Someone outside requested an audience. The moment Hua Zhi heard Jia Yang’s voice, she already knew what it was about. She rose and said, “I’ll step out for a walk.”
“No need to avoid this — stay and listen.”
Hua Zhi herself couldn’t say when she had stopped standing on ceremony with Yanxi. Hearing his words, she settled back down without any fuss, adopting an air of attentive listening.
Amusement danced in Gu Yanxi’s eyes as he called out, “Come in.”
It was not only Jia Yang who entered, but also a plain-looking, small-statured man — Xue Liang, Head of the Fourth Division, responsible for intelligence gathering.
“Speak.”
“Yes.” Xue Liang bowed and said, “When I approached the First Imperial Prince, I made contact with Jia Yang. He had already uncovered some things. Jia Yang, you tell it.”
“Yes. The First Imperial Prince currently has only one eunuch beside him — one who was exiled along with him. I kept close watch. At first, nothing seemed amiss. The First Imperial Prince rose with the sun and rested at dusk, greeting everyone with a smile. Over these past days, many people have changed their opinion of him — and yet, that is precisely the greatest problem.”
Jia Yang paused, then continued, “He is the First Imperial Prince who once dared to offer the Emperor a life-threatening elixir. His temper was violent; he had no small number of lives on his hands. Such a man behaving any which way after exile would be understandable — every way except his current behavior. His performance is too deliberate, as though he is performing for someone’s benefit. Suspicious, I had him followed around the clock for all twelve two-hour periods, and I did indeed discover something.”
Gu Yanxi and Hua Zhi exchanged a glance, both of them tensing inwardly.
“That eunuch is a woman.” Jia Yang continued, “At first, I thought she was simply someone the First Imperial Prince brought along for… personal company. But I discovered their relationship is not of that nature. The First Imperial Prince is remarkably obedient in her presence. That is all I have been able to ascertain for now.”
Xue Liang took over, “After learning of this from Jia Yang, I took the liberty of searching the First Imperial Prince’s lodgings, but found nothing that could prove the woman’s identity. She is impeccably proper — not a single word or deed that could be faulted. There is only one thing: she wears coarse cloth on the outside, yet underneath she is dressed in the finest silk. Every inner garment and bodice in her wardrobe is silk. Furthermore, I found two crates of tea bricks in the First Imperial Prince’s lodgings.”
“Silk garments and tea bricks.” Gu Yanxi gave a cold laugh. “These are commonplace items in the Central Plains, yet they are prized by both the grassland tribes beyond the passes and the Chaoli people. Keep a close watch — do not startle them. I want to see exactly what manner of demons and monsters are behind this!”
“Yes.”
“To have received an imperial education for so many years, and yet now require a foreign tribesperson to instruct him on how to conduct himself — truly the greatest of jokes. Issue a summons to the Seven Lodges Division. Have them conduct another thorough sweep of Yinshan Pass for me, and root out every Chaoli tribesperson hiding within!”
“Yes.” Jia Yang and Xue Liang withdrew together.
Hua Zhi understood his feeling of raging helplessness. She refilled his tea and said, “There is no need to be too agitated. Even if the Chaoli people truly spent two full generations working toward this, I still believe they could not have driven too many nails into the Daqing Dynasty. First, their tribe’s weak fertility is their fatal weakness. Second, not every person is suitable — any child born looking too much like a Chaoli person could not be used. Even with a fifty-percent chance, candidates would still have to be selected from that half. Looking at those caught so far, whether Yuan Shifang or Tong Yi, they are all exceptionally intelligent. If everyone among them were so outstanding, the Chaoli people would have no need for such schemes — they could simply wage open war and might not even lose.”
Gu Yanxi took her hand and restrained himself to a single kiss upon it. “Your analysis is sound.”
Hua Zhi simply pretended not to notice him overstepping. “If the Daqing Dynasty had maintained stricter control over its territories, and local authorities had enforced tighter management of the population, would things ever have come to this?”
Even without the advanced technology of a later age — where one identification card could take a person anywhere under the sky — if only women had been given a little more regard, if their disappearances had been documented, those in authority would eventually have noticed the pattern as reports emerged from multiple regions. It might not have saved anyone, but at least the Chaoli people would not have dared to act so brazenly. Over the years, how many women had been abducted in total — even that would have been impossible to determine.
In the countryside, when a woman disappeared, she simply disappeared. How many families would bother to report it to the magistrate? The clan itself would not wish to suffer the shame.
“A’Zhi, it is a pity you were born a woman.”
“Even if I were a man, I would not take up an official post. I have no desire for it, and the family rules would not grant me that standing either.” Her thoughts were too scattered, and she was too self-serving — far removed from the pure scholar that Hua Jingan demanded. And besides, “Had I truly been born a man, I would have been exiled alongside the rest of them. There would be nothing left between you and me.”
Gu Yanxi leaned close. “Nothing between you and me?”
Hua Zhi blinked. “Our business dealings, of course.”
“Is that truly all there is between us?” Gu Yanxi leaned closer still.
“What else would there be?”
Gu Yanxi took her hand and pressed a kiss to it. “This.”
“Oh?” Hua Zhi’s expression did not change as she raised her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of his in return. “So that is what you meant.”
Gu Yanxi froze for a moment, then broke into uncontrollable laughter. His A’Zhi!
Shao Yao sat on the corridor steps cradling Zeng Han, leaning against a pillar and gazing up at the stars. Listening to the laughter drifting from within, she smiled along with it. She could barely remember what Yan-ge had been like before, but she remembered clearly — laughter like this only came after he had come to know Hua Hua.
Tomorrow would be a fine day.
Gu Yanxi moved into the Hua household. The younger generation reshuffled themselves and managed to free up a room for him.
Not wishing to arouse the suspicions of those with watchful eyes, he rarely stepped out during the day, spending entire days keeping A’Zhi company — reading together, talking. One day, the two even set up the sand table for two rounds of battle.
The terrain for that session had been modeled by Hua Zhi after actual maps. Precisely because it was familiar terrain, everyone — the Hua household members and Wu Yong alike — watched with the utmost attention.
In the first round, Hua Zhi defended. She employed numerous tactics, even attempting one that no one had ever used from the writings of Master Siqing, yet after holding out for a full two-hour period, she still lost.
In the second round, Hua Zhi attacked. Compared to Gu Yanxi’s steady, measured advance that pressed in step by step, she pushed the tactic of bold risk-taking to its absolute extreme, with unconventional troops emerging again and again. Yet only when she had stormed the hilltop did it become clear to all that the so-called unconventional troops had been a feint — the real, hard-fought resistance had come from the main commander herself. She won, but barely.
Gu Yanxi was plainly disapproving. “A’Zhi, you were reckless.”
“Only by doing that did I have any hope of winning.” Hua Zhi wiped the sweat from her brow. Her injury had not yet fully healed, and the mental strain had taken a toll on her.
“Wagering life against life does not always end in victory. It must be used with great care.”
“But without wagering life against life, I had already lost.” Hua Zhi smiled, showing her teeth, her mood clearly lifted by having beaten Yanxi. “Do not worry — I have no need to take the battlefield. Such a tactic can only ever be tested on a sand table like this. It would never fall to me to command troops in real life.”
Gu Yanxi wanted to say more, but in the end he swallowed it back. Sand table exercises were the hardest place to truly reveal a person’s character. A’Zhi favored unconventional stratagems, yet the one she trusted most was always herself. He would simply have to harden his heart and work on sharpening her actual combat abilities — the stronger her foundation, the better her chances of winning, even when it came down to a wager of life against life.
Author’s Note: The foreshadowing has begun again… Brazenly did a livestream — thank you all for the warm reception, thank you to the readers who showed up, and thank you to those who left reviews that got swallowed by the system. Reviews have been sparse these past couple of days — at first I thought it was because people had grown tired of me, but it was only after seeing Xinyan’s comment that I realized they had been eaten. Sending a box cutter to the tech team! Hmph. I also want to thank the readers for their patience these past few days — there will be three updates tomorrow. Also, Kong Kong is truly shameless, but she only weighs ninety-six catties!