Fushou Palace was utterly silent. Hua Zhi, with an air of casual unconcern, tied the small pouch at her waist and strode inside.
“Worthy indeed of the military strategist’s descendant — Grand Tutor Hua has remarkable courage.”
In the main hall, a white-haired old man stood at the doorway watching her. His hands were clasped behind his back; his bearing was composed. There was even what appeared to be genuine admiration in his eyes.
“I had no choice, did I?”
The old man smiled slightly and turned to gesture in a gracious invitation.
Hua Zhi caught sight of the Empress Dowager. She sat in the same chair she occupied on ordinary days — bound hand and foot, a cloth stuffed in her mouth, her eyes cold and sharp. Yuxiang stood behind her, as though in the same master-and-servant tableau they had shared for so many years.
Hua Zhi walked forward, paying no attention to how many people were in the room, drew her dagger, and went to slash through the ropes. Yuxiang instinctively moved to stop her; the dagger pivoted and swept directly toward Yuxiang.
Yuxiang stumbled back in alarm.
Hua Zhi did not spare her a glance. She cut through the ropes and removed the cloth from the Empress Dowager’s mouth, restoring, in this inadequate but necessary way, the dignity of this woman who had spent her entire life confined within the palace walls.
The Empress Dowager patted Hua Zhi’s hand, rubbing her wrists without a word. The crisis that had engulfed the palace had come about because of her own failure to see clearly — that responsibility was hers. And now, she had drawn Hua Zhi into this mortal danger. Her only wish was that she could reduce Yuxiang to a thousand pieces and then take her own life in atonement.
Hua Zhi understood her fury, and offered no words of comfort. She simply sat down in the chair beside the Empress Dowager, set the pouch on her lap, and swept a glance around the room. In plain sight were fourteen people — by all appearances there were a few more concealed in the shadows.
“Wiseman Elder?”
“Chaoli is but a small tribe — there are no Elders here. I am merely the Elder of a tribe.”
Hua Zhi nodded. “I had forgotten. And yet the Chaoli tribe’s valor surpasses even that of former times — while Daqing has fallen far short of what it once was.”
“Daqing is blessed by heaven. Two hundred years ago it was granted a Hua Jingyan; now, at the moment of Daqing’s greatest weakness, there are still people willing to risk their lives for it. I once believed Daqing could not contain you — yet I could not have imagined that you would break through every constraint and, as a woman, establish yourself in the court, and earn such widespread support.”
“This shows that Daqing’s fortunes are not yet spent — which is why heaven allowed me to be reborn into the Hua Family, and under the shelter of my ancestors’ legacy, to contribute what little I can for Daqing’s sake.”
The old man laughed heartily. “This is hardly a small contribution. Had you not torn open Jin Yang’s underside and cut off our source of funds — had you not saved the Sixth Prince and brought him to where he stands today—”
Hua Zhi cut his words short. “At the time when Little Six encountered danger — was that your doing?”
“Naturally. Given the Sixth Prince’s background, none of those princes had the nerve to truly want his life.”
Hua Zhi’s smile gradually faded. “Throughout history, the changing of dynasties has always been the natural order. Yet there is only one Chaoli tribe against which the resistance was so fierce, and the hundred years of Chaoli’s reign are called in history the darkest hundred years. Elder, do you know why?”
“It is merely that we of the Chaoli tribe were seen as outsiders.”
“The ones who truly carried that principle all the way to its end were you, the Chaoli nation. You treated Central Plains people as livestock rather than as subjects. You showed no kindness to the elderly and no compassion to the young. Slaughter was your customary way of resolving problems. You forbade them from learning to read, forbade them from developing their minds, forbade them from having thoughts of their own. If they had not resisted, their children and grandchildren truly would have become creatures with human forms and nothing more. That is why they united as one and fought back with their lives. Central Plains people may not be as physically powerful as the Chaoli, but Elder — you have greatly underestimated the tenacity of Central Plains people.”
Hua Zhi struck her chest. “Because we have pride in our hearts and mettle in our bones, we have the radiant civilization you covet, and the flowering of all things that we have today. I fight with everything I have because I refuse to become your livestock, because I refuse to let my brothers and sisters be humiliated, because I refuse to live through those lightless hundred years again. When one speaks of consequences — those consequences are merely the fruit of past causes. And evidently, even after two hundred years, you have not advanced a single step: you still resolve problems through slaughter. The presence of a Wiseman has not made the Chaoli tribe civilized — it has only given the slaughter more method.”
The Wiseman’s composed, transcendental bearing was gone now. “Great deeds do not worry over small matters. Without slaughter, how is anything to be accomplished? Did your Hua Jingyan not exhaust every scheme and stratagem before breaking into the capital? Without slaughter, would Daqing have simply handed over the realm?”
“I only know that when our ancestors defeated you, they did not pursue you to extermination. After you settled in your remote corner, they maintained heavy fortifications but never cut off your means of survival.” Hua Zhi raised her chin slightly. “And even now, those Chaoli people and their Daqing descendants who have come to light — we have caused them no trouble. Even the Elder’s own grandson is, at this very moment, alive and well. May I ask the Elder: if your positions were reversed, could you have done the same?”
The Chaoli would leave no one alive, spare no potential threat. The Elder knew it. And so he could only smile. “What a sharp tongue — worthy indeed of the Crown Prince’s tutor. But what does it matter? You are still here, and the Empress Dowager is still here. Would the young Crown Prince dare make a move?”
Hua Zhi leaned back slightly, tugged the top of the pouch open to expose the black gunpowder inside. “Does the Elder know what this is?”
“Is this what you used to defeat our Chaoli warriors just now?”
Hua Zhi produced the fire-starter and waved it near the fuse. “As long as I blow this alight and light the fuse, every single person in this room… has no chance of escape.”
The old man’s expression finally changed. The other Chaoli tribespeople moved to cluster around the Elder. If they had known that what she held was this dangerous, they would never have allowed her to bring it inside!
And now…
The Elder’s expression shifted again and again. As he fell back, shielded by those around him, he raised his voice: “Hua Zhi — are you truly content to give your all for a royal family that turns on those who served it faithfully? Hua Jingyan deserves a large part of the credit for the Gu family winning the realm. And afterward, it has been the Hua Family, generation after generation, nurturing capable talent to keep the Gu family’s throne secure — yet how did the Emperor repay the Hua Family? He had the Hua Family arrested, their property confiscated, and drove them into exile, nearly taking their lives in the process. Do you think that by dying for them now they will be grateful? The moment they feel the Hua Family poses a threat, they will forget all of this and come for the Hua Family again just as before. Can you truly say you are content?”
“I am a Daqing person.” Hua Zhi’s voice was cold. “Whatever faults Daqing may have, it allows its people to live in peace. When great disasters strike, it remits taxes so the people can struggle on and survive. There are institutions like the Seven Lodges to maintain stability, and military generals like General Sun to guard the frontiers. What would we have if we fell into the hands of the Chaoli tribe? Elder, you must be at your wits’ end — resorting to such a tactic as this.”
“In that case, why does Grand Tutor Hua have such anger?”
“Because you speak ill of my Daqing. This nation — however many flaws it may have — only I myself have the right to speak of them. What standing does the Chaoli tribe have to pass judgment? However flawed it may be, can it compare to the darkness of those hundred years under the Chaoli nation? Yes — the late Emperor caused my family to be separated. But the Chaoli tribe is capable of reducing tens of millions of my Daqing countrymen to rootless duckweed with nowhere to belong. I ask the Elder — how do the two compare?”
Hua Zhi rose from her seat and walked toward the gathered enemies. “Does the Elder perhaps think that by goading me he can find an opening to harm me and seize the weapon? Believe me — before anyone here makes their move, I will drag everyone in this room with me into death.”