Officials nearby envied Qiu Shangqi to death—already a high-ranking military official, now he also had a civil official nephew who was a close minister to the Son of Heaven. Truly wonderful…
The two “conversed arm in arm with joy,” agreeing to visit each other frequently, before “reluctantly” parting. Feng Zhiwei finally escaped from the crowd of officials and first slipped back to her own courtyard to rest. His Majesty the Emperor was rather merciful, giving her a few days to prepare to receive the mansion and fields, also allowing time for the Personnel Ministry to prepare.
As soon as she entered, she was punched by Chunyu Meng: “Good lad, who would have thought!”
Yan Huaishi’s smile was eerie: “Truly, parting for half a day, you’ve already soared through the Dragon Gate.”
Feng Zhiwei ignored them, saying urgently: “Pack your things. Leave Qingming Academy. Brother Yan, do you have a mansion near the Imperial City in the capital? Let’s go stay there first—the information flow will be more convenient.”
Everyone was stunned. Feng Zhiwei glanced at Chunyu Meng again, saying: “The Chunyu family shouldn’t have any problems. You should still listen to your father and postpone reporting to the Changying Guard.”
“What are you talking about?” Chunyu Meng still wasn’t following. Yan Huaishi already said in amazement: “Didn’t the assassin already die? Is the Emperor going to make a big move?”
Feng Zhiwei remained silent, thinking that those who wanted to make big moves were likely other people. Also today, when the princes attacked Ning Yi, the expression on the Emperor’s face was quite spectacular. Some matters might not be as simple as they appeared on the surface.
“Don’t ask. If you trust me, leave.” Feng Zhiwei’s answer was simple. Turning around, she saw Young Master Gu had already packed his precious pillow.
That night, after the imperial carriage left Qingming Academy, chaos erupted in the Imperial Capital.
Because it occurred in the Gengyin year, it was historically called “The Gengyin Upheaval.”
This chaos wasn’t obvious at first. Those in the midst of it were completely unaware. Only many years later, when interested parties slowly traced back and deduced, did they suddenly understand with an “oh.”
First, Emperor Tiansheng summoned the Crown Prince to the palace. Father and son held a private talk. After the Crown Prince left the palace, his expression was anxious and uneasy.
That night, Prince Chu was attacked while under house arrest in his temporary palace. A palace maid attempted to poison his food and drink, but was discovered by the Imperial Forest Guards.
Within a single day, Emperor Tiansheng urgently summoned the Crown Prince again. For some reason, friction occurred. Palace servants outside the hall reportedly heard the clear sound of dishes and cups shattering.
The next day, the Emperor ordered the Fifth Prince to temporarily assume the position of Commander of the Changying Guard.
The Changying Guard had always been responsible for guarding the Eastern Palace. That day, the Fifth Prince, citing insufficient palace guard forces and that the Changying Guard must not abandon their posts, transferred the Changying Guard away from the Eastern Palace and had his own Imperial Forest Army guard it instead.
The Crown Prince angrily went to the Fifth Prince himself to demand accountability. The Fifth Prince’s attitude was respectful, his mouth full of proper words, but he refused to transfer the Changying Guard back, claiming that both Changying and Imperial Forest were imperial guard forces. Why did the Crown Prince insist on Changying and reject Imperial Forest—could it be he had private intentions? The Crown Prince, enraged to the extreme, threw a teacup and injured the Fifth Prince.
At this point, the Crown Prince already felt betrayed and isolated. Qingming Academy claimed to be reflecting on their guilt and expelled students who were the Crown Prince’s relatives or disciples. The Nine Cities Office under Prince Chu’s command gave lip service but disobeyed. Court ministers were chilled by the Crown Prince’s callousness. Though their faces remained respectfully welcoming as before, when handling matters they created numerous obstacles and evasions.
Only the Tenth Prince remained. Previously overlooked by the Crown Prince due to his young age, now the Crown Prince, having lost Ning Yi’s assistance, couldn’t help but complain to his young brother. The Tenth Prince advised the Crown Prince not to endure, to show the dignity of the heir apparent, and let those who disrespected their sovereign see what he was made of. The Crown Prince thus forcibly took over the Nine Cities Office, and at the Nine Cities Office Investigation Bureau, discovered various secret evidence that the Fifth Prince had privately befriended border army generals, illegally seized good farmland, and set traps to harm founding ministers from years past.
Following this thread, it appeared the Seventh Prince was also vaguely involved. The Crown Prince, as if obtaining treasure, was wildly overjoyed. Fearing that if he reported to the Emperor this matter would be suppressed, he deliberately played some tricks. On one hand, he had someone intentionally delay entering the palace to report slowly during the palace gate locking time. On the other hand, that very night he gathered witnesses and used the Crown Prince’s seal to suspend a batch of implicated officials pending investigation.
The Crown Prince feared the Fifth and Seventh Princes would bite back desperately when cornered. Ignoring the Eastern Palace advisors’ dissuasion, he used a handwritten order to mobilize garrison camps outside the capital attempting to surround the two princes’ mansions. When the Fifth Prince attempted to have an audience with Emperor Tiansheng, he was repeatedly blocked by the garrison camps. In his fury, he attempted to mobilize the Imperial Forest Army to force entry to the palace. If not for the Seventh Prince arriving in time to stop him, a bloody incident would have been unavoidable.
The Seventh Prince yielded. The Crown Prince was satisfied. At this point, feeling the dust had settled, he was extremely pleased and privately held a banquet in the Eastern Palace. During the feast, he said: “Father Emperor always says my temperament is too soft. Now let the old man see my decisive and vigorous action!”
Before he finished speaking, someone sneered coldly: “Not necessarily!”
Then a person turned out from behind the screen, his face cold and his gaze frosty—it was Emperor Tiansheng.
The various rumors stopped abruptly at this point. What happened afterward, no one could completely recount. In just over ten days, with several rises and falls and dramatic changes, the Crown Prince had just seized evidence against Fifth and Seventh Brothers and was riding high, but in the blink of an eye, the situation suddenly reversed. Immediately after, the Crown Prince’s seal was suspended again. The Fifth Prince, Seventh Prince, and their faction of court ministers took advantage to counterattack, impeaching the Crown Prince’s faction for employing private individuals, interfering with criminal justice, forming cliques for private gain, and implicating the innocent. They bit and attacked each other. Court governance became chaotic.
Some of these matters were known to everyone, while others Feng Zhiwei obtained through the Yan family’s retainers’ extensive investigations, organizing and collecting to supplement. While others were still confused and speculating, Feng Zhiwei already understood clearly—the Crown Prince had already fallen step by step into the quagmire.
So from the very beginning, Ning Yi’s target had been the Crown Prince.
And those powerful, wolf-like tiger brothers.
In the summer with gentle breezes and beautiful sunshine, cool wind blowing through the blue gauze window, Feng Zhiwei sat half-rolled in the curtain indoors, using pure gold small tongs to crack walnuts. Crack one, laugh once.
“Such brilliant scheming! What an interlocking stratagem!”
Gu Nanyi sat across from her. Crack one, eat one.
“This is the Crown Prince.” Feng Zhiwei, full of gloom, took walnuts and began arranging them. She grabbed a large one, then placed a small one beside it. “This is Ning Yi, the court’s acknowledged loyally devoted Crown Prince faction member.”
Gu Nanyi immediately picked up that Ning Yi walnut and quickly ate it.
Feng Zhiwei was stunned, then grabbed an unshelled walnut to play Ning Yi. No use—Young Master Gu still quickly ate it, while eating, precisely spitting out all the shells.
Feng Zhiwei finally grabbed a writing brush to play Prince Chu, finally escaping the disaster of being devoured.
“Because he was the acknowledged Crown Prince faction member, before separating from the Crown Prince faction identity, he absolutely couldn’t move against the Crown Prince. Otherwise, if anything happened, he would have joint culpability.”
Feng Zhiwei rapidly arranged a pile of walnuts, flicking them toward the Crown Prince and Ning Yi pile. “Even if he moved against the Crown Prince and had no trouble afterward, with all the tiger-eyed princes pouncing like wolves, everyone more favored by Emperor Tiansheng than him, everyone with more status than him, in the end he’d just be making wedding clothes for others. The one ascending to position would definitely not be him.”
“So what should be done?” Feng Zhiwei smiled slightly, flicking the Crown Prince walnut toward the princes’ pile. The walnuts collided with each other, bouncing and shooting everywhere. “First separate yourself from involvement, then use borrowed force against force, dragging everyone into the water while remaining uniquely unsullied yourself.”
She tapped the Crown Prince walnut with the Ning Yi brush. “That assassin was the first stratagem, fundamentally not meant to assassinate the Emperor, but to cause himself to be ‘wrongly imprisoned.'”
“The assassin was deliberately introduced by him to the Crown Prince, deliberately seen by the brothers seemingly by accident. He had thoroughly understood the Crown Prince’s selfish temperament, knowing he would definitely push responsibility onto himself when facing trouble.” Feng Zhiwei looked up pensively. “If I haven’t guessed wrong, the assassin’s background and origins he had already revealed to the Emperor in a special way. Even if he hadn’t revealed it, with Emperor Tiansheng’s methods, regarding his sons’ affairs, would he truly have no clue at all? So when the Crown Prince pushed responsibility onto Ning Yi and the princes kicked him while he was down, Emperor Tiansheng’s expression was so ugly.”
“He ‘took the blame,’ yet for the greater good endured without protest. The princes clearly knew it was false, yet disregarding familial affection, spoke lies with eyes wide open. Emperor Tiansheng saw it all—no wonder his expression was so spectacular.”
Feng Zhiwei grasped the Crown Prince walnut, slowly using the brush end to scoop out the flesh to eat, while conveniently sharing half with Gu Nanyi. “The old Emperor truly isn’t a simple character. Pretending not to know, placing Ning Yi under house arrest to test everyone’s thoughts. Laughable that batch of imperial brothers, still thinking they’d finally brought one down, never thinking the test had just begun.”
“What followed was still Ning Yi’s stratagem, only at that point he could no longer be counted as Crown Prince faction, and moreover was ‘confined to a side palace, gravely injured in bed’—however you calculated, it couldn’t be traced to him. Thus candied walnuts—” Feng Zhiwei squinted and smiled. “Add a little poison here, mobilize some troops there, manipulate various evidence… By the time the Crown Prince and all his brothers fought to mutual defeat with mouths full of fur, his injury had healed, his wrongful treatment cleared, just in time to emerge and take the stage.”
“Ta-da!” Feng Zhiwei applauded, pushing the Crown Prince walnut and princes’ walnuts to Gu Nanyi, who had been waiting a long time and hadn’t heard a word she was saying. Young Master Gu impatiently hurried to eat them.
“Clap clap.” Someone applauded outside the window, grinning as he poked his head in. “What a brilliant political situation deduction. If Prince Chu knew the entire plan was in your heart, I wonder if he’d want to dismantle you?”
“Though this one’s bones are soft, I’m not that easy to dismantle.” Feng Zhiwei smiled, with one hand tossing the brush, which landed precisely in the brush holder.
“Let me tell you the latest news.” Yan Huaishi sat on the window sill, looking toward the Imperial City direction. “Today the Emperor has already refused the Crown Prince’s audience and summoned the Three Grand Secretaries to the palace.”
Feng Zhiwei smiled, thinking the Crown Prince was finished.
That night, the Crown Prince repeatedly sought audience with Emperor Tiansheng without success. Learning that the Three Grand Secretaries hadn’t emerged from the Imperial Study all night, in desperation, he mobilized the Eastern Palace guards and capital suburban garrison camps, storming the palace in the name of purging evil ministers from the Emperor’s side.
But before he could lead troops into the palace, Emperor Tiansheng had already left the palace, residing at the Huwei Army main camp in the capital suburbs.
Immediately afterward, decrees were issued in succession, replacing the garrison camp commanders, mobilizing the Huwei Army to counter-surround the rebellious faction.
Feng Zhiwei was also among the ministers accompanying the Emperor—Emperor Tiansheng actually valued Young Master Gu beside her.
The Huwei main camp was extremely close to Jade Spring temporary palace where Ning Yi was confined. Upon learning the news, Prince Chu rode through the starry night, bringing only a dozen guards to the camp to seek audience with Emperor Tiansheng.
That night, father and son had a long intimate talk. What specifically was said, no one in the world would ever know. Perhaps it was paternal kindness and filial piety, hearts laid bare to each other. Perhaps it was military deception, back and forth exchanges.
That night, inside the leather tent, agarwood incense burned faintly. Pale white swirling mist concealed all dark and profound gazes.
At dawn when dew brightened the grass at the tent’s edge, Ning Yi respectfully withdrew. In the morning light, his eyes were slightly red. His gaze looking toward the capital direction was cool as frost and snow.
The chaotic wind finally rose. Who would ride the wind upward? The reckoning starts from the beginning.
He suddenly felt something and turned his head back.
He saw above the dew-laden grass tips, beneath the sky full of morning clouds, that youth-dressed woman, her garments fluttering, hands clasped behind her back before the tent, gazing at him from afar.
Like a smile, yet not a smile.