The sky was overcast with thick fog. Dong Yao lay in the muddy water, tightly protecting the blue cloth-wrapped object in his arms. He glared at the young man in the veiled hat standing with sword in hand: “You think I’ll believe you based on just a few words?”

“Dong Yao, what is the name of the beggar traveling with you?”

Beneath the veiled hat, that voice was calm.

“What beggar? I don’t know.”

“But I know he’s Qian Weiyin, who abandoned his post and disappeared from Fengzhou.” Xu Hexue approached him. Through the gauze of the veiled hat, he indeed discerned some clues from this person’s face. “It seems he truly concealed his identity from you.”

“You’re just a scholar, yet you dared go to Daizhou to investigate the provisions case from sixteen years ago. I must say, you truly have some of your father Lu Heng’s courage.”

Hearing him mention his father, Dong Yao suddenly looked up. “Who are you? How do you know my father?”

“Like your father, I too am a former member of Princess Wenduan’s household.”

Xu Hexue’s words were flat.

“Don’t think I’ll believe you just because you say that.” Dong Yao turned his face away. “Princess Wenduan passed away thirteen years ago. How can I know how many former household members remain?”

“Have you considered why everyone who accompanied you to Daizhou died, yet you alone could safely return to the capital?” Xu Hexue didn’t care whether he believed or not. “Qian Weiyin is shrewd and cunning—otherwise he wouldn’t have survived until now. You’re inexperienced, yet he could deceive you into traveling together all this way without revealing his cards. Do you think the person behind the provisions case would make foolish mistakes with you that Qian Weiyin wouldn’t?”

Dong Yao froze, then recalled his journey. Though he encountered many assassination attempts in Daizhou, upon careful reflection, he hadn’t actually suffered any serious injuries, and the road back to the capital had been peaceful.

He thought he had hidden well, yet the person before him told him that beggar from Daizhou who wanted to file an imperial petition with him was actually Qian Weiyin, the fugitive official from Fengzhou.

Dong Yao’s face alternated between red and white. His heart filled with shock and suspicion as he heard the person before him continue: “You needn’t say it—I already know who sent you to Daizhou to investigate this old case. But have you considered whether your safe return to the capital was due to your good fortune, or whether someone deliberately let you pass to use you to draw out the person above you?”

Dong Yao’s spine turned cold. “You’re saying what I brought back from Daizhou will harm him?”

Ren Jun was already dead. As for whether the contents of the confession were true or false—this much time was enough for those people to respond, even to turn white into black. The so-called evidence was likely fake as well.

Otherwise, those people would never have allowed him to bring it back to Yun Jing.

“But what about Qian Weiyin!”

The more Dong Yao thought, the more uneasy he became. “If he’s such a meticulous person, what if he discovered some clues from me? What if he goes to find…”

The three characters “Minister Zhang” didn’t leave his lips.

“Your evidence is false testimony from a dead man, but Qian Weiyin’s evidence is himself. He is real.”

When Xu Hexue found Dong Yao but didn’t see Qian Weiyin, he guessed Qian Weiyin’s intentions. But by the time he rushed to the Zhang residence, it was too late—Zhang Jing had already entered the palace, very likely bringing Qian Weiyin with him.

“As long as it’s real, His Majesty cannot make things difficult for him, nor can he sentence him to death.”

Jiang Xianming was an upright official, and Xu Hexue’s teacher Zhang Jing was also an upright official. But Jiang Xianming was an upright official for His Majesty, while Zhang Jing was an upright official for the common people.

If Jiang Xianming raised the provisions case again, even holding the ironclad proof of Qian Weiyin, he likely wouldn’t meet a good end. But Zhang Jing was different. His students filled the court. Though exiled for fourteen years, his reputation remained undiminished. Emperor Zhengyuan had invited him back with Meng Yunxian to implement new policies—this was precisely when he needed to use him.

Emperor Zhengyuan could easily kill a close minister, but he wouldn’t easily kill Zhang Jing.

“So that’s why you stopped me…”

Dong Yao understood everything now. He murmured and raised his head, only to see this person’s originally clean and neat robes had unknowingly become soaked through with blood.

“Go immediately to find Minister Meng.”

Xu Hexue could barely stand. Deep red blood droplets fell from his wrist bone. He forced his voice to remain steady. “Ask him… to persuade Minister Zhang not to harm himself, not to expose himself to wind and dew.”

——

The hall doors of Chongming Hall shut out all manner of light. At this moment, Princess Consort Jia Li Xizhen was no longer in the hall—only Prince Jia and his teacher Zhang Jing remained.

“Your Highness is leaving?”

Zhang Jing sat in a folding chair, seeing the messily arranged trunks behind the curtain.

“Yes.”

Since receiving his teacher’s letter in Tongzhou, Prince Jia had been hoping to see his teacher again. Yet now sitting together with his teacher, he didn’t know what to say.

“Your Highness must be wondering why I sent you a letter but delayed seeing you.” Zhang Jing held a tea bowl, lightly blowing on the steam. “Is that right?”

Prince Jia nodded. “Teacher, I came back to see you.”

“I know.”

Zhang Jing sipped his tea. “Precisely because I know, I delayed until today to see you. The timing is just right—one day later and you would have left the capital.”

“Teacher, why?”

Prince Jia didn’t understand.

“His Majesty still has no son. This time he thought of you again—you should know what he’s weighing in his heart.”

“Precisely because I know, Yonggeng is unwilling.”

“You’re unwilling.” Zhang Jing set the tea bowl on the table and raised his eyes to examine this student he hadn’t seen in over ten years. “Is it because this imperial palace once imprisoned you and you fear it? Or because His Majesty dislikes you and you fear His Majesty? Your fear has made even power worthless to you.”

“The year my father died, I was still young. Between His Majesty and the court ministers’ maneuvering, I was the chess piece they manipulated back and forth. I was made Prince Jia in a daze. In this palace, I never had a single good day.”

Prince Jia’s throat felt tight. “I know there are many in this world who eagerly pursue power and position, but I grew up in the highest and coldest place in this world. I’ve seen its true face. I’m unwilling to be manipulated by it, and unwilling to use it to manipulate others.”

“Has Your Highness forgotten—you are a member of the imperial clan, not a commoner.” Zhang Jing’s expression was cold as he said quietly: “Sometimes power is also responsibility. When you take it up, you shoulder the responsibility you should bear.”

“Teacher…”

Prince Jia opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Zhang Jing. “I want to ask Your Highness—all these years, have you doubted in your heart that person who made you bang your head bloody outside Qinghe Hall pleading for him?”

Prince Jia’s entire body stiffened. Memories from the past assailed him like a hand tightly gripping his heart.

Prince Jia’s silence made Zhang Jing understand at once. He was silent for a long time before speaking: “I remember he was seven years old when he entered the capital and Princess Wenduan sent him to my door to become my student. At that time, Your Highness became acquainted with him as friends. Later you were enfeoffed as Prince Jia and entered the palace. He knew you were bullied by other imperial clan children while studying at Zhaowen Hall, so he asked Princess Wenduan to help him enter the palace and studied with you in Zhaowen Hall for a year.”

“Later he brought you to my home to meet me, asking me to take you as a student. Thus began this teacher-student relationship between Your Highness and me.”

Prince Jia’s breathing tightened. “Teacher, please don’t say anymore…”

“This year is already the new year—sixteen years have passed since the day he confessed to his crime and died.” Yet Zhang Jing didn’t stop. “Your Highness, have you ever made offerings to him, even once?”

Prince Jia immediately thought of Que County. That was the farthest place he and Xu Hexue had traveled when they were twelve years old. Que County had a Great Bell Temple where they had rung that great bell.

Socializing and playing, unrestrained and flamboyant.

The year Xu Hexue died, he went to that Great Bell Temple again, bringing a winter garment. His wife had personally embroidered characters on that cloak for him.

“No.”

Prince Jia’s voice was dry.

“Why? Because even you don’t know whether you should believe him. In your heart, you want to believe him, but the evidence is ironclad and you don’t know what to do.” Zhang Jing pressed him with a heavy voice. “So you don’t dare make offerings, isn’t that right?”

“But Teacher, do you dare?”

Prince Jia’s voice trembled.

“Like you, I also feared he would enter my dreams, feared he would come to see me and tell me my best student did wrong.”

The military report from Yongzhou was too damning. The testimony of Jiang Xianming and other officials who returned from Yongzhou after interrogation also had no flaws. Zhang Jing wanted to investigate but had nowhere to start.

After fourteen years of exile, destitute and struggling, he had no energy to spare.

“I didn’t make offerings to him, and these dozen years, he truly never once entered my dreams. It seems he didn’t enter your dreams either…”

Zhang Jing’s voice nearly trembled. “But Your Highness, do you know? All these years, we’ve been heartless toward someone suffering an unjust wrong.”

“What?”

Prince Jia immediately stood up, tightly gripping his teacher’s hand. “Teacher, what are you saying? What do you know?”

“Since entering the capital, you should have heard the name Du Cong.”

Zhang Jing looked at him. “Before changing his name to Du Cong, he was called Du Sancai—the military official who received an imperial decree to transport provisions from Daizhou to Yongzhou that year. The grain carts he transported to Yongzhou were actually empty, but over these dozen years, not only has no one mentioned this matter, he even rose from a local military official all the way to a fifth-rank civil official position. How do you think Your Highness he accomplished this?”

He took from his breast a letter that had been read and crumpled countless times and handed it to Prince Jia. “This letter came from Yongzhou. It also mentions General Yujie leading troops against the Danqiu barbarians, but the rear provisions were delayed. Though this forced the Jing’an Army to initially take the field hungry, General Xu Hexue sustained war through war, using barbarian provisions to feed his own troops, and was able to keep the Jing’an Army strong.”

“After Xu Hexue’s father died in battle, Qingya Prefecture fell under barbarian iron hooves. This letter says the barbarian general Meng Tuo used the lives of the entire Xu clan of Qingya Prefecture as leverage, proclaiming that if Xu Hexue surrendered to Danqiu, he would grant Qingya Prefecture and ten other prefectures as his fief. But if Xu Hexue didn’t surrender to Danqiu, he would slaughter the entire Xu clan and destroy the Xu family tombs.”

“Xu Hexue used this situation to his advantage, making an issue of this matter. He ordered his forces split into three routes. He led the thirty thousand Jing’an Army to Shepherd God Mountain to lure Meng Tuo, while the other two routes would come to his aid from Nianchi and Longyan, surrounding Meng Tuo to strike directly at the royal court.”

“The other two routes… why didn’t they go?”

Prince Jia looked at the writing on the letter, feeling his eyes stabbed with pain. His eye sockets filled with moisture. “If what this letter says is true, why didn’t they go?”

“Because the other two route armies never received this military order.”

The Jing’an Army was almost entirely annihilated. Whether anyone had delivered the message or whether the delivered message was intercepted—this was already unknowable. The only thing Zhang Jing could investigate was the generals of those other two route armies.

But they truly had never received this military order from Grand General Xu Hexue.

Without aid from two routes, the originally unstoppable Jing’an Army became isolated forces, trapped to death at Shepherd God Mountain.

“If this is true, if this is true…” Prince Jia tightly clutched that letter. He raised his head, tears pressing against his eyelids. “Teacher, he, he…”

He choked up, unable to speak.

“I captured Du Cong. His final words also confirmed this letter.”

That day at the wonton stall, after reading this letter from Yongzhou, Zhang Jing immediately ordered the martial-skilled Old Neizhi Liu Jiarong to rush to the Du residence. As luck would have it, they encountered Du Cong fleeing in the night.

Zhang Jing had once glanced at a letter Xu Hexue sent back from the border to Prince Jia. In that letter, the fourteen-year-old youth mentioned a studious military official. Zhang Jing remembered this person’s name—Du Sancai.

Du Cong didn’t confess much to him, because he remained concerned for his wife and adoptive father and was unwilling to reveal who had enabled him to escape the death penalty and rise all the way to become a capital official.

“It wasn’t Jiang Xianming who cut your student to pieces—it was you, Minister Meng, people like me willing to acknowledge civil officials of far lower rank as adoptive fathers, insatiable imperial clansmen! Even His Majesty himself!”

“Just not the Danqiu barbarians.”

That night, perhaps reminded by Zhang Jing, Du Cong recalled the days in the Huning Army when the young presented scholar had taught him to read and write. Crying and laughing, he said these words, then immediately crashed his head to death before Zhang Jing.

“I know—in your heart Your Highness actually very much wants to believe him, which is why you’re even more unable to face him, unable to remain here. But do you truly want to leave?”

Zhang Jing watched as Prince Jia before him buckled at the knees, nearly collapsing to sit on the ground. He didn’t hear Prince Jia’s answer, nor did he plan to wait any longer. He rose and took back the letter from Prince Jia’s hand, walking toward the hall door.

“Teacher!”

Prince Jia couldn’t contain the panic in his heart. “Where are you going?”

Daylight was cut into scattered shadows by the vermillion lattice windows, falling on Zhang Jing’s shoulders. Prince Jia could only see his somewhat hunched back. He heard his teacher say: “Yonggeng, today, I finally dare make offerings to him.”

What does it mean to make offerings?

What does it mean to make offerings?

Prince Jia couldn’t cry out. Tears covered his face as he watched helplessly while the hall doors opened wide and his teacher’s figure gradually blurred in the daylight.

He saw the outline of Zhaowen Hall in the distance.

“Zhao Yonggeng, did the consort forget to feed you again today? Why are you like a little dog, staring at my grapes? Hahahaha…”

“I thought you were so glorious in the palace—how did you end up like this!”

Eleven-year-old Zhao Yi was surrounded by several imperial clan children under the corridor of Zhaowen Hall. They shoved him and threw grapes, forcing him to pick them up.

Angry and anxious, he could only squeeze out tears.

The tree at Zhaowen Hall was so large, its thick shade nearly covering a small patch of sky. Several pebbles shot out from within, hitting those imperial clan children before Zhao Yi so they covered their foreheads and cried out.

He turned around to see a youth about his age in the thick shade, wearing a light azure round-collared robe, playing with several pebbles in his hand.

He almost thought he’d seen wrong: “Why are you here?”

“To study, of course.”

The youth leaning against the tree trunk lifted his chin slightly. “Zhao Yonggeng, either I come down and beat you, or you beat them and I come down to help you. Choose one.”

Zhao Yi remembered—that day he chose the latter.

Princess Consort Jia Li Xizhen entered to see her husband collapsed sitting on the ground. She silently approached, crouched before him, and embraced him.

“Xizhen, if I hadn’t been attacked that year, perhaps I would have already burned that winter garment for him.” Prince Jia held her tightly, weeping uncontrollably. “Later how did I become afraid, how did I become so afraid…”

Times had changed, the winter garment was lost.

That person had already passed away sixteen years ago.

Zhang Jing left Chongming Hall toward the Bureau of Policy Deliberation. But just entering the palace lane, he saw Meng Yunxian running from that direction. He had never seen Meng Yunxian look so panicked. Zhang Jing leaned on his cane and stopped to wait for him to approach.

“Zhang Chongzhi! Is Du Cong in your hands?!”

Only now, upon meeting Dong Yao, did Meng Yunxian suddenly realize what a major matter he had overlooked. Upon seeing Zhang Jing, he immediately questioned him sternly.

“He’s already dead.”

Zhang Jing answered calmly.

Meng Yunxian most hated this demeanor of his. His chest heaved. “You deliberately let me think you wanted to reorganize the civil service, but you weren’t investigating the officials—you were investigating the Daizhou provisions case!”

Zhang Jing rarely saw him so angry. He didn’t respond, only stuffing that letter into Meng Yunxian’s hand, saying: “Meng Zhuo, I’m about to see His Majesty shortly. Keep this in your care for now.”

Meng Yunxian unfolded the letter and looked—his expression changed drastically, his lips trembling. “Chongzhi, is this…”

“It’s real. Du Cong said it himself—this person is the one who helped him escape the death penalty.”

“You showed it to Prince Jia?”

It took Meng Yunxian a long time to find his voice.

“Since I was the one who sent the letter asking him to return to the capital, naturally I cannot let him leave.”

“But Prince Jia, he…”

Even Meng Yunxian couldn’t make Prince Jia change his mind. This letter would likely make Prince Jia even more fearful.

Zhang Jing shook his head. “Xu Hexue is different to him. Moreover…”

He didn’t continue, only raising his eyes to look at Meng Yunxian. “Meng Zhuo, I’ve thought about it many times—even on the exile road I was still thinking: if back then I hadn’t listened to your persuasion and had insisted on keeping him, would he have lived well, like He Tong, like Prince Jia? I also wondered what he would look like if he had lived from youth until now…”

“Du Cong said it wasn’t only Jiang Xianming who cut him to pieces—there was you and me as well.” Tears glimmered in Zhang Jing’s eyes. “Those words cut my heart piece by piece…”

How could these words not pierce Meng Yunxian’s heart as well? His entire body shook. He immediately recalled that years ago, when he and Zhang Jing wanted to elevate military officials’ authority based on the urgency of the war situation, court officials led by Wu Dai slandered them to His Majesty, saying their actions were meant to seek personal advantage for General Yujie Xu Hexue.

“Chongzhi…” Meng Yunxian’s throat tightened. Just as he was about to say more, he heard footsteps. Turning around, he saw Chief Eunuch Liang Shenfu of the Palace Attendants Bureau leading several eunuchs. He immediately stuffed the letter into his robes and whispered to Zhang Jing: “Now that Qian Weiyin is here, it’s not impossible for you to memorialize about the Daizhou provisions case. But Chongzhi, listen to my advice—don’t connect the provisions case to His Majesty, don’t anger His Majesty, and don’t mention this letter for now. Now that we have such a lead, I’ll wait for you to return and we’ll discuss it together. Only by uncovering the mastermind behind that year’s events will we have a chance to make this matter public.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t act rashly today.”

Zhang Jing nodded. “After seeing His Majesty, let’s go to East Street to get shaved.”

Then he walked past him toward Liang Shenfu and the others.

“Minister Zhang, His Majesty requests you go to Qinghe Hall.”

Liang Shenfu was out of breath.

“Let’s go then.”

Zhang Jing said.

Knowing Zhang Jing’s legs were inconvenient, Liang Shenfu personally helped Zhang Jing to Qinghe Hall. Zhang Jing didn’t see Qian Weiyin in the hall. According to Liang Shenfu, His Majesty had already seen Qian Weiyin.

“This subject Zhang Jing pays respects to His Majesty.”

Zhang Jing bowed with clasped hands.

Emperor Zhengyuan sat behind the curtain, his voice revealing neither joy nor anger. “Liang Shenfu, grant Minister Zhang a seat.”

Liang Shenfu responded and immediately had eunuchs bring a chair and place it behind Zhang Jing.

“Qian Weiyin—you brought him here.”

After Zhang Jing sat down, Emperor Zhengyuan spoke.

Zhang Jing lowered his head. “Your Majesty, if parasites are not removed, it benefits the state not at all.”

“Minister Zhang’s words are not wrong. Today I read a memorial saying you, Minister Zhang, have thousands of acres of fertile land in your hometown Zezhou. But I don’t know—you’ve only just returned to court, how do you already have this estate to support your entire clan?”

This voice was unhurried, yet weighed a thousand pounds.

Zhang Jing’s expression remained calm, as if he had already guessed something. He calmly rose and knelt. “Your Majesty, this subject truly doesn’t have this estate. If anyone in my clan has committed crimes, I beseech Your Majesty to punish them severely.”

“Why must Minister Zhang do this?”

Emperor Zhengyuan laughed once. “I still have new policies to rely on you for. Qian Weiyin is a criminal official—whether what he says is true or false remains unknown. Don’t you agree?”

“Everything Qian Weiyin said is true. Your Majesty, that Daoist temple in Daizhou was built with money they obtained from selling official grain, yet Your Majesty has never once visited that temple.”

Emperor Zhengyuan’s eyes lost all trace of mirth. “Zhang Jing.”

Zhang Jing heard the sound of an inkstone falling to the ground inside, then a hand lifted the curtain. Emperor Zhengyuan walked before him, his voice containing anger: “Are you blaming me?”

“This subject dares not. This subject is only speaking the truth. Whether for sacrificial ceremonies or building Daoist temples, everything Your Majesty does labors the people and wastes resources. In Your Majesty’s twenty years on the throne, countless Daoist temples have been built across the land—yet how many has Your Majesty, residing in Yun Jing, truly visited? If you truly went to see them, you would know what it means that the common people’s lives grow harder each day!”

“Has Your Majesty ever seen floating corpses and starving people? Have you heard that among your subjects living under your reign, countless still cannot withstand hunger and cold, and can only gnaw on tree bark and eat mercy clay? Do you know what mercy clay is? Do you know that they are waiting for you, waiting for you as their sovereign father to save their lives!”

Zhang Jing bowed and kowtowed.

Liang Shenfu and the eunuchs and palace maids in the hall all trembled, their knees going weak as they knelt, frightened into a cold sweat.

Emperor Zhengyuan’s heart stabbed with pain as he staggered back two steps. Liang Shenfu hurried to support him, but Emperor Zhengyuan shook him off and raised his finger to point at Zhang Jing kneeling there: “I see you… have no regard for your sovereign father!”

Zhang Jing raised his head. His bent spine, curved from those years of exile, could no longer straighten:

“Whether the sovereign father bestows thunder or rain and dew, as a subject, I should receive it all! But as subjects, though we do not fear death, we also hope that the sovereign to whom we pledge loyalty can enable us subjects to die for a worthy cause!”