the Qixiu Division had arrested Yuanzhou’s Administrator-General Yuan Shifang and accused him of being a remnant partisan of the Chaoli people. The northern border is not entirely stable either.”
Hua Yizheng rose from behind his writing desk and looked steadily at Gu Yanxi. “I want to ask Shizi how he sees this situation.”
“Which is precisely why I ask the Hua Family to help General Wu hold Yinshan Pass — so that the court may be freed from worrying about the rear and concentrate on dealing with the Chaoli people. The founding Emperor was able to drive them out in his time. They will not find it so easy to come rolling back again!”
Gu Yanxi took two steps back into the room. “A’Zhi has considerable learning in the art of warfare. And I trust the Hua Family’s talents are not limited to the classical texts and histories. Use everything you have to help Wu Yong hold Yinshan Pass. Do not let the enemy take a single step through it. When the time is right, that will be the moment for your return to the capital.”
Hua Yizheng suddenly laughed. “Shizi need not have added that last part — I would do it regardless. The Emperor may not know this, but the Hua Family has one more saying, passed down from ancestor Hua Jingyan to every generation since: the Hua Family stands and falls with Great Qing. That was the promise the founding ancestor made to the founding Emperor on his deathbed. The Hua Family has never faced such turmoil as this — I fear I cannot wait until my own deathbed to pass it on as my final words, lest I die without the face to meet the founding Emperor in the afterlife.”
Looking at the man before him — who in some ways resembled the Emperor in his younger years — Hua Yizheng could not help but feel a quiet regret. There had been a time when emperor and minister were in perfect accord.
“The Emperor has no need to guard against me.”
Something in Gu Yanxi’s eyes stung, as though pierced by a needle. He blinked several times, yet in the end he could find no words. He cupped his hands and bowed low — and he wasn’t entirely certain whether that bow was offered on his own behalf, or on behalf of the Emperor.