With the Crown Princess herself appearing before the court, great with child, to confess guilt and accept punishment — the ministers could hardly keep up their clamor about a “Daji ruining the realm” and continued to make a scene in the hall.

In the end, that session of weeping and wailing before the throne came to a close.

However, as a member of the inner palace, the Crown Princess had entered the great hall without receiving the Emperor’s summons — this was plainly a violation of the ancestral rites.

And so Su Luoyun was given a public reprimand by the Emperor and ordered back to the Eastern Palace to rest and care for herself during her pregnancy, prohibited from leaving the palace without permission.

On the way back that day, both Xiangcao and Ji Qiu ached with sympathy for their Crown Princess.

Even Consort Zong in the Jiankang Palace sighed and shook her head when she heard: “The women of this palace must still take the blame for the men from time to time. Since Su Luoyun became mistress of the Eastern Palace, she has not once summoned her own father — and yet she still suffers for the sake of her father’s family and her brother…”

Saying this, she glanced at her second daughter-in-law Miss Zheng, who was attending her, and offered an anxious reminder: “With all the lawsuits swirling about court these days, you too must be careful. Marrying into our imperial family means being cautious and circumspect in all things — you must not bring trouble upon your husband.”

Miss Zheng listened with a gentle smile and nodded, saying that her mother-in-law’s instruction was entirely right and she would certainly be more mindful in her daily conduct.

Compared to the elder daughter-in-law, who was outwardly soft but inwardly unyielding, this second daughter-in-law from a scholarly family background was far more docile and agreeable in manner.

Because of the incident with the poetry collection revisions, Han Xiao had shown his new bride a cold face more than once since the wedding. Yet Miss Zheng did not utter a word of complaint, meeting the Second Prince’s cold expression each day with a quiet smile. When he deliberately gave her the cold shoulder, she did not grow anxious or irritable — she simply occupied herself calmly with her books and her calligraphy.

This quality of upbringing and composure was beyond compare.

Even Han Linfeng had advised Han Xiao: “If Father had never ascended the throne, a woman of such brilliance — the granddaughter of a great Confucian scholar — would have been entirely beyond your reach. If you cannot appreciate that, at least do not waste her time. End things early and marry yourself some flattering, ordinary woman instead. The Zheng family’s daughter will have no trouble finding a match — she need not hang herself in your cold storehouse.”

As time passed, Han Xiao felt himself losing his edge. He began to find his own behavior rather tiresome, and in recent days his relations with Miss Zheng had thawed somewhat.

But just as harmony between the Second Prince and his new wife was beginning to grow, the accord within the Crown Prince’s household was shattered.

Weighing the advantages and disadvantages of the situation, the Emperor — though he had established that Su Guiyan had not abused his office or neglected his duties — ultimately issued an imperial edict punishing Su Guiyan all the same, demoting him and transferring him to a bitter, impoverished post in the far north, in order to smooth relations with the noble families.

With this edict, the Imperial Tutor’s descendants finally felt their honor restored. And the other noble families were quietly gleeful.

Now that the Imperial Tutor affair had been stirred up in this way, the authority of the land equalization system had been greatly undermined. As long as the powerful gentry in each county and district could find a legitimate pretext to block the poor settlers from claiming land, the new policies would gradually be rendered dead letters.

After all, if most of the displaced settlers all had fields to farm, what then? Where would the noble families find tenant farmers to work their vast tracts of land? And even if they could find workers, it would not be at the old, cheap rates.

Su Guiyan’s demotion was thus the new Emperor’s first act of capitulation to the noble families.

The night the edict was issued, Su Luoyun — consumed perhaps by the resentment she had been suppressing and by her indignation on her brother’s behalf — had a fierce quarrel with Crown Prince Han Linfeng. The sounds of crashing and shattering objects were audible even to the servants in the outer courtyard.

Huai Xia, who had previously been reprimanded and nearly driven out by the Crown Princess for harboring improper intentions, had afterward wept and begged Ji Qiu to plead on her behalf. In the palace, seniority was earned through years of service: by Huai Xia’s reckoning, if she stayed on until the following year alongside Xiangcao and the others, she would have completed her full term of duty and would be entitled to an additional resettlement allowance upon leaving. In the end, Ji Qiu worked up the courage to petition on her behalf. Perhaps because the Crown Princess’s temper had cooled by then, she relented — barely — out of the bond of two years of shared service and allowed Huai Xia to remain. Though Huai Xia could no longer enter the inner courtyard, she was permitted to do rough work in the outer courtyard, and simply had to wait out her time until she could leave the palace together with Xiangcao and the others.

That evening, when she stood at the doorway straining to listen, she heard the sounds of quarreling from within, and Han Linfeng’s voice at first patiently and quietly trying to soothe — but Su Luoyun showed not the slightest intention of yielding, and both voices rose louder and louder.

In the end, the Crown Prince was evidently worn out with persuading her and, in a burst of fury, bitterly condemned Su Guiyan as a short-sighted fool who could not read the times and had turned a trifling matter into a great storm in the court.

Perhaps because the Crown Prince had lost his temper, Su Luoyun finally fell silent — but then came the sound of muffled sobs. And then Huai Xia watched as Han Linfeng walked out with a stormy expression and did not return.

A short while later, Ji Qiu came out of the inner courtyard with a dejected face, carrying a washbasin.

Huai Xia promptly grabbed hold of her and whispered: what had happened? In more than two years of marriage, she had never seen the two of them so much as blush at each other — how had they come to fight so fiercely today?

Ji Qiu sighed and said quietly: “The Emperor, wanting to put a stop to the turbulence in the outer court, has decided to demote Su Guiyan to a post in the north. By all accounts, the poverty there is even worse than Liangzhou — perpetually short of water, not even enough to bathe properly all year round. The Crown Princess’s heart aches for her brother and wanted the Crown Prince to intercede with the Emperor on his behalf, asking that he not be sent somewhere so far away. But the Crown Prince said the court is full of criticism right now, and the Emperor’s own days are not easy either — how could he, as heir apparent, put his father in a difficult position? And so, one word led to another and they quarreled. Ah, I have never seen the Crown Princess weep so hard — her eyes are all swollen and red.”

Huai Xia felt a pang of sympathy and nodded quietly: “You and Xiangcao had better give the Crown Princess a good deal of comfort later.”

Ji Qiu nodded back, with a helpless expression, and handed over the copper basin she was carrying before turning back inside.

For the remainder of that day, whenever Huai Xia brought things to the inner courtyard, she would intermittently hear Su Luoyun’s stifled sobbing.

Huai Xia understood well: apart from the Crown Prince, the Crown Princess’s one soft spot was her younger brother. Now that her brother had met with such misfortune, it was no wonder the Crown Princess was devastated.

After the Crown Prince left that night, he did not return for the rest of it. The following morning, just after Huai Xia had risen, she heard a sudden crash from the inner courtyard, and then the Crown Princess’s tightly strung voice calling out loudly to ask Xiangcao what hour it was — why was it still so dark?

When the Crown Princess spoke those words, the sky was already broad daylight, brilliant with full sun.

After Xiangcao rushed into the room, it was not long before her voice came through, grief-stricken and distraught: “My dear lady — what has happened to you? Why has your eye condition flared up again? I warned you yesterday not to weep so hard, and you simply would not listen… what is to be done now!”

After that, the inner courtyard erupted into frantic commotion. The old physician who had long attended Su Luoyun came hurrying in, clutching his medicine box and half out of breath, and not long afterward, he emerged again, shaking his head with a prolonged sigh.

Huai Xia was keeping watch at the gate, and under the pretext of delivering water to the inner courtyard, caught Ji Qiu’s sleeve and asked whether the Crown Princess was ill — she had noticed the old physician’s troubled expression.

Ji Qiu looked anxiously to both sides, found no one near, and then whispered: “I will only tell you — do not breathe a word to anyone else. The Crown Princess’s eye condition… seems to have returned.”

Huai Xia’s eyes went wide. The eye condition had returned? Did that mean the Crown Princess could no longer see — that she had gone blind again?

Ji Qiu could not suppress the stinging in the corners of her eyes, and pressed her handkerchief against the tears: “No one could have imagined it. She had barely been well for a few days, and the old illness has come back. The physician says they can only try medicine and acupuncture for now — no one knows whether the eyes can be healed this time… This is between you and me alone — do not gossip about it with anyone. If this reaches the court, those ministers will only find a new way to make more trouble, and heaven knows what else they will heap on the Crown Princess. She is carrying a child right now, her body already under strain — if further grief and worry cause something to go wrong, it will be a very grave matter indeed.”

Huai Xia listened and quickly nodded, letting a few tears fall alongside Ji Qiu.

When Huai Xia finished her duties and returned to her room, she paced back and forth in place.

She was now nothing more than a rough servant in the outer courtyard, counting the days until she could leave the palace. Any future she might have had here had been cut short.

A few days prior, the Crown Princess had received several promising officers’ birth dates from General Zhao Dong and had been looking into matches for Xiangcao and Ji Qiu. By all accounts, the men in question were excellent prospects — officers under Zhao Dong’s command, men who were still to take part in recapturing the last two regions, men whose military careers held limitless promise.

Because they were the Crown Princess’s most trusted senior maidservants, women who had come from the Eastern Palace itself, their appearance and bearing would not be lacking. Those bachelor officers, even without having met them, had all expressed their willingness.

If Xiangcao and Ji Qiu agreed, they would be set to marry officers — as good as settled.

Yet this splendid match had no place for Huai Xia. This was the Crown Princess having grown cold toward the old bond of mistress and servant — no longer giving any thought to her future.

When Huai Xia heard about it through a slip of Xiangcao’s tongue, she suffered through several sleepless nights. She had served by that blind woman’s side all this time, and her toil if not her merit deserved some recognition — yet simply because she had been ambitious enough to try to make something of herself, the Crown Princess treated her with such cold contempt.

Since Su Luoyun had shown her heartlessness first, she could hardly blame her for being faithless in return.

At her age and in her circumstances, if she did not scheme for her own future, who else would do it for her?

Thinking this, she remembered something a newly acquainted patron had once said to her, and hurriedly found a sheet of paper. She picked up a brush and wrote down in careful detail everything that had happened in the Eastern Palace.

Then, taking advantage of a trip to the Directorate of Palace Servants to collect some supplies, she caught the eye of a palace maid coming the other way. There, beneath the long covered corridor running along the palace wall, the slip of paper passed from Huai Xia’s hand into the maid’s.

When this was done, Huai Xia quietly returned to the Eastern Palace, carrying the things she had collected.

It mattered little that the Crown Princess had not introduced her to a suitable match. Her newly acquainted patron was generous — not only had she given her many rare and precious pieces of jewelry, but outside the palace she had purchased, in the name of her elder brother, a hundred mu of good farmland and a house with a courtyard.

As long as she continued to do things for the patron, she would have land and a house waiting for her. When she went back, what kind of man could she not find?

With this thought, Huai Xia cast a complex look toward the inner courtyard, gave a faint cold smile, then hummed a little tune contentedly and, gathering up the clothes that needed washing, went about beating them in the courtyard with an air of perfect ease.

* * *

Yet from that day on, Huai Xia never once saw the Crown Princess leave the courtyard.

It seemed the eye condition was severe, and would not improve quickly. The Crown Princess feared someone might notice and did not dare venture out.

When word reached the Crown Prince, he returned in great haste. Seeing Su Luoyun’s eye condition relapse, his expression grew heavy and grave — but the Crown Princess showed little inclination to speak with him. According to Xiangcao, the two of them went entire days without exchanging a single word.

After all, Su Luoyun was no longer the consort of a distant provincial branch Shizi in some remote region. She was the wife of the heir apparent of Great Wei — the future Empress.

For the Empress of Great Wei to be a blind woman would be a disgrace to the dignity of the realm — a laughingstock before the tributary states that paid homage on all four sides.

Yet even though the Eastern Palace had worked hard to keep the news contained, it somehow reached the court anyway. During morning audience, a remonstrating official petitioned the Emperor, asking whether it was truly the case that the Crown Princess had suffered a recurrence of her eye condition. If so, why had the matter not been announced, so that a worthy new bride could be selected for the Crown Prince?

Though the current Crown Princess was of excellent character and had committed no grave offense, the relapse of this eye condition constituted the offense of “serious illness” — one of the seven grounds for repudiation.

Even if the Crown Prince, out of feeling for his wife, was unwilling to repudiate her, the only recourse was to demote her to the status of a side consort and formally invest a new principal wife of sound health.

The Emperor appeared to have been entirely unaware of this, and hearing the official’s petition, expressed genuine shock — he said he had never heard anything of the Crown Princess’s eye condition recurring.

Han Yi accordingly dispatched imperial physicians to the Eastern Palace to look into the matter. When they arrived and examined her, it was indeed as reported: the Crown Princess’s gaze was dulled and unfocused — plainly the look of one who could not see.

With the Crown Princess’s blindness thus confirmed before the court, the matter was no longer open for discussion: the Crown Prince would either repudiate his wife or demote her to the position of concubine.

In the imperial study, another fierce confrontation erupted between Han Yi and his son.

Han Linfeng, for whom his love for his wife was absolute, made his position unmistakably clear: Su Luoyun had shared both hardship and fortune with him — how could he, simply to silence the world’s wagging tongues, commit such a faithless act? Punishing Su Guiyan had already left him feeling deeply in the wrong toward Su Luoyun. Even if the Emperor himself issued an edict, he would absolutely refuse to repudiate his wife.

Father and son quarreled fiercely that day. In the end, unable to resolve it, Su Luoyun, her belly round and heavy, came feeling her way to the study supported by her maidservants to mediate between them.

Han Yi, on seeing his pregnant daughter-in-law, appeared to feel some shame of his own and refrained from bawling at Han Linfeng further. He spoke to Su Luoyun with reasonable gentleness, but the gist of his words was also a counsel that she should understand the larger picture and the greater situation, and not make things difficult for the Crown Prince.

Otherwise, Han Linfeng’s position as heir apparent could not be preserved.

After returning that day, Su Luoyun summoned the physician again and asked the old doctor plainly: what were the chances of her recovering her sight? The old physician hesitated and shook his head, indicating that the prospects were dim.

Su Luoyun received this calmly. She only told her maidservants to take out the clothes in the trunk and air them.

Then one night not long afterward, the inner courtyard suddenly blazed with light. As Han Linfeng stormed out in a fury, Huai Xia was again stationed at the courtyard gate, and caught hold of Ji Qiu, who was rushing out to find someone: “What has happened now?”

Ji Qiu was so anxious she was stamping her feet: “The Crown Princess… has suddenly vanished! And… and she has left a letter of separation for the Crown Prince!”

What? Huai Xia was dumbstruck. She immediately told Ji Qiu: “I will come with you to look for her!”

She followed Ji Qiu at a run, chasing after the Crown Prince — and at a side gate of the inner palace, they found the Crown Prince standing in Su Luoyun’s way.

Han Linfeng’s large hand was clenched hard around the hilt of his sword. He held the letter of separation and asked Su Luoyun what she meant by this.

Su Luoyun’s voice was cold and composed: “Life in this palace is too bitter and exhausting — I have long had enough of it. Now that my eye condition has returned, it has provided a perfectly convenient occasion. Let us part ways here… Of course, if you are troubled by the reputation of having cast off your first wife, you can simply tell the world that my old illness has returned and I have died suddenly of it. That way you need not bear the name of a faithless man…”

Before Su Luoyun could finish speaking, Han Linfeng had already drawn his sword and with a single flick knocked the bundle she was carrying clean into the air: “Su Luoyun! Your eyes are blind — has your heart gone blind as well? I have given you my sincerest devotion. I am prepared to relinquish the position of heir apparent rather than wrong you — yet you show me such cold indifference and disregard my genuine feeling entirely. You are carrying my child. If you think you can walk away so easily — it will not be that simple.”

At those words, Su Luoyun’s body gave a faint tremor. Then she turned away and began to sob.

That night was in great turmoil. Huai Xia stood behind Ji Qiu, watching it all clearly — the Crown Prince, ever cold and composed, was trembling with such emotion that tears gathered in his eyes.

Then, in the struggle that followed, somehow — no one quite knew how — the Crown Princess suddenly seized the long sword from the Crown Prince’s hand and held it to her own throat, declaring that if he would not let her leave the palace, she would take her own life before his eyes.

Han Linfeng knew Su Luoyun’s temperament all too well. Though he was shaking all over with anger, he relented — and let her go, taking Xiangcao and the other maidservants out of the palace with her.

The commotion of the Crown Princess leaving the palace naturally spread by word of mouth among the palace servants whose mouths were less than sealed.

* * *

At the Lu Guo Gong’s residence, Fang Jinshu was playing with her young son when she received the report from her informant.

“That Su Luoyun truly left of her own accord?”

The visitor said in a low voice: “Master You has his own sources inside the palace and naturally has full intelligence on this. The Crown Princess is no longer in the palace — though the Crown Prince, apparently uneasy about her, has had her stay temporarily at the former Shizi residence for now… These past few days the Crown Prince has been despondent and has been lying drunk inside the palace, refusing to attend to state affairs.”

Fang Jinshu gave a faint cold laugh — then the laugh gradually widened: “When he went to all that trouble to marry that blind woman, he never imagined he would one day become Crown Prince. What a predicament. This woman of his — for all the virtues he sees in her — has only this one flaw of blindness, and that alone makes her unfit to be a future mother of the nation. If he truly loves her, he can simply give up the throne for her sake!”

By the time she finished speaking, there were tears of laughter in Fang Jinshu’s eyes.

The visitor looked up at the laughing widowed Rui Princess Consort, whose expression was somewhat strange, and then spoke in a mild voice: “Master You sent me to ask the Princess Consort her intentions for the next step. The late Rui Prince’s reputation among the noble families in life was far better than the Sixth Prince’s. Master You has long admired the Rui Prince greatly — what a pity that he was killed by treacherous men, and Great Wei lost a worthy ruler. If you are willing to support the young prince as a future sovereign, Master You pledges to give everything he has to assist the young prince to the throne.”

Fang Jinshu looked at the visitor evenly, her eyes cooling again: “Does Master You think I am a fool? That throne was not given away in some fit of madness by the late Emperor as a free gift to the Beizhen father and son. Their hands hold crack troops and capable generals — and what do I hold? Only a nursing infant. Support the young prince to the throne? For a merchant who deals in rivers and lakes to say this with nothing but empty words — he has quite the nerve.”

The visitor smiled and, following You Shanyue’s instructions, attempted to persuade her: “Do you suppose Han Linfeng built the Iron Mask Army from nothing with his bare hands? It was our master’s gold and silver that backed them from behind — and that supported this father and son all the way to where they stand today. And do you suppose the uproar at the Fengzhou cemetery was truly such a coincidence? It is only a pity that after the new Emperor took the throne, he turned things upside down, engaged in ruinous conduct, and refused to heed the counsel of capable ministers — which has been a profound disappointment to Master You. The new Emperor does indeed hold military power — but with Han Linfeng as Crown Prince, he is the true lion with sharp fangs and keen claws. If the Crown Prince were no longer there, a weak and sickly old cat — what is there to fear?”

Fang Jinshu’s mind stirred at this, and she said quietly: “Was Su Luoyun’s eye condition also Master You’s doing?”

The visitor replied: “That it was not — but even if she had not gone blind, Master You had his own means of acting against this husband and wife and causing them to suffer a certain accident. However, heaven has shown favor to you, Princess Consort, and things have worked out of their own accord. As long as Han Linfeng remains broken and demoralized, the court will naturally find voices to work against him. As long as you can persuade the Lu Guo Gong, the day when you become a regent Empress Dowager with full authority is not far off.”

Once upon a time, even the mere title of “Empress Dowager” would have turned Fang Jinshu’s stomach. But now she finally understood: if she remained nothing but a widowed woman in mourning, in that man’s eyes she would be worth even less than a blind girl.

What was men’s love and affection — nothing but rubbish. Nothing in the world was sweeter than power held in one’s own hands. One day, that man with his face full of arrogance would crawl at her feet, regretting his own past contempt.

With that thought, she raised her head again and said: “Tell me in detail about Master You’s plans…”

* * *

But enough of the schemes fermenting in the back courts of the Lu Guo Gong’s residence. In the sleeping quarters of the Eastern Palace, barely a handful of candles had been lit. Shattered wine jars littered the floor, and a man lay sprawled flat on his back across the bed.

When Zhao Dong arrived at the Eastern Palace, bearing the Emperor’s orders to counsel the Crown Prince, he nearly stumbled over a wine jar the moment he stepped inside.

He came to the bedside and offered his formal salute and greetings to the Crown Prince. The man on the bed did not stir.

Zhao Dong raised his head partway and looked at the motionless Han Linfeng, then thought for a moment and, overstepping propriety, reached out his hand and held it beneath the Crown Prince’s nose to check whether he was still breathing.

In the very instant he reached out, the man who had been lying there like a dead dog, reeking of wine, suddenly opened his eyes — two lucid and clear eyes that examined Zhao Dong’s extended fingers with sharp attention.

Zhao Dong, relieved to find the heir apparent alive, withdrew his hand and said: “His Majesty is concerned that the Crown Prince may become completely demoralized. Knowing that I shared a close personal bond with the Crown Prince during our time in the north, he has sent me to offer some words of counsel.”

Han Linfeng closed his eyes again and said lightly: “What is there to counsel? My mind is made up. If she will not come back, I will yield up the position of Crown Prince. A man who cannot protect even the woman he loves — what right does he have to be heir apparent?”

Zhao Dong knew that this was the moment when a loyal and upright minister ought to say something wise and remonstrating — but after hearing Han Linfeng’s words, he simply stood dumbly at the bedside, lost in his own thoughts. In the end, he reached down, picked up a half-empty wine jar still lying on the floor, and took two long, gurgling gulps.

The wine splashed down his short sideburns and onto the front of his robe, and he paid no attention to it at all.

Han Linfeng lay there with his eyes closed and waited awhile. When he opened them again, he saw General Zhao drinking with the abandon of a man gulping water. He slowly rolled onto his side, propped his head on one arm, and narrowed his eyes at him. “You… were you not sent here to counsel me?”

Zhao Dong set down the now-empty jar and wiped his mouth with his sleeve: “I am just a rough man — good enough for leading troops in battle, but I am no good at talking people around. If I had that ability, my wife would not still be back in Yun Zhou refusing to come home… Crown Prince, do you have any more wine?”

Han Linfeng shook his head with a helpless laugh: “My palace has a shortage of many things — but wine is not one of them… It is rare to find a kindred spirit. Tonight let us drink until neither of us can stand.”

And so these two men who had once fought side by side as brothers-in-arms, each unburdening himself to the other, took up several more jars of wine and drank freely together beneath the clear breeze and the bright moon.

After all, from a certain point of view, they were both men cast adrift in the world — even if their official careers had been fortunate, each of them had somehow, without quite knowing how, lost hold of someone who mattered.

* * *

But not everyone could show the Crown Prince the understanding Zhao Dong had. In the days that followed, Han Linfeng lay drunk in the palace and neglected affairs of state, and the impeachment memorials from the remonstrating officials at court came in an unbroken stream.

In the words of those officials: even if the heavens collapsed and the earth gave way, the heir apparent of a great nation should stand unmoved. Even if there was disorder in the inner palace and the Crown Princess had raised the matter of separation — what right did the dignified Crown Prince have to sink into such miserable desolation, like some heartbroken romantic wanderer?