Gu Yanxi returned to the Seven-Lodge Division, dismissed the subordinates who approached to report, and shut himself inside his room.

Did it hurt? Yes. Was he grieved? Also yes. But surprised? Not at all. Perhaps when he had been young, he had held the simplest and most unguarded affection for that elder who sat so high above the world yet still made room to cherish him. But people grow up. The feeling remained, yet he had long since learned to leave margins.

Only an affection of precise measure could sustain a bond with a sovereign — too much weighed too heavy, too little ran too thin. It had to be calibrated with care, and a feeling that had been weighed and measured was, even when it existed, a filtered thing.

On the ride back he had already been turning over what to do next. The desire to lay everything down and walk away was genuine. The willingness to be stripped of his rank and become a commoner was genuine. The wish to live or die at A’Zhi’s side was genuine. And the need to gauge exactly how deep the Emperor’s obsession ran was also genuine. Yet even having spent every bargaining piece he held, having staked years of uncle-and-nephew feeling on the outcome, nothing had changed by so much as a hair.

The Emperor was resolved to dig the canal. He would have this legacy inscribed in history, and he would look past every other risk as though it simply did not exist. If the Chaoli tribe attacked the border right now, Gu Yanxi suspected that unless the enemy reached the capital gates, the Emperor would still insist on seeing the canal finished before asking where the enemy stood.

He poured a cup of cold water and swallowed it down. Even his chest felt cold — he could not tell whether the water had chilled his heart or his heart had chilled the water.

Manpower. Funding.

Gu Yanxi dipped a finger in water and traced the characters on the tabletop, then drew a line through funding. With A’Zhi’s abilities, that one might actually have a solution — she might well find a way. What he needed to think through was how to resolve the manpower problem. Extending corvée service was absolutely out of the question. Once that door was opened, it could never be shut again, and harming the common people could bring no good to the Great Qing.

While he was still turning the problem over, a knock came at the door.

“My lord, Yuxiang has come.”

So his grandmother had received some news. Gu Yanxi crossed the room and opened the door.

Yuxiang dipped in a bow. “Her Ladyship invites you to come and dine.”

Gu Yanxi glanced up at the pitch-black sky and made his way toward the Palace of Blessed Longevity. Others could not enter the inner residence, but he could — that was one privilege accorded to the Chief of the Seven-Lodge Division.

Inside the Palace of Blessed Longevity, the Empress Dowager sat on the daybed in a simple white everyday robe, quietly turning a string of prayer beads. The sutras she knew by heart were coming out in fragments tonight, each line disconnected from the last. She stopped, set the beads aside, and let out a long sigh.

In a palace this small, the faintest disturbance drew attention from every quarter. The Emperor had cleared the servants from the imperial study, yet whether the mood in there was good or ill was plain enough to read. Others might not yet make anything of it, but she knew Yanxi’s identity — and knowing it, she worried. Those two, uncle and nephew, who had always managed their relationship so well — she hoped they had not let a rift open between them.

She heard movement. She looked toward the entrance to the hall and lifted a hand toward Yuxiang.

Yuxiang understood at once, sent everyone else to a distance, and stood watch at the doorway herself.

Gu Yanxi called out, his voice rough, “Grandmother.”

The Empress Dowager smiled. “Come sit. Keep your grandmother company.”

Gu Yanxi sat down across from her and set his mask to one side.

“You’ve been put through something today, haven’t you.” She looked at the swollen, darkened bruise along half of his face, tenderness moving through her eyes. She did not dare touch it. Instead she took his hand in both of hers — the roughened texture beneath her palms made her want to sigh again. Every other royal son or grandson was raised soft and carefully kept. This one alone had a pair of hands as callused as bark.

Gu Yanxi shook his head. “It’s nothing. Please don’t listen to people who make mountains of molehills.”

“I don’t need to listen to anyone. One look at your face tells me enough. Is it connected to the girl from the Hua Family?”

“Grandmother…”

“What you said to each other inside I wouldn’t know. But who went into the palace and who came out — that I have a clear picture of. So — has the Emperor dealt with you over this?”

Gu Yanxi thought, bitterly, that “dealt with” was too mild a word. The man had nearly dealt him to death.

“The Emperor won’t approve your arrangement with her?” The Empress Dowager smiled. “That doesn’t surprise me in the least. It would be strange if he did.”

“The Emperor used the Hua Family as a threat to compel A’Zhi to dig a canal on his behalf — approximately six hundred kilometers from end to end, with all labor and funding to be arranged by A’Zhi herself.” Watching his grandmother’s usually composed face shift into open astonishment, Gu Yanxi gave a bleak smile. “He wants to leave a name that shines through the ages. So he is forcing A’Zhi to leave behind a name that will stink through the ages.”

“Has he lost his mind? How is this a suitable time to open a canal? Has the Chaoli problem been resolved? Has the crown prince been established? Have the natural disasters been properly managed?”

“The Chaoli problem has me. The crown prince will in any case come from among the imperial princes. The natural disasters have ministers to manage the relief — there are more than enough people to share the burdens.”

The Empress Dowager pressed gently at the space between her brows. “That girl is capable, yes — but no matter how capable, how long could she withstand this kind of pressure? Should I go speak with the Emperor?”

“It would be useless, Grandmother. No one’s words will reach him now. A’Zhi and I both laid out every consequence as clearly as it could be laid out. He looked past all of it and heard none of it. He sees only the one outcome he wants.”

Who knew better than she did, as his mother, what manner of temperament her son had? She pressed gently at her temples. “What is your plan, then?”

“A’Zhi was hurt a little and has gone home to rest. The Emperor gave her one day to consider — though ‘consider’ is not the right word. There is no other choice but to accept.”

From beginning to end, Gu Yanxi’s brow had not once smoothed. This was a genuinely hard situation.

The Empress Dowager could think of nothing that might help. After a long moment’s silence, she raised her voice. “Yuxiang, bring me that smallest chest.”

The chest may have been the smallest, but it was not small — and Yuxiang knew better than anyone that what it contained was the most valuable of all the Empress Dowager’s possessions.

The Empress Dowager opened it, then turned it to face him. “Everything your grandmother has is in here. Property deeds, house deeds, bank notes, shops and storefronts — added all together it should be of some use.”

“You mustn’t do this. I cannot take your life savings.”

“It was always meant for you — only a little earlier than expected. And besides, I have so little compared to them that they won’t even want to divide it. Better to keep it together.” She closed the chest and smiled with a touch of mischief. “Word of that girl from the Hua Family’s ability to turn stones to gold has even reached the palace. Who knows — with money in her hands, she might grow it into even more.”

Turn stones to gold. A spark of clarity lit in Gu Yanxi’s mind, and suddenly the whole chain clicked together: when the Emperor had been investigating him and discovered A’Zhi, he had heard of her gift. And the Emperor — who had long dreamed of the canal but never had the money or the men — had found himself a purse. That was why he had brought A’Zhi to the palace, frightened and tested her, and then crushed down this impossible burden upon her.

So that was it.

Gu Yanxi rose to his feet in a single motion. “Grandmother, I’ve just recalled something I must attend to. I’ll take my leave.”

The Empress Dowager made no move to stop him. “Go on. Take the chest.”

He looked at the chest and shook his head. “If we need it, I won’t stand on courtesy. But until we know what A’Zhi’s plan looks like, it’s better if you hold on to it for now.”

“Fair enough. I’ll take stock of it all again in the meantime.”

Gu Yanxi bowed once more and strode out.

Yuxiang saw him to the entrance of the hall, then turned back to find the Empress Dowager already tipping everything out of the chest. “Your Ladyship, allow this servant.”

She relinquished the task readily. “Count carefully. See whether anything has been overlooked. Tally it all together.”

“Yes, my lady.”