A guard passed Wu Rong on his way in, entering the room to hand several letters to their leader.

Gu Yanxi opened one and swept his eyes across it, gave a cold laugh, and handed it back without a word.

Hua Pingyu looked toward his father, his eyes full of unease. From the way Gu Yanxi had treated Wu Rong, and from the way Wu Rong had addressed him as “brother,” it was clear he held a position of considerable standing. Yet if such a person existed in the capital, how could he not know of him? No matter how he tried, he could not place the man.

The more he could not, the less settled he felt. Even he did not know who this man was — so who could he be?

Hua Yizheng had thought no less about it, but he was steadier than his son and let nothing show on his face. He looked up toward the man sitting at the edge of the bed. “Yanxi, do you know who is behind all of this?”

“Those with reach long enough to extend this far are few enough.” Gu Yanxi looked at the old man who, just yesterday afternoon, had seemed vigorous and alert, and who in one night seemed to have aged several years. In the end, he could not bring himself to say it plainly. Even knowing he could not conceal it forever, he had no wish to make the Hua family lose even more faith in the imperial house — nor to make A’Zhi look at him with less warmth because of who he was connected to.

Much as he was loath to admit it, he and the Gu family shared bone and blood and were, in the end, one family. When one rose, they all rose; when one fell, they fell together.

Looking at the cloud that had settled over the old master’s expression, Gu Yanxi did not know how to offer comfort. The founding Emperor had gone to extraordinary lengths to put safeguards in place, all to prevent the Gu family from repeating the mistakes of dynasties past — and yet even now, signs of decline had set in. No matter how hard he tried to shore things up, he could not reverse the course.

However great his power, he was not the Emperor. The moment his actions crossed the Emperor’s threshold, what awaited him was death — and the Seven-Lodge Bureau, which had endured across generations, would cease to exist. He could not afford that price. The Great Qing’s dependence on the Seven-Lodge Bureau was difficult to overstate; it had become, in essence, a small parallel court outside the official one. He appeared, on the surface, more formidable than any of his predecessors — yet walked a far more treacherous path.

And the Hua family?

Hua Jingyan and the founding Emperor had been sovereign and minister in perfect accord for decades. They had built this kingdom together, together set down its laws and institutions, and in their old age sat drinking and recalling those early years. When the founding Emperor lay dying, the last person he wished to see was Hua Jingyan — making him the sole minister entrusted with the care of the dynasty’s future. So many people feared then that the Hua family would grow too powerful, would harbor ambitions of disloyalty — yet Hua Jingyan had stepped back as soon as the new Emperor’s rule was secure, appearing only when matters were truly grave and never otherwise, taking the word “loyalty” to its outermost limit.

Gu Yanxi had once had the rare privilege of reading the Hua family’s household code. Its rules and provisions were meticulous beyond all reckoning. Even the six classical arts were specified in its pages — with particular weight given to the art of letters. Hua Jingyan had made the Hua family into pure scholars across every generation: barred from any of the Six Ministries, permitted only entry into the Hanlin Academy. From the root, he had cut off any possibility of the family accumulating power. He had bound the Hua family and the Great Qing into a relationship of mutual dependency — planting himself there as an enduring presence, shaping generation after generation of men of letters, supplying the lifeblood of the dynasty. There was no hiding that his students and proteges were everywhere under heaven, yet because Hua family members served generation after generation only in the Hanlin Academy, the Emperor could rest easy.

For though the Hanlin Academy was a position of prestige and refinement, it carried no real authority.

Yet his imperial uncle had, for reasons Gu Yanxi still could not fully understand, harbored a deep and persistent wariness of the Hua family. He had endured for many years before finally finding his moment to strike. Had Hua Jingyan’s teachings not taken such thorough root, and had A’Zhi not held the Hua family together so tightly — cutting off the hands of every person who had dared reach for them, leaving enemies no crack to drive a wedge through — the scholars of the Great Qing would never have remained so settled, and his imperial uncle’s suspicion of the Hua family might well have proven itself justified.

A’Zhi had steadied the Hua family. The Hua family, in turn, had steadied the scholars of the realm. That was the Hua family’s contribution to the Great Qing. And what had come of it?

If not for the Hua family having a Hua Zhi. If not for Hua Zhi being here at Yinshan Pass, by some turn of fortune. If not for Hua Zhi possessing all the skills she possessed — a household of scholars faced with those men in black, and not one of them would have escaped.

Had whoever ordered this ever once stopped to consider: if the Hua family came to such an end, to whose account would that debt be charged, and how would the hearts of scholars across the realm ever be settled again?

He also knew that A’Zhi would exhaust every means within her reach to avenge the Hua family — that even the prospect of damnation after death would not stop her.

The person he loved so dearly — Gu Yanxi lowered his head and closed his hand around A’Zhi’s, his voice soft so as not to disturb her sleep. “I will find the truth of it. Whoever stands behind this, the matter will not be quietly buried.”

Hua Yizheng’s mouth curved faintly. “Whoever it is?”

“Whoever it is.” Gu Yanxi raised his head. The cold clarity in his eyes was enough to make Hua Yizheng believe he meant every word — and not merely as reassurance.

For the first time, Hua Yizheng asked it aloud. “Who are you?”

Gu Yanxi smiled. “A’Zhi asked me not to say, so I’ll listen to her.”

“She asked you not to say because it is connected to your identity. So — you are of the imperial house.”

Gu Yanxi neither confirmed nor denied it. Just then, Wu Rong arrived with Zeng Han. The wooden wheels of the chair made a great deal of noise, and the boy behind it was pushing with all his might, sweat across his brow, but stubbornly accepting help only for the moment of crossing over the threshold.

Zeng Han’s cheeks were hollow, his clothes hanging loose on his frame. His expression was calm — calm as a man who had simply come to catch up with old acquaintances.

The Hua family members had all met Zeng Han before, but none of them had expected the elegant young man they once knew to have become this. Whatever had happened to him in between — it had hollowed him out, made him someone to whom grief had become unremarkable.

Gu Yanxi suddenly crossed the space and took hold of Zeng Han’s wrist. Zeng Han let him do it, and spoke with perfect equanimity. “A man near death has nothing to hide and nothing left unsaid.”

A man near death indeed — the signs of poison running its course were unmistakable, yet he sat here as though nothing were the matter. The degree of endurance required for that alone was considerable.

“You were part of this.” Gu Yanxi returned to his seat, picked up the cloth and wiped his hands as a matter of habit, and then folded Hua Zhi’s hand back into his own. This sequence of actions drew a twitch from more than one member of the Hua family.

“Yes, I was part of it.”

“Then why did you pull back? Why did you have your son send A’Zhi the letter?”

“I never pulled back. Sending Han’er with that letter was the only thing I did differently — everything else I was supposed to do, I did.” Zeng Han glanced at the figure lying on the bed, life and death still uncertain. “It was meant to reach you. I didn’t expect that…”

Gu Yanxi felt a sharp ache inside, and his manner grew colder still. “Since you say you have nothing to hide, then speak.”

Zeng Han suddenly laughed — a real laugh, as though something had genuinely amused him. “Actually, I rather regret it. If I hadn’t let Han’er send that letter, things would have gotten quite entertaining before much longer, don’t you think? Every person the Hua family exiled to this place would be dead, and all those stiff-necked scholars who had been kept in check by the Hua family — can you imagine the scene? The Emperor is arrogant and suspicious by nature. He wouldn’t have thought for a moment that there was anything wrong in what he’d done. He would only have concluded that things had gone exactly as he feared, that the Hua family’s influence had grown so great it could shake the very foundations of his rule — and a man like that would naturally respond by sending troops to crush them.”

The more he imagined it, the more it delighted him. Zeng Han’s face flushed with excitement. “And would scholars be frightened off by that? The harder the repression, the more they’d push back — the more wronged they’d believe the Hua family to be. The matter would keep growing, keep escalating. And then what would the Emperor do when his patience ran out? Why, he’d kill. Kill until the blood ran in rivers — make them remember whose dynasty this was. But the scholars of the Great Qing, you really can’t say — before they ever step into officialdom, they’ve all absorbed the Hua family’s way of thinking. Their spines are made of iron. The more you come down on them, the more they arch their backs and refuse to yield, willing to lose their heads before they’d abandon the Hua family. And the Emperor — do you think he could stand that?”

The Emperor could not stand that. Everyone in the room knew it.

Hua Yizheng had gone ashen. He looked at Zeng Han, wild-eyed and frenzied, and said in a steady, measured voice, “If the Great Qing fell into chaos, what would you gain from it?”