To keep the grandson and dismiss the sons was a statement no one could miss. Zhu Ziwen felt a swell of pride even as something bitter surfaced beneath it — the road ahead with his father would not be an easy one.

Zhu Bowen passed the imperial decree to the two of them. Once they had read it through, he repeated every word Lai Fu had conveyed, without omitting a single detail.

When Hua Zhi had heard it all, her expression became something almost pained. “So all of this great commotion on the Emperor’s part is essentially jealousy? Like a mother-in-law begrudging her daughter-in-law?”

The grandfather and grandson both stared at her. What a comparison to make.

“It is not quite that.” Gu Yanxi shook his head. “He truly does want to use you. I know him — there may be some element of resentment that I withheld something from him because of you, but far more of it is that he believes I am no longer controllable. The one he indulges is the obedient Gu Yanxi who could be aimed anywhere and would strike without question.”

Hua Zhi showed she understood. “Put simply: you used to be his possession. Even if he chose to discard you one day, it would be his right to do the discarding. You were not permitted to be the one whose heart drifted away first — and to have someone who matters more to you than he does is even more unacceptable.”

“…” The words were rough but the logic was sound. It seemed, more or less, accurate — yet something about it felt profoundly wrong.

Zhu Ziwen could not stop himself from speaking. “Cousin, the things you have been saying today are a little… unmoored.”

The moment the word left his mouth he felt it was not quite right either, but he could not think of a better one.

“Grasp the meaning and let it go at that.” Hua Zhi looked toward Yanxi. “If you were to go back and yield to him, would he rescind his earlier stance and lift this burden from my shoulders?”

Gu Yanxi did not hesitate. “He would not.”

“Then there is no need for you to feel that your refusal to yield has brought trouble upon me. As long as the task is still placed on my shoulders, nothing changes.”

Gu Yanxi did genuinely reproach himself for his lack of foresight this time. Had yielding been capable of making the Emperor ease up on A’Zhi, he would have yielded ten times over, a hundred. But it was not. The Emperor wanted to leave his name in history, wanted his reign to appear less than thoroughly mediocre — and achieving that required vast sums of silver.

“But he will grant you greater conveniences.”

Hua Zhi smiled. “I do not worry about that. No matter how one looks at this, he is the more impatient party. If he wants results quickly, he had better open every door wide for me.”

Gu Yanxi wanted to say there was more to it than that. The Emperor had surely prepared his own contingencies — he could not have intended to pile everything onto A’Zhi’s shoulders alone. He appreciated A’Zhi, he recognized her talent for generating wealth, but he had likely positioned her only as the most important piece, not the entirety. First there was the Ministry of Finance, which held dominion over all the realm’s revenues — directing the Minister Zhu to cooperate must have been arranged long ago. Then there was the Ministry of Works; the opening of the canal would need to be overseen and coordinated by them. The Emperor would certainly have arrangements in place for all of this. What he had not anticipated was that before he himself could go and yield, and before these concessions could be offered as gestures of appeasement, A’Zhi had simply named them all as her own conditions — and so the Emperor had flown into that furious, humiliated rage.

And furthermore: “The Emperor will push you relentlessly.”

Hua Zhi raised her brows. “It would be stranger if he did not. He can hardly allow me to drag things out for ten or twenty years. But these things cannot be done merely because someone pushes.”

Gu Yanxi looked at her steadily, then spoke words that struck like lightning: “The Emperor’s constitution has been gravely damaged by the dantian poison. He is far from what he once was.”

“Watch your tongue!” Zhu Bowen’s sharp rebuke cut across the room. Zhu Ziwen had already darted to the door and pulled it open — the steward stood in the corridor outside keeping watch, and not a single other soul was anywhere near.

He turned back and shook his head at his grandfather. His heart was beating so fast it felt as though it might leap from his mouth.

“It is of no consequence. No one has approached.” Gu Yanxi’s expression remained unchanged. From the moment they had entered the study he had kept his attention on the surroundings — he had noted that Zhu Haocheng had earlier tried to linger outside before being dragged away by Zhu Haodong.

“Such words must never be spoken, regardless of who is listening.” Zhu Bowen looked toward his granddaughter. “Especially you, Zhi’er — sovereign is sovereign. We are all subjects of Great Qing. I know there is bitterness in your heart; swallow it down even if it means grinding it to dust. Once the heart loses its reverence, nothing good will follow.”

“Yes. I will remember.” Hua Zhi truly did take it to heart — her great-grandfather had already said as much to her once before, and she had heard him. But none of that meant she was obliged to die in service to the Emperor.

“The words came from my mouth — they have nothing to do with A’Zhi.” Gu Yanxi could not bear to see A’Zhi reprimanded, and so he drew the matter back to himself. “I said it not out of disrespect, but to give A’Zhi a sense of the situation — the Emperor cannot afford to wait. He will press hard.”

Hua Zhi suddenly understood. Of everyone in this affair, the one who bore the greatest inner weight was Yanxi. The Emperor’s actions amounted to a betrayal of something like familial trust. That was why he had been so unwilling to go and yield.

She gave a small shake of her head toward her great-grandfather, who had been about to speak again, and steered the conversation elsewhere. “And Hao Yue — what do you intend to do about her?”

“She is a palace consort now. Any contact between her and me would be harmful to both of us. Yet since she entered the palace partly because of me, I will have Lai Fu extend her a measure of quiet care, so that her days inside are at least livable. That is all I can do for her.”

“If Hao Yue uses her usual arts to bewitch the Emperor…”

“She would not dare.”

Hua Zhi considered it. That was true enough. Finding no better alternative to hand, she set the matter aside for now and turned her thoughts to the Fourth Prince. She actually suspected that the Emperor’s elevation of the Fourth Prince was not entirely about setting a counterweight against the Sixth Prince — it was more likely meant as a provocation toward Yanxi. Given the twisted state of the Emperor’s current feelings, he was probably wanting Yanxi to understand that he had not only a nephew to cherish, but sons as well.

For the third time, Hua Zhi found herself thinking of a mother-in-law quarreling with her daughter-in-law over the favor of the household.

The Elder Statesman did not trouble himself to puzzle out what silent understanding passed between these two. Some things, once they became entanglements, he found he preferred not to know. What he did want to know was: “The Sixth Prince — how did he come to live at the Hua household? When did all this happen?”

Hua Zhi described how she had come across Little Six and taken him in. “At the time I did not think too much of it. He was such a small child, covered in blood, and Shao Yao was there as a physician — how could one simply stand by and let him die?”

Another person might well have done exactly that. The Elder Statesman said nothing of it, only asked: “And he has been at the Hua household ever since?”

“Yes.”

“With what has happened involving you, the Emperor will likely hold it against him.”

“He favored the eldest imperial prince — and what came of it?” Hua Zhi smiled faintly. “He gave that man more than a decade of hope and still would not give him the crown prince’s title in the end. Drove him to take his own life. We will take the path of doing real things. Is it not said that the one who wins the hearts of the people wins the realm? Then let Little Six first win the hearts of the people.”

Zhu Bowen pointed a finger toward her, half in reproach. Timid and weak he had no use for — but Zhi’er had gone quite to the other extreme, and that, too, gave him cause for worry.

And yet, thinking of how much she had been carrying, how many quiet schemes she had been arranging in places they could not see, how much she had already endured — his heart ached. The girls of other families, at her age, were either already wed or deep in preparations for their wedding day. None of them were sitting here calculating moves like this.

“Should you not inform your grandfather of this matter?”

Hua Zhi thought a moment, then shook her head. “Telling them would only add to their distress. Better not to.”

Zhu Bowen did not entirely agree — something of this magnitude ought not to be kept from him. But Hua Zhi followed it immediately with: “Do not tell Grandfather either. I would not have him worrying. For matters this worldly and calculating, it is enough that I handle them.”